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 quartered in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wood, of Dover, whose sailor
brother took a great fancy to the little stranger, and made him his
constant companion on cruises up and down the Channel, with the result
that Tom Souville got to know the Channel coasts thoroughly, a stock of
learning which he afterwards made use of in a fashion little dreamed of
by the old salt, his mentor.
At Christmas 1786, after eighteen months’ happiness at Dover, he
returned to Calais, and in obedience to his irresistible bent, joined
the navy. In 1795, the _Formidable_, with Tom Souville on board, was
taken by H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_, off Isle-Croix, after a fight in
which she lost 320 killed and wounded out of her complement of 717, and
Tom with his Captain, Linois, of whom mention will be made later in this
work, were taken to Portsmouth. Tom Souville refused to sign a parole
form, so was put into the _cachot_ of the _Diamond_ hulk; but only for a
short time, as he was soon exchanged. However, in 1797 he was again
captured, this time on the _Actif_, and was confined on the _Crown_
hulk.
Of life on the _Crown_ he gives the usual description. He speaks of the
prisoner professors (who were known as the ‘Académiciens’) being obliged
to give their lessons at night, as the noise during the daytime made
teaching impossible. But as no lights were allowed ‘tween decks after a
certain hour, they saved up the fat of their ration meat, and put it
into an oyster-shell with a wick of cotton threads, fencing it round
with clothes. Sometimes the air was so foul that the light went out. If
they were discovered, the guards destroyed everything, books, paper,
slates, pens, &c.
Souville mentions one thing I have not noticed in any account of
prison-ship life, that there were French women on board, ‘de basse
extraction et extrêmement grossières’.
He emphasizes the incapacity and brutality of the British doctors, and
particularizes one Weiss (not a British name, one is thankful to note!)
as a type. He says that the orthodox treatment of the prisoners from San
Domingo, who were suffering from the _vomito negro_, was to plunge them
into icy water!
A system of signalling and holding conversation between one prison ship
and another was carried out by the carpenters, who had their benches on
the upper deck, a regular alphabet being arranged by means of hammer
knocks and shifting the position of the benches. He is the first also to
mention that theatricals were performed on a prison ship; the pieces
given being a two-act vaudeville, _Les Aventures d’une voyageuse
sensible_, and a drama in five acts, _La Fiancée du Corsaire_. The
orchestra consisted of a flute and a violin; the female dresses were
lent by the ladies of Portsmouth and Gosport, who also came as
spectators. But the chief amusement, he says, was to vex the authorities
as much as possible, to call the captain, who had an inflated sense of
his own importance, a mere turnkey, to make songs on him, and above all
to play tricks at the roll call, so as to create confusion and
bewilderment.
The attempts to escape were very frequent, and this in spite of a recent
savage threat that for every prisoner who escaped two should be hanged.
Souville describes a daring escape which inspired him to action. A
cutter laden with powder was alongside one of the hulks, waiting for
morning to discharge into the _Egmont_ man-of-war. Lieutenant Larivière
and four or five other prisoners managed to slip out of the _Crown_ and
board her. They found the crew fast asleep, tied and gagged them
securely, and adopted their clothes. At daybreak they hoisted their
sail, Larivière giving loud commands in English, and passed by the
_Egmont_, waiting for her powder. She hailed them to stop, but they
crowded on all sail, and although the alarm was signalled, and they were
pursued, they crossed safely to Roscoff.
As Souville, when he refused to be put on parole, had openly declared
that he would escape at the first opportunity, he was carefully guarded.
Thanks to his excellent knowledge of English he made friends among the
bluejackets of the guard, and especially with one Will, whom he had
helped with money when his mother’s home was threatened to be broken up
for debt.
So he started the delicate and difficult operation of boring a hole in
the ship’s side, large enough to admit the passage of a human body,
above the water line, yet not too near the grated platform running round
the ship, continually patrolled by guards. He counted on Will’s aid, and
confided his scheme to him.
The very next morning he was conducted to the Black Hole, and was
informed that his design had been betrayed, and he instantly guessed
that his supposed friend Will was the betrayer, as he alone was in the
secret. Whilst in the _cachot_ he found a mysterious note merely saying
that at a certain hour on a certain day the high tide would be over the
mud-banks which had proved fatal to so many fugitives from the hulks. In
the _cachot_ with him were three men who had successfully shammed
madness in order to get sent to France, and who were about to be
liberated. One of them, whose form of assumed madness had been to crow
day and night like a cock, gave Tom a clue to a hole he had commenced to
bore in the event of his sham madness failing.
