I next give the remarks of Colonel Lebertre, who, having broken his parole by escaping from Alresford, was captured, and put on the _Canada_ hulk at Chatham. This was in 1811. He complains bitterly that officers in the hulks were placed on a level with common prisoners, and even with negroes, and says that even the _Brunswick_, which was considered a better hulk than the others, swarmed with vermin, and that although cleanliness was strongly enjoined by the authorities, no allowance for soap was made, no leave given to bathe even in summer, and that fresh clothing was very rarely issued. But most strongly does he condemn the conduct of the idle curious who would come off from the shore to see the prisoners on the hulks. ‘Les femmes même ont montré une indifférence vraiment choquante. On en a vu rester des heures entières les yeux fixés sur le Parc où se tiennent les prisonniers, sans que e spectacle de misère qui affecterait si vivement une Française ait fait couler une seule larme; le rire insultant était, au contraire, sur leurs lèvres. Les prisonniers n’ont connu qu’un seul exemple d’une femme qui s’évanouît à la vue du Parc.’ In the House of Commons on December 26, 1812, during a debate upon the condition of the foreign prisoners of war in England, Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty, declared that he had inspected the hulks at Portsmouth, and had found the prisoners thereon ‘comfortable and happy and well provided with amusement’, and Sir George Warrender said much the same about Chatham. Colonel Lebertre remarks on this: ‘Men sensual and hardened by pleasures! You who in full Parliament outrage your victims and declare that the prisoners are happy! Would you know the full horror of their condition, come without giving notice beforehand; dare to descend before daylight into the tombs in which you bury living creatures who are human beings like yourselves; try to breathe for one minute the sepulchral vapour which these unfortunates breathe for many years, and which sometimes suffocates them; see them tossing in their hammocks, assailed by thousands of insects, and wooing in vain the sleep which could soften for one moment their sufferings!’ He describes, as did the Baron de Bonnefoux, the Raffalés who sold all their clothes, and went naked in obedience to one of the laws of their _camaraderie_, who slept huddled together for warmth in ranks which changed position by words of command. He says that some of the prisoners were so utterly miserable that they accepted pay from the authorities to act as spies upon their fellows. He describes the rude courts of justice held, and instances how one man who stole five louis received thirty blows with a rope’s end; he refers to the terrible vice prevalent upon the prison ships, and remarks that ‘life on them is the touchstone of a man’s character’.