It will be seen further on how the great multitude of war prisoners in England (nearly fifty thousand) were located throughout the country. A large contingent (six thousand) was kept constantly at Norman Cross; nearly ten thousand were in the neighbourhood of Portsmouth, at the Forton prison and in the hulks; over five thousand were at Portchester; more than four thousand at Stapleton prison near Bristol, and twenty-five hundred in Edinburgh between the castle and Valleyfield. A very large number were confined in the far off western wilds of Dartmoor where a great war prison was constructed at Princetown in 1806.
The foundation stone of the Dartmoor prison was laid on the twentieth of March in 1806, by Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, Lord Warden of the stannaries, the chief official of the Duchy of Cornwall, in other words, the representative of the proprietor and Lord Paramount, H. R. H., the Prince of Wales. The site was selected by a commissioner of the Transport Board, the supreme authority in the war prison department, the ground of preference being that “water was plentiful and excellent, the soil gravel, peat for fuel abundant, with convenient access to the high road and an abundant supply of granite for building.” The Prince of Wales (George IV) gave as many acres as were required by the Board so that the possibility of a garden for vegetables was an additional consideration which was likely to tend to the health and comfort of the
[Illustration: _Princetown Prison at Dartmoor_
The great war prison of Princetown on the wilds of Dartmoor was erected in 1806. The American prisoners were held here, during the War of 1812, and among them was a large contingent of colored men. At this time the prison held war prisoners from many countries, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, Swiss, Germans, Poles, Swedes, Dutchmen, and Orientals. ]
prisoners. The general plan of the new buildings consisted of a series of stone blocks radiating from a central point. Each block was of three stories, two of them intended for long sleeping rooms, the third or top story being used for a living room during the day and for exercise when the weather, often inclement, forbade it in the open air. The floorings of rooms and passages resembled those of a ship and were made of hard timbers with caulked seams. These blocks or main buildings, seven in number, were enclosed at a distance of forty feet by a circular line of palisading, composed of stout iron bars with sharp points. As a further obstacle were two granite walls fourteen feet high and twenty two feet apart, and around the whole exterior ran a military road on which were erected at intervals high stages overlooking the yards, for the sentries, always on duty.