He speaks of the Chatham hulks as abominably situated near foul marshes—which is undeniably true. The quarters of the prisoners were in no place high enough for a man to stand upright; fourteen little ports, unglazed but barred, of seventeen inches square, on each side of the deck, gave all the light and air obtainable. When they were shut they were fast shut, so that during the winter months the prisoners breathed foul air for sixteen hours a day. Hence they went naked, and so, when the cold air was admitted the results were fatal. The overcrowding of the hulks, says Pillet, was part of the great Government design of killing the prisoners, and asserts that even a London newspaper, quoting the opinion of a medical board in London, said that the strongest of men, after six years’ life on the hulks, must be physically wrecked for life. The hammock space allowed was six feet in length, but swinging reduced them to four and a half. Newcomers were often obliged to sleep on the bare deck, as there was no other vacant space, and there was no distinction of ranks. However, officers were generally able to buy spaces, upon which practice Pillet remarks: ‘C’est une misérable spéculation pour un pauvre prisonnier affamé; il consent à vendre sa place afin de se procurer un peu plus de vivre pendant quelques jours, et afin de ne pas mourir de faim il accélère la destruction de sa santé, et se réduit dans cette horrible situation à coucher sur un plancher ruisselant d’eau, l’évaporisation des transpirations forcées qui a lieu dans ce séjour d’angoisses et de la mort.’ He declares that the air is so foul when the decks are shut up that the candles will not burn, and he has heard even the guards call for help when they have opened the hatches and the air has escaped. The food he describes as execrable, so that the two boats which had the monopoly of coming alongside to sell butter, tea, coffee, sugar, potatoes, candles, and tobacco at a price one-third above that on land, did a roaring trade. The general reply to complaints was that any food was good enough for French dogs. If they were badly fed, says Pillet, they were worse clothed. Nominally they received every eighteen months a coat, waistcoat, breeches, two pairs of stockings, two shirts, a pair of shoes, and a cap. He declares he can prove that the prisoners did not receive this complete rig-out once in four years, and that if a prisoner had any rags of his own, or received any money, he got no clothes! What clothes they did get were so badly made that they generally had to be re-made. He says that at Portsmouth, where the hulk agent Woodriff was at any rate conscientious enough to issue the clothes on the due dates, his secretary would buy back the shirts at one shilling each, and so, as Government paid three shillings each for them, and there were at Portsmouth, Forton, and Portchester some twelve thousand prisoners on the average, his ‘pickings’ must have been considerable!