As another instance of the frivolous character of the complaints made by the French Government as to our treatment of the prisoners, it may here be mentioned that the detention of sailors in such a situation was made the subject of loud and frequent complaint by the French Emperor, who said in the _Moniteur_ that “by a refinement of cruelty the English Government sends the French soldiers on board the hulks, and the sailors into prisons in the interior of Scotland.” Alison alludes to this in his history, {146a} and in a footnote he adds: “The great Depot for French Prisoners in Scotland, which Napoleon held out as so deplorable a place of detention, was a noble edifice erected at a cost of nearly £100,000 in a beautiful and salubrious situation near Perth on the Tay, which was in 1839 converted into a great central jail for criminals. It contained 7,000 prisoners, and so healthy was the situation, the lodging, and the fare, that the mortality, only five or six annually, was less than the average for healthy adults in Great Britain.” {146b} Among the prisoners at Norman Cross were men who, before their enrolment in the French or Dutch army or navy, were workers, skilled in branches of industry unknown in England, and there is a record that, on the 5th April 1808, the agent was instructed to send a French prisoner, Louis Félix Paris, to London, as he was an expert in the “ormolu business.” To meet the expense, two £1 Bank of England notes were sent. The application by the French prisoners at Norman Cross of their skill to the felonious forging of bank-notes has already been alluded to. So cleverly did they manage this, that it is said, that the only way in which the forgery could be detected was by wetting the notes and observing the different behaviour of the ink used by them and that used by the printers of genuine notes.