Chapter X: Prisoners on Parole—social Habits—marriages—exchange of Prisoners

Law that is obeyed is nothing else but law; law disobeyed is law and
jailor both.

PHILISTION, _Menandri et Philistionis_.

They enjoy a moderate degree of liberty, which, when kept within
bounds, is most salutary both for individuals and for communities,
though when it degenerates into licence, it becomes alike burdensome
to others, and uncontrollable and hazardous to those who possess it.

LIVY, _Histories_, xxxiv. 49.

THE conditions of life for prisoners out on parole have hitherto not been considered. In more chivalrous days a prisoner on parole was allowed to live free in his own country, pledged only on his word of honour to take part in no action which should be directly or indirectly hostile to the country which had captured him. The spirit of animosity and mistrust which animated the combatants in the struggle which filled with captives Norman Cross and other prisons in both countries, would certainly admit no such arrangement as this, although M. Otto, the French Commissary in London, suggested it, either satirically or knowing that, if accepted, the arrangement would mean that while England would receive back only 5,000, France would receive 22,000.

M. Otto’s words were:

“If the scarcity of provisions is so notorious that the Government”
(the British Government), “notwithstanding its solicitude cannot
relieve the wants of its people, why should the Government
unnecessarily increase the consumption, by feeding more than 22,000
individuals? I have already had the honour of laying before you, Two
Proposals on this Subject, namely, that of ransoming the Prisoners,
or that of sending them back to France on Parole. Either of these
alternatives would afford an efficient remedy for the evil in
question; the plan of Parole has already been adopted with respect to
French Fishermen.” {191a}

This proposal was not likely to be accepted, and the great bulk of the prisoners in both countries remained in strict durance throughout the war. Those who were allowed on parole were naval and military officers, commanders and first lieutenants of privateers mounting fourteen guns, {191b} commanders and first mates of merchantmen, and non-combatants. These latter, in the second period of the war, constituted a considerable proportion of the parole prisoners. One of the first duties imposed by the regulations for the guidance of the agents at the various prisons was that when a fresh party of prisoners arrived, he should go thoroughly into the question of the rank, social condition, employment, and character of each man, in order to determine who were qualified to go on parole, and the captain of the ship in which the prisoners had been taken was expected to send such information as he could to enable the agents to carry out this duty.

The last sentence of the passage quoted from M. Otto’s letter to the Transport Board shows that for one class of non-combatants, the French fishermen, the British Government had adopted the plan of returning them to France.

A note in the register of the soldiers received at Norman Cross states that with certain chasseurs français who arrived at the prison on 9th September 1809, arrived two women and a child. How they were disposed of between that date and 24th December of the same year, when they were discharged to France, is not recorded. One of the women got only as far as Lynn on her way home, and in the following March returned to Norman Cross; her further adventures are not recorded.

The numbers of those on parole varied greatly in the course of the war. In the year 1796, in which the building of Norman Cross was commenced, the number was 1,200; on 30th April 1810, out of a total of 44,583 prisoners, 2,710; and on 11th June 1811, out of 49,132 prisoners, 3,193. The number on parole would greatly increase as more prisoners passed into the country. The Duke of Wellington, in one of his despatches dated 23rd December 1812, summarising the result of the campaign in Spain, mentions that “In the months which have elapsed since January, this army has sent to England little short of 20,000 prisoners.” Of these many came to Norman Cross. The number continued to increase until the total in Britain reached 67,000, that being the number returned to France after the Treaty of Paris was signed on 30th May 1814.

The prisoners on parole were widely distributed in various towns, many of them distant from any large depot. {192} Agents were appointed in each place to look after and pay the prisoners who lodged either in the town itself or in the neighbouring villages. Of the 1,200 on parole in 1797, 100 were in Peterborough and its neighbourhood, and the agent who accepted the responsibility of looking after them, paying them and mustering them at stated intervals when they had to report themselves to him, was Mr. Thomas Squire, a merchant and banker living in the Bridge House, in whose field, on the river bank, the second batch of prisoners consigned to Norman Cross in April 1797 landed from the barges which had brought them from Lynn. The only parole register relating to Peterborough which the author could find in the Record Office is a volume dating from 1795 to 1800, and refers mainly to the Dutch. In this volume there are entered, between 10th November 1797 and 3rd July 1800, the names of 100 Dutch prisoners on parole at Peterborough. The first French were the captain, four lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, and first pilot of _La Jalouse_, in June 1797.

No corresponding record has been found as to the disposal of those who arrived at Norman Cross in the second period of the war, 1803–15, and who by their rank or social status were entitled to parole. It is probable that on the officer who received them at the port where they landed, devolved the duty of selecting the parole prisoners and sending them direct to the towns where they were to be interned when the general body of prisoners went to Norman Cross.

From the general register of the prisoners at Norman Cross between 1803 and 1810 we can, however, gather a few notes which sufficiently indicate that the custom was _not_ to allocate them in the immediate neighbourhood, but at more distant depots for parole prisoners. Thus we find that Jean Casquar, a boatswain’s mate, was sent to Tiverton; Antoine Sivié, a passenger, to Leek; Pierre Kervain, a servant on parole, to Ashbourne; Eustache, a black, to Ashbourne; Jean C. Le Prince, a clerk, to Montgomery; Captain Nicholas Lanceraux to Lichfield; Jean Maistey, second mate on a privateer, with three passengers taken in the same ship, to Leek. Then a more complicated transaction is shown: Louis Feyssier, a passenger on parole at Leek, was sent to Norman Cross, it being noted that he had not previously been there; he was probably sent for imprisonment, as a punishment for breach of his parole at Leek.

