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PREFACE
PREFACE
Two influences have urged me to make a study of the subject of the prisoners of war in Britain. First: the hope that I might be able to vindicate our country against the charge so insistently brought against her that she treated the prisoners of war in her custody with exceptional inhumanity. Second: a desire to rescue from oblivion a not unimportant and a most interesting chapter of our national history. Whether my researches show the foregoing charge to be proven or not proven remains for my r
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CHAPTER I INTERNATIONAL RECRIMINATIONS
CHAPTER I INTERNATIONAL RECRIMINATIONS
He who, with the object of dealing fairly and squarely with that interesting and unaccountably neglected footnote to British history, the subject of prisoners of war in Britain, has sifted to the best of his ability all available sources of information both at home and abroad, as the present writer has done, feels bound to make answer to the questions: 1. Did we of Britain treat our prisoners of war with the brutality alleged by foreign writers almost without exception? 2. Did our Government sin
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CHAPTER II THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS
CHAPTER II THE EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS
From first to last the question of the Exchange of Prisoners was a burning one between Great Britain and her enemies, and, despite all efforts to arrange it upon an equitable basis and to establish its practice, it was never satisfactorily settled. It is difficult for an Englishman, reviewing the evidence as a whole and in as impartial a spirit as possible, to arrive at any other conclusion than that we were not so fairly dealt with by others as we dealt with them. We allowed French, Danish, and
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CHAPTER III THE PRISON SYSTEM—THE HULKS
CHAPTER III THE PRISON SYSTEM—THE HULKS
The foreign prisoner of war in Britain, if an ordinary sailor or soldier, was confined either on board a prison ship or in prison ashore. Officers of certain exactly defined ranks were allowed to be upon parole if they chose, in specified towns. Some officers refused to be bound by the parole requirements, and preferred the hulk or the prison with the chance of being able to escape. Each of these—the Hulks, the Prisons, Parole—will be dealt with separately, as each has its particular characteris
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CHAPTER IV LIFE ON THE HULKS
CHAPTER IV LIFE ON THE HULKS
From a dozen accounts by British, American, and French writers I have selected the following, as giving as varied a view as possible of this phase of the War Prison system. The first account is by the Baron de Bonnefoux, who was captured with the Belle Poule in the West Indies by the Ramillies , Captain Pickmore in 1806, was allowed on parole at Thame and at Odiham, whence he broke parole, was captured, and taken to the Bahama at Chatham. When Bonnefoux was at Chatham, there were five prison shi
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CHAPTER V LIFE ON THE HULKS—(continued)
CHAPTER V LIFE ON THE HULKS—(continued)
I next give the remarks of Colonel Lebertre, who, having broken his parole by escaping from Alresford, was captured, and put on the Canada hulk at Chatham. This was in 1811. He complains bitterly that officers in the hulks were placed on a level with common prisoners, and even with negroes, and says that even the Brunswick , which was considered a better hulk than the others, swarmed with vermin, and that although cleanliness was strongly enjoined by the authorities, no allowance for soap was ma
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CHAPTER VI PRISON-SHIP SUNDRIES
CHAPTER VI PRISON-SHIP SUNDRIES
Under this heading are included various reminiscences of, and particulars about, the prison ships which could not be conveniently dealt with in the foregoing chapters. In April 1759 five French prisoners from the Royal Oak hulk at Plymouth were executed at Exeter for the murder of Jean Maneaux, who had informed the agent that his comrades had forged passports in order to facilitate their escape to France. Finding this out, they got Maneaux into an obscure corner of the ship, tied him to a ringbo
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CHAPTER VII TOM SOUVILLE A Famous Prison-Ship Escaper
CHAPTER VII TOM SOUVILLE A Famous Prison-Ship Escaper
In old Calais there is or was a Rue Tom Souville . No foreigners and not many Calaisiens know who Tom Souville was, or what he had done to deserve to have a street named after him. The answer to these questions is so interesting that I do not hesitate to allow it a chapter. About the year 1785, Tom Souville, aged nine, was, in accordance with a frequent custom of that day, sent to England for the purpose of learning English in exchange for a little English boy who came over to France. He was qua
