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 by their own behaviour local odium, and these are the places
in which were quartered captured privateer officers, wild, reckless
sea-dogs whom, naturally, restraint galled far more deeply than it did
the drilled and disciplined officers of the regular army and navy.
In 1797, for instance, the inhabitants of Tavistock complained that the
prisoners went about the town in female garb, after bell-ringing, and
that they were associated in these masquerades with women of their own
nation. So they were threatened with the Mill Prison at Plymouth.
In 1807 complaints from Chesterfield about the improper conduct of the
prisoners brought a Transport Office order to the Agent that the
strictest observation of regulations was necessary, and that the mere
removal of a prisoner to another parole town was no punishment, and was
to be discontinued. In 1808 there was a serious riot between the
prisoners and the townsfolk in the same place, in which bludgeons were
freely used and heads freely broken, and from Lichfield came complaints
of the outrageous and insubordinate behaviour of the prisoners.
In 1807 Mr. P. Wykeham of Thame Park complained of the prisoners
trespassing therein; from Bath came protests against the conduct of
General Rouget and his A.D.C.; and in 1809 the behaviour of one
Wislawski at Odiham (possibly the ‘Wysilaski’ already mentioned as at
Sanquhar) was reported as being so atrocious that he was at once packed
off to a prison-ship.
In 1810, at Oswestry, Lieutenant Julien complained that the Agent,
Tozer, had insulted him by threatening him with his cane, and accusing
him of drunkenness in the public-houses. Tozer, on the other hand,
declared that Julien and others were rioting in the streets, that he
tried to restore order, and raised his cane in emphasis, whereupon
Julien raised his with offensive intent.
Occasionally we find complaints sent up by local professionals and
tradesmen that the prisoners on parole unfairly compete with them. Here
it may be remarked that the following of trades and professions by
prisoners of war was by no means confined to the inmates of prisons and
prison-ships, and that there were hundreds of poor officers on parole
who not only worked at their professions (as Garneray the painter did at
Bishop’s Waltham) and at specific trades, but who were glad to eke out
their scanty subsistence-money by the manufacture of models, toys,
ornaments, &c.
In 1812 a baker at Thame complained that the prisoners on parole in that
town baked bread, to which the Transport Office replied that there was
no objection to their doing it for their own consumption, but not for
public sale. It is to be hoped the baker was satisfied with this very
academic reply!
So also the bootmakers of Portsmouth complained that the prisoners on
parole in the neighbourhood made boots for sale at lower than the
current rates. The Transport Office replied that orders were strict
against this, and that the master bootmakers were to blame for
encouraging this ‘clandestine trade.’
In 1813 the doctors at Welshpool complained that the doctors among the
French parole prisoners there inoculated private families for small-pox.
The Transport Office forbade it.
In the same year complaints came from Whitchurch in Shropshire of the
defiant treatment of the limit-rules by the prisoners there; to which
the Transport Office replied that they had ordered posts to be set up at
the extremities of the mile-limits, and printed regulations to be posted
in public places; that they were fully sensible of the mischief done by
so many prisoners being on parole, but that they were unable to stop it.
Still in 1813, the Transport Office commented very severely upon the
case of a Danish officer at Reading who had been found guilty of forging
a ‘certificate of succession’, which I take to be a list of prisoners in
their order for being exchanged. I quote this case, as crimes of this
calibre were hardly known among parole prisoners; for other instances,
see pages 320 and 439.
Many complaints were made from the parole towns about the debts left
behind them by absconded prisoners. The Transport Office invariably
replied that such debts being private matters, the only remedy was at
civil law.
When we come to deal with the complaints made by the prisoners—be they
merely general complaints, or complaints against the people of the
country—the number is so great that the task set is to select those of
the most importance and interest.
Complaints against fellow prisoners are not common.
In 1758 a French doctor, prisoner on parole at Wye in Kent, complains
that ten of his countrymen, fellow prisoners, wanted him to pay for
drinks to the extent of twenty-seven shillings. He refused, so they
attacked him, tore his clothes, stole thirty-six shillings, a
handkerchief, and two medals. He brought his assailants before the
magistrates, and they were made to refund twenty-five shillings. This so
enraged them that they made his life a burden to him, and he prayed to
be removed elsewhere.