Another transaction helps us to learn what was going on at home in the long years of this terrible war, when only high polities and the military and naval events beyond our bounds were occupying the pens of historical writers. Captain A. Strazynski escaped with a midshipman from Ashbourne in September 1810. The pair of them were retaken at Chesterfield, whence they were sent to the Norman Cross Prison, where they arrived on 10th December of the same year. Again, Ensign Louis Pineau escaped from Greenlaw. He made his way south, until he was retaken and lodged in Northampton Gaol, whence he was sent to Norman Cross.

These are almost all the notes bearing on the question of the parole prisoners which occur in the register.

As has been already mentioned, these registers are very incomplete, and the notes and remarks are few and far between, but there is one long note dealing with the practice of one prisoner assuming the name of another. This was sometimes done with the object of establishing a man’s right to have the privileges of parole. One instance noted is that of a man entered as Mathuren Nazarean, his real name being Pierre Dussage; the assumed name was that of the first lieutenant of the _Alerte_, who was left ill at Lisbon. Dussage hoped to pass himself off as the lieutenant, and thus to be allowed out on parole.

No record has been found of the precise distribution in the town and the surrounding villages of the 100 prisoners registered as on parole in Peterborough. On 25th November 1797 the whole of the prisoners on parole in England were ordered, without any distinction of rank whatever, to be imprisoned at Norman Cross. For the sick and the baggage, covered conveyances were provided. The others of all ranks marched to the Depot, some of them hundreds of miles. This step was taken in part fulfilment of the threat already referred to in Chapter V., which had been held out against the French as a means of compelling them to clothe their own countrymen in the English prisons, and to withdraw their opposition to certain proposals of the English Government as to the terms of Exchange, and especially as to the restoration of Captain Sir Sydney Smith, whose liberation no expostulations of the Government could obtain.

In the later plans of the Depot is seen one block in the south-east quadrangle fenced off for the officers’ prison. It was probably in this block, or in No. 13 in the north-eastern quadrangle, that Jean de la Porte executed his wonderful straw marquetry pictures. At what date the order for the reincarceration of the officers was cancelled has not been ascertained, but it is certain that their close confinement was not of long duration, and that the privileges of parole were soon restored. This was, however, not the only occasion when such an order was issued, and when the prisoners on parole were placed in close confinement. Parole was very frequently broken by the French officers, and a considerable number were successful in making their escape. Those who failed to do so or were recaptured were severely treated. In extreme cases, such as repeated breaking of parole, officers were sent to the hulks. A cadet of the _Utrecht_, Dutch man-of-war, who broke his parole at Tenterden, when recaptured was sent to the hulks at Chatham. Unless there had been some gross misconduct, this punishment cannot fail to be regarded by some as unduly harsh. On the other hand, it must not be forgotten that the full term was _parole d’honneur_. The word of honour of an officer was assumed to be of a specially binding character; the poor, ignorant soldier or sailor was not trusted, the officer was, because his “word of honour” was deemed binding. In addition, the officer signed a document corresponding to the following parole paper, which was the form used for a prisoner restored on parole to France. This constituted a legal document.

_Form of Parole Engagement_.

“Whereas the Commissioners for conducting His Britannic Majesty’s
Transport Service, and for the Care and Custody of Prisoners of War,
have been pleased to grant me, the undersigned . . . . . . as
described on the back thereof, late . . . . . . and now a Prisoner of
War, leave to return to France, upon my entering into an Engagement
not to serve against Great Britain, or any of the Powers in Alliance
with that Kingdom, until I shall be regularly exchanged for a British
Prisoner of War, of equal Rank; and upon my also engaging, that
immediately after my Arrival in France, I shall make known the Place
of my Residence there, to the British Agent for Prisoners in Paris,
and shall not change the same on any account, without first
intimating my intention to the said Agent; and moreover, that at the
Expiration of every Two Months, until my exchange shall be effected,
I shall regularly and punctually transmit to the said Agent, a
Certificate of my Residence, signed by the Magistrates or Municipal
Officers of the Place.

“Now, in Consideration of my Engagement, I do hereby declare that I
have given my Parole of Honour accordingly, and that I will keep it
inviolable.

“Given under my Hand at . . . . . . this . . . . . . Day of 17 . . .
. . .

“_On back_, Name, Rank, Age, Stature, Person, Visage, Complexion,
Hair, Eyes, Marks or Wounds, etc.”

Further it must be borne in mind that military punishments are more severe than civil; they follow more rapidly the crime. A breach of parole was a military crime as well as a civil offence, for which loss of liberty on a Chatham hulk was perhaps a fitting punishment. By Clause 4 of Rules to be observed by the prisoners of war in Great Britain, Ireland, etc.—rules with which all prisoners, whether in captivity or on parole, were familiar—very severe punishment for any escaped prisoner who was retaken was laid down for every class. In the case of officers escaping, it was enacted that if recaptured they “shall from that time be considered and treated in all respects like common men.” An officer on parole who escapes, not only escapes, but he breaks his word of honour, and he therefore merits a more severe punishment than he who only breaks his prison bars and does nothing dishonourable.