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CHAPTER VIII THE PRISON SYSTEM The Prisoners Ashore. General
CHAPTER VIII THE PRISON SYSTEM The Prisoners Ashore. General
During the progress of the Seven Years’ War, from 1756 to 1763, it became absolutely necessary, from the large annual increase in the number of prisoners of war brought to England, that some systematic accommodation for prisoners on land should be provided. Some idea of the increase may be formed when we find that the number of prisoners of war in England at the end of 1756 was 7,261, and that in 1763, the last year of the war, it was 40,000. The poor wretches for whom there was no room in the a
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CHAPTER IX THE PRISONS ASHORE 1. Sissinghurst Castle
CHAPTER IX THE PRISONS ASHORE 1. Sissinghurst Castle
About the Sissinghurst one looks on to-day there is little indeed to remind us that here stood, one hundred and fifty years ago, a famous war prison, and it is hard to realize that in this tranquil, picturesque, out-of-the-way nook of Kent, for seven long years, more than three thousand captive fighting men dragged out a weary existence. Originally the splendid seat of the Baker family, and in the heyday of its grandeur one of the Kentish halting-places of Queen Elizabeth during her famous progr
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CHAPTER X THE PRISONS ASHORE 2. Norman Cross
CHAPTER X THE PRISONS ASHORE 2. Norman Cross
It is just as hard for the visitor to-day to the site of Norman Cross, to realize that here stood, until almost within living memory, a huge war-prison, as it is at Sissinghurst. Whether one approaches it from Peterborough, six miles away, through the semi-rural village of Yaxley, by which name the prison was often called, or by the Great North Road from Stilton—famous for the sale, not the manufacture, of the famous cheese, and for the wreck of one of the stateliest coaching inns of England, th
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CHAPTER XI THE PRISONS ASHORE 3. Perth
CHAPTER XI THE PRISONS ASHORE 3. Perth
The following particulars about the great Dépôt at Perth are largely taken from Mr. W. Sievwright’s book, now out of print and obtainable with difficulty. [5] Mr. P. Baxter of Perth, however, transcribed it for me from the copy in the Perth Museum, and to him my best thanks are due. The Dépôt at Perth was completed in 1812. It was constructed to hold about 7,000 prisoners, and consisted of five three-story buildings, each 130 feet long and 30 feet broad, with outside stairs, each with a separate
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CHAPTER XII THE PRISONS ASHORE 4. Portchester
CHAPTER XII THE PRISONS ASHORE 4. Portchester
Of the thousands of holiday-makers and picnickers for whom Portchester Castle is a happy recreation ground, and of the hundreds of antiquaries who visit it as being one of the most striking relics of combined Roman and Norman military architecture in Britain, a large number, no doubt, learn that it was long used as a place of confinement for foreign prisoners of war, but are not much impressed with the fact, which is hardly to be wondered at, not only because the subject of the foreign prisoners
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CHAPTER XIII THE PRISONS ASHORE 5. Liverpool
CHAPTER XIII THE PRISONS ASHORE 5. Liverpool
Liverpool became a considerable dépôt for prisoners of war, from the force of circumstances rather than from any suitability of its own. From its proximity to Ireland, the shelter and starting and refitting point of so many French, and, later, American privateers, Liverpool shared with Bristol, and perhaps with London, the position of being the busiest privateering centre in Britain. Hence, from very early days in its history, prisoners were continually pouring in and out; in, as the Liverpool p
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CHAPTER XIV THE PRISONS ASHORE 6. Greenlaw—Valleyfield
CHAPTER XIV THE PRISONS ASHORE 6. Greenlaw—Valleyfield
About a mile and a half on the Edinburgh side of Penicuik, on the great south road leading to Peebles and Dumfries, is the military station of Glencorse, the dépôt of the Royal Scots Regiment. Until about ten years ago the place was known as Greenlaw, but the name was changed owing to postal confusion with Greenlaw in Berwickshire. In 1804, when, for many reasons, war-prisoners were hurried away from England to Scotland, the old mansion house of Greenlaw was bought by the Government and converte
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CHAPTER XV THE PRISONS ASHORE 7. Stapleton, near Bristol
CHAPTER XV THE PRISONS ASHORE 7. Stapleton, near Bristol
Bristol, as being for so many centuries the chief port of western England, always had her full quota of prisoners of war, who, in the absence of a single great place of confinement, were crowded away anywhere that room could be made for them. Tradition says that the crypt of the church of St. Mary Redcliff was used for this purpose, but it is known that they filled the caverns under the cliff itself, and that until the great Fishponds prison at Stapleton, now the workhouse, was built in 1782, th