In 1758 a prisoner on parole at Chippenham complained that he was
subjected to ill treatment by his fellow prisoners. The letter is
ear-marked:
‘Mr. Trevanion (the local Agent) is directed to publish to all the
prisoners that if any are guilty of misbehaviour to each other, the
offenders will immediately be sent to the Prison, and particularly that
if any one molests or insults the writer of this letter, he shall
instantly be confined upon its being proved.’
Later, however, the writer complains that the bullying is worse than
ever, and that the other prisoners swear that they will cut him in
pieces, so that he dare not leave his lodgings, and has been besieged
there for days.
In the same year Dingart, captain of the _Deux Amis_ privateer, writes
from confinement on the _Royal Oak_ prison-ship at Plymouth that he had
been treated unjustly. He had, he says, a difference with Feraud,
Captain of _Le Moras_ privateer, at Tavistock, during which the latter
struck him, ran away, and kept out of sight for a fortnight. Upon his
reappearance, the complainant returned him the blow with a stick,
whereupon Feraud brought him up for assault before the Agent,
Willesford, who sent him to a prison-ship.
At Penryn in the same year, Chevalier, a naval lieutenant, complained of
being insulted and attacked by another prisoner with a stick, who,
‘although only a privateer sailor, is evidently favoured by Loyll’
(Lloyd?) the Agent.
In 1810 one Savart was removed from Wincanton to Stapleton Prison at the
request of French superior officers who complained of his very violent
conduct.
These complaints were largely due to the tactless Government system of
placing parole prisoners of widely different ranks together. There are
many letters during the Seven Years’ War period from officers requesting
to be removed to places where they would be only among people of their
own rank, and not among those ‘qui imaginent que la condition de
prisonnier de guerre peut nous rendre tous égaux.’
Nor was this complaint confined to prisoners on parole, but even more
closely affected officers who, for breaches of parole, were sent to
prisons or to prison-ships. There are strong complaints in 1758 by
‘broke-paroles’, as they were termed, of the brutal class of prisoners
at Sissinghurst with whom they were condemned to herd; and in one case
the officer prisoners actually petitioned that a prison official who had
been dismissed and punished for cutting and wounding an ordinary
prisoner should be reinstated, as the latter richly deserved the
treatment he had received.
Latterly the authorities remedied this by setting apart prison-ships for
officers, and by providing separate quarters in prisons. Still, in
dealing with the complaints, they had to be constantly on their guard
against artifice and fraud, and if the perusal of Government replies to
complaints makes us sometimes think that the complainants were harshly
and even brutally dealt with, we may be sure that as a rule the
authorities had very sufficient grounds for their decisions. For
example, in 1804, Delormant, an officer on parole at Tiverton, was sent
to a Plymouth hulk for some breach of parole. He complained to Admiral
Colpoys that he was obliged there to herd with the common men. Colpoys
wrote to the Transport Board that he had thought right to have a
separate ship fitted for prisoner officers, and had sent Delormant to
it. Whereupon the Board replied that if Admiral Colpoys had taken the
trouble to find out what sort of a man Delormant really was, he would
have left him where he was, but that _for the present_ he might remain
on the special ship.
One of the commonest forms of complaint from prisoners was against the
custom of punishing a whole community for the sins of a few, or even of
a single man. In 1758 a round-robin signed by seventy-five prisoners at
Sissinghurst protested that the whole of the inmates of the Castle were
put upon half rations for the faults of a few ‘impertinents’.
At Okehampton in the same year, upon a paroled officer being sent to a
local prison for some offence, and escaping therefrom, the whole of the
other prisoners in the place were confined to their lodgings for some
days. When set free they held an indignation meeting, during which one
of the orators waved a stick, as the mayor said, threateningly at him.
Whereupon he was arrested and imprisoned at ‘Coxade’, the ‘Cockside’
prison near Mill Bay, Plymouth.
