At Exeter, Liverpool, and Sissinghurst—‘a mansion house in Kent lately fitted up for prisoners’—the men slept in hammocks, each with a flock bed, a blanket, and a coverlid. All this reads excellently, but from the numberless complaints made by prisoners, after due allowance has been made for exaggeration, I very much doubt if the poor fellows received their full allowance or were lodged as represented. This was in 1757. As a counterblast to the French remonstrances, our Admiralty complained bitterly of the treatment accorded to British prisoners in French prisons, especially that at Dinan. We quote the reply of De Moras, the French Administrator, for comparison. The French scale of provisioning prisoners was as follows: On Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday each prisoner received one and a half pounds of bread, one pint of beer at least, one pound of good, fresh meat, well cooked, consisting of beef, mutton, or veal, ‘without heads and feet’, soup, salt, and vinegar. On Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and ‘maigre’ days, half a pound of beans or peas well cooked and seasoned, and two ounces of butter. The same allowance was made in all prisons, except that in some wine took the place of beer. The Administrator complained that he had great difficulty in getting contractors for provisioning prisoners—a fact not without significance when we note how eagerly the position of contractor for prisoners of war was competed for in England. De Moras further stated that prisoners when sick were sent to the regular Service Hospitals, where they received the same attention as Frenchmen. Each officer prisoner received a money allowance of thirty sous—one shilling and threepence—a day, and renewed clothing when needed. The following remonstrance, dated 1758, is one of many relating to alleged British peculation in the matter of the French Royal Bounty. ‘Plusieurs Français enfermés dans le château de Portchester représentent l’excessive longueur de leur détention et ont fait connoître une manœuvre qui les prive d’un secours en argent que le Roy leur fait donner tous les mois; après avoir changé l’or et l’argent qui leur a été donné pour une monnoie de cuivre nommée _half pens_ on en a arrêté le cours et on les a mis dans l’impossibilité de jouir du soulagement que le Roy avoit voulu leur accorder.’ Commenting upon this De Moras adds: