The Floating Prison: An Account of Nine Years on a Prison Hulk During the Napoleonic Wars Book

Louis Garneray (1783-1857) is famous as one of France's greatest marine artists. He went to sea at the age of 13, served on board privateers in the Indian Ocean and was captured by the British in 1806. He was confined until 1814 amongst thousands of prisoners of war in the hulks, the floating prisons, of Portsmouth Harbour.

The Floating Prison is the first complete English translation of Garneray's own account of life on board the hulks. The book describes a world where the prisoners enforced their own savage discipline; the strong preyed on the weak, and men who had gambled away their clothes and food starved to death. Other prisoners forged banknotes, fought duels with razors tied to sticks and plotted desperate escapes. Yet the hulks also contained prisoners who studied, earned money from various trades, wrote and performed plays and created exquisite ship models. A few, including Garneray, were artists. While observing the grotesque contrasts of his surroundings and the occasional grim humour of life as a prisoner of war, Garneray struggled to develop his talents as a painter. In the course of his captivity he painted a remarkable series of views of the hulks, some of which are reproduced in this book for the first time.