EMPLOYMENTS OF THE CAPTIVES—STRAW PLAIT CONTROVERSY—CONDUCT—ESCAPES
Ye, to your hot and constant task
Heroically true,
Soldiers of Industry! we ask,
“Is there no Peace for you?”
LORD HOUGHTON, _Occasional Poems_.
IT is a relief to turn over the last page of the chapter which
illustrates the darkest side of the prison’s history, and to pass on to
the consideration of what probably was the greatest solace which those in
confinement experienced. This was work. Not the work done daily by the
fatigue parties, but work by which the prisoners could earn something.
By far the largest amount of the earnings was money brought into the
prison from without, of which a portion circulated in the prison, finding
remunerative work for other inmates. Much was spent in the market, and
again left the prison, but a considerable amount accumulated in the hands
of the thrifty, and sent the prisoners back to their own country all the
richer for having been in Norman Cross.
Although remunerative is as a rule more attractive than unremunerative
work, any work done by the prisoners must have been cheering and
elevating to those condemned to the deadly monotony of an idle prison
life. To those gifted with artistic taste, the production of the
thousands of specimens of beautiful and ingenious articles of value must
have been a positive joy.
The work open to the industrious prisoners included that of an ordinary
labourer, of a skilled artisan, and of a man with a trade, and ranged up
to that of a teacher, an actor, an author, or an artist!
A complaint of the French Government was that the British did not employ
their prisoners on works outside the walls, as the British were employed
in France. The answer to this is that the French male labour market was
exhausted by the serious depletion due to conscription of the adult male
population, and that the French Government, in the interests of France,
gladly availed itself of the services of the British, under military
surveillance, for public works, etc. No such necessity pressed on the
British; there was an ample supply of labour, and the introduction of
competing gangs of prisoners of war would have led to trouble, and was in
fact a domestic impossibility. There were occasions when the prisoners
were employed on large constructive works connected with their own
prisons. Dartmoor Chapel was built by the prisoners in 1810–14; the
masons were paid 6_d._ a day, it being understood that the money should
accumulate, and that should any workman escape, the whole of the pay due
to the gang would be forfeited. By this means every prisoner was made a
warder over his fellows. {125}
They were also regularly employed in their prisons as labourers, and
those who knew a trade as tradesmen. From the accounts of Norman Cross
Prison (which are scattered among various bundles, and difficult to find)
has been selected the wage sheet for the midsummer quarter of 1789. The
total is £408 1_s._ 6_d._; of this £13 7_s._ 6_d._ was paid to the Dutch,
and £32 to the French prisoners employed as labourers. Under the head of
tradesmen’s bills for the same quarter are entered, French prisoners £35
3_s._ 4_d._; Dutch prisoners £541 6_s._ 2_d._ These sums represent the
employment of a considerable number of men, as, the recipients being
lodged and fed at the expense of the State, the wage each man received
was very small, much below the normally low wage paid for labour at that
date. The accounts show that the practice of employing and paying the
prisoners was in vogue in the first years of the Depot’s existence, and
that it went on until its last year is shown in the report of Mr. William
Fearnall, the surveyor, {126} who recommends certain repairs, and states
that Captain Hanwell, the Agent, can find thirty-six carpenters, two
pairs of sawyers, and three masons from among the prisoners. Further, as
already stated, the prisoners held several paid posts, such as cooks,
nurses, hospital porters, and the like, within the prison walls.
[Picture: Plate XI.—Work-box made by the French Prisoners of War at
Norman Cross (Peterborough Museum)]
In the sketch of the prison life, allusion has been made to the retail
traders and merchants; there were also craftsmen—men who knew a
trade—tailors, shoemakers, cooks, etc. These carried on a business,
their customers being their fellow prisoners. The regulation made for
the protection of the revenue and in the interests of our own workers, to
the effect that in making slippers and shoes, they might use list, but no
leather, must have applied only to articles made for sale outside. The
employments by which the prisoners earned money from outside and brought
it into the prison have, perhaps, the greatest interest to us. The
greater part of this money was either transmitted for safe keeping to
France or Holland, banked with the agent, or hoarded until the hoped-for
day of release should come.
The industry, neatness of fingers, skill and artistic taste of the
prisoners, enabled them to produce a great variety of ornamental and
useful articles. The materials used in these manufactures were usually
very simple, but it has puzzled writers on the subject to account for the
possession by the prisoners of the dyes with which they stained the
straws used in their brightly coloured and delicately tinted marquetry
decorative work. One writer or imaginative person started the theory
that the colours were all obtained from the tea served out to the
prisoners, and this has been repeated in various literary notices on this
subject, in magazines, newspapers, and other documents. The reader may
be spared the effort of trying to account for the loss of the art of
extracting such colours from such a source, by recognising the fact that
no tea was served out to a prisoner, except to those in the hospital, and
that it would be far cheaper for the prisoners to buy the dyes in the
outside market than to purchase tea—which was at that time a costly
article used only by persons with good incomes—from which to extract
these mythical dyes.
An entry in the diary of Archdeacon Strong, to whose model of the Block
House allusion has already been made, suggests that the work was often
bespoken, and that the dyes and other more expensive materials may have
been paid for beforehand by the purchaser. The entry is: “23rd October
1801—Drove Margaret to ye Barracks. Bought the model of the Block House
and provided the Mahogany. £1 11_s._ 6_d._, sergt. 1_s._, man 1_s._,
soldier 1_s._ 3_d._” The venerable gentleman’s diary contains other
items throwing light on the price received by the prisoners for the fruit
of their labours. From one such entry we learn that the Archdeacon, in
1811, paid two guineas for a marquetry picture of the Minster, now the
property of his grandson, Colonel Strong.
The straw undoubtedly was bought from outside, and there can be no doubt
that what applied to this “raw product” applied to other material and to
tools necessary for the production of the works, by the sale of which we
have Commissioner Serle’s authority for the prevalent opinion that within
a few years of their confinement many of the prisoners had made one
hundred guineas.
The great speciality of the Norman Cross prisoners was straw marquetry
work, in which they greatly excelled, producing beautiful pictures in
straw, and manufacturing and decorating with varied, elaborate, and most
artistic designs, cabinets, work-boxes, desks, tea-caddies,
dressing-boxes, small boxes of various shapes, hand fire-screens,
snuff-boxes, silk holders, etc., etc. It would appear that occasionally
the prisoners, skilled in this work, were applied to, to decorate with
their marquetry, articles such as picture frames, etc. There have
recently been presented to the museum of the Peterborough Natural History
and Antiquarian Society, by a friend, through Mr. C. Dack, the Curator,
fourteen examples of straw marquetry work, among them a case containing a
telescope which was bought at the sale of Captain John Kelly, son of
Major Kelly, the last Brigade-Major at the barracks. This resembles an
ordinary telescope, except that the tube is covered by straw marquetry,
the work of a prisoner, instead of the usual leather casing.
