After their attack upon the American prisoners in July 1813, they were further isolated, by being confined to the small yard on the south side of No. 4 (now the separate cells yard). For more than four years they had skulked about the yards by day, almost naked, exposed to the damp fogs of summer and the icy blasts of winter; had huddled by night upon a wet and filthy stone floor, had subsisted half-starved upon garbage until the wind seemed to blow through their skeleton ribs; had neglected every elementary law of sanitation, and yet, strange to relate, every succeeding epidemic had passed them by, and it was notorious throughout the prison that sickness was almost unknown among the Romans. When General Stephenson and Mr. Hawker held their inquiry in 1813, the scandal of their mode of life was so great that the principal recommendation of the Commission was that “the prisoners calling themselves Romans” should be removed and compelled to live like human beings in some place where they could be kept under strict surveillance. And so, on October 16th, 1813, the scarecrow battalion of 436 “Romans” was mustered at the gate, decently clothed, and marched under a strong escort to a prison hulk in Plymouth, and kept under strict discipline until the peace. Fit products of the Terror these Romans, who as children may have hooted after the tumbrils in Paris, and shrieked with unholy glee as the boats went down in the Noyades under the quai at Nantes. CHAPTER VII EMPLOYMENTS OF THE CAPTIVES—STRAW PLAIT CONTROVERSY—CONDUCT—ESCAPES Ye, to your hot and constant task Heroically true, Soldiers of Industry! we ask, “Is there no Peace for you?” LORD HOUGHTON, _Occasional Poems_. IT is a relief to turn over the last page of the chapter which illustrates the darkest side of the prison’s history, and to pass on to the consideration of what probably was the greatest solace which those in confinement experienced. This was work. Not the work done daily by the fatigue parties, but work by which the prisoners could earn something. By far the largest amount of the earnings was money brought into the prison from without, of which a portion circulated in the prison, finding remunerative work for other inmates. Much was spent in the market, and again left the prison, but a considerable amount accumulated in the hands of the thrifty, and sent the prisoners back to their own country all the richer for having been in Norman Cross. Although remunerative is as a rule more attractive than unremunerative work, any work done by the prisoners must have been cheering and elevating to those condemned to the deadly monotony of an idle prison life. To those gifted with artistic taste, the production of the thousands of specimens of beautiful and ingenious articles of value must have been a positive joy.