Both the French and British Governments, to their credit, were ever ready to deal generously and even magnanimously in the way of exchange or release as a reward for some uncalled-for act of bravery or kindness on the part of prisoners in connection with their captors. The following are a few out of many such instances: In December 1811, twenty-one English prisoners were released for assisting to extinguish a fire at Auxonne; among these was the mate of an English merchant vessel, and for him the mate of the French vessel _Achille_ was released from Lichfield, he having assisted to put out a fire there. The colonel of the (French) 36th Regiment was allowed to go to France on parole to try to effect the exchange of Colonel Cox, and failing this to return in three months. In December 1810, Captain Bourde, of the French ship _Neptune_, was released in consequence of his humanity to the officers and crew of the _Comet_, a ship in the East India Company’s service. A French surgeon detained on the prison ship _Assistance_, at Portsmouth, was exchanged “in consequence of his attention to the British sick soldiers on board the _Spence_ transport as represented by Lieut. J. W. Lloyd of the 8th King’s Regiment.” A French captain of the land forces being taken prisoner, was allowed to return to France “for his meritorious conduct in saving the life of a British officer in the last war.” Five French officers were released from Andover “for their exertions in extinguishing a fire at that town.” A naval lieutenant was released by Admiralty order “for saving a child’s life from a lion at Oswestry.” In April 1812, Pierre Marie Tong was released from Portsmouth “in consideration of services offered by his father to assist the _Conquisador_ when on shore on the coast of France.” About the same date the second captain and clerk of a privateer obtained their liberty “for saving the lives of seventy-nine British seamen wrecked on the coast.”

Nor were these courtesies confined to officers. A seaman, prisoner at Plymouth, was to be exchanged “for having leaped overboard and saved the life of Alexander Muir on board the _Brave_, as per letter 3rd June (1810) from Captain Hawkins.” A number of Lascars, prisoners at Dunkirk, were exchanged for seamen at Norman Cross, the second captain for two, and the captain at Chatham was considered worth three Lascars. We have, in Appendix B, alluded to the release of Captain Woodriff. These bright examples serve to illuminate what is otherwise a gloomy episode.

The allowance paid by the British Government to the officers on parole was at first only 1_s._ a day. This was increased to 1_s._ 6_d._; but even that amount, although more than was paid by the French to the English prisoners on parole in France, was altogether inadequate, owing to the greater expense of living in England. The inferior officers and others received only 1_s._ 3_d._ The French scale varied from 7_s._ a day for a General to 10_d._ a day for officers of merchantmen. Frequent complaints being made of the insufficiency of the English allowance, M. Riviere, of the French Admiralty, who nine years before denied the right of our Government to inquire into the treatment of British prisoners in France, adding, “that it (the treatment) was the will of the Emperor,” wrote a long letter to the Transport Board on the subject, stating that the cost at which an English officer could live in France was 9_d._ a day, while for a similar provision in England, a French officer must pay 2_s._ a day. The Board called upon Lieut. Wallis, who had recently escaped from France, to check each item by the market prices of provisions in France and in England, and he arrived at the following comparison:

An English Gentleman in France will require daily: A French Gentleman in England will require daily: _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._ 1 lb. Bread 0 2 ⅓ quartern 0 5 loaf of Bread 1 lb. Beef 0 4 ¾ lb. of 0 7½ beef, 10_d._ a lb. at least ¾ of beer (this measure is not known) 0 1 2 quarts of 0 6 beer Beer, very bad, is 3_d._ a bottle, 0 5¼ A pot of 0 5 wine 7½_d._; say they are taken porter alternately, a bottle a day Vegetables and fruit (vegetables are 0 0½ Vegetables, 0 2 very cheap) including apples Milk 0 0½ Milk 0 2 Expense of cooking 0 1 Cooking, at 0 2 least 2_d._ Wood (at Verdun very dear, 36 livres a 0 2 corde) 2_d._ per day probably 1 day’s subsistence in France, 0 9 1 day’s 2 0 according to M. Riviere subsistence in England, according to M. Riviere’s information 1 day’s subsistence in France, 1 5¼ More 2 0½ according to Lieut. Wallis’s price probably list Average of the two estimates 1 1¼ {200}

It therefore appeared clear that the least an officer could live on was 2_s._ a day in England and 1_s._ a day in France. To double the allowance to the French officers in England would, it was estimated, cost the Government £43,823, and ultimately it was decided to increase the allowance to 2_s._ for the higher ranks, coming down to 1_s._ 8_d._ in the lower, at an increased cost of £28,000 a year. When invalided, the prisoners received an extra allowance, and were attended by doctors practising in their neighbourhood selected by, and paid by, the Government. Their allowance was doubled when a nurse was required. These extra charges were borne by the Commissioners for the Care of the Sick and Hurt, not by the Transport Board.

The majority of the officers on parole were not entirely dependent on the allowance received from the British Government, their income being supplemented by remittances sent from France.

Several of the officers of high rank, and other prisoners whose means enabled them to do so, sent for their wives and lived comfortably in lodgings. Judging from the traditions of the Norman Cross district, and from the literature of the period, the presence of the prisoners on parole made but little change in the social life of the towns and villages in which they were quartered, not sufficient to leave an enduring impression. This is strange, for the presence of 100 foreigners of varying social position in and round about a quiet little cathedral city, such as Peterborough was a century ago, must certainly have modified the usual routine of the social life of its citizens, and of the dwellers in the neighbouring villages in which some of the prisoners lodged.

Although the bitter antagonism which existed between the French and the British during this long war would militate against it, there is no doubt that occasionally the prisoners on parole visited and formed friendships, and even attachments, among their neighbours according to their degree. This general statement made to the writer by his parents and other nonagenarians is borne out by the marriages to be mentioned directly, but although the writer has lived in Peterborough, excepting the few years when his education took him away, for three-quarters of a century, he does not recollect ever to have heard of any special instance of the survival of such a friendship in the city or in the immediate neighbourhood of Norman Cross, excepting those to be detailed when the marriages of the prisoners are dealt with.

It has been thought not irrelevant to the history of Norman Cross to devote the succeeding chapter to the subject of the English Prisoners in France, and it will be there seen that in the letter written by Lieut. Tucker from Verdun, he specially says, “there is no society between the English and the French.”