[Picture: Plate XII.—Pair of Fire Screens decorated in Straw Marquetry
(Peterborough Museum)]
[Picture: Plate XIII.—North-west View of Peterborough Cathedral, Executed
in Straw Marquetry (Peterborough Museum)]
The illustrations, which are reproductions of very perfect photographs
taken by Mr. A. C. Taylor of articles in the museum, show more
convincingly than any verbal description can, the beauty of the designs
and the workmanship of the most artistic of these articles, although they
fail to show the colour effects produced by the use of dyed straws.
In all there are in the museum 162 examples of straw work, almost all of
them being marquetry. There is one straw bonnet which was found in the
roof of a house at Cottesmore, twenty-five miles from Norman Cross. How
it is identified as Norman Cross work the author does not know, but if
made at Norman Cross, it was probably carried away surreptitiously by a
smuggler and hidden until a safe opportunity for its sale offered itself.
The manufacture in the prison of hats and bonnets was forbidden.
Returning to the legitimate and more artistic work of the prisoners, it
may be mentioned that the joinery and cabinet-makers’ work of the various
articles made for decoration by the straw workers, most of it, as it is
believed done in the prison, was of the best quality, and has made a
durable base for the straw marquetry with which the experts overlaid
them, in beautiful formal patterns with delicately coloured designs,
human figures, birds, flowers, etc., interspersed. Pictures on panel, in
the same material, are also found in private houses in the neighbourhood,
but the most beautiful are now in the museum. One, a view of the west
front of Peterborough Cathedral, bearing the name De la Porte as the
artist who constructed it, has been already mentioned, and in the course
of the researches made for the purpose of this history, the owner of the
name has been identified with Corporal Jean De la Porte, one of the
French heroes who on the 12th October 1805 fought against the British at
Trafalgar, where Nelson died, but not before he had settled the question
of our nation’s supremacy on the sea. J. De la Porte was taken in
_L’Intrépide_. {129}
Another manufacture carried on very extensively by the prisoners was bone
work, the cooking-houses afforded the material, and in the Peterborough
Museum alone are 256 examples of the work produced by the skill and
industry of the prisoners in their manipulation of the bones of the
animals which were killed for their ration (of these 256 articles, 33
were the gift of Mr. C. Dack’s friend already referred to). With this
material and the simplest tools were produced works, as a rule, more
crude and of less artistic design than the works of the marquetry
artists, but demanding skill, delicacy of touch, and untiring patience on
the part of the artificer, who must in some instances have spent months
and even years over their execution. Such a work was that represented in
the illustration. It appears to represent a stage, on which are placed
various figures.
[Picture: Elaborately Carved Ornamental Design in Bone Work, Representing
a Theatre, with Figures in Carved Bone on the Stage, the Work of the
Norman Cross Prisoners of War. Height 14 inches, base 9 inches square.
Peterborough Museum]
The largest specimen in the museum of this class of work is the model of
a large château, with various mechanically working figures. It was
presented by H. L. C. Brassey, M.P., on the recommendation of Mr. C.
Dack, the curator of the museum, who says that he has evidence of its
authenticity as a work of the Norman Cross prisoners. There are nine
beautiful models of ships, most elaborate models of the guillotine (Plate
X, p. 102), crowded with little carved figures of soldiers, the victim,
the executioner, etc.; watch-stands, domino boxes, many elaborately
carved, a domino and cribbage box combined, containing cards, dice and
teetotum; chessmen, fans, work-boxes, working-models of the
spinning-jenny, and so on, down to tooth-picks, tobacco stoppers, apple
scoops, and such small articles.
The desk in the illustration (Plate XV) is one of the 256 articles made
from bone which are in the Peterborough Museum.
[Picture: Plate XV.—Desk made from the Bones obtained from the Cook-house
by the French Prisoners of War at Norman Cross (Peterborough Museum)]
The group of figures on a platform (Plate XVI, Fig. 1), is one of many
such mechanical toys or ornaments known to the author. This is
beautifully preserved, having been kept in the box in which it was
purchased for many years. When the lower wheel below the platform is
turned, by an arrangement of the threads passing over the wheels, the
various figures move, the lady in the centre turns the winding-wheel, the
child moves forward, the soldier and the lady waltz, the mother tosses
her baby, turning her head to look at it, while the lady on the left
prepares the tea. The owner of this ornament is the grandson of its
purchaser.
Some of the bone articles have parts that have been turned; one of the
minor exhibits is a pair of turned cribbage pegs. This work does not
prove that there was a lathe in the prison. The prisoner who made the
carved cribbage box would easily get the turned pegs finished off
outside.
Another material in which the prisoners worked was horn, but the examples
are few. H. Akin, late Secretary of the Society of Arts, writing on
“Horn and Tortoise-shell,” {131a} says, “Another branch of industry
practised by the prisoners was horn work, and here again the artistic
ingenuity of the French was manifest at Norman Cross. (The solid tips
were made into handles, buttons, ornaments, etc.) Of the long pieces,
after certain processes the principal uses were for combs, the chief
manufactury of which was at Kenilworth, but combs ornamented with open
work were not made in England, on account of the expense, being imported
in great quantities from France.” {131b} The passage quoted shows that
at the date it was written (1840) the Norman Cross bone work was well
known. The specimens in the Museum are very few; they include horn fans,
three of which were a part of the gift of Mr. Dack’s friend.
Of articles made from wood there are but few in the museum. The most
important is a beautifully carved figure of a Roman warrior, 11 inches
high on a bone carved pedestal; others are models of the Block House
(Plate III, p. 22), models of ships, domino and other boxes, and one
wooden block with the name Louis Chartiée (_sic_) carved in relief. This
will be referred to later on. It will be remembered that M. Charretie
(whose name was not always spelt correctly, even in official documents)
was the commissary for the French prisoners in England in the early days
of Norman Cross.
[Picture: Plate XVI, Fig. 1.—Mechanical Bone Work Group of Moving Figures
on Platform and Pedestal. Figs. 2 and 3.—Groups of Flowers in Paper Work
(Peterborough Museum)]
One other material in which the French prisoners worked was paper. It
was used to make artificial flowers, and there are two examples in the
museum (Plate XVI, Fig. 2). One, a group representing roses, sweet peas,
passion flowers, a most valuable specimen, was among the gifts of Mr. C.
Dack’s friend; the other (Plate XVI, Fig. 3) was presented by the late
Dr. L. Cane of Peterborough, and has an authentic history. Another form
in which paper was used was its application in strips, one eighth of an
inch wide, of stiff, gold-edged or coloured paper, to a surface prepared
with flanges, projecting to the exact width of the strip; the latter was
wound on its cut edge in a pattern of graceful curves, the cut edge being
glued to the wood or other material forming the base and the gilt edge
being left on the surface. In order to complete the pattern, the
interstices left between the convolutions were at various parts of the
design filled with solidly rolled strips of coloured paper, giving the
appearance of cloisonnée work; at other parts a different device was
adopted to give variety, a plate of tinfoil, cut to the shape of a leaf
or other pattern, was fixed on the foundation before the coils of paper
were glued to it, the reflection giving the appearance of
mother-of-pearl. {133a} A pair of wine slides and a box are the only
specimens of the work in the museum, but three other examples, all of
them tea-caddies, are known to the writer. {133b}
The collection in the Peterborough Museum embraces 450 articles
manufactured by the prisoners of war, but possibly not all at Norman
Cross. It is probably the largest and finest collection in the world,
although the model of the Norman Cross Depot in the Musée de l’Armée,
Hôtel des Invalides, Paris, excels, both in its size and in the
multiplicity of its detail, any one object in the Peterborough Museum. A
photograph of this beautiful model (Plate XX, p. 251) is reproduced in
the final chapter of this work, where it naturally finds a place, as it
represents the departure of the first detachment of the freed prisoners
at the final closing of the Depot. The size of the model will be
appreciated from the measurements of each of the caserns, which are as
follows: length 169 millimetres, approximately 7 inches; width 70
millimetres, approximately 3 inches; height, from ground to eave, 9
centimetres, approximately 4½ inches.