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CHAPTER XVI THE PRISONS ASHORE 8. Forton, near Portsmouth
CHAPTER XVI THE PRISONS ASHORE 8. Forton, near Portsmouth
Although the Fortune Prison, as it seems to have been very generally called, had been used for war-prisoners during the Seven Years’ War, its regular adaptation to that purpose was probably not before 1761, in which year 2,000 prisoners were removed thither from Portchester ‘guarded by the Old Buffs’. During the War of American Independence many prisoners of that nationality were at Forton, and appear to have been ceaselessly engaged in trying to escape. In 1777 thirty broke out, of whom ninetee
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CHAPTER XVII THE PRISONS ASHORE 9. Millbay, near Plymouth
CHAPTER XVII THE PRISONS ASHORE 9. Millbay, near Plymouth
Saxon prisoners taken at Leuthen were at the ‘New Prison,’ Plymouth, in 1758. In this year they addressed a complaint to the authorities, praying to be sent elsewhere, as they were ostracized, and even reviled, by the French captives, and a round-robin to the officer of the guard, reminding him that humanity should rule his actions rather than a mere delight in exercising authority, and hinting that officers who had made war the trade of their lives probably knew more about its laws than Mr. Ton
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CHAPTER XVIII THE PRISONS ASHORE 10. Dartmoor
CHAPTER XVIII THE PRISONS ASHORE 10. Dartmoor
In July 1805, the Transport Office, impressed by the serious crowding of war-prisoners on the hulks at Plymouth and in the Millbay Prison, requested their representative, Mr. Daniel Alexander, to meet the Hon. E. Bouverie, at the house of Sir Thomas Tyrwhitt, warden of the Stannaries, at Tor Royal, with the view of choosing a site for a great war-prison to hold 5,000 men. Mr. Baring-Gould more than hints that the particular spot chosen owed its distinction entirely to the personal interests of S
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Winchester
Winchester
Measured by the number of prisoners of war confined here, Winchester assuredly should rank as a major establishment, but it seems to have been regarded by the authorities rather as a receiving-house or a transfer office than as a real prisoner settlement, possibly because the building utilized—a pile of barracks which was originally intended by Charles the Second to be a palace on the plan of Versailles, but which was never finished, and which was known as the King’s House Prison—was not secure
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Roscrow and Kergilliack, near Penryn, Cornwall
Roscrow and Kergilliack, near Penryn, Cornwall
In spite of the great pains I have taken to get information about these two neighbouring prisons, the results are most meagre. Considering that there were war-prisoners there continuously from the beginning of the Seven Years’ War in 1756 until the end of the century, that there were 900 prisoners at Roscrow, and 600 at Kergilliack, it is surprising how absolutely the memory of their sojourn has faded away locally, and how little information I have been able to elicit concerning them from such a
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Shrewsbury
Shrewsbury
I am indebted to Mr. J. E. Anden, M.A., F.R. Hist. S., of Tong, Shifnal, for the following extracts from the diary of John Tarbuck, a shoemaker, of Shrewsbury: ‘September, 1783. Six hundred hammocks were slung in the Orphan Hospital, from which all the windows were removed, to convert it into a Dutch prison, and as many captive sailors marched in. Many of the townspeople go out to meet them, and amongst the rest Mr. Roger Yeomans, the most corpulent man in the country, to the no small mirth of t
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Yarmouth
Yarmouth
Prisoners were confined here during the Seven Years’ War, although no special buildings were set apart for their reception, and, as elsewhere, they were simply herded with the common prisoners in the ordinary lock-up. In 1758 numerous complaints came to the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office from the prisoners here, about their bad treatment, the greed of the jailer, the bad food, the lack of medical attendance and necessaries, and the misery of being lodged with the lowest class of criminals. Prisoners who
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Edinburgh
Edinburgh
For the following details about a prison which, although of importance, cannot from its size be fairly classed among the chief Prisoners of War dépôts of Britain, I am largely indebted to the late Mr. Macbeth Forbes, who most generously gave me permission to use freely his article in the Bankers’ Magazine of March 1899. I emphasize his liberality inasmuch as a great deal of the information in this article is of a nature only procurable by one with particular and peculiar facilities for so doing.
