French Prisoners. 249 



back as 29th January, 170 1-2 : — " To see the sick and 

 wounded seamen and prisoners were well cared for, to keep 

 exact accounts of money issued to the receiver, to disburse in 

 the most husbandly manner, and in all things to act as their 

 judgments and the necessity of the service should require." 

 Among the notable Commissioners in their time were John 

 Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, the English diarists, and John 

 Home, author of Douglas, a celebrated play in its day. 

 The descendant of this Commission was the Transport Board 

 of Napoleonic times which was abolished on 21st November, 

 1817, when the Hon. Courtenay Boyle was appointed Com- 

 missioner for adjusting the arrears of the Transport accounts. 

 The business of the Transport Board relating to prisoners of 

 war was transferred to the Victualling Office on 13th May, 

 1819. 



When in 181 1 the number of prisoners in England got 

 overwhelmingly large, the Transport Board decided that Scot- 

 land should take a bigger share of them. For political 

 reasons none were sent to Ireland. Edinburgh Castle had for 

 many years been a receptacle for war captives, usually 

 privateersmen, who had been captured in the North Sea or 

 the Firth of Forth. But on this occasion new ground was 

 opened up in Dumbarton Castle, where General Simon, Scot- 

 land's greatest prisoner, was confined, and so closely that he 

 had only his servant to converse with. This detention of the 

 General in savage Scotland led to reprisals, but Simon was 

 a confirmed parole-breaker— hence the durance vile meted out 

 to him albeit in the State apartments of the Castle. Then a 

 futile attempt was made by the English Government to make 

 a prison of that venerable pile, Linlithgow Palace, for whose 

 restoration Lord Rosebery, as a lover of the past and as Lord- 

 Lieutenant of the County, has ardently pleaded. The very 

 idea of profaning this Scottish historic temple so rich in 

 hallowed memories made Scott's blood boil. Here is what he 

 says in JJ'averley, chap, xxxix. : — " The troop halted at Lin- 

 lithgow, distinguished by its ancient palace, which sixty years 

 since 1745 (i.e., in 1805) was entire and habitable, and whose 

 venerable ruins, not quite sixty years since, very narrowly 

 escaped the unworthy fate of being converted into a barrack 



