After a violent tirade against England and her evil sway in the world, he goes into details. He says that when his Government complained of the promiscuous herding together of officers and men as prisoners of war, the English reply was: ‘You are republicans. You want equality, therefore we treat you here equally.’ Alluding to the harsh treatment of privateersmen taken prisoners, he declares it is because they do more harm to England by striking at her commerce than any fleets or armies. He brings up the usual complaints about bad and insanitary prisons, insufficient food, and the shameful treatment of officers on parole by the country people. One hundred Nantes captains and officers had told him that prisoners were confined in parties of seventy-two in huts seventeen feet long and ten feet high, some of them being merely cellars in the hillside; that the water soaked through hammocks, straw, and bread; that there was no air, that all this was light suffering compared with the treatment they received daily from agents, officers, soldiers, and jailors, who on the slightest pretext fired upon the prisoners. ‘Un jour, à Plymouth même, un prisonnier ajusté par un soldat fut tué. On envoie chercher le commissaire. Il vient: soulève le cadavre: on lui demande justice; il répond: “C’est un Français,” et se retire!’ Alluding to the precautionary order which had been recently given in England that all parole should cease, and that all officers on parole should be sent to prisons and prison ships, he says: ‘There is now no parole for officers. All are pell-mell together, of all ranks and of both sexes. A woman was delivered of a child, she was left forty-eight hours without attention, and even a glass of water was denied her. Even the body of a dead dog was fought for by the famished prisoners.’ He then describes in glowing terms the treatment of English prisoners in France; he suggests a tax for the relief of the French prisoners of war, a ‘taxe d’humanité,’ being one-third of the ordinary sumptuary tax, and winds up his attack: ‘Français! Vous avez déposé une foule d’offrandes sur l’autel de la Patrie! Ce ne sera pas tromper vos intentions que de les employer au soulagement de l’humanité souffrante. Vous voulez combattre l’Angleterre: eh bien! Soulagez les victimes; conservez 22,000 Républicains qui un jour tourneront contre leurs oppresseurs leurs bras dirigés par la Vengeance! N’oubliez pas que le Gouvernement anglais médite la ruine de la République; que, familiarisé avec tous les crimes, il en inventera de nouveaux pour essayer de la renverser; mais elle restera triomphante, et le Gouvernement anglais sera détruit! Attaquez ce monstre! Il expirera sous vos coups! Quirot, Le Clerc (Maine-et-Loire), Riou.’