We see an almost pathetic fanning and fluttering of that old French
aristocratic plumage, which thirty years later was to be bedraggled in
the bloody dust, in the complaints of two highborn prisoners of war in
1756 and 1758. In the former year Monsieur de Béthune strongly resented
being sent on parole from Bristol into the country:
‘Ayant appris de Mr. Surgunnes (?) que vous lui mandé par votre lettre
du 13 courant si Messire De Béthune, Chevalier de St. Simon, Marquis
d’Arbest, Baron de Sainte Lucie, Seigneur haut, et bas justicier des
paroisses de Chateauvieux, Corvilac, Lâneau, Pontmartin, Neung et autres
lieux, étoit admis à la parole avec les autres officiers pour lesquels
il s’intéresse, j’aurai l’avantage de vous répondre, qu’un Grand de la
trempe de Messire De Béthune, qui vous adresse la présente, n’est point
fait pour peupler un endroit aussi désert que la campagne, attendu
qu’allié du costé paternel et maternel à un des plus puissans rois que
jamais terre ait porté, Londres, comme Bristol ou autre séjour qu’il
voudra choisir, est capable de contenir celui qui est tout à vous.
‘De Bristol; le 15 Xbre. 1756.’
Later he writes that he hears indirectly that this letter has given
offence to the gentlemen at the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office on Tower Hill,
but maintains that it is excusable from one who is allied to several
kings and sovereign princes, and he expects to have his passport for
London.
The Prince de Rohan, on parole at Romsey, not adapting himself easily to
life in the little Hampshire town, although he had the most rare
privilege of a six-mile limit around it, wrote on July 4, 1758,
requesting permission for self and three or four officers to go to
Southampton once a week to make purchases, as Romsey Market is so
indifferent, and to pass the night there. The six-mile limit, he says,
does not enable him to avail himself of the hospitality of the people of
quality, and he wants leave to go further with his suite. He adds a
panegyric on the high birth and the honour of French naval officers,
which made parole-breaking an impossibility, and he resents their being
placed in the same category with privateer and merchant-ship captains.
However, the Commissioners reply that no exceptions can be made in his
favour, and that as Southampton is a sea-port, leave to visit it cannot
be thought of.
In 1756 twenty-two officers on parole at Cranbrook in Kent prayed to be
sent to Maidstone, on the plea that there were no lodgings to be had in
Cranbrook except at exorbitant rates; that the bakers only baked once or
twice a week, and that sometimes the supply of bread ran short if it was
not ordered beforehand and an extra price paid for it; that vegetables
were hardly to be obtained; and that, finally, they were ill-treated by
the inhabitants. No notice was taken of this petition.
In 1757 a prisoner writes from Tenterden:
‘S’il faut que je reste en Angleterre, permettez-moi encore de vous
prier de vouloir bien m’envoier dans une meilleure place, n’ayant pas
déjà lieu de me louer du peuple de ce village. Sur des plaintes que
plusieurs Français ont portées au maire depuis que je suis ici, il a
fait afficher de ne point insulter aux Français, l’affiche a été le même
jour arrachée. On a remis une autre. Il est bien désagréable d’être dans
une ville où l’on est obligé de défendre aux peuples d’insulter les
prisonniers. J’ai ouï dire aux Français qui ont été à Maidstone que
c’était très bien et qu’ils n’ont jamais été insultés ... ce qui me fait
vous demander une autre place, c’est qu’on déjà faillit d’être jeté dans
la boue en passant dans les chemins, ayant eu cependant l’intention de
céder le pavé.’
In reply, the Commissioners of the ‘Sick and Hurt’ Office ask the Agent
at Tenterden why, when he heard complaints, he did not inform the Board.
The complainant, however, was not to be moved, as he had previously been
sent to Sissinghurst for punishment.
In 1758, twenty officers at Tenterden prayed for removal elsewhere,
saying that as the neighbourhood was a residential one for extremely
rich people, lodgings at moderate prices were not to be had, and that
the townspeople cared so little to take in foreign guests of their
description, that if they were taken ill the landlords turned them out.
This application was ear-marked for inquiry.