When in 1814 Napoleon abdicated, and the Treaty of Paris was signed on the 30th May, some 70,000 French prisoners, of whom nearly 4,000 were out on parole, together with hundreds of émigrés, left our shores. These friendships and close associations were abruptly cut short, and the foreign element in British Society appears to have been speedily forgotten. The intimacies which were kept up, of which we read in the biographies and family archives of those who lived in the first half of the last century, were almost all between the British and the French émigré, not between the British and the prisoners on parole; they were between persons who, although of different nationalities, agreed in their political sympathies, and who were equally opposed to the existing French Government.

Between 1793 and 1814 about 200,000 Frenchmen and other foreigners (at various periods, not all at one time), either in durance or on parole, spent a longer or shorter period of their lives in Great Britain. In the second period of the war (1803–15) there were 122,440, and of these probably 4,000 at least were out on parole, including in this estimate not only the commissioned officers, but also the large number of officers of privateers and of civilians of various occupations who were all reckoned as prisoners of war. {202}

A comparison of the Census Returns and the official returns as to prisoners of war for the year 1810 justifies the conclusion that about 2 per cent. of the adult males in Great Britain of the average age of the prisoners must have been Frenchmen. Of this 2 per cent., the great majority were, as has been already stated, in confinement; but as those on parole were not scattered broadcast throughout the country, but were concentrated in the various towns enumerated in the footnote to page 192, they would in these towns constitute a far larger proportion than 2 per cent. of the men of their own age. In Peterborough the 100 parole prisoners would be about 15 per cent. of their contemporaries in the town and neighbourhood. It is strange that this considerable element of French in the society of that period figures so little in the pages of contemporary authors who deal with social matters. In explanation it must be borne in mind that the allowance of the Government to the prisoners on parole was only sufficient for a bare living, and that, except in the case of those with good private means, these officers would have to be very economical in their choice of lodgings, and would be thrown chiefly into the society of persons who were by their circumstances compelled to let cheap lodgings. The prisoners would form a little circle among themselves.

Mr. John T. Thorp has with infinite pains gone into the question of how far Free Masonry brought the parole prisoners into association with their brethren of the craft. {204} The result of his investigations is that, although in eleven of the towns in which parole prisoners were detained—viz. Abergavenny, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leek, Melrose, Northampton, Plymouth, Sanquhar, Tiverton, Penicuik, Wantage, and Wincanton—French Lodges were established by the prisoners resident in the towns or their neighbourhood, only in four is there any evidence of association with British masons. In _Abergavenny_ two English became members of the Lodge. In _Melrose_ the members of the French Lodge joined with the Brethren of the Scotch Lodge in the ceremonial of the laying of the first stone of a public reservoir, and among the archives of the Scotch Lodge was a memorial presented by twenty of the members of the French Lodge expressing their gratitude for the fraternal manner in which they had uniformly been treated by the Brethren of the Melrose Lodge.

In _Wantage_, the Lodge “Cours unis” was formed by the prisoners, and when seven members were transferred to Kelso, it is recorded that they were received as visitors by the Scotch Lodge in that town.

At _Wincanton_ (“La Paix désirée”) two certificates were granted to Englishmen, one as a joining member and the other as an initiate.

Very little more evidence is found in the minutes of the English Lodges. At _Ashburton_ is the record of the Initiation of a Frenchman. At _Selkirk_ twenty-three parole prisoners who were masons were enrolled as members of the Lodge, and they were allowed the use of the Lodge Room for their own business and ceremonies.

At _Northampton_, in the neighbouring county to that in which Norman Cross is situated, a French Lodge (“La Bonne Union”) was established, but there is no tradition of any association with the English Brethren.

At _Ashby-de-la-Zouch_ a French Lodge was formed, but there is no record of any intercourse with the English Brethren. Ashby was a large depot for parole prisoners, some 200 being located in the town and neighbourhood, and there is a tradition that the French Lodge of Freemasons gave a ball to which they invited many of the inhabitants.

One reason why the Brethren of the French and English nations apparently associated to such a small extent, is that the British masons would, as a rule, regard the French Lodges as irregular and self-constituted, they having no mandate from the Grandmaster of England or Scotland.

In Peterborough there is no record or tradition of a French Lodge.

Mr. Thorp, in the little history from which these facts are drawn, mentions the marriage of a member of the French Lodge at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Brother Louis Jan to a Miss Edwards, in 1809. The couple went to France in 1814, returned to England for some years, but went back to Rouen, where M. Jan died. His widow came back to Ashby, where she supported herself and her children by teaching French. She died in 1867.

As regards the parole prisoners whose headquarters were at Peterborough, a careful search through the marriage register of St. John’s Church has failed to discover an entry of any marriage which can be identified as that of a French prisoner and English girl; but in the years 1800–01 five marriages between Dutch prisoners and English girls were celebrated in the church and duly registered.

The first three bridegrooms were young officers, who were married on the eve of their restoration to liberty under the terms of the Convention of Alkmaar. From the register of Dutch Prisoners of War in the Record Office, we have been able to identify these bridegrooms. In the Parish Church Register there is absolutely no hint that the bridegrooms were prisoners of war. The names only are given, without any description, although the statement that there are entries of French prisoners, designated as such, in this marriage register having been once made, has been adopted time after time by writers and lecturers on this subject.

1. On the 17th February 1800, Albertus Coeymans was married to Ann Whitwell. Witnesses who signed the register, B. Pletsz and James Gibbs. James Gibbs appears to have been the Parish Clerk, who usually witnessed the marriages. From the register in the Record Office we find that Albertus Coeymans was 2nd Lieutenant in the _Furie_, was captured when the ship was taken, received at Norman Cross 19th November 1798, and “discharged to Holland” 19th February 1800. The witness B. Pletsz was Captain of the _Furie_, and was received at Norman Cross on the same date as the Lieutenant.

