The diet was investigated by a commissioner sent round to the various prisons, who reported that, “although the amount of meat would seem scarcely enough to an Englishman, the French, by their skill in cookery, made such an excellent soup or broth out of it as to afford ample support for men living without labour, such as our labouring poor rarely have at any time, but certainly not during the present scarcity.” The same commissioner in July 1797 recommended that an alteration should be made in the contracts, so as to insure early delivery, “as the lateness prevents the cookery of the meat as the French desire, which is by boiling it down for four or five hours with a strong and excellent broth, after which the meat is good for but little, and but little regarded by the prisoners.” {71} The food was prepared by cooks chosen from the prisoners themselves, and paid by the Government. To insure the good quality and proper quantity of the goods supplied, and to eliminate the possibility of the storekeepers being bribed by the contractors to pass inferior goods, the prisoners of each block were ordered by Clause 8 of the Prison Rules to appoint delegates to attend when the food and other goods were delivered, and to see that they were up to the standard specified in the contract. There were in the various prisons occasional complaints, and if they were justified the contractors were punished. In one instance the defaulting contractor at Plymouth was fined £300 and imprisoned for six months in the County Gaol. Beer at one time was supplied to the prisoners by the Government, and when this allowance ceased, it could, under certain regulations, be obtained on payment. This beer was of a _very light and cheap quality_, as attested by the books of the Oundle Brewery, but half a gallon a day, given in the first ration of which we have found a note, is so large an allowance, even for those bibulous days, that it suggests an error in the memorandum. Tea and coffee in those days were the luxuries of the well-to-do only, and were not for prisoners or for our own poorer countrymen and women. There was no tea or coffee. There can be no doubt that every possible precaution was taken to insure that the food supplied by the Government was good, and sufficient to maintain an average man in good health, and in the market held in the enclosed space at the east gate, to which the prisoners had access, those who had money could buy additional food and luxuries. But although beyond doubt the allowance of food was sufficient for an average man, there must have been in those twenty years thousands of men with hearty appetites who finished their ration hungry and dissatisfied—and the sequel will show that there were others who actually died of starvation, owing to their own vices. Each prisoner was allowed a straw palliasse, a bolster, and a blanket or coverlet, the straw being changed as often as was necessary.