The workers in straw did not confine their attention to these works of
art, they also manufactured straw hats and bonnets, although this
handicraft was forbidden from the earliest years of the prison’s
existence. The manufacture of straw plait was not forbidden until a
later date. There was good reason for these interdicts. This branch of
trade was a staple industry of the neighbouring counties of Bedford and
Hertford, and to a less extent of Huntingdonshire and Northamptonshire,
and the prisoners who were fed by the State were competing on
advantageous terms with those who had to contribute to their maintenance,
but, worse than this, in the eyes of the Government, they were actually
defrauding the Revenue. As the war continued year after year, fresh
articles had to be taxed to find the funds for carrying it on. In his
Budget speech on 5th April 1802, the Chancellor of the Exchequer alluded
to the Schedule of 5,000 articles liable to duty. {134a} Among these
were straw hats and bonnets. {134b}
Various accounts have been given of the part which was taken by the
outside accomplices of the prisoners, some speaking of their smuggling
the plait in, and others of their smuggling it out. That they did
smuggle in “the Straw Manufactured for the purpose of being made into
Hats, Bonnets, etc., by which the Revenue of our country is injured, and
the poor who exist by that branch of trade would be turned out of
employ,” is proved by Sir Rupert George’s letter, {134c} printed in a
report to the House of Commons. In this letter the Commissioner of the
Transport Office goes on to say, “I must observe that this, the
manufactured straw plait is the only article which the prisoners are
prevented from manufacturing.” This letter is dated 19th March 1808; its
discovery destroys an illusion which the inscription publicly displayed
in the Town of Luton, beneath Mr. Arthur Cooke’s beautiful picture, would
establish, if its historical accuracy were not disproved.
The picture hangs in the Free Library of Luton, with the following
inscription attached:
“Plait Merchants trading with the French Prisoners of War at Yaxley
1806–1815. Painted by A. C. Cooke. Presented to the Town of Luton
by J. C. Kershaw, Esq.”
In those years, Sir Rupert George’s letter, which only came to light in
1909, after the picture was painted, proves (without further evidence)
that the trade was illicit, that no such open dealing could have taken
place at that time, that it was an underground trade, carried on by the
help of middlemen and outside accomplices. {135} The gesticulating
Frenchman and the keen, critical merchant at that time never met; between
the one in the prison and the other miles away came the old woman, to be
mentioned directly, and others like her. Soldiers, the guards of the
mail coaches, innkeepers, hostlers, and tradesmen in Stilton and
elsewhere were not above purchasing the smuggled goods and disposing of
them to the Luton merchants.
[Picture: Plate XVII.—Plait Merchants trading with the French Prisoners
of War at Norman Cross, Hunts. Photogravure of painting by A. C. Cooke,
Esq., and reproduced here by the kind permission of the artist]
The existence of Macgregor’s plan of the Depot, and various documents
examined in the Record Office, also show that the date affixed to the
picture makes it an historical anachronism, the market in the years named
being held _outside_ the brick wall surrounding the prison, out of sight
of any stockade fencing, and with permanent stalls of brick and slate
built against the wall in the eastern embrasure. In the earlier days of
the Depot’s existence, although the sale of straw hats and bonnets was
forbidden, such a scene as that depicted might possibly have been
witnessed. Mr. Cooke will doubtless insist on the prompt alteration of
the dates in the inscription describing the picture.
The artist has kindly permitted the writer to introduce here a
photogravure of this work of art. The typical figures alive on the
canvas each telling its own tale, the beautiful grouping, and the
background in which they are placed, present to the eye of the reader
what this work strives to convey to his mind in words. An artist’s
licence doubtless sanctions the introduction of a tree, the light
open-paled fence, instead of the stockade posts and other minor details
which conflict with the precise ideas arrived at by the writer, who feels
constrained to notice these little inaccuracies.
Included in the Public Revenue Accounts for 1798, {136} among the returns
of produce are specified:
Chip hats £1,209 17 10½
Straw hats 592 0 3½
On the 18th March 1806 the House of Commons resolved to go into committee
to consider the question of charging a duty on imported straw plait.
After formal stages, it was resolved, 26th June, to levy a duty of 7_s._
per lb. avoirdupois of plaiting for hats or bonnets, £1 16_s._ on every
dozen hats or bonnets not exceeding 22 inches in diameter, £3 12_s._ on
every dozen exceeding 22 inches in diameter. The Act received the royal
assent on the 10th July. After this date the sale of straw plait was
interdicted as had previously been the sale of hats, the hats and the
plait made at Norman Cross being alike regarded as foreign productions
and liable to tax.
In official documents constant reference is made to this traffic in the
plait as illegal and defrauding the Revenue.
George Borrow’s eloquent description of “the straw plait hunts” (poor
little ten-year-old George Borrow—his sympathetic soul went out to the
captives!) has helped to throw the glamour of romance over the irregular
proceedings of the Frenchmen, whom we were maintaining in our prisons,
and whom we would gladly have restored to their own country if only we
could be met on fair terms.
Persons in the neighbourhood, soldiers from the barracks, and others were
accessories in the illicit trade in straw plait. They would conceal it
about their persons, wrap it round their bodies, etc. They assisted in
two ways, they helped to get the straw into the prison and to carry the
manufactured article out. {137}
Although the interdict on the traffic was issued even before the articles
were taxed, in the interests of the trade and of the workers in the
district, so profitable was the illicit traffic to those who took part in
it, that the fact that they were interfering with the living of their own
countrymen and women had no deterrent effect, and such was the influence
of the merchants and the various persons in the neighbourhood engaged in
the trade that it was difficult to get convictions. To get the straw
ready cut into proper lengths into the hands of the prisoners was
doubtless more easy than to get a sack of straw thrown over the prison
wall, carried across the open spaces up to the inner stockade fence, and
again thrown over them into the court of the caserns. This proceeding
must have needed several soldier accomplices, some giving active
assistance and others closing their eyes to what was going on. These
men, when detected, had severe punishment, receiving as many as 500
lashes. Three civilians tried at Huntingdon for being engaged in the
traffic in 1811 were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment, one for
twelve and the two others for six months.