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CHAPTER XX LOUIS VANHILLE: A FAMOUS ESCAPER
CHAPTER XX LOUIS VANHILLE: A FAMOUS ESCAPER
I devoted Chapter VII to the record of Tom Souville, a famous ship-prison-breaker, and in this I hope to give quite as interesting and romantic an account of the career of Louis Vanhille, who was remarkable in his method in that he seemed never to be in a hurry to get out of England, but actually to enjoy the power he possessed of keeping himself uninterfered with for a whole year in a country where the hue and cry after him was ceaseless. At the outset I must make my acknowledgement to M. Paris
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CHAPTER XXI THE PRISON SYSTEM Prisoners on Parole
CHAPTER XXI THE PRISON SYSTEM Prisoners on Parole
When we come to the consideration of the parole system, we reach what is for many reasons the most interesting chapter in a dark history. Life on the hulks and in the prisons was largely a sealed book to the outside public, and, brutal in many respects as was the age covered by our story, there can be little question that if the British public had been made more aware of what went on behind the wooden walls of the prison ships and the stone walls of the prisons, its opinion would have demanded r
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CHAPTER XXII PAROLE LIFE
CHAPTER XXII PAROLE LIFE
The following descriptions of life in parole towns by French writers may not be entirely satisfactory to the reader who naturally wishes to get as correct an impression of it as possible, inasmuch as they are from the pens of men smarting under restrictions and perhaps a sense of injustice, irritated by ennui, by the irksomeness of confinement in places which as a rule do not seem to have been selected because of their fitness to administer to the joys of life, and by the occasional evidences of
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Kelso[14]
Kelso[14]
For some of the following notes, I am indebted to the late Mr. Macbeth Forbes, who helped me notably elsewhere, and who kindly gave me permission to use them. Some of the prisoners on parole at Kelso were sailors, but the majority were soldiers from Spain, Portugal, and the West Indies, and about twenty Sicilians. The inhabitants gave them a warm welcome, hospitably entertained them, and in return the prisoners, many of whom were men of means, gave balls at the inns—the only establishments in th
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Selkirk
Selkirk
In 1811, ninety-three French prisoners arrived at Selkirk, many of them army surgeons. Their mile limits from the central point were, on the Hawick road, to Knowes; over the bridge, as far as the Philiphaugh entries; and towards Bridgehead, the ‘Prisoners’ Bush’. An old man named Douglas, says Mr. Craig-Brown (from whose book on Selkirk, I take this information, and to whom I am indebted for much hospitality and his many pains in acting as my mentor in Selkirk), remembered them coming to his fat
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Peebles
Peebles
Although Peebles was not established as a parole town until 1803, a great many French prisoners, not on parole, were here in 1798–9, most of them belonging to the thirty-six-gun frigates Coquille and Résolue , belonging to the Brest squadron of the expedition to Ireland, which was beaten by Sir John Warren. They were probably confined in the town jail. The first parole prisoners were Dutch, Belgians, and Danes, ‘all of whom took to learning cotton hand-loom weaving, and spent their leisure time
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Sanquhar
Sanquhar
