Owing, doubtless, to three causes—the absence of facility for getting drink, the spare but sufficient diet, and the regulation which appointed that the prisoners should, unless in bad weather, live through the day in the open air [“They have free access to the several apartments from the opening of the prisons in the morning, until they are shut up on the approach of night, with the exception only of the times when they are fumigating, or cleansing for the preservation of health” (Commissioner Serle, Appendix D, No. 31)]—the rate of mortality among the prisoners in confinement was lower than that among those on parole, and, as far as it has been possible to come approximately to the percentage rate of mortality, than that also of the British soldiers who constituted the garrison. The absurd statements of Mr. Charretie, the falsehood of which he had to acknowledge, and Colonel Lebertre’s lie, that at Norman Cross 4,000 out of 10,000 died, {166} gave rise to an impression which, once made, has not been easily effaced. Of those who read these statements in France, few read the statement of facts which prove them false. Taking the total number of those who had been imprisoned at the Depot, up to 1813, as at least 30,000, and the deaths at 1,800 (these figures being approximate only), the actual proportions of deaths would be 6 per cent., instead of 40 per cent. as affirmed by Lebertre. A return showing the total number of prisoners and the number of sick in every Depot or other place of confinement for prisoners of war, called for on 10th April 1810, and a similar return presented in the following year, show the extraordinary healthiness of the prison at Norman Cross, and of all the other prisons in Great Britain on each of those days. {167a} In August 1812, in answer to the calumnies in the columns of the _Moniteur_, a return was obtained as to the health of the prisoners in the prison ships in Herne Bay and at the Dartmoor Depot. In the former there were 6,100 in health, 61 sick; in the latter, 7,500 well, 70 sick. The proportion of sick was less than in other prisons not of war. {167b} This was at a time when the influx of prisoners from the Peninsula and elsewhere had caused the prisons to be so crowded, that it had become necessary to again spend large amounts in building new prisons. At the time of the return in 1810, £130,000 was being expended on a new prison at Perth; Norman Cross contained 272 more than the highest number for whom it was calculated to provide accommodation, and there must have been 2,000 men in each quadrangle, except that for the sick. In these two years the number of deaths at Norman Cross was respectively only forty-one and thirty-three. When a prisoner fell ill, and was admitted into the prison hospital, he was treated as well as, or better than, the soldiers in the military hospital outside the prison walls.