That the trade in straw plait was an extensive one, and that the
prisoners effected an improvement both in the character of the plait and
the method of producing it, are almost universally accepted facts. In
Davis’ _History of Luton_, pp. 152–3, is a small section which, although
written under the mistaken conception that the French prisoners were at
Norman Cross only about eight years—1806–14—and that the merchants during
that period went to the barracks to purchase the plait, is probably
correct in saying that the trade is indebted to these prisoners for the
invention of the simple machine for splitting the straw from which such
great and beautiful varieties of plait are made. There are two
descriptions of machines called splitters.
The writer of an article in _Chambers’ Journal_, {138} after instancing
industries introduced at various places where they were confined by the
prisoners of war, such as the knitting worsted gloves at Chesterfield,
goes on to say:
“At Norman Cross they revolutionised the straw plaiting trade. Up to
their time the straw was plaited whole and called ‘Dunstable,’ but it
was a case of necessity being the mother of invention. Their supply
not being equal to the demand, one of them invented the ‘splitter.’
This consists of a small wheel, inserted in a mahogany frame, and
furnished in the centre with small sharp divisions like spokes. From
the axle a small spike protrudes, on which a straw pipe is placed and
pushed through, the cutters or spokes dividing it into as many strips
as required. By this contrivance the plait could be made much finer,
the strips could be used alternately with the outside and inside, or
even the inside alone, which is white, and is known in the trade as
‘rice’ straw.”
For a full description of this little implement called the splitter, the
reader is referred to the article, “Straw Plaiting and French Prisoners,”
by Maberly Phillips, F.S.A., _The Connoisseur_, vol. xxvii., No. 105.
There are in the Peterborough Museum three examples of different
varieties of straw splitters. The neat splitting of the straw was
possibly not an invention of the prisoners, although it may have come
from France. If it were, it is likely that it was not originally
contrived for the manufacture of straw plait, but for the straw used in
the marquetry, for which purpose it had to be most carefully prepared,
and much of it dyed, with material bought in the market.
From the first opening of the prison, straw work was carried on, although
in going through the copy in the Record Office of the register of deaths
of those who died in the prison, the late Mr. W. B. Sands, Secretary to
the association “L’entente cordiale,” and Mrs. Sands, the present acting
Secretary, found that very few of the prisoners, whose names and native
places were there entered, came from districts in France where this
industry was prevalent. So long as the work was confined to ornamental
articles, which paid no import duty, it was allowed, but as early as June
1798 an order was issued prohibiting the introduction of any more straw
for the manufacture of hats, and ten years later, in June 1808, there is
a record that the general market was put under severe restrictions owing
to the illicit traffic in straw. This restriction evidently pressed
harshly upon the marquetry workers, for we find, on the 11th November
1808, a letter from the Admiralty Board, saying that “If the manufacture
of _Plait_ could be effectually prevented, it is not our wish to prohibit
the Prisoners from making baskets, boxes, or such like articles of straw.
The Prisoners might purchase wool and make frocks, for their own use; if
any should be sold, a stop was to be put to the manufacture.”
On the 20th March 1809 a shop was opened for each building, with two
prisoners as salesmen, all articles being marked with the price and the
owner’s name. The salesmen were to be searched going and returning, and
if any prohibited article were found, the shops were to be closed. In
July of the same year, notwithstanding the precautions, the illicit
traffic was so rampant that stringent orders were issued to entirely
close one quadrangle for a month. This was in consequence of the
Admiralty having intercepted a letter enclosing a £10 bill, the proceeds
of a sale at Thame of illicit articles made by the prisoners at Norman
Cross.
The sympathies of the outside public appear to have been with those who
made the plait and those who sold it contrary to the law, as was usually
the case in the districts on the coast where smugglers carried on their
trade. The number of those actually engaged in the traffic and making
profit out of it was no doubt very considerable. A trial which took
place at Huntingdon in 1811 shows the number of hands through which a
packet of plait went before it reached the Luton bonnet makers. Four
Stilton men, one the ostler at the Bell Inn, who had acted as
intermediaries between the Luton merchants and the prisoners, had bribed
the soldier who came in contact with the prisoners to take packets of
straw cut to the proper length into the prison, and to bring the
manufactured plait out; they were all four convicted and punished.
Whether the soldier, who was acting in defiance of a special order by the
Duke of York, escaped punishment is not known; they were paid by the
Stilton men a shilling for getting the straw in and another for getting
the plait out. The merchants, no doubt, took care to escape the hands of
the law.
[Picture: Plate XVIII.—The Bell Inn, Stilton. From a photograph by Mr.
A. C. Taylor]
In _The Stamford Mercury_ of 12th February 1812 are related the
particulars of an outrage on Sergeant Ives of the West Essex Militia at
that time stationed at the Depot. He was stopped between Stilton and
Norman Cross by a number of men, knocked down and robbed of his watch and
money, his jaws were wrenched open and a piece of his tongue cut off. It
was said that the sergeant had been active in stopping the plait trade
and that this led to the outrage. Another possible explanation of this
outrage is suggested in a later chapter on the health of the prisoners.
The Bishop of Moulins, of whom more shortly, was living at Stilton, and
although he has been raised by tradition to a very exalted position of
righteousness, he got into trouble by allowing his servant to become an
outside agent for those engaged in this illicit traffic. The good Bishop
applied to the Government for another young prisoner to take the place of
Jean Baptiste David, and, his request being refused, he pressed into his
service the intercession of Lord Fitzwilliam, who had already befriended
him in other ways. The letter from Mr. Commissioner George, to the
Secretary to the First Lord of the Admiralty, throws light not only on
the particular case of the Bishop, but on this question of the straw
plait manufacture in general, and it is therefore transcribed at length
in the text.
“TRANSPORT OFFICE,
“19_th March_ 1808.
“DEAR SIR,
“In answer to what is stated in Lord Fitzwilliam’s letter to Lord
Mulgrave, I request you will inform His Lordship that the Bishop of
Moulins was introduced to me by the Bishop of Montpellier, and at his
request I prevailed on my colleagues to release a Prisoner of War
from Norman Cross Prison, to attend upon him; this I am sorry to
acknowledge was irregular and unauthorised, but I was actuated by
motives of humanity as the Bishop complained that his finances were
so limited, that he could not afford to keep any servant of a
different description. This should have influenced the Bishop to
keep his servant from carrying on any improper traffic with the
Prisoners; on the contrary he became the instrument of introducing
straw manufactured to the prisoners, for the purpose of being made
into hats, bonnets, etc., by which the Revenue of our country is
injured, and the poor who exist by that branch of trade would be
turned out of employment, as the Prisoners who are fed, clothed, and
lodged at the public expense would be able to undersell them. I must
observe that this is the only article which the Prisoners are
prevented from manufacturing. When the Bishop’s servant had
established himself in their trade, the Bishop wrote to me that he
had found means of getting his livelihood and desired he might remain
at large, and that another prisoner might be released to serve him,
neither of which the Board thought proper to comply with, for the
foregoing reasons, upon which the Bishop of Moulins complained to the
Admiralty, who directed us to give such answer as the case called
for. I have only to add that the Bishop experienced greater
indulgence from us than any other French Ecclesiastic ever did, to
which, in my opinion, he has not made an adequate return, nor felt
himself, as he ought to have done, answerable for the conduct of his
servant, and if a strict discipline is not maintained in the prisons,
as the prisoners are daily increasing the consequences may be
incalculable,
“I am, Dear Sir,
“Very faithfully yours,
“RUPERT GEORGE.
