In 1760 public attention was drawn to the ‘dangerous spirit’ among the French prisoners in England. Escapes were frequent, were carried out by large bodies of men, and in many cases were characterized by open acts of defiance and violence. Inquiries were made about places which could be prepared to accommodate, between them, from fifteen to twenty thousand prisoners of war. No place was too sacred for the prison-hunters. A report upon the suitability of Kenilworth Castle was drawn up by a Dr. Palmer, who concluded, ‘If the buildings are completed, some thousands of prisoners will be so accommodated as I flatter myself will reflect Honour on the British Nation.’ General Simon, we shall see later, was confined in Dumbarton Castle. The Royal Palace at Linlithgow only escaped conversion into a war prison by the exertions of Viscount Dundas, Lord of the Admiralty—a fact to which Sir Walter Scott thus alludes in _Waverley_: ‘They halted at Linlithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace, which, Sixty Years since, was entire and habitable, and whose venerable ruins, _not quite Sixty Years since_, very narrowly escaped the unworthy fate of being converted into a barrack for French prisoners. May repose and blessings attend the ashes of the patriotic statesman, who, amongst his last services to Scotland, interposed to prevent this profanation!’ So the business of searching for suitable places and of adaptation of unsuitable went on, the prisoners being of course the chief sufferers, which in that hard, merciless age was not a matter of much concern, and it was not until 1782 that a move in the right direction seemed to be made by the abandonment of the old evil place of confinement at Knowle, near Bristol (visited and commented on by Wesley in 1759 and 1760, and by Howard in 1779), and the transfer of the prisoners to the ‘Fish Ponds’ prison, better known later as Stapleton. In 1779 Howard says, in his General Report upon the prisons on land, ‘The French Government made an allowance of 3_d._ per diem to Captains, Mates, sailing masters and surgeons; 2_d._ per diem to boatswains, carpenters, and petty officers generally, and 1_d._ per diem to all below these ratings (which is almost exactly the same as the allowances made by the British Government to its prisoners abroad). There is, besides, a supply from the same Court of clothes, linen, and shoes to those who are destitute of these articles; a noble and exemplary provision much to the honour of those who at present conduct public affairs in France.’ Howard found the American prisoners, except at Pembroke, clean and well clothed, thanks to liberal supplies from their own country as well as from England. He noted the care and assiduity of the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office in London, and decided that England and France treated foreign prisoners very much alike on the whole.