So by this time, 1814, there were nine large prisons at Dartmoor, Norman Cross, Millbay, Stapleton, Valleyfield, Forton, Portchester, Chatham (where the present St. Mary’s Barracks were first used as a war-prison), and Perth, holding about 45,000 prisoners; there were about 2,000 officers on parole; the hulks at Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Chatham—about fifty ships—would hold nearly 35,000 prisoners, and the grand total would be well in excess of the largest number of war prisoners in Britain in one year, that is, 72,000 in 1814. In 1812 the following notification was sent to the Admiralty, who evidently treated it seriously, as a copy of it was sent to the agents of all the war prisons in the country: ‘Extra Secret Intelligence. ‘The large fleet here (Boulogne) remain perfectly inactive, but the Flotilla are only waiting for orders. I was yesterday told by one of the Captains that 6,000 men would soon be embarked, that the place of landing was to be as near as possible to Stilton Prison (Norman Cross) and that every man was to carry two complete sets of arms, &c., in order to equip the prisoners they may release.’ Three men, named La Ferre, Denisham, and De Mussy, were to land as American gentlemen, and to take charge quietly and unobtrusively. The head-quarters were to be near Liverpool, Hull, and between Portsmouth and Plymouth, whence these emissaries were to gain access to all the prisons, and prepare the minds of the inmates for the Great Event. Nothing came of this, but the correspondence of the Transport Office reveals the fact that by one means or another a more or less regular correspondence was kept up between France and the prisons, and that there were concerned in it some very well known officers on parole, and even some Englishmen. The captaincy of a war prison was no sinecure, and if history shows that one or two of the officers occupying the position were ill-fitted for it, assuredly they had no reason to complain of a lack of rules, regulations, and instructions from head-quarters, and they were called to order in no measured terms. The care of the prisoners themselves, desperate, restless, cunning rascals as many of them were, seems to have bothered the agent much less than the care of those who were in any way associated with the working of the prison—the big and little officials, the officers and soldiers of the garrison, the contractors, the tradesmen, the workmen, the servants, the innkeepers, farmers, post-office officials, even the stage coachmen and guards, not to mention the neighbouring gentry, parsons and old ladies who, of course, knew very much better how to run a war-prison than did Captain Pressland, or Captain Cotgrave, or Captain Draper, or any other selected man.