“Captain Morson.”
It was George Borrow who, in the third chapter of _Lavengro_, published
in 1851, reintroduced the Norman Cross Depot to the British public. A
generation had passed away since the buildings were rased to the ground,
and of the living inhabitants of these islands, only a very few knew that
such a place had ever existed.
In the striking passage, which has been quoted in full in a former
chapter, page 33, Borrow conveyed the impression that “England, in
general so kind and bountiful,” was guilty of disgraceful conduct in her
treatment of the French prisoners, and that the suppression of the
illicit straw-plait trade was associated with ruthless inroads into the
prison accompanied by acts of callous cruelty.
George Borrow’s father, Thomas Borrow, a Lieutenant in the West Norfolk
Militia, was quartered at Norman Cross from July 1811 to April 1813. His
little son George, born in 1803, spent his ninth and tenth years in the
barracks, and in those years he received the impressions which led him to
publish this passage forty years later.
By a curious coincidence the agent, who, during the two years in which
the child was making his personal observations, practically ruled the
Depot, and carried out the necessary steps to suppress the traffic in
straw plait, had his record cut in stone at the actual time when the
events recorded in _Lavengro_ took place. On the wall of St. Peter’s
Church, Yaxley, is a marble tablet with this legend:
“Inscribed at the desire and the sole expense of the French Prisoners
of War at Norman Cross to the memory of Captain John Draper, who for
the last eighteen months of his life was Agent to the Depot, in
testimony of their esteem and gratitude for his humane attention to
their comfort during that too short period, he died Feb. 23, 1813,
aged 53 years.”
Was ever a calumny more absolutely disproved than is this aspersion of
George Borrow’s upon the fair fame of his country, by the testimony of
the very persons whom he said she had maltreated and whose evidence, cut
in stone at their desire and sole expense at the very time the boy was in
the barracks, appeals to us from that marble slab?
This manufacture of straw plait went on not only at Norman Cross, but in
the other prisons, the manufacturers being no doubt assisted by all their
comrades in captivity to elude the efforts of the authorities to stop the
traffic. The following amusing incident, narrated in Penny’s _Traditions
of Perth_, is retold by Mr. William Sievwright: {144}
“As much straw plait as made a bonnet was sold for four shillings,
and being exceedingly neat it was much enquired after. In this trade
many a one got a bite, for the straw was all made up in parcels, and
smuggled into the pockets of purchasers for fear of detection. The
following is an instance of the manner in which the prisoners
practised their deceptions. An unsuspecting man having been induced
by his wife to purchase a quantity of straw plait for a bonnet, he
attended the market, and soon found a merchant; he paid the money,
but lest he should be observed, he turned about his back to the
seller and got the thing slipped into his hand, and then into his
pocket. Away he went with his parcel, well pleased that he had
escaped detection. On his way he thought he would examine his
purchase, when, to his astonishment, and no doubt his deep
mortification, he found instead of straw plait, a bundle of shavings
very neatly tied up. The man instantly returned and charged the
prisoners with the deception and insisted on getting back his money,
but the man could not be seen from where the purchase was made.
Whilst hanging on to catch a glimpse of him, he was told that if he
did not get away he would be informed on and tried for buying the
article. Seeing that there was no chance of getting amends, he was
retiring, when one came forward and said he would find the man, and
make him take back the shavings, and get the money. Pretending deep
commiseration, the prisoner said he had no change, but if he would
give him sixteen shillings, he would give him a pound note and take
his chance of the man. The unfortunate ‘shavings’ dupe was simple
enough to give the money and take the note, thinking himself well off
to get quit of his purchase, but to his supreme chagrin he found the
note to be a well-executed forgery on the Perth Bank.”
After this story, what further need is there to seek evidence of the
cleverness, the versatility, the neat-handedness, and the dexterity of
the French prisoners!
In all the prisons, forgery of bank-notes was a business to which the
captives applied their skill, and the fate of two who practised this art
at Norman Cross has already been alluded to. The straw plait industry,
which probably originated at Norman Cross, would be passed on with the
transferred prisoners to Perth and other prisons. Great embarrassment
having arisen from the increase of French prisoners, who numbered in 1811
50,000 (Norman Cross being greatly overcrowded with nearly 7,000), the
Depot at Perth was built, and in 1812 the first prisoners were admitted.
As another instance of the frivolous character of the complaints made by
the French Government as to our treatment of the prisoners, it may here
be mentioned that the detention of sailors in such a situation was made
the subject of loud and frequent complaint by the French Emperor, who
said in the _Moniteur_ that “by a refinement of cruelty the English
Government sends the French soldiers on board the hulks, and the sailors
into prisons in the interior of Scotland.” Alison alludes to this in his
history, {146a} and in a footnote he adds:
“The great Depot for French Prisoners in Scotland, which Napoleon
held out as so deplorable a place of detention, was a noble edifice
erected at a cost of nearly £100,000 in a beautiful and salubrious
situation near Perth on the Tay, which was in 1839 converted into a
great central jail for criminals. It contained 7,000 prisoners, and
so healthy was the situation, the lodging, and the fare, that the
mortality, only five or six annually, was less than the average for
healthy adults in Great Britain.” {146b}
Among the prisoners at Norman Cross were men who, before their enrolment
in the French or Dutch army or navy, were workers, skilled in branches of
industry unknown in England, and there is a record that, on the 5th April
1808, the agent was instructed to send a French prisoner, Louis Félix
Paris, to London, as he was an expert in the “ormolu business.” To meet
the expense, two £1 Bank of England notes were sent.
The application by the French prisoners at Norman Cross of their skill to
the felonious forging of bank-notes has already been alluded to. So
cleverly did they manage this, that it is said, that the only way in
which the forgery could be detected was by wetting the notes and
observing the different behaviour of the ink used by them and that used
by the printers of genuine notes.
A writer in _All the Year Round_ (1892, pp. 41–3) remarks that “when the
£1 note was introduced in the last decade of the eighteenth century,
forgery from the first was the great trouble, and the hasty manner in
which the notes were engraved and issued greatly facilitated the
operations of the forger.” In _The Bankers’ Magazine_, vol. lxvii., pp.
390–410, {147} is an article by J. Macbeth Forbes, “French Prisoners of
War and Bank Note Forging,” in which is an illustration of a partially
executed forgery of a Guinea Note of the Bank of Scotland. Another
illustration is that of the words “BANK OF SCOTLAND” carved on a bone by
the prisoners in Edinburgh, the letters measuring ⅞ inch, but so rough
and irregular are these, that, even if they were successfully reproduced,
they could hardly have deceived a simpleton, much less a Pawky Scot.