2. On the 17th February 1800, Adrian Roeland Robberts Roelans was married to Mary Kingston. Witnesses, Joseph Little and James Gibbs. Mr. Roelans was a midshipman on the _Jupiter_, and was received at Norman Cross, with others of the captured crew, on the 4th November 1797, being released on parole twelve days after his reception. It is interesting to note that the witness at this wedding was not another Dutch officer, but Mr. Joseph Little of Thorpe, in which hamlet Miss Kingston resided. That the marriage of his friend was satisfactory to this witness, and that the intimacy between them was kept up after the liberation of the midshipman under the Alkmaar Cartel, may be accepted as established by an entry in the register nine years later of the marriage of Joseph Little of Thorpe to Mary Roelans, probably the sister of his friend the midshipman captured on the _Jupiter_.

Mr. Joseph Little remained at home with his Dutch bride, and as far as can be traced through the complicated connections of the large clan of Littles, the blood of Roelans still runs in the blood of several of them. A brother of Mr. Little’s had married a sister of the Miss Kingston who became the wife of Cadet Roelans, thus creating another link in the marriage connection of the Dutch Roelans and the Northamptonshire Littles.

3. On the 18th February 1800, Charles Peter Vanderaa married Lucy Rose. Witnesses to the marriage, J. Ysbrands and James Gibbs. Mr. Vanderaa was Lieutenant on a brig-of-war which was captured. He was received at Peterborough on parole on 11th June 1798, and was released on 19th February 1800. The witness J. Ysbrands was the Captain of the _Courier_, taken prisoner and received at Peterborough on parole 21st June 1798, released 19th February 1800 in accordance with the Alkmaar Convention.

4. After an interval of six months, on 20th August 1800, is the entry of the marriage of Antoni Staring to Nancy Rose. Witnesses, E. B. Knogz and James Gibbs. The bridegroom was Captain on the _Duyffe_ man-of-war. He was received 27th May 1800, released 26th August, having been married on the day previous. The witness E. B. Knogz was surgeon on the _Duyffe_, and was received at Peterborough and released on the same day as the captain.

5. The fifth marriage of the Dutch prisoners was that of Berthold Johannas Justin Wyeth to Sarah Wotton. These marriages were all by licence and not by banns. In this case the entry is “Licence with consent of Parents,” but this by no means implies that the other marriages took place without such consent; the addition of these words depended upon the habit of the officiating minister. The witness was B. Pletsz. Mr. Wyeth was 2nd Lieutenant of the _Furie_, and was received on parole on 19th November 1798. He was not exchanged under the Alkmaar Cartel, but remained a prisoner until the 16th October 1801. {208}

As regards the absence of any evidence of the marriage of the French prisoners and British women, it must be remembered that the vast majority of the French were Roman Catholics, and that mixed marriages of members of that Church with Protestants were discouraged by the authorities of both Churches alike. There existed also throughout these years a fierce animosity between the French and the English, and when it is added that the French Government did not acknowledge the legality of such marriages, so that in many instances the unfortunate wives when they returned with their husbands at the close of the war were not allowed to land, we can understand that almost irresistible pressure would be exercised to prevent these unions, and that intimacies and flirtations which might ripen into love would very probably be strongly discouraged.

One instance of an attachment between a French prisoner confined at Norman Cross and an English girl, and their subsequent marriage, was that of Jean Marie Philippe Habart to Elizabeth Snow, of Stilton. In the prison register we find Jean Habart entered as a sailor, captured off Calais, 20th June 1803, in _L’Abondance_, a small vessel of ten tons. He was put on board _L’Immortalité_, and from her transferred to the prison ship _Sandwich_; was sent thence to Norman Cross, being received 27th August 1803. He acted as baker to Mr. Lindsay, the contractor, and was discharged on 20th June 1811. This official statement differs from the family tradition in two points only: the register says (probably incorrectly) that he was a sailor, the family that he was only temporarily on the boat fishing; the register says that he was freed on 20th June 1811, his granddaughter believed that he was freed on the emptying of the prison in 1814 (the register in this case is doubtless correct). His granddaughter’s account is, that M. Jean M. P. Habart was the son of a gunsmith in a good position in a town on the north coast of France, and that he was captured while fishing off the coast, and was imprisoned at Norman Cross. There, as we learn from the register, not being a combatant, but a civilian prisoner of war, he was employed as baker to the contractor.

His future wife, the daughter of a farmer in Stilton, was in the habit of bringing up the milk bought for the prisoners’ use, and she would probably have frequent interviews with the contractor’s assistant, and as her granddaughter says, “she fell in love with him.” The attachment was mutual, and when after his release he returned to France, he left his heart behind him. During his imprisonment his father had died, leaving property for his children, {210a} and Jean, when he had realised his share, returned to England, married Miss Snow, and settled in business, as a baker and corn merchant, in Stilton. The years of his imprisonment had been sweetened by love, but his end was a tragic one. On 24th January 1840, forty-three years after he passed through the prison gates and first saw the hated caserns and fenced courts of Norman Cross, he was killed within sight of the fields on which they stood.

He was returning from a round, which he had been making to collect money from his customers, and it is supposed that at an inn in Peterborough he had shown his well-filled purse, and was followed on the Norman Cross Road to the spot about three miles from Peterborough, where he was found with his head battered in and his pockets rifled, his empty purse being found some time after in an adjacent field. {210b}

Such histories as have been here given from the writer’s long and intimate knowledge of the locality might doubtless be collected in the neighbourhood of other prisons, but the danger of assuming that the mere occurrence of French names in the neighbourhood of a depot “still speak of the old war time” has already been dealt with in Chap. IV, p. 59, footnote.