Souville found the hole, finished it, and on the date named in the note
slipped out, and started for a three-mile swim towards a light ashore.
After much labour, he negotiated the mud-banks, and landed. Exhausted,
he fell asleep, and was awakened by a man. He sprang to his feet and
prepared to defend himself from arrest; but the man impressed silence,
and pointed to a fisher-hut whence a light shone, evidently that to
which he had steered at first, but of which he had lost sight during his
long struggle in the water.
He entered the hut and found Will! The whole affair, the arrest, the
_cachot_, and the mysterious note turned out to be Will’s plot, who
explained that if he had not divulged the secret of Souville’s first
escape-hole when it was known that he had discovered it, he would
probably have got a thousand lashes at the triangles, and that to atone
for it he had conveyed to the _cachot_ the note which was the means of
Tom’s escape.
No time was lost in completely disguising him, and he started. As he
passed along the smuggler’s cliff path he heard the guns which
proclaimed the escape of a prisoner. At 9 a.m. he passed Kingston, and
got to Farlington on the Chichester road. Here he put up at a lodging
house, replying to suspicious inquiries that he was from London, bound
for an American ship coming from Dover. From here he took coach to
Brighton, and in two days was at Dover. At Dover he waited two more days
before he could find a neutral ship to take him across, and then quietly
smuggled himself on to a Danish brig bound for Calais, and hid under a
coil of rope on deck. Whilst here the Admiralty people came on board to
search for fugitives, and one of them actually sat on the heap of rope
under which he was. The brig sailed, and then, to the astonishment of
the master and crew, Tom presented himself. At first the master was
disposed to put back and give Tom up, for the penalties were heavy for
harbouring escaped prisoners, but the promise of a handsome reward and
Tom’s mention of influential friends overcame his scruples and Tom was
safely landed.
He went home, got the money, of which he gave 1,000 francs to the
skipper, 500 francs to the crew, and 500 to the fisherman who landed
him.
Souville now started the privateering business which was to make him
famous, and during the years 1806 and 1807 won for his _Glaneur_ a
reputation on both sides of the Channel. At Dunkirk he distinguished
himself on shore by saving two lives from a runaway carriage which had
been upset into the port. He then changed to the _Général Paris_, and
made a number of rich captures, but on November 30, 1808, was captured
off Folkestone by two corvettes and a cutter, and found himself on the
_Assistance_ prison ship at Portsmouth. On the _Assistance_ he made so
many attempts to escape that he was changed to the _Crown_. Here he met
an old shipmate, Captain Havas, of the _Furet_ privateer, but from
policy they agreed not to let it be seen that they were friends, and
they lost no time in setting to work with saws made of barrel-hoops, and
bits of fencing foils for gimlets, to make a hole a square foot in size
through the nine inches of the wooden ship’s side, and, to avoid the
noise they made being heard, they worked while the English soldiers were
scrubbing the decks.
By the beginning of January 1809 the hole was ready. January 9 was a
suitable day for this project, being foggy, and the only obstacle was
the bitter cold of the water. They had saved up rum, and grease
wherewith to rub themselves, and had a compass, a knife, a flask for the
rum, and a waterproof fishing-basket to hold a change of clothes. At
midnight they opened the hole; Havas slipped out, and Souville followed,
but in doing so made a slight noise, but enough to attract the notice of
the sentry. They swam away amidst a storm of bullets fired at random in
the fog and darkness. Souville was soon caught by one of the boats which
at the first alarm had put out from all the hulks. Havas hung on to the
rudder of a Portuguese ship under repair, and paused to rest. When all
was quiet, he climbed up, boarded the ship, crept down to the hold, got
under a basket, and, utterly worn out, fell asleep.
A cabin boy coming for the basket in the morning, at the appearance of a
strange man under it was terrified and cried out. Havas rushed up on
deck, but at the mouth of the hatchway was met by an English soldier who
promptly knocked him down, and he was secured.