No doubt the poor fellows received but scanty courtesy from the rank and
file of their captors, and the foreigner then, far more than now, was
deemed fair game for oppression and robbery. In support of this I will
quote some remarks by Colonel Thierry, whose case certainly appears to
be a particularly hard one.
Colonel Thierry had been sent to Stapleton Prison in 1812 for having
violated his parole by writing from Oswestry to his niece, the Comtesse
de la Frotté, without having submitted the letter, according to parole
rule, to the Agent. He asks for humane treatment, a separate room, a
servant, and liberty to go to market.
‘Les vexations dont on m’a accablé en route sont révoltantes. Les
scélérats que vos lois envoyent à Tyburn ne sont pas plus mal traités;
une semblable conduite envers un Colonel, prisonnier de guerre, est une
horreur de plus que j’aurai le droit de reprocher aux Anglais pour
lesquels j’ai eu tant de bontés lorsqu’ils sont tombés en mon pouvoir.
Si le Gouvernement français fût instruit des mauvais traitements dont on
accable les Français de touts grades, et donnait des ordres pour user de
représailles envers les Anglais détenus en France ... le Gouvernement
anglais ordonnerait-il à ses agents de traiter avec plus d’égards, de
modération, d’humanité ses prisonniers.’
In a postscript the Colonel adds that his nephew, the Comte de la
Frotté, is with Wellington, that another is in the Royal Navy, and that
all are English born. One is glad to know that the Colonel’s prayer was
heard, and that he was released from Stapleton.
In 1758 a prisoner writes from Tenterden:
‘Last Thursday, March 16th, towards half-past eight at night, I was
going to supper, and passed in front of a butcher’s shop where there is
a bench fixed near the door on which three or four youths were sitting,
and at the end one who is a marine drummer leaning against a wall
projecting two feet on to the street. When I came near them I guessed
they were talking about us Frenchmen, for I heard one of them say: “Here
comes one of them,” and when I was a few paces beyond them one of them
hit me on the right cheek with something soft and cold. As I entered my
lodging I turned round and said: “You had better be careful!” Last
Sunday at half-past eight, as I was going to supper, being between the
same butcher’s shop and the churchyard gate, some one threw at me a
stick quite three feet long and heavy enough to wound me severely....’
Also at Tenterden, a prisoner named D’Helincourt, going home one night
with a Doctor Chomel, met at the door of the latter’s lodging a youth
and two girls, one of whom was the daughter of Chomel’s landlord, ‘avec
laquelle il avait plusieurs fois poussé la plaisanterie jusqu’à
l’embrasser sans qu’elle l’eût jamais trouvé mauvais, et ayant engagé M.
Chomel à l’embrasser aussi.’ But the other girl, whom they would also
kiss, played the prude; the youth with her misunderstood what
D’Helincourt said, and hit him under the chin with his fist, which made
D’Helincourt hit him back with his cane on the arm, and all seemed at an
end. Not long after, D’Helincourt was in the market, when about thirty
youths came along. One of them went up to him and asked him if he
remembered him, and hit him on the chest. D’Helincourt collared him, to
take him to the Mayor, but the others set on him, and he certainly would
have been killed had not some dragoons come up and rescued him.
Apparently the Agents and Magistrates were too much afraid of offending
the people to grant justice to these poor strangers.
At Cranbrook a French officer was assaulted by a local ruffian and hit
him back, for which he was sent to Sissinghurst.
In 1808 and 1809 many complaints from officers were received that their
applications to be allowed to go to places like Bath and Cheltenham for
the benefit of their health were too often met with the stereotyped
reply that ‘your complaint is evidently not of such a nature as to be
cured by the waters of Bath or Cheltenham’. Of course, the Transport
Office knew well enough that the complaints were not curable by the
_waters_ of those places, but by their life and gaiety: by the change
from the monotonous country town with its narrow, _gauche_ society, its
wretched inns, and its mile limit, to the fashionable world of gaming,
and dancing, and music, and flirting; but they also knew that to permit
French officers to gather at these places in numbers would be to
encourage plotting and planning, and to bring together gentlemen whom it
was desirable to keep apart.