The parole-breakers who managed to escape, varied from the humblest and poorest of the non-combatants, who had to pass through many hardships and trying adventures before securing their freedom, to men in the position and affluence of General Lefebre, who, in May 1812, accompanied by his wife, escaped from Cheltenham. He personated a German count; his wife, in boy’s clothes, passed for his son, and his aide-de-camp acted as valet. They put up at an hotel in Jermyn Street, got a passport, and reached Dover in style, whence they were conveyed to the French coast. From France he wrote an insolent letter to the English Government in justification of his breach of parole.

A slightly different version was that he reached London as a Russian General Officer, with two aides-de-camp, one of whom was his wife dressed in military costume; all conversed in German.

The conduct of the officers on parole both as regards the breaking of their parole and their general orderly behaviour, varied greatly in different districts, as also did the attitude of the surrounding population towards the prisoners when they attempted to escape. A population which for centuries had been accustomed to receive the benefits of, and to ignore or assist in, the trade of smuggling, would view the attempt to escape in a different light to that in which the quiet agricultural population of the Midlands and East Anglia would regard it.

The father of the writer, who had seen and heard much of the prisoners of war during his boyhood in Perth, said that while the British prisoners in France contrasted unfavourably with the French in England, because they showed none of the skill and industry which enabled the French to produce work, by the sale of which they raised large sums of money, the French displayed a moral inferiority by the frequency with which they broke their parole, that is, disregarded the pledge given on their word of honour. The following return shows that in the three years included in the table, about one in every ten of the officers of the army and navy who were on parole broke their pledge. The proportion cannot be calculated in the case of other persons of promiscuous occupations, as the table does not give the total number of the prisoners of this class, but only the actual number, 218, who broke their parole.

TRANSPORT OFFICE,
25_th June_ 1812.

NUMBER OF ALL FRENCH COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, PRISONERS OF WAR, ON PAROLE
IN GREAT BRITAIN

Total No. No. that Been Effected of Com. broke their retaken. escape. Off. on Parole. Parole. Year ending 1,685 104 47 57 5th June 1810 ,, ,, ,, ,, 2,087 118 47 71 1811 ,, ,, ,, ,, 2,142 242 63 179 1812 5,914 462 157 307 Beside the above 218 85 133 Commissioned Officers, other French Prisoners, such as Masters and Mates of Merchant Vessels, Captains, 2nd Captains, and Lieutenants of Privateers, Civilians holding situations connected with the Army and Navy, Passengers and other Persons of respectability, have broken their Parole in the three years above mentioned 682 242 440

N.B.—The numbers stated in this Account include those Persons only who have actually absconded from the places appointed for their Residence.

A considerable number of Officers have been ordered into confinement, for various other breaches of their Parole Engagements.

(Signed) RUP. GEORGE, J. BOWEN, J. DOUGLAS. {213a}

* * * * *

There are no records to show that the conduct of those on parole from Norman Cross, whether they were lodged in the prison or in the neighbouring towns and villages, was otherwise than that of gentlemen, and the records of broken parole are very scanty.

The prisoners reported themselves regularly twice a week, as the custom was, to the agent at Peterborough, when he paid each his allowance; they kept within bounds, and returned to their lodgings within the prescribed hours.

No such amusing incident is told of any of them, as that told of the French officer at Jedburgh, who, being an antiquarian, soon exhausted all places of interest within the circle of one mile radius, beyond which the country was out of bounds. Being told of a most interesting building a little beyond the first milestone from the town, he nobly struggled against the longing to go beyond that stone, and he was rewarded for his strict adherence to his “Parole d’honneur,” for an inspiration came to him, and, borrowing a spade and a wheel-barrow, he laboriously dug up the milestone, and, putting it into his wheel-barrow, carted it beyond the spot of his heart’s desire, and, replanting it there, revelled in his research with unspotted honour. {213b}

Mr. Palmer, who was born in 1812, three years before Waterloo, and lived on the North Road in a pretty farmhouse at Stibbington, opposite the first milestone from Wansford, told the writer that when his grandfather took the farm in 1797, the house was the Wheat Sheaf, a coaching inn, which came to grief in 1841, killed by the railways, the house being rechristened The Road Side Farm. The milestone was the outside limit for those on parole who were quartered at Wansford (it was more than five miles from Norman Cross), and Mr. Palmer pointed out the small room which the prisoners used for smoking and recreation. His grandmother was renowned for cooking, and could even please the fastidious taste of the French officers. Mr. Palmer’s little baby eyes must often have looked with wonder at the prisoners, talking in a language he could not comprehend, and he must have gazed after them with childish curiosity, as they turned—after a longing look into the forbidden land beyond—to retrace their steps and reach their lodging within the time prescribed.

One point should be noted, that in searching the records to ascertain the various regiments quartered at Norman Cross, in order to fix the date of Macgregor’s plan, it was incidentally found that while the West Kent Regiment was quartered there in 1813, detachments lay at Peterborough, Whittlesea, and other neighbouring towns; these were probably for the purpose of acting if any difficulty arose with the prisoners on parole. The punishment for breaking parole was, as already mentioned, if the prisoner were recaptured, very severe. Not only was the ration allowance reduced until all expenses incurred in the capture were paid off, but committal to one of the prisons or to the hulks was also inflicted.

The local histories of various towns where depots for prisoners of war on parole were established have been consulted with very disappointing results. There must be local sources of information in some of the ninety-one towns enumerated in the footnote at page 192, and any future writer on the subject of the prisoners of war confined in Britain between 1793–1814 is advised, if he has leisure for research, to seek information from these districts. The following condensed notes on the prisoners on parole at Leek are given as an example of what took place in one of the towns where facts have been put on record in a local history. Unfortunately no such record is available for any of the towns in the Norman Cross district. It was only within the last fifty years that the following scanty information was collected and recorded. Sleigh’s _History of Leek_ was published in 1862, only forty-seven years after Waterloo, when Mr. Neau was still alive, and when the children of the few parole prisoners who settled in Leek when their captivity was at an end must have been still only middle-aged people, and yet in this first edition the prisoners are not mentioned.