The adventurers got a month’s Black Hole, and when they were released
found the precautions against escape were stricter than ever. In May
1809 the news came that all the prisoners taken at Guadeloupe were to be
exchanged. Havas and Souville determined to profit by the opportunity,
and bought two turns of exchange from soldiers, with the idea of getting
away as Guadeloupe prisoners. But, in order to pass the sentry it was
necessary that they should have the appearance of having served in the
tropics, so they had ‘to make themselves up’, with false moustaches and
stained faces. This was effected, and at the signal of departure the two
adventurers joined the Guadeloupe contingent and were taken ashore. But
on the jetty stood Captain Ross, of the _Crown_, scrutinizing the
prisoners.
‘You didn’t expect me here, my man,’ said he to Havas, at the same time
taking hold of his moustache, which came off in his hand. ‘Never mind;
although I am in duty bound to take you before Commodore Woodriff, I’ll
ask him to let you off; if I don’t you’ll sink my ship with your eternal
hole-boring through her!’
He meant what he said, for, although somewhat of a martinet (so says the
biographer of Souville—Henri Chevalier), he was a good fellow at heart,
but Woodriff, who had been in command at Norman Cross in 1797, was of
another disposition: ‘un de ces moroses Anglais dont l’air sombre cache
un caractère plus dur encore que sévère.’ He refused Ross’s request, and
even admonished him for laxity of vigilance, and so our friends were
sent back to the _Crown_, and got another month’s _cachot_. Then they
were separated, Havas being sent to the _Suffolk_ and Tom Souville to
the _Vengeance_. Six uneventful months passed; then the prisoners of the
_Suffolk_ and _Vengeance_ were transferred to the _San Antonio_, and
Havas and Souville were re-united, and took into partnership Étienne
Thibaut. The commander of the _San Antonio_ was an affable Scot with a
soft heart towards his prisoners. He took a fancy to Havas, often
chatted with him, and at last engaged him as a French teacher. Captain
B. had a pretty wife, ‘belle en tout point, blonde, grande, svelte et
gracieuse,’ and a charming little girl, possessing ‘de bonnes joues
roses, de grands yeux bleus, et des cheveux dorés à noyer sa tête si un
ruban ne les eût captivés sur son cou; enfant pétulante et gaie, fraîche
comme une fleur, vive comme un oiseau’.
Havas makes friends with the child, but aims at the favour of the
mother. Being a dashing, attractive, sailor-like fellow, he succeeds,
and moves her sympathy for his fate. Finally Mrs. B. promises that he
shall go with her to a French theatrical performance ashore, as her
husband rarely quits the ship except on duty. So they go, one fine
spring day, she and Havas, and a Scots Captain R. with them to save
appearances, first to the hulk _Veteran_ where they learn that the play,
to be acted in Portchester Castle, will be Racine’s _Phèdre_, and that
it will commence at 4 p.m.
They attended the play. An old caulker played Theseus, Phèdre was
presented by a novice, and Hippolyte by a top-man, which probably means
that it was ludicrous. After the play, Captain R. went into the town,
leaving Havas and Mrs. B. to enjoy a beautiful springtime walk together,
winding up with refreshments in an arbour which Mrs. B. had engaged. All
this time, however, Havas was not so intoxicated with the delightful
novelty of a _tête-à-tête_ walk with a pretty Englishwoman on a lovely
day in a fair country, as not to be making mental notes of the local
geography.
During the long continuance of the fine weather, which was all against
their project, the three men made preparations for escape, and
particularly in the manufacture of wooden skates for use over the two
great mud-banks which separated the hulks from the shore, and which had
always been fatal obstacles to escaping prisoners. At length the
long-looked-for change in the weather came, and at 1 a.m. on a wild,
stormy morning Havas and Souville got off (in the French original I find
no allusion to Thibaut), well furnished with necessaries, including
complete suits of stylish clothing! Once they were challenged, but the
uproar of the storm saved them, and, moreover, the sea, even in the
land-locked part, was so high that the sentries had been withdrawn from
the external gallery. It was a hard struggle, but they reached the first
mud-spit safely, got over it on their skates, swam another bit, and at
the second mud-bank had to rest, as Souville was taken with a sudden
vertigo. Finally, after three terrible hours of contest with wind and
wave, they landed. Thence they made their way into the fields, washed
and scraped the mud off, and with the stylish clothes transformed
themselves, as the account says, into ‘elegants’.