So in the latter year the Mayor of Bath received an order from the Earl
of Liverpool that all prisoners of war were to be removed from the city
except those who could produce certificates from two respectable doctors
of the necessity of their remaining, ‘which must be done with such
caution as, if required, the same may be verified on oath.’ The officers
affected by this order were to go to Bishop’s Waltham, Odiham,
Wincanton, and Tiverton.
Of complaints by prisoners on parole against the country people there
must be many hundreds, the greater number of them dating from the period
of the Seven Years’ War. During this time the prisoners were largely
distributed in Kent, a county which, from its proximity to France, and
its consequent continuous memory of wrongs, fancied and real, suffered
at the hands of Frenchmen during the many centuries of warfare between
the two countries, when Kent bore the brunt of invasion and fighting,
may be understood to have entertained no particular affection for
Frenchmen, despite the ceaseless commerce of a particular kind which the
bitterest of wars could not interrupt.
A few instances will suffice to exemplify the unhappy relationship which
existed, not in Kent alone, but everywhere, between the country people
and the unfortunate foreigners thrust among them.
In 1757 a prisoner on parole at Basingstoke complained that he was in
bed at 11 p.m., when there came ‘7 ou 8 drôles qui les défièrent de
sortir en les accablant d’injures atroces, et frappant aux portes et aux
fenêtres comme s’ils avoient voulu jeter la maison en bas.’ Another
prisoner here had stones thrown at him ‘d’une telle force qu’elles
faisoient feu sur le pavé,’ whilst another lot of youths broke windows
and almost uprooted the garden.
From Wye in Kent is a whole batch of letters of complaint against the
people. One of them is a round-robin signed by eighty prisoners
complaining of bad and dear lodgings, and praying to be sent to Ashford,
which was four times the size of Wye, and where there were only
forty-five prisoners, and lodgings were better and cheaper.
At Tonbridge, in the same year, two parole officers dropped some milk
for fun on the hat of a milk-woman at the door below their window. Some
chaff ensued which a certain officious and mischief-making man named
Miles heard, who threatened he would report the Frenchmen for _improper
conduct_, and get them sent to Sissinghurst! The authors of the ‘fun’
wrote to the authorities informing them of the circumstances, and asking
for forgiveness, knowing well that men had been sent to Sissinghurst for
less. Whether the authorities saw the joke or not does not appear.
The rabble of the parole towns had recourse to all sorts of devices to
make the prisoners break their paroles so that they could claim the
usual reward of ten shillings. At Helston, on August 1, 1757, Hingston,
the Parole Agent, sent to Dyer, the Agent at Penryn, a prisoner named
Channazast, for being out of his lodgings all night. At the examination,
Tonken, in whose house the man was, and who was liable to punishment for
harbouring him, said, and wrote later:
‘I having been sent for by the mayor of our town this day to answer for
I cannot tell what, however I’ll describe it to you in the best manner I
am able. You must know that last Friday evening, I asked Monsieur
Channazast to supper at my house who came according to my request. Now I
have two Frenchmen boarded at my house, so they sat down together till
most ten o’clock. At which time I had intelligence brought me that there
was a soldier and another man waiting in the street for him to come out
in order to get the ten shillings that was orders given by the Mayor for
taking up all Frenchmen who was seen out of their Quarters after 9
o’clock. So, to prevent this rascally imposition I desired the man to go
to bed with his two countrymen which he did accordingly altho’ he was
not out of my house for the night——’
Reply: ‘Make enquiries into this.’
From Torrington in the same year eighteen prisoners pray to be sent
elsewhere:
‘Insultés à chaque instant par mille et millions d’injures ou menaces,
estre souvent poursuivis par la popullace jusqu’à nos portes à coups de
roches et coups de bâtons. En outre encore, Monseigneur, avant hier il
fut tirré un coup de fusil à plomb à cinque heures apres midy n’etant
distant de notre logement que d’une portée de pistolet, heureusement
celuy qui nous l’envoyoit ne nous avoit point assez bien ajusté . . .
qu’il est dans tous les villages des hommes proposés pour rendre justice
tres surrement bien judiscieux mais il est une cause qui l’empeche de
nous prouver son equité comme la crainte de detourner la populasce
adverse . . . nous avons été obligés de commettre à tous moments à
suporter sans rien dire ce surcrois de malheurs. . . .’