In 1883 there were published, in _Notes and Queries_, {215a} some interesting paragraphs dealing with the subject of the prisoners of war, and these were embodied in the second edition of Sleigh’s _Leek_, published in 1883. {215b} From these paragraphs the following condensed notes are culled. The officers received all courtesy and hospitality from the principal inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood. Those with good private means used to dine out in full uniform, each with his body servant stationed behind his chair. It is also stated that these prisoners used to go out early and collect snails as a bonne-bouche for breakfast. There were some men of mark among them. Of these, three died during their captivity, and were buried with many other parole prisoners in the God’s acre attached to the old church. There are memorial stones to Joseph Dobee, Captain of _La Sophie_, ob. 2nd December 1811, æt. 54; to Chevalier J. Baptiste Mullot, Captain of the 72nd French Regiment, ob. 9th June 1811, æt. 43; and to Charles Luneand, Captain in the French Navy, ob. 4th March 1822. The latter officer must have settled in Leek, the date of his death being seven years after Waterloo.

There are short notes on several others who were on parole at the Depot. General Brunet, captured at St. Domingo in 1803, his aide-de-camp, his adjutant, Col. Felix of the Artillery, and Lieut. Devoust of the Navy, son of the Senator of that name, are mentioned. There is a note that M. Bartin, a French naval officer, prisoner on parole about the space of eleven years, behaved himself extremely well all the time he lived with us. John Mien, servant to General Brunet, who was living in his eighty-fifth year in 1870, as a boy of seven witnessed the execution of Louis XVI., and heard the drums roll at Santerre’s command to drown the monarch’s speech.

Several of the parole prisoners married. M. Salvert, commander in the navy, married Helen Govstry of Leek Moor. Jean Toufflet, a sea-captain, left issue in the town; his widow, _née_ Lorouds, died the 5th February 1870, æt. 84. M. Chouquet, a sea-captain, left a son living in 1870. Joseph Vattel, cook to General Brunet, married Sarah Spilsbury. One, Vandome, a naval officer and a most excellent linguist, used to render the English papers into his native tongue for the benefit of his comrades at the billiard-tables established by the officers.

That the prisoners on parole, like their fellow countrymen in close confinement, added to their means of living by their industry, is proved by the note in the history of Leek that there is in existence an old card, intimating that “James Francis Neau, of Derby Street, sold straw hats, beautiful straw, ivory and bone fancy articles, made by the French prisoners,” and many exquisite models of ships and other nick-nacks, still in existence, testify to the facile talent and marvellously patient industry of these prisoners.

This Francis Neau was a privateer officer who married a Mary Lees; she was living in 1870.

There was a remarkable duel. A Captain Decourbes had been fishing, and, coming in after curfew bell had tolled at 8 p.m., had to report himself to Captain Grey, R.N., the Commissary. He afterwards met a Captain Robert at the billiard-room at the Black’s Head, who grossly insulted him and struck him in the face, so that the duel became inevitable. Neau, who was present, was deputed to furnish them with firearms; but after ransacking the town, he could only succeed in borrowing one horse-pistol from a private in the Yeomanry. The two met on Balidone Moor at three the next morning, and tossed for the first shot. Decourbes won, and hit his adversary in the breast so that the ball entered at one side and came out at the other. Robert, who was previously lame and had come on to the ground on crutches, then, grievously wounded as he was, gathered himself up and returned the fire, shooting Decourbes in the nape of the neck. Lieut. Vird of the 72nd Regiment of Foot acted as Robert’s second; he was subsequently killed at Waterloo.

They all walked back together to Leek, the two combatants treating their wounds very lightly; but Decourbes’ wound went wrong, and he died of it in the course of ten days or a fortnight.

The number of prisoners at Leek never exceeded 200, and they came by detachments in 1803, 1805, 1809, and 1812, almost all clearing out after Napoleon’s abdication 5th April 1814.

It will not be forgotten that in the earlier period of the war the prisoners on parole in various parts of the country were all removed to Norman Cross; whether any similar change in their condition was experienced, after the resumption of hostilities in 1803, by the prisoners out upon their parole, remains a matter of uncertainty.

Passing now to the subject of the Exchange of prisoners, and the chances that a prisoner at Norman Cross or elsewhere had of obtaining his liberty by an exchange for an English prisoner of equal rank, it must be borne in mind that a large number of civilians were in captivity, especially in the second period of the war.

This practice of taking captive so many civilians in the second period of the war, 1803–15, was attributed to the British system of seizing all French vessels of every kind and making their crews captive. This practice was adopted as a retaliation for the first act of Buonaparte, then ruling France as First Consul, when hostilities were resumed in May 1803. As a reprisal for what he considered the dishonourable action of two British frigates in seizing in harbour French merchantmen before the formal declaration of war had reached France, the Consul ordered the immediate arrest of every British subject between the age of eighteen and sixty who happened to be in France at that time, thus throwing 10,000 peaceable travellers and others into captivity.

Wellington, replying 4th September 1813 to an application from Mr. J. S. Larpent requesting the General to obtain his release from captivity, wrote:

“In this war, which on account of the violence of animosity with
which it is conducted, it is to be hoped will be the last, for some
time at least, everybody taken is considered a prisoner of war, and
none are released without exchange. There are several persons, now
in _my_ power, in the same situation as yourself in that respect,
that is to say, non-combatants according to the known and anciently
practised rules of war; among others there is the secretary of the
Governor of San Sebastian. . . .” {218}

Such being the spirit of the war, negotiations for exchange continually fell through.