For four hours they walked until they struck the London road, along
which they tramped for an hour, that is until about 10 a.m., and
breakfasted at an inn. At 3 p.m. they reached Petersfield, went boldly
to the best hotel, dined as became gentlemen of their appearance, and
ordered a post-chaise to be ready to take them to Brighton at 4 a.m.
They were three days on the journey to Brighton! Souville’s admirable
English was their protection, and the only inconvenience they
experienced was from the remarks of people who contrasted their elegant
appearance with the small amount of luggage they carried, consisting of
a pocket-handkerchief containing their belongings.
They arrived at Brighton at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. The Duke of
York had arrived there to review the troops assembled at Brighton Camp
on account of Bonaparte’s threatened invasion, so that the town was
crowded with soldiers and visitors, accommodation was not to be had, and
no chance of sailing to France was likely to be offered. So they decided
to walk on to Hastings, a risky proceeding, as the country swarmed with
soldiers. They walked for a day and a half, and then resolved to drive.
For the night they had lodged at an inn which was full of soldiers, all
of whom were incited by rewards to look out for spies, so they shut
themselves in their room with food and two bottles of port, and busied
themselves with mending and furbishing up the elegant clothes, which
were beginning to show signs of wear and tear. The next day they left by
coach; their fellow passengers included a faded lady of thirty, a
_comédienne_, so she said, with whom Souville soon became on such
excellent terms that she gave him her address at Hastings, and on the
next day he went for a pleasant walk with her, noting carefully the lie
of the country and looking out for a suitable boat on the beach in which
to get over to France. Boats in plenty there were; but, in accordance
with the Admiralty circular, inspired by the frequent appropriations of
boats by escaping foreigners, from all of them masts, oars, and sails
had been removed. So our friends resolved to walk on to Folkestone. They
reached the ‘Bay of Rice’ (Rye Bay?) and had to pass the night in the
open, as there was no inn, and arrived at Folkestone at 6 p.m. the next
day.
During these stirring times of war between Britain and France, the
French privateers and the English smugglers found it to be to their
mutual interests to be good friends, for not only were the smugglers the
chief carriers of escaped French prisoners, many of whom were officers
of privateers, but they were valuable sources of information concerning
the movements of war-ships and likely prizes. In return the French
coastal authorities allowed them free access to their ports for purposes
of the contraband trade. During his career afloat Souville had done a
good turn to Mr. J. P., an English smuggler captain living at
Folkestone, and Mr. J. P. promised that he would requite this at the
first opportunity. And so Tom determined to find him at Folkestone. His
excellent English soon procured him J. P.’s address, and there the
fugitives had a royal reception, dinner, bed, a bath the next morning,
fresh clothes and a change of linen. At breakfast they read the news of
their escape and of the big reward offered for their recapture in the
local newspaper.
They spent five happy days under this hospitable roof, waiting for
favourable weather, and for their host to procure them a suitable boat.
This came about in due course, and after a farewell banquet, the party,
consisting of Souville, arm-in-arm with Mrs. P., Havas with her sister,
J. P., and three friends, proceeded to the beach, and at 9 p.m. Souville
and Havas embarked for Calais, where they arrived after a good passage,
and had an enthusiastic reception, for it had been reported that in
escaping from the _San Antonio_, they had been engulfed in the
mud-banks.
Tom Souville lost no time in resuming his privateering life, and
continued to be most successful, amassing money and gaining renown at
the same time, but in 1812, when on the _Renard_, having in tow a brig
prize of 200 tons, he was again captured, and once more found himself on
the _Crown_ prison ship, in ‘Southampton Lake’. The _Crown_ was still
commanded by Ross—called in the original (which is in the form of an
interview with Souville by Eugene Sue) ‘Rosa’, that being the sound of
the name in French ears. Ross was a fine old fellow who had lost an arm
at Trafalgar, but he hated the French. Ross, knowing Tom Souville’s
fame, ironically conducts him personally over the _Crown_, pointing out
all the latest devices for the prevention of escape, and tells Tom that
he will have a corporal specially told off to ‘attend to him’. He offers
to allow Tom to go ashore every day if he will give his parole not to
attempt escape, but Tom refuses.
