As a place of confinement Portchester could never, of course, compare with such purposely planned prisons as Dartmoor, Stapleton, Perth, or Norman Cross. Still, from its position, and its surrounding walls of almost indestructible masonry, from fifteen to forty feet high and from six to ten feet thick, it answered its purpose very well. True, its situation so near the Channel would seem to favour attempts to escape, but it must be remembered that escape from Portchester Castle by no means implied escape from England, for, ere the fugitive could gain the open sea, he had a terrible gauntlet to run of war-shipping and forts and places of watch and ward, so that although the number of attempted escapes from Portchester annually was greater than that of similar attempts from other places of confinement, the successful ones were few. Portchester is probably the oldest regular war prison in Britain. In 1745 the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ records the escape of Spanish prisoners from it, taken, no doubt, during the War of the Austrian Succession, but it was during the Seven Years’ War that it became eminent. [Illustration: _An Inside View of PORTCHESTER CASTLE in HAMPSHIRE. Dedicated to the Officers of the Militia._ _Engraved from a Drawing taken on the Spot by an Officer._ ] In 1756 Captain Fraboulet of the French East India Company’s frigate _Astrée_, who appears to have been a medical representative of the Government, reported on the provisions at Portchester as being very good on the whole, except the small beer, which he described as being very weak, and ‘apt to cause a flux of blood’, a very prevalent malady among the prisoners. He complained, and the deficiency was remedied. Of the hospital accommodation he spoke badly. There was no hospital in the Castle itself, so that patients had either to be sent to Fareham, two miles away, where the hospital was badly placed, being built of wood and partly on the muddy shores of the river, or to Forton, which, he says, is seven miles off. This distance, he says, could be reduced, if done by water, but it was found impossible to find boatmen to take the invalids, the result being that they were carted there, and often died on the way. He also complained that in the hospital the dying and the convalescent were in the same wards, and he begged the Government to establish a hospital at Portchester. He says that he will distribute the King’s Bounty no more to invalids, as they spend it improperly, bribing sentries and attendants, and all who have free access and egress, to get them unfit food, such as raw fruit, salt herrings, &c. He will only pay healthy men. He has done his best to re-establish order in the Castle; has asked the Commissioners of the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office to put down the public gaming-tables; to imprison those who gamble and sell their kits and food, and to stop the sale of raw fruit, salt fish, and all food which promotes flux of blood.