This block might have been an early effort to make a tool for imitating
the water-mark; the type is not reversed, so it cannot have been a stamp
for printing. It is possible, however, that bone was the material used
for type by the Norman Cross forgers. The deft fingers which executed
many of their legitimate works of art were sufficiently skilled to carve
an imitation of a £1 note.
The resemblance of the oak block with the name “Louis Chartie” carved on
it to that referred to in _The Bankers’ Magazine_, suggests the
possibility of its having been a tool for one step in the process of
forging M. Charretie’s name.
The fact that the prisoners were able to have in their possession, and to
use a plant and tools necessary for such a trade as forging, illustrates
the absence of any but a very casual supervision of the thousands of
prisoners concentrated in the four courts of the prison.
One would gladly pass over another illegal traffic which was with
difficulty suppressed. To the disgrace of those British purchasers whose
depraved tastes made it worth the while of the prisoners to expend their
ingenuity on the production of obscene pictures and carvings, it must be
mentioned that an illicit, secret trade in such articles was carried on
at Norman Cross. At one time in the year 1808 the trade in such goods,
clandestinely made and sold, reached such a pitch that respectable
inhabitants of the neighbourhood complained to the Transport
Commissioners, and on the 18th December an order was issued totally
closing the market. It was a severe punishment, as it at once stopped
the supply of all the little necessaries, luxuries, and comforts the
prisoners could obtain—the vegetables, sugar, condiments, tobacco, beer,
clothing, which they were in the habit of purchasing—and it also stopped
the sale of their legitimate manufactures. The offence merited such a
punishment, and the practice had to be stopped.
The order pointed out that the innocent had to suffer with the guilty,
“If they connive at such scandalous proceedings they themselves can no
longer be considered free from blame, but if they give the names of those
who make or sell the toys and drawings the market will again be opened.”
Prisoners’ letters were intercepted, and a Corporal Hayes of the garrison
and a prisoner known as Black Jimmy were found to be concerned in the
traffic. Many articles were seized, and Black Jimmy and others were sent
to the hulks at Chatham—such scum were among the men to whom Buonaparte
appealed on the eve of Waterloo to tell their comrades how they had
suffered in the British hulks.
In the course of the investigations undertaken with a view to the
suppression of this vicious manufacture, it was found that those outside
the prison who shared in the profits of the smuggling trade in straw
plait, became sufficiently demoralised to assist the makers of these
obscene articles in the disposal of their goods, sharing with them the
profits of the business. It was probably in the sacks of straw, smuggled
in by the accomplices of the prisoners, that the weapons discovered in
the prison were introduced.
Before leaving the subject of the employment of the prisoners, we must
again remind our readers that the inmates performed the fatigue duties of
their prisons, and that there were other distractions besides, which we
have attempted to show in the imaginary views of the life of the
quadrangles given in the last chapter.
As to the conduct of the captives, although it has been necessary in the
interests of truth to show the seamy side of the prison life, it must in
fairness be said that their general conduct was good.
Deeds of violence did occur at times, as was only natural in a community
circumstanced and constituted as was this crowd of prisoners of war; such
deeds were, however, apparently rare. Some instances with a fatal
termination are culled from entries in the register of deaths. “A
seaman, aged twenty-three, killed from a blow in Prison by the following
Black Man”—the next entry being one of a prisoner born in Dominique—“who
hung himself in the Black Hole”; this man, “born in Dominique,” being
undoubtedly the Black Man of the previous entry. “A soldier, a French
prisoner, killed by one Jean François Pors in self-defence as the verdict
at Coroner’s inquest.” A sailor, captured at Trafalgar, “shot by a
sergeant of the West Essex Militia, verdict by Coroner’s Inquest, Chance
Medley.” As to this entry, is it not probable that this sergeant of the
West Essex Militia was the victim of the outrage reported in _The
Stamford Mercury_, 12th February 1812, and that the chance medley may
have been a struggle over a bundle of straw plait. In another entry
death is occasioned by a stab from one of the prisoners accidentally;
this might well have been a death in a duel, the witnesses of the duel,
to exculpate the man who gave the fatal wound, giving evidence which
satisfied the authorities that the stab was accidental.
Duels were not infrequent, the weapons usually extemporised from knives
which were fastened to sticks, or swords made out of sharpened hoop-iron
or other similar material; and although there is no definite entry of a
death as occurring in a duel, it is more than probable that the above
entry as to the soldier killed by one Jean François Pors in self-defence
is a euphemistic way of expressing that he was killed in a duel, and that
this was the usual form of verdict on the victim of a fatal duel. The
entries in the registers and in the certificates cannot be accepted as
evidence disproving the statements of those who say that such deaths
occurred, as there is good reason to believe that neither the registers
nor the certificates were at certain periods of the war kept with
sufficient accuracy to render them as valuable sources of information as
they should have been. And in the event of a violent death,
necessitating an inquest, at which the jury pronounces and the coroner
records the cause of death, it was not improbable that the prison
surgeon’s certificate, confirmed by the signature of the agent, would be
missing from the records. Mention has already been made of the
imperfection and hopeless incompleteness of the registers in the Record
Office.
As might have been expected, there were many suicides some of them while
insane, and other violent deaths are recorded which do not imply
misconduct of any kind. Several prisoners were shot in attempts to
escape. Inquests were held in all such cases, but the usual verdict was
“Justifiable homicide,” or “No criminality,” and the case went no further
than the coroner’s court. In some instances the sentries were brought
before a civil tribunal, this probably depending on whether the death
took place within the precincts of the prison or outside.
Inquests were held in the following cases. One night in 1812, a prisoner
carrying a bucket asked leave to pass a sentry on guard at one of the
inner gates (that of the Court in front of the casern, in which the
prisoners were confined after sunset), saying that he wanted to get some
water. He apparently passed through, and threw the contents of the
bucket, which was actually _full_ of water at the time, into the face of
the sentry, who dropped his firelock; the prisoner picked it up, and
unscrewed and ran off with the bayonet. The sentry, taking up the
firelock, fired and severely wounded the prisoner, who for some reason or
other was taken not to the prison hospital, but to the Huntingdon
Infirmary, where he died. The sentry was tried for manslaughter and
acquitted.
At the Hunts Lent Assizes 1812, Timothy Wood, aged thirty-three, was
tried for shooting a French prisoner of war at Norman Cross, the Grand
Jury finding no true bill. The victim was probably the man whose
certificate, one among a bundle of fifty-six, registers as the cause of
death, “Wound, Manslaughter, verdict by Coroner’s inquest.” The prisoner
may actually have died outside the Depot, for the date corresponds with
the probable date when the mother of the donor to the Peterborough Museum
of the wine slides with paper decoration saw the prisoner shot as he was
scaling the boundary wall. He probably dropped on the outside.
Among the causes of accidental death are several entries, “Fall from
hammock”; these cases, there is too much reason to fear, were those of
the poor debilitated, starving prisoners—victims, according to the
French, of British cruelty, according to the British, of their own vice.
Commissioner Serle was sent down to ascertain what foundation there was
for the French complaints, and he reports as follows:
“I have been informed by some who are most qualified to know, that
the French prisons have never had so few sick as at the present time.
