‘There were here some Danes as well as Dutchmen. It is curious to observe their different looks and manners.... Here we see the thick-skulled plodding Dane, making a wooden dish; or else some of the most ingenious making a clumsy ship; while others submitted to the dirtiest drudgery of the hulk, for money; and there we see a Dutchman, picking to pieces tarred ropes ... or else you see him lazily stowed away in some corner, with his pipe ... while here and there and every where, you find a lively singing Frenchman, working in hair, or carving out of a bone, a lady, a monkey, or the central figure of the crucifixion! Among the specimens of American ingenuity I most admired their ships, which they built from three to five feet long.... Had not the French proved themselves to be a very brave people, I should have doubted it by what I have observed of them on board the prison-ship. They would scold, quarrel and fight, by slapping each other’s chops with the flat hand, and cry like so many girls.... Perhaps such a man as Napoleon Bonaparte could make any nation courageous.’ Very bitter were the complaints of the Americans about the supine and indifferent attitude towards them of Beasley, their agent, who was supposed to keep constant watch and ward over the interests of his unfortunate countrymen. He lived in London, thirty-two miles away, paid no attention to complaints forwarded to him, and was heartily hated and despised. Once he paid a visit to the hulks in Gillingham Creek, but seemed anxious to avoid all interviews and questionings, and left amidst a storm of hisses and jeers. Waterhouse dwells severely on the fact that the majority of the Americans on the _Crown Prince_ and the other hulks were not men who had been fairly taken in open combat on the high seas, but men who had been impressed into the British Navy from American merchant ships previous to the war between the two countries and who, upon the Declaration of War, had given themselves up as prisoners of war, being naturally unwilling to fight against their own country, but who had been kept prisoners instead of being exchanged. This had been the British practice since 1755, but after the War of Independence it had ceased. All the same the British authorities had insisted upon the right of search for British subjects on American ships, and to the arbitrary and forcible exercise of this ‘right’ was very largely owing the War of 1812. Waterhouse admits that on the whole he was treated as well on the _Crown Prince_ as were the British prisoners at Salem or Boston. Recruiting sergeants for the British service came on board and tried to tempt Americans with a bounty of sixteen guineas, but they were only chaffed and sent off.