Two more letters, each signed by the same eighteen prisoners, follow to
the same intent. The man who fired the shot was brought up, and
punishment promised, but nothing was done. Also it was promised that a
notice forbidding the insulting of prisoners should be posted up, but
neither was this done. The same letters complain also of robbery by
lodging keepers, for the usual rate of 4_s._ a week was raised to 4_s._
6_d._, and a month later to 5_s._ One prisoner refused to pay this. The
woman who let the lodging complained to ‘Enjolace,’ the Agent, who tells
the prisoner he must either pay what is demanded, or go to prison.
A prisoner at Odiham in the same year complained that a country girl
encouraged him to address her, and that when he did, summoned him for
violently assaulting her. He was fined twelve guineas, complains that
his defence was not heard, and that ever since he had been insulted and
persecuted by the country people.
In 1758 a letter, signed by fifty-six prisoners at Sevenoaks, bitterly
complains that the behaviour of the country people is so bad that they
dare not go out. In the same year a doctor, a prisoner in Sissinghurst
Castle, complains of a grave injustice. He says that when on parole at
Sevenoaks he was called in by a fellow countryman, cured him, and was
paid his fee, but that ‘Nache’, the Agent at Sevenoaks, demanded half
the fee, and upon the prisoner’s refusal to pay him, reported the case
to the Admiralty, and got him committed to Sissinghurst.
A disgraceful and successful plot to ruin a prisoner is told from
Petersfield in 1758.
Fifteen officers on parole appealed on behalf of one of their number
named Morriset. He was in bed on December 22, at 8 a.m., in his lodging
at one ‘Schollers’, a saddler, when Mrs. ‘Schollers’ came into the room
on the pretext of looking for a slipper, and sat herself on the end of
the bed. Suddenly, in came her husband, and, finding his wife there,
attacked Morriset cruelly. Morriset to defend himself seized a knife
from a waistcoat hanging on the bed, and ‘Schollers’ dropped his hold of
him, but took from the waistcoat three guineas and some ‘chelins’, then
called in a constable, accused Morriset of behaving improperly with his
wife, and claimed a hundred pounds, or he would summons him. Morriset
was brought up before the magistrates, and, despite his protestations of
innocence, was sent to Winchester Jail. In reply to the appeal, the
Commissioners said that they could not interfere in what was a private
matter.
In the same year a prisoner wrote from Callington:
‘Lundy passé je fus attaqué dans mon logement par Thomas, garçon de Mr.
Avis qui, après m’avoir dit toutes les sottises imaginables, ne s’en
contenta pas, sans que je luy répondis à aucune de ses mauvaises
parolles, il sauta sur moy, et me frapa, et je fus obligé de m’en
défendre. Dimance dernier venant de me promener à 8 heures du soir, je
rancontray dans la rue près de mon logement une quarantaine d’Anglois
armés de bâtons pour me fraper si je n’avois peu me sauver à la faveur
de mes jambes. Mardy sur les 7 heures de soir je fus attaqué en pleine
place par les Anglois qui me donnèrent beaucoup de coups et m’étant
défait d’eux je me sauvai à l’oberge du _Soleil_ ou j’ai été obligé de
coucher par ordre de Mr. Ordon, veu qu’il y avoit des Anglois qui
m’attendoient pour me maltraiter.’
But even in 1756, when the persecution of prisoners by the rural
riff-raff was very bad, we find a testimony from the officers on parole
at Sodbury in Gloucestershire to the kindly behaviour of the
inhabitants, saying that only on holidays are they sometimes jeered at,
and asking to be kept there until exchanged.
Yet the next year, eighteen officers at the same place formulate to the
Commissioners of the Sick and Wounded the following complaints:
1. Three Englishmen attacked two prisoners with sticks.
2. A naval doctor was struck in the face by a butcher.
3. A captain and a lieutenant were attacked with stones, bricks, and
sticks, knocked down, and had to fly for safety to the house of Ludlow
the Agent.