The first prisoners came here in March 1812. They were chiefly some of those who had been hurried away from Wincanton and other towns in the west of England at the alarm that a general rising of war-prisoners in those parts was imminent, and on account of the increasing number of escapes from those places; others were midshipmen from Peebles. In all from sixty to seventy prisoners were at Sanquhar. A letter from one of the men removed from Peebles to Mr. Chambers of that town says that they were
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Dumfries
Dumfries
The first detachment of officer-prisoners arrived at Dumfries in November 1811, from Peebles, whence they had marched the thirty-two miles to Moffat, and had driven from there. The agent at Dumfries was Mr. Francis Shortt, Town Clerk of the Burgh, and brother of Dr. Thomas Shortt, who, as Physician to the British Forces at St. Helena, was to assist, ten years later, at the post-mortem examination of Bonaparte. At first the prices asked by the inhabitants for lodgings somewhat astonished the pris
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Melrose
Melrose
In the life of Dr. George Lawson, of Selkirk, the French prisoners on parole at Melrose are alluded to. The doctor astonished them with his knowledge of the old-world French with which they were unacquainted, and several pages of the book are devoted to the eloquent attempts of one of the prisoners to bring him to the Roman Catholic communion. Appended to the minutes of the Quarterly Meeting of the Melrose Freemasons on September 25, 1813, in an account of the laying the foundation-stone of a pu
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Jedburgh
Jedburgh
Mr. Maberley Phillips, F.S.A., from whose pamphlet on prisoners of war in the North I shall quote later (pp. 388 –9) a description of an escape of paroled prisoners from Jedburgh, says: ‘Jedburgh had its share of French prisoners. They were for the most part kindly treated, and many of them were permitted a great amount of liberty. One of these had a taste for archaeology and visited all the ruins within the precincts of his radius, namely, a mile from the Cross. There is a tradition that on one
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Hawick
Hawick
I owe my best thanks to Mr. J. John Vernon, hon. secretary of the Hawick Archaeological Society, for the following note on Hawick: ‘Not many of Napoleon’s officers were men of means, so to the small allowance they received from the British Government, they were permitted to eke out their income by teaching, sketching, or painting, or by making little trifles which they disposed of as best they could among the townspeople. At other times they made a little money by giving musical and dramatic ent
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Lauder
Lauder
I am indebted to the late Mr. Macbeth Forbes for these notes. There hangs in one of the rooms of Thirlestane Castle, the baronial residence of the Earls of Lauderdale, an oil-painting executed by a French prisoner of war, Lieutenant-Adjutant George Maurer of the Hesse-Darmstadt Infantry. He is described in the Admiralty Records as a youth of twenty, with hazel eyes, fresh complexion, five feet nine and three-quarter inches in height, well made, but with a small sword scar on his left cheek. Alth
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Lockerbie and Lochmaben
Lockerbie and Lochmaben
About a score of prisoners were at each of these places, but as the record of their lives here is of very much the same character as of prisoner life elsewhere, it hardly makes a demand upon the reader’s attention. In both places the exiles conducted themselves peaceably and quietly, and they, especially the doctors, were well liked by the inhabitants....
