Liberty on the Waterfront by Gilje Paul A.;

Author:Gilje, Paul A.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

I had both money and a Friend and took his word therefore

I asked my money of my Friend for see him I would not

if I had my money and my Friend and take his word no more

I lent my money to my Friend of whom I got great store

I loos my money and my Friend and naught but worse I got

I'll keep my money and my Friend and I had once before.62

Others sought to make a profit in business. Although the French controlled most employment and enterprise in Dartmoor when the Americans arrived, Yankees eagerly took their place in 1814 as the French prisoners started to be released. Americans set up shops selling tobacco, potatoes, butter, and a host of other specialized items. There were also “grocery-shops” that “sold glasses of rum, pipes, ha' penny-worths of tobacco, butter, snuff, tea, coffee, trickle, &c.” Americans also produced items for sale, like model ships, hats, wooden shoes, gloves, and clothing. Some Americans opened a beer house, while others started a school to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic for sixpence a month. These businesses provided as, Charles Andrews suggested, a new meaning to the phrase “free trade and sailors' rights.”63 Often several prisoners would bind together, almost like “joint stock companies.” Josiah Cobb and his messmates ran a soup business until one day two of his partners drank up all of their capital in a Sunday spree instead of buying the week's supplies. With all of these “shops and stalls where every little article could be obtained” it was possible for a “man with some money in his pocket” to “live pretty well through the day in Dartmoor Prison.”64

The most prominent business, however, was gambling, which occurred in almost every prison.65 After the failure of the soup enterprise, Cobb went into a partnership on a wheel of fortune. He estimated that the game favored the banker by about 25 percent.66 Nathaniel Pierce and his partners set up a “Bread Wheel,” probably a game of chance whereby the winner received a loaf of bread, by which he was able to live “very well.”67 One of the favorite games was Keno, a type of bingo. The advantage of this form of gambling was that it was drawn out and did not cost very much, enabling the prisoner to occupy an hour or two.68 Prison committees occasionally attempted to stop gambling because some men would sell their clothes in order to back a wager and it often led to quarrels.69

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