Some, indeed, who had sported away their allowance in gambling, to
prevent which the agents have taken every precaution in their power,
are in fact destitute enough, and so they might have been, if their
ration had been ten times as great.” (Commissioner Serle, 25th July
1800.)
These instances will throw as much light on this side of the prison life
as if they were multiplied indefinitely.
Escapes and attempts to escape occurred, as might be expected, during the
whole eighteen years of the occupation of the prison. From the records,
chiefly paragraphs in local papers, actual escapes or mere attempts to
escape do not appear to have been as numerous as in other prisons, which
were nearer the coast. The stockade fencing and the wooden buildings
(even the central fort, the Block House, was only wood) gave little idea
of strength, and the fence round one of the quadrangles, when on one
occasion put to the test, did not withstand a united effort of the
prisoners who effected a breach, but the strong military force, the
judicious disposition of the guards, and the numerous sentries must have
impressed the prisoners with the hopelessness, when once within those
lines, of attempting to penetrate through to the fields beyond, where
again they had to encounter the inhabitants, who, for the sake of the
reward offered, would endeavour to recapture them. This reward, paid to
their captors, was actually paid by themselves, for it will be remembered
that among the regulations posted in the prison, was one to the effect,
that any prisoner who shall be taken attempting to escape, shall have his
ration reduced, until the amount saved by such reduction shall have made
good any expense incurred in his recapture.
In 1804, and again in 1807, after periods of increasing insubordination
among the prisoners, combined attempts to escape were made. On the
earlier date there were not more than some 3,000 prisoners at the Depot,
and on one day in October the whole of these were in a state of tumult.
The riot began in the morning, and by noon the disorder had reached such
a pitch that the Brigade-Major thought it advisable to send to
Peterborough for assistance, specifying the need of cavalry to scour the
country in case a body of prisoners broke out. A troop of the yeomanry,
who had been having a field day, had not been dismissed, and instantly
galloped to Norman Cross, to be followed later by the rest of the
yeomanry and the volunteer infantry. During the night a portion of the
wooden enclosure was broken down, and nine prisoners escaped; when
daylight broke, it was discovered that the prisoners had excavated a
tunnel thirty-four feet towards the North Road, under the ditch, but not
quite far enough to answer their purpose. Four of those who escaped got
clear off, five were recaptured.
The engineering work for the construction of the tunnel must have taken a
long time; the soil is clay, but how such material, carried out in
pocketfuls and scattered about over the airing-court, not much more than
two acres in extent, can have escaped the eye of the turnkeys, the
doctors, and other officials, will ever remain a mystery. If the word
“_pré_,” used by Foulley in his description of each court, may be
literally translated as “meadow,” implying that, the airing-courts,
except where they were paved for a space immediately within the boundary
fence, were covered with grass, it is quite conceivable that the
scattering of the soil, skilfully carried out, would scarcely be
noticeable.
The other attempt in 1807 occurred on 25th September, when 500 of the
prisoners, between ten and eleven at night, rushed simultaneously against
the interior paling of the prison and levelled one angle of it to the
ground. From forty to fifty were severely wounded by the bayonet before
they were driven back; happily firearms were not used. It was after this
incident, showing the feebleness of the interior paling, that the brick
wall was erected in place of the outer wooden fence.
A letter written in 1798, by the agent, Mr. Perrot, to the Transport
Officer, Captain Woodriff, illustrates some of the difficulties
encountered in this large and understaffed prison by the agent and others
holding responsible posts. A rumour having reached Mr. Perrot’s ears
that on a certain day an attempt was to be made by seven prisoners to
escape from the south-eastern quadrangle, he had the usual count made
that night, and special counts twice on the following day, but the
irregularities in the response to the roll-call rendered it futile for
detecting any deficiency in the numbers. To overcome the difficulty, Mr.
Perrot at 5 a.m. took all his clerks, a turnkey, and a file of soldiers
into that quadrangle, and had a separate muster of those confined within
the separate court of each of the four caserns; he thus discovered six
prisoners had escaped from the officers’ prison. How they escaped was
not discovered. In one fence a pale had been removed, and probably
bribery had overcome the other obstacles. Any soldier or other person
about the prison who could be convicted of receiving a bribe or even
treating with a prisoner on the subject of an escape was severely
punished, soldiers having received 500 lashes for the offence.
How necessary it was for the agent and the garrison to be at all hours
prepared for such attempts is shown by the fact that in December 1808,
when there were 6,000 prisoners at the Depot, a search brought to light
no fewer than 700 daggers of various forms and workmanship. These had
been introduced from outside, as they were evidently not of prison
manufacture.
On 26th October 1805, seven prisoners, taking advantage of the dark and
stormy night, escaped by cutting a large hole in their wooden prison.
After escaping through this opening, the prisoners would still have to
encounter the stockade fence of the quadrangle, the cordon of sentries
without it, the outer prison wall (at that time also a wooden fence), the
ditch, and another cordon of sentries beyond them. It must almost of
necessity be assumed that these obstacles were overcome by the assistance
of others, individual sentries had probably been bribed to connive at the
escape, and the prisoners might have had a friend outside to assist them,
possibly a tender-hearted Huntingdonshire damsel, whom they had met in
the market and with whom they were on terms, which enabled them to speak
on more serious questions than the sale and purchase of her wares.
About 8 o’clock on the Sunday night a sergeant and corporal of the Durham
Division, out on leave from the Depot, encountered the escaped prisoners
near Stamford, recaptured two, marched to the inn and placed them in
security. The prisoners were found to be a French naval captain and a
midshipman. These officers would normally have been on parole; they were
probably in prison for having broken their parole, which was a crime
punished severely. Two more were captured near the neighbouring village
of Ryhal, having been concealed in Uffington thicket for twenty-four
hours without food.
The following narrative of an escape from Pembroke Prison illustrates the
application of the maxim, “Cherchez la femme,” to these cases of escape:
“Five hundred prisoners {156} were confined in a building on Golden
Hill, near Pembroke, and, as was the custom, they were allowed to eke
out the very meagre allowance voted for their subsistence by the sale
of toys, which they carved out of wood and bone. Two Pembroke lasses
were employed in bringing the odds and ends requisite for this work,
and in carrying away refuse from the prison. These girls not having
the law of nations or the high policy of Europe before their eyes,
dared to fall in love with two of the Frenchmen, and formed a
desperate resolve not only to rescue their lovers, but the whole of
the prisoners in the same ward, 100 in number. It was impossible to
smuggle any tools into the prison, but a shin of horse beef seemed
harmless even in the eyes of a Pembroke Cerberus. With the bone
extracted from this delicacy the Frenchmen undermined the walls, the
faithful girls carrying off the soil in their refuse buckets. When
the subway was complete, the lasses watched until some vessel should
arrive. At length a sloop came in loaded with a consignment of culm
for Stackpole. That night the liberated men made their way down to
the water, seized the sloop, and bound the crew hand and foot, but
unfortunately the vessel was high and dry, and it was found
impossible to get her off. Alongside was a small yacht belonging to
Lord Cawdor which they managed to launch. This would not take them
all; but the two women and twenty-five men got on board, taking with
them the compass, water casks, and provisions from the sloop. In the
morning there was a great hue and cry. Dr. Mansell, a leading man in
Pembroke, posted handbills over the whole county, offering 500
guineas for the recovery of these two traitorous women, alive or
dead. In a few days the stern of the yacht and other wreckage being
picked up, the patriotic party were satisfied that the vengeance of
Heaven had overtaken the traitors. They were, however, mistaken, for
the Frenchmen captured a sloop laden with corn, and, abandoning the
yacht, compelled the crew to carry them to France. When they were
safe, it is pleasant to read that the commissary and engineer married
the girls. During the short peace, the engineer and his wife
returned to Pembroke and told their story; they then went to Merthyr
and obtained employment in the mines, but on the renewal of
hostilities went back to France, where it is to be hoped they lived
very happily ever afterwards.” {157a}
What happened in Pembroke probably happened in Hunts, and it is a simple
sum in proportion.