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In Montgomeryshire
In Montgomeryshire
I am indebted to Canon Thomas of Llandrinio Rectory, Llanymynech, for information which led me to extract the following interesting details from the Montgomeryshire Archaeological Collections. Batches of French officers were on parole during the later years of the Napoleonic wars at Llanfyllin, Montgomery, Bishop’s Castle, Newtown, and Welshpool. About 120 French and Germans were quartered here during the years 1812 and 1813. Many of them lived together in a large house, formerly the Griffith re
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In Pembrokeshire
In Pembrokeshire
In 1779 Howard the philanthropist visited Pembroke, and reported to this effect: He found thirty-seven American prisoners of war herded together in an old house, some of them without shoes or stockings, all of them scantily clad and in a filthy condition. There were no tables of victualling and regulations hung up, nor did the prisoners know anything more about allowances than that they were the same as for the French prisoners. The floors were covered with straw which had not been changed for s
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In Monmouthshire
In Monmouthshire
There were some two hundred officers on parole here, but the only memory of them extant is associated with the Masonic Lodge, ‘Enfants de Mars et de Neptune’, which was worked by them about 1813–14. Tradition says that the officers’ mess room, an apartment in Monk Street, remarkable for a handsome arched ceiling, also served for Lodge meetings. De Grasse Tilly, son of Admiral De Grasse, who was defeated by Rodney in the West Indies, was a prominent member of this Lodge. At the present ‘Philanthr
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In Brecknockshire
In Brecknockshire
Prisoners were at Brecon; tombs of those who died may be seen in the old Priory Churchyard, and ‘The Captain’s Walk’ near the County Hall still preserves the memory of their favourite promenade. In 1814 the Bailiff of Brecon requested to have the parole prisoners in that town removed. The reason is not given, but the Transport Office refused the request....
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CHAPTER XXVI ESCAPE AGENTS AND ESCAPES
CHAPTER XXVI ESCAPE AGENTS AND ESCAPES
To the general reader some of the most interesting episodes of the lives of the paroled prisoners of war in Britain are those which are associated with their escapes and attempts to escape. Now, although, as has been already remarked, the feeling of the country people was almost unanimously against the prisoners during the early years of the parole system, that is, during the Seven Years’ War, from 1756 to 1763, during the more tremendous struggles which followed that feeling was apparently quit
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CHAPTER XXVII ESCAPES OF PRISONERS ON PAROLE
CHAPTER XXVII ESCAPES OF PRISONERS ON PAROLE
The newspapers of our forefathers during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries contained very many advertisements like the two following. The first is from the Western Flying Post , of 1756, dated from Launceston, and offering Two Guineas reward for two officers, who had broken their parole, and were thus described: ‘One, Mons. Barbier, a short man, somewhat pock-marked, and has a very dejected look, and wore a snuff-coloured coat; the other, Mons. Beth, a middle-aged man, very strongly
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CHAPTER XXVIII COMPLAINTS OF PRISONERS
CHAPTER XXVIII COMPLAINTS OF PRISONERS
It could hardly be expected that a uniform standard of good and submissive behaviour would be attained by a large body of fighting men, the greater part of whom were in vigorous youth or in the prime of life, although, on the whole, the conduct of those who honourably observed their parole seems to have been admirable—a fact which no doubt had a great deal to do with the very general display of sympathy for them latterly. In some places more than others they seem to have brought upon themselves
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Bedale, Yorkshire
Bedale, Yorkshire
During the Seven Years’ War prisoners were on parole at Bedale in Yorkshire. The following lines referring to them, sent to me by my friend, Mrs. Cockburn-Hood, were written by Robert Hird, a Bedale shoemaker, who was born in 1768: To this the sender appended a note: ‘In the houses round Bedale there are hand-screens decorated with landscapes in straw, and I have a curious doll’s chair in wood with knobs containing cherry stones which rattle. These were made by French prisoners, according to tra
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Derby
Derby
I am indebted to Mr. P. H. Currey, F.R.I.B.A., of Derby, for the following extract, dated June 20, 1763, from All Saints’ Parish Book, quoted in Simpson’s History of Derby : ‘These men (the prisoners during the Seven Years’ War), were dispersed into many parts of the nation, 300 being sent to this town on parole about July 1759, where they continued until the end of the War in 1763. Their behaviour at first was impudent and insolent, at all times vain and effeminate, and their whole deportment l