4. A second-captain, returning home, was attacked and knocked down in
front of the _Bell_ inn by a crowd, and would have been killed but for
the intervention of some townspeople.
5. Two captains were at supper at the _Bell_. On leaving the house they
were set on by four men who had been waiting for them, but with the help
of some townspeople they made a fight and got away.
6. Between 10 and 11 p.m. a lieutenant had a terrible attack made on his
lodging by a gang of men who broke in, and left him half dead. After
which they went to an inn where some French prisoners lodged, and tried
to break in ‘jusqu’au point, pour ainsy dire, de le demolir,’ swearing
they would kill every Frenchman they found.
From Crediton a complaint signed by nearly fifty prisoners spoke of
frequent attacks and insults, not only by low ruffians and loafers, but
by people of social position, who, so far from doing their best to
dissuade the lower classes, rather encouraged them. Even Mr. David, a
man of apparently superior position, put a prisoner, a Captain Gazeau,
into prison, took the keys himself, and kept them for a day in spite of
the Portreeve’s remonstrance, but was made to pay damages by the effort
of another man of local prominence.
The men selected as agents in the parole towns too often seem to have
been socially unfitted for their positions as the ‘guides, philosophers,
and friends’ of officers and gentlemen. At Crediton, for instance, the
appointment of a Mr. Harvey called forth a remonstrance signed by sixty
prisoners, one of whom thus described him:
‘Mr. Harvey à son arrivée de Londres, glorieux d’être exaucé, n’eut rien
de plus pressé que de faire voir dans toutes les oberges et dans les
rues les ordres dont il était revetu de la part des honorables
Commissaires; ce qui ne pourra que nous faire un très mauvais effet, veu
que le commun peuple qui habite ce pays-ci est beaucoup irrité contre
les Français, à cause de la Nation et sans jusqu’au présent qu’aucun
Français n’est donné aucun sujet de plainte.’
Again, in 1756 the _aumonier_ of the Comte de Gramont, after complaining
that the inhabitants of Ashburton are ‘un peuple sans règle et sans
éducation’, by whom he was insulted, hissed, and stoned, and when he
represented this to the authorities was ‘garrotté’ and taken to Exeter
Prison, ridicules the status of the agents—here a shoemaker, here a
tailor, here an apothecary, who dare not, for business reasons, take the
part of the prisoners. He says he offered his services to well-to-do
people in the neighbourhood, but they were declined—deceit on his part
perhaps being feared.
From Ashford, Kent, a complainant writes, in 1758, that he was rather
drunk one evening and went out for a walk to pick himself up. He met a
mounted servant of Lord Winchilsea with a dog. He touched the dog,
whereupon the servant dismounted and hit him in the face. A crowd then
assembled, armed with sticks, and one man with a gun, and ill-treated
him until he was unconscious, tied his hands behind him, emptied his
pockets, and took him before Mr. Tritton. Knowing English fairly well,
the prisoner justified himself, but he was committed to the _cachot_. He
was then accused of having ill-treated a woman who, out of pity, had
sent for her husband to help him. He handed in a certificate of injuries
received, signed by Dr. Charles Fagg. His name was Marc Layne.
Complaints from Goudhurst in Kent relate that on one occasion three men
left their hop-dressing to attack passing prisoners. Upon another, the
French officers were, _mirabile dictu_, playing ‘criquet’, and told a
boy of ten to get out of the way and not interfere with them, whereupon
the boy called his companions, and there ensued a disturbance. A
magistrate came up, and the result was that a Captain Lamoise had to pay
£1 1_s._ or go to Maidstone Jail.
That the decent members of the community reprobated these attacks on
defenceless foreigners, although they rarely seem to have taken any
steps to stop them, is evident from the following story. At Goudhurst,
some French prisoners, coming out of an inn, were attacked by a mob.
Thirty-seven paroled officers there signed a petition and accompanied it
with this testimony from inhabitants, dated November 9, 1757:
‘We, the inhabitants of the Parish of Goudhurst, certifie that we never
was insulted in any respect by the French gentlemen, nor to their
knowledge have they caused any Riot except when they have been drawn in
by a Parcel of drunken, ignorant, and scandalous men who make it their
Business to ensnare them for the sake of a little money.
