PRISONERS AT PORTCHESTER 213 



and doubtless the food was not always of the choicest 

 description. The Frenchmen are said to have shown 

 a great partiality for soup, which they would occa- 

 sionally make out of the most unsavoury ingredients. 

 An old resident, then drawing near his century, who 

 well remembered as a boy the stirring times of the 

 French prisoners, once told the writer that some of 

 the prisoners would catch with baited hooks the rats 

 which swarmed among the old buildings of the castle, 

 and boil them down into soup for supper ! In the 

 year 1796 an alarming inundation occurred at Port- 

 chester, which swept away an immense quantity of 

 provisions which had come down from London for 

 the use of the prisoners. The account of it is thus 

 given in The London Chronicle for February 911, 

 1796. "At Portchester, on the 26th ult., the wind 

 blew a hurricane, and gave such power to the tide 

 that it rose to a prodigious height, and having driven 

 away the great bank between the sea and the marshes, 

 it completely deluged the whole village, wherein the 

 water stood at the height of many feet, forced open 

 the doors of almost all the houses, and carried away 

 every article of furniture that floated. The greatest 

 sufferers were Mr. Clemmence and Mr. Hubbard, two 

 gentlemen belonging to the castle, whose houses, from 

 the lowness of their situations, were almost covered 

 with water. Moreover, a large quantity of articles, 

 which the latter had that morning received from 

 London for the use of the French prisoners, were 

 totally spoiled. In short, the inundation was such 

 as exceeded everything of the kind that had before 

 happened at that place." 



After the battle of Waterloo and the abdication of 

 Napoleon, the English Ministry, in conjunction with 