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Ashbourne, Derbyshire
Ashbourne, Derbyshire
Mr. Richard Holland, of Barton under Needwood, Staffordshire, has favoured me with this note about Ashbourne. ‘Here in 1803 were Rochambeau and 300 of his officers. The house where the general resided is well known, and a large building was erected in which to lodge the prisoners who could not afford to find their own houses or apartments. I have heard that the limit of parole was two miles.... I never heard of any breaches of parole or crimes committed by the prisoners.... I have often heard th
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Chesterfield
Chesterfield
My best thanks are due to Mr. W. Hawkesly Edmunds, Scarsdale House, Chesterfield, for these notes: ‘Mrs. Roberts, widow of Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., left some interesting reminiscences among her papers. She says: ‘Different indeed was the aspect of the town from what one sees to-day. Grim visages and whiskered faces met one at every turn, to say nothing of moustaches, faded uniforms, and rusty cocked hats. At certain hours of the day it was difficult to walk along the High Street or the middle C
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Oswestry
Oswestry
Oswestry, in Shropshire, was an important parole town. In 1803, when rumours were afloat that a concerted simultaneous rising of the French prisoners of war in the Western Counties was to be carried out, a hurried transfer of these latter was made to the more inland towns of Staffordshire and Shropshire. and it has been stated that Oswestry received no less than 700, but this has been authentically contradicted, chiefly by correspondents to Bygones , a most complete receptacle of old-time inform
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Leek
Leek
Leek, in Staffordshire, was also an important parole centre. ‘The officer prisoners at Leek received all courtesy and hospitality at the hands of the principal inhabitants, with many of whom they were on the most intimate terms, frequenting the assemblies, which were then as gay and as well attended as any within a circuit of 20 miles. They used to dine out in full uniform, each with his body-servant behind his chair.’ (Sleigh’s History of Leek .) The first prisoners came here in 1803 from San D
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Alresford
Alresford
At Alresford the prisoners were at first unpopular, but their exertions at a fire in the town wrought a change of feeling in their favour. It is interesting to note that when the Commune in Paris in 1871 drove many respectable people abroad, quite a number came to Alresford (as also to Odiham), from which we may deduce that they were descendants of men who had handed down pleasant memories of parole life in these little Hampshire towns. The Rev. Mr. Headley, Vicar of Alresford, kindly allowed me
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Thame
Thame
At Thame, in 1809, Israel Eel was charged at the Oxford Quarter Sessions with assaulting Ravenau, a French prisoner on parole. To the great surprise of all, not a true bill was returned. Some of the prisoners at Thame were lodged in a building now called the ‘Bird Cage’, once an inn. A memory of the prisoners lingers in the name of ‘Frenchman’s Oak’ still given to a large tree there, it having marked their mile boundary. General Villaret-Joyeuse, Governor of Martinique, was one of the many priso
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Wincanton
Wincanton
To Mr. George Sweetman I am indebted for some interesting particulars about parole prisoner life at Wincanton in Somersetshire. The first prisoners came here in 1804, captured on the Didon , and gradually the number here rose to 350, made up of Frenchmen, Italians, Portuguese, and Spaniards. In 1811 the census showed that nineteen houses were occupied by prisoners, who then numbered 297 and 9 women and children. An ‘oldest inhabitant’, Mr. Olding, who died in 1870, aged eighty-five, told Mr. Swe
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Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Ashby-de-la-Zouch
Ashby occupies an interesting page in that little-known chapter of British history which deals with the prisoners of war who have lived amongst us, and I owe my cordial thanks to the Rev. W. Scott, who has preserved this page from oblivion, for permission to make use of his pamphlet. In September 1804, the first detachment of prisoners, forty-two in number, reached Ashby, and this number was gradually increased until it reached its limit, 200. The first arrivals were poor fellows who had to boar
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Ashburton, Devon
Ashburton, Devon
Mr. J. H. Amery says in Devon Notes and Queries : ‘We can hardly credit the fact that so little reliable information or even traditional legend, remains in the small inland market towns where so many officers were held prisoners on parole until as recently as 1815. It certainly speaks well for their conduct, for had any tragedy been connected with their stay, tradition would have preserved its memory and details. For several years prior to 1815 a number of educated foreigners formed a part of th
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Tavistock