(Signed.)
STEPHEN OSBOURNE. THOS. BALLARD. JOHN SAVAGE.
JASPER SPRANG. RICHARD ROYSE. J. DICKINSON.
W. HUNT. JOHN BUNNELL. ZACH. SIMS.’
The complainants made declaration:
1. That the bad man Rastly exclaimed he would knock down the first
Frenchman he met.
2. Two French prisoners were sounding horns and hautboys in the fields.
The servant of the owner ordered them to go. They went quietly, but the
man followed them and struck them. They complained to Tarith, the Agent,
but he said that it did not concern him.
3. This servant assembled fifteen men with sticks, and stopped all exit
from Bunnell’s inn, where five French prisoners were drinking. The
prisoners were warned not to leave, and, although ‘remplis de boisson’,
they kept in. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock came; they resolved to go out,
one of them being drunk; they were attacked and brutally ill-used.
The Agent assured them that they should have justice, but they did not
get it.
As physical resistance to attacks and insults would have made matters
worse for the Frenchmen, besides being hopeless in the face of great
odds of numbers, it was resolved in one place at any rate, the name of
which I cannot find, to resort to boycotting as a means of reprisal. I
give the circulated notice of this in its original quaint and illiterate
French:
‘En conséquence de la délibération faite et teneu par le corps de
François deteneus en cette ville il a esté ordonné qu’après qu’il aura
cette Notoire, que quelque Marchand, Fabriquant, Boutiquier etcetera de
cette ville aurons insulté, injurié, ou comis quelque _aiesais_ (?) au
vis à vis de quelque François tel que puis être, et que le fait aura été
averée, il sera mis une affiche dans les Lieus les plus aparants portant
proscription de sa Maison, Boutique, Fabrique etcetera, et ordonné et
defendeu à tout François quelque qualité, condition qu’il soy sous Paine
d’être regardé et déclaré traité à la Patrie et de subire plus grande
Punition suivent l’exsigence du cas et qu’il en sera decidé.
‘LA FRANCE.’
The above is dated 1758.
In 1779 the parole prisoners at Alresford complained of being constantly
molested and insulted by the inhabitants, and asked to be sent
elsewhere. Later, however, the local gentry and principal people
guarantee a cessation of this, and the prisoners pray to be allowed to
stay. The officer prisoners asked to be allowed to accept invitations at
Winchester, but were refused. In the same year prisoners at Redruth
complained of daily insults at the hands of an uncivilized populace, and
from Chippenham twenty-nine officers signed a complaint about insults
and attacks, and stated that as a result one of them was obliged to keep
his room for eight days.
On the other hand, prisoners under orders to leave Tavistock for another
parole town petition to be allowed to remain there, as the Agent has
been so good to them; and as a sign that even in Kent matters were
changing for the better, the prayer of some parole prisoners at
Tenterden to be sent to Cranbrook on account of the insults by the
people, is counterbalanced by a petition of other prisoners in the same
town who assert that only a few soldiers have insulted them, and asking
that no change be made, as the inhabitants are hospitable and kindly,
and the Agent very just and lenient.
Much quiet, unostentatious kindness was shown towards the prisoners
which has not been recorded, but in the Memoir of William Pearce of
Launceston, in 1810, it is written that he made the parole prisoners in
that town the objects of his special attention; that he gave them
religious instruction, circulated tracts among them in their own
language, and relieved their necessities, with the result that many
reformed and attended his services. One prisoner came back after the
Peace of 1815, lived in the service of the chapel, and was buried in its
grave-yard. _En parenthèse_ the writer adds that the boys of Launceston
got quite into the habit of ejaculating ‘Morbleu!’ from hearing it so
constantly on the lips of the French prisoners.
In the _Life of Hannah More_, written by William Roberts, we read:
‘Some French officers of cultivated minds and polished manners being on
their parole in the neighbourhood of Bristol, were frequent guests at
Mr. More’s house, and always fixed upon Hannah as their interpreter, and
her intercourse with their society is said to have laid the ground of
that free and elegant use of their language for which she was afterwards
distinguished.’