In the early period it was the want of good faith on the part of the French, and the unfairness with which the exchange was conducted by them, that on more than one occasion put a stop to the general exchange which was going on. Thus in 1798, when a general exchange had been arranged, and the Depot at Norman Cross was rapidly emptying, the _Samaritan_ cartel took 201 French prisoners to France, but returned with only 71 British. The _Britannia_ carried over 150, and 450 were conveyed by two other cartels; the three returned without a single British prisoner. The captains of the vessels were told that there were no British prisoners to return, and they were ordered to sea at once, regardless of wind or weather.

During the early negotiations a return was furnished to show what had been the result of the general exchange up to the date when fresh arrangements were to be made, and it appeared that 6,056 British prisoners had been received from France, while she had received from the British 16,334, including 4,986 captured at Martinique and Guadeloupe. On 19th March 1798 by the fresh exchange France had received 12,543, Britain only 5,045, leaving a balance of 7,498 due to England. The earliest prisoners to be exchanged from Norman Cross left on 24th August 1797, only four months after the first prisoners had been received there. The contingent was sent to Lynn; it numbered 305, and consisted of 7 captains of privateers, 4 sergeants, 6 corporals, 148 soldiers, 127 seamen and 7 boys, and 6 not specified. They sailed in the _Rosine_, which had brought the same number of British to England.

The article of the agreement providing that the prisoners for exchange were not to be selected, but were to be taken according to the priority of their capture, was afterwards modified, so as to select the aged, the infirm, such as were not seamen, and boys under twelve years of age! Amid all the bickering and obstinacy on both sides in the negotiations as to the treatment and exchange of the prisoners, there is one instance which shows that the chivalrous spirit of the French was not dead.

In March 1797 M. Charretie, the French Commissary in England, enclosed a list of thirty-six British seamen to be released without exchange for their humanity in rescuing and aiding the crew of a French vessel bearing the appropriate name of _Les Droits de l’Homme_.

Although it was a traffic strictly forbidden, some of the prisoners sold their turn of exchange to their more wealthy comrades, the purchaser assuming the name of the vendor, and vice versa. If detected, the vendor forfeited his rights of exchange, and was kept a prisoner until the end of the war. Notwithstanding this regulation, it was said that one man had contrived to carry on these transactions from 1797 to 13th January 1800 without detection. This voluntary prolongation of the imprisonment surely helps to prove the falsity of the statements of the French as to the treatment of the prisoners by the British.

This practice of personating a fellow prisoner was carried out occasionally under more tragic conditions.

In the course of the investigations to establish the facts of the epidemic of 1800–01, a certificate was found with the name François le Fevre crossed out, and the name of Bernard Batrille substituted, with a note that the name of François le Fevre was assumed by Batrille when he entered the hospital to die of consumption. This was, doubtless, not the sole instance of such practices among the prisoners. A prisoner high up in the list for exchange, who knew that he was dying, would, when about to enter the hospital, for a sum of money or from friendship, exchange his current number and his name with another man low down in the list, the dying man, if this was done for payment, thus securing a sum of money for his heirs in France, and the other increasing his chance of release by exchange.

The case of Le Fevre and Batrille would have escaped detection, but for the special investigation made by Captain Woodriff to establish the identity of those who had died in the epidemic unrecognised. The investigation led to the identification among the living prisoners of François le Fevre, who had been personating Batrille, since he entered the hospital, and had died, and was buried in the name of the former man.

During the first period of the war, 1793–1802, exchange went on, with interruptions from the causes mentioned. The prisoners passed in a sluggish stream through Norman Cross, but so sluggish that many of them were there, confined or out on parole, during the whole five years. Notwithstanding the exchange the prisons were at times greatly overcrowded, and in 1801, when the French army in Egypt surrendered to Abercrombie, such was the burden of prisoners that no attempt was made to claim the troops as captives, but they were transported in British ships to France.

During the second period of the war negotiations for exchange completely failed. In April 1810, when there were about 10,000 British prisoners in France, and 50,000 French in Britain, Mr. Mackenzie was sent by the British Ministry to treat for a general exchange, the main condition in the British proposal being that for every French prisoner returned to France, a British prisoner of equal rank should be returned to Britain; that this should go on until the whole of the British prisoners were restored; and after that was accomplished, the British Government would continue the restoration of the French, on the understanding that France on her part returned to his native country, man for man, one of the prisoners of Britain’s allies—_i.e._ a Spanish or Portuguese of equal rank with the French prisoner handed over by Britain.

To this the French Emperor would not agree; he insisted that the British and their allies should be reckoned as one army, and that for four Frenchmen released from the British prisons and returned to France, only one British subject should be returned to England, and three other prisoners of various nationalities restored to their respective Governments. On this plan, if the negotiations fell through while the exchange was going on, say, when it was half way through, France would have got back from Britain 20,000 of her veterans, England would have received only 5,000 Britons, the balance, 15,000, being a rabble of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian levies of practically no value, and this contention Buonaparte held to, although it was his opinion expressed a few years later “that while as a fighting unit, you might set against _one_ Frenchman _one_ Englishman, you would require _two_ Prussian, Dutch, or soldiers of the Confederation.”

Buonaparte, referring to the failure of these negotiations, accounted for his firmness by his want of faith in the British, and his conviction that when they got their 10,000 countrymen back, they would find some excuse to stop the further exchange. Could we, on our part, after the unfair conduct of the exchanges, in the early part of the war, instances of which with the Norman Cross prisoners have been given, rely on the French Government carrying out in good faith even its own scheme, which on the face of it showed a disregard of British rights. {222} The negotiations fell through, and the great bulk of the prisoners at Norman Cross had to drag out their weary life until the abdication of Buonaparte and his retirement to Elba in 1814.