If 500 prisoners won the sympathy of two Welsh lasses, of how many
Huntingdon girls did 5,000 prisoners at Norman Cross win the sympathy?
Seven prisoners got away in April 1801. Three privateer officers were
retaken at Boston, when they had already reached a port; three others
stole a boat at Freiston, and were taken, off the Norfolk coast, by a
Revenue cutter—one of them had a chart of the Lincolnshire coast in his
hat. {157b}
Maps of England showing the best lines of escape were said to be made in
the prison and sold at twenty francs each. Attention was directed in an
earlier chapter to the few words in Franco-English designating
incorrectly in several instances, some of the buildings in the Washingley
plan (Plan A), which makes it probable that this plan had fallen into the
hands of a prisoner, who intended it to be an aid to his escape.
Although the sympathy of the public with the French prisoners was not
general, there were many outside Norman Cross who had been in the habit
of making money out of them in the straw-plait traffic; these would be
willing for a consideration to help them when once they were beyond the
prison walls and the lines of sentries.
An extraordinary recapture occurred in May 1804. Two of the French
prisoners who had escaped, on clearing the precincts of the barracks
pursued different routes. One of them was fortunate enough to get clear
away; the other, quitting the public road, had pursued his course a few
miles when he met with a most singular obstruction. In crossing a stile
he was beset by a shepherd’s dog, “of the ordinary and true English
breed,” which absolutely opposed the poor fellow’s progress. Neither
enticement nor resistance availed, the dog repeatedly fastened on the
legs and heels of the fugitive and held him at bay, until the continued
noise of the quarrel brought some persons to the spot and ultimately led
to the detection of the prisoner, and his reincarceration at the Depot.
{158} Whether the dog got any share of the 10_s._ usually given for the
recapture of a prisoner is not recorded.
In the register of the Dutch prisoners confined at Norman Cross between
1797 and 1800, is the record of Jan Cramer, one of the sailors who were
taken in the great victory of Admiral Duncan off Camperdown, 11th October
1797; he was received at Norman Cross 23rd December of that year, and the
four words in the register which describe the method of his leaving the
prison, “_escaped in a chest_,” are sufficient to enable an imaginative
writer to compose an exciting narrative “founded on fact.”
Mention has already been made of the escape of one prisoner in a “manure
cart.”
With the dread of the hulks before them, on 18th August 1809 twelve out
of a party of thirty prisoners marching from Norman Cross to Chatham,
having nearly reached the place of their punishment, were lodged for the
night in a stable at Bow and managed to escape. A party of the
Westminster Militia formed the escort.
The mere dread of the long imprisonment before them and probably the
greater facility for the adventure led to several escapes while the
prisoners were on the march from the coast to Norman Cross; these were
sometimes successful. Thus in September 1797 a batch of 142 left
Yarmouth for Yaxley; but only 141 entered Norman Cross, one having
slipped away at Norwich.
A cruel fate awaited some of the unfortunates who made such attempts.
Two deaths occurred in Peterborough. On the 4th February 1808 a party of
prisoners were lodged for the night in a stable in the yard of the Angel
Inn, and one of them attempting to escape was shot by the sentinel, dying
in twenty minutes; the verdict at the inquest was, “justifiable
homicide.” On another occasion, one of a company of the poor fellows
crossing the bridge, leapt over the low rail at the side, into the river,
and was shot by the escort. On the 6th October 1799 a prisoner, Jean de
Narde, son of a notary public of St. Malo, escaped and was recaptured on
his way to the sea; he was confined for the night in the Bell Tower of
East Dereham Church, from which he again attempted to escape, but was
shot as he clambered down by a soldier on guard. He was buried in the
churchyard, and fifty-eight years after a tombstone was erected by the
vicar and two friends “as a memorial to Jean de Narde and as a tribute of
respect to that brave and generous nation, once our foes, but now our
allies and brethren.” The inscription on the stone is:
IN MEMORY OF
JEAN DE NARDE
SON OF A NOTARY PUBLIC
OF ST. MALO
A FRENCH PRISONER OF WAR
WHO HAVING ESCAPED
FROM THE BELL TOWER
OF THIS CHURCH
WAS PURSUED AND SHOT
BY A SOLDIER ON DUTY
OCT. 6, 1799.
AGED 28 YRS.
Terribly handicapped as were the captives in their efforts to escape, the
game was not entirely in the hands of the man with the firelock, if a
tradition of the seven years’ war, 1756–63, is to be credited. An old
family mansion at Sissinghurst was in that war used as a place of
confinement for the French. In the Register of Burials is an entry in
1761, “William Bassuck, killed by a French Prisoner at Sissinghurst”;
this is supposed to be the sentry killed by a prisoner who, like poor
Jean de Narde forty years later at East Dereham, mounted the tower, and
dropping a pail of water on the head of the sentry below, killed him on
the spot. {160a}
Newspaper paragraphs are not always in strict accordance with fact, but
these few examples of escapes which took place may be accepted as types
of the many. A narrative told with much detail and a vraisemblance,
which makes it excellent reading, supposed to be written by the prisoner
himself, but actually written by Mr. Bell, a schoolmaster of Oundle, who
was said to have been familiar with the Depot, where he was employed in
his early life, appeared first in _Chambers’ Miscellany_. {160b} This
has since been reproduced in other journals and local almanacs. It was,
according to local authorities, founded mainly on facts communicated to
its author, Mr. Bell, by a prisoner who had escaped, but at the end of
the article in _Chambers’ Miscellany_ the following note is appended:
“The above narrative, which is a translation from the French,
appeared a number of years ago, and has been obligingly placed at our
disposal by the proprietors. We believe we are warranted in saying
that it is in every particular true.”
The following story would have appeared absolutely incredible had not
Basil Thomson {161} recorded the escape of eight prisoners from Dartmoor
by the same stratagem as that attributed to a Norman Cross prisoner in a
note in _The Soldiers’ Companion or Martial Recorder_, l. 190. 1824:
FRENCH INGENUITY
“A French Prisoner in