Conditions for American prisoners of war in British prison hulks and in prisons in Britain were monstrous. Indeed, the greatest portion of American losses during the war were among prisoners of the British. But cultural habits held true.
Still, the food was a significant improvement; the Americans on the Crown Prince drew up a constitution, a code of laws, and a court to discipline themselves; the smaller number of French prisoners already aboard, however, devoted most of their time, and all their effort, to running billiard tables and roulette wheels, that they had somehow managed to fashion, and with which they proceeded to methodically part the new arrivals from all their cash. “These Frenchmen seldom failed to win,” Waterhouse noted, and were charmingly merciless in refusing to extend credit to the victims they had cleaned out: “I am sorry, very sorry indeed; it is le fortune de guerre. If you have lost your money you must win it back again; that is the fashion in my country—we no lend, that is not the fashion.” A few of the Americans sought their revenge by proposing a wager on whether one of them could tie up a Frenchman and toss him in a sack, but the Frenchmen again demurred: “No, it is not the fashion in our country to tie gentlemen up in sacks.” The Americans finally announced there would be a vote on whether to abolish gambling. The motion passed, with the French opposing.
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