On the _Crown_ Tom finds an old friend, Tilmont, a privateer captain,
and they at once set to work on a plan for escape. One morning Captain
Ross sends for Tom and quietly informs him that one Jolivet had sold him
the secret of the hole then in the process of being cut by Tom and
Tilmont, and as he tells him this they walk up and down the lower deck
together. Whilst they are walking there is a great noise of tramping
overhead. Ross asks what it is, and Tom replies that the prisoners are
dancing. The captain calls an orderly and tells him to stop the dancing,
‘the noise is distressing to Monsieur here,’ he adds sarcastically. Tom
is annoyed and begs he will allow the poor men to amuse themselves, but
the captain is obdurate. Presently the noise ceases, and to Tom’s horror
he hears in the ensuing silence the sound of Tilmont working away at the
hole. However, it did not attract the captain’s attention. The truth was
that the whole affair, the betrayal of the hole, the dancing on deck,
and the interview with Captain Ross, was of Souville’s arranging.
Jolivet got £10 10_s._ for betraying the secret, which he at once paid
into the ship’s ‘Escape Fund’; he had made it a condition that Souville
and Tilmont should not be punished; the dancing on deck was arranged to
be at the time of the interview between the captain and Tom, so that the
noise of Tilmont’s final touches to the work of boring the hole should
be drowned.
A few days before this, one Dubreuil had attempted to escape, but had
been suffocated in the mud-bank. On the morning after the interview
above described, the bugle sounded for all the prisoners to be paraded
on the upper deck. Here they found the captain and officers, all in full
uniform, the guard drawn up with fixed bayonets, and on the deck in
front of them a long object covered with a black cloth. The cloth was
removed, and the wasted body of Dubreuil, with his eyes picked out, was
exposed.
Souville was called forward.
‘Do you recognize the body?’ asked the captain.
‘Yes,’ replied Tom, ‘but it does not matter much. He was a bad fellow
who struck his mother.’
The horrible exhibition had been intended as a deterrent lesson to the
prisoners in general and to Souville in particular, especially as it was
known that he and Dubreuil had been lifelong acquaintances in Calais,
but, as far as Tom was concerned, his reply sufficiently proved that it
was thrown away on him, whilst among the other prisoners it excited only
disgust and indignation.
Tom Souville’s escape was arranged for that same night.
It was quite favourable for his enterprise, dark and so stormy that the
hulk rolled heavily. Tilmont made Tom take a good drink of sugar, rum,
and coffee; the two men greased themselves all over thoroughly; round
Tom’s neck was an eelskin full of guineas, in his hat a map of the
Channel, in a ‘boussole’ tinder and steel, a knife in the cord of his
hat, and a change of clothes in a little leather bag on his back.
Overboard he slipped (Tilmont’s name is not again mentioned, although he
greased himself, so I presume he did not start. There are many instances
of poor fellows, after much elaborate preparation, being deterred at the
last moment by the darkness, the black depths below, the long swim, and
the extreme uncertainty of the result). It was a hard, long struggle in
the wild night, and throughout appeared the face of Dubreuil with its
empty orbits before the swimmer. However, in two hours and a half he
reached land. He rested for a while, cleaned the mud off, changed his
clothes and started to walk.
In nine days he reached Winchelsea, walking by night and hiding by day,
for this time his clothes were not of the ‘elegant’ style, and the land
was full of spy-hunters. He went on to Folkestone, and rested by the
garden wall of a villa in the outskirts. As he rested he heard the voice
of a woman singing in the garden. At once he recognized it as the voice
of a captain’s wife who had been of the merry party at J. P.’s house on
the occasion of his last visit to Folkestone, called her by name, and
announced his own. He was warmly welcomed, there was a repetition of the
old festivities, and in due course he was found a passage for Calais,
where he arrived safely. Once more he trod the deck of the famous
_Renard_, and was so successful that he saved money enough to buy a
cutter on his own account. He soon became one of the most famous Channel
_corsaires_; and in addition a popular hero, by his saving many lives at
sea, not only of his own countrymen, but of English fishermen, and in
one case, of the crew of a British ship of war which had been disabled
by foul weather.
Then came the Peace of 1814; and when, after Waterloo, friendly
relationship was solidly established between the two countries, Tom
Souville, only at home on the ocean, obtained command of the
cross-channel packet _Iris_, which he retained almost up to the day of
his death in 1840, at the age of sixty-four.