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[Page 7]
and to form some estimate respecting the proportion of food requisite to the support of life & strength under different circumstances. In this enquiry I have been led to collect the diet table of various hospitals; accounts of Goal allowances; of military, naval, & prison rations; and to form a general table of such direct experiments as have been made & published on this Subject. I have added some experiments & observations of my own. In this task I was engaged before my attention was directed to the French prisoners - but I have since gone more fully into the subject. I have been induced to examine it by its great importance in reference to the laws of war & of nations, and in some degree by the hostile spirit of the Commissioners which might drag me as a culprit before the public for the opinions I have given on the subject, and madly provoke a public contest upon it.
I have found instances in which men have lived on a still lower diet than the present sation of the prisoners, but this has been for a limited time - e.g. during seiges, or a scarcity at sea. I have found no instance in which a continued allowance has been fixed so low in the legitimate practices of nations. The ration allowed by our Government to prisoners of war has been I believed pretty uniform. On two occasions I find a deviation. The brave men whom the fortune of war stigmatized as rebels in 1745, had eight ounces less of bread per day than the usual allowance, & the same rule was observed at