Tavistock
There were upon an average 150 prisoners here. The Prison Commissioners wrote: ‘Some of them have made overtures of marriage to women in the neighbourhood, which the magistrates very properly have taken pains to discourage.’ This, of course, refers to the ruling of the French Government that it would regard such marriages as invalid. That French women sometimes accompanied their husbands into captivity is evident from not infrequent petitions such as this: ‘The French woman at Tavistock requests
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Okehampton
Okehampton
Here, very little information is obtainable, as very few of the ‘oldest inhabitant’ type are to be found, and there are very few residents whose parents have lived there for any length of time—a sign of these restless, migrating days which makes one regret that the subject of the foreign prisoners of war in Britain was not taken up before the movement of the rural world into large towns had fairly set in. One old resident could only say that his father used to talk of from five to six hundred pr
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Odiham
Odiham
General Simon was at Odiham. We have had to do with him before, and he seems to have been thoroughly bad. He had been concerned with Bernadotte and Pinoteau in the Conspiracy of Rennes against Bonaparte’s Consular Government, had been arrested, and exiled to the Isle of Rhé for six years. When Bonaparte became emperor he liberated Simon and gave him a command. At the battle of Busaco, September 27, 1810, Simon’s brigade led the division of Loison in its attack on the British position, and Simon
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Leicester
Leicester
To Mr. John Thorp of this town I am indebted for the following notes: ‘In 1756 Count Benville and 30 other French officers were on parole at Leicester. Most of them were men of high rank, and were all well received by the townpeople. [18] They were polite and agreeable in manner, and as they expended about £9,000 during their stay in the town it was of benefit to a large part of the inhabitants. ‘A number of French prisoners came from Tavistock in 1779, and remained in the town about six months.
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Tragic Events
Tragic Events
Tragic events were by no means so common among the prisoners on parole as in the prisons, no doubt because of the greater variety in their lives, and of their not being so constantly in close company with each other. A French officer, on parole at Andover in 1811, at what is now Portland House in West Street, fell in love with the daughter of his host, and upon her rejection of his suit, retired to a summer-house in the garden, opened a vein in his arm, and bled to death. Duels were frequent, an
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International Courtesies
International Courtesies
It is gratifying to read testimonies such as the following, taken out of many, to chivalry and kindness on the part of our enemies, and to note practical appreciations of such conduct. In 1804 Captain Areguandeau of the Blonde privateer, captured at sea and put on the parole list, was applied for by late British prisoners of his to whom he had been kind, to be returned to France unconditionally. The Commissioners of the Transport Board regretted that under existing circumstances they could not a
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(1) Some Distinguished Prisoners of War
(1) Some Distinguished Prisoners of War
When the roll of the 46th Regiment (or, as it was, the 46th demi-brigade), of the French Army is called, the name of La Tour d’Auvergne brings forward the sergeant-major of the Grenadier Company, who salutes and replies: ‘Dead upon the field of honour!’ This unique homage to Théophile de La Tour d’Auvergne—who won the distinguishing title of ‘First Grenadier of the Republican Armies’ in an age and an army crowded with brave men, quite as much, so says history, by his modesty as by his bravery in
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(2) Some Statistics
(2) Some Statistics
Statistics are wearisome, but, in order that readers may form some idea of the burden cast on the country by the presence of prisoners of war, I give a few figures. During the Seven Years’ War the annual average number of prisoners of war in England was 18,800, although the total of one year, 1762, was 26,137. This, it must be remembered, was before the regular War Prison became an institution, so that the burden was directly upon the people among whom the prisoners were scattered. Of these, on
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(3) Epitaphs of Prisoners
(3) Epitaphs of Prisoners
I do not claim completeness for the following list, for neglect has allowed the obliteration of many stones in our churchyards which traditionally mark the last resting-places of prisoners of war. At New Alresford, Hampshire, on the west side of the church: ‘ Ici repose le corps de M. Joseph Hypolite Riouffe, enseigne de vaisseau de la Marine Impériale et Royale qui mourut le 12 Dec. 1810, âgé 28 ans. Il emporta les regrets de tous ses camarades et personnes qui le connurent. ’ ‘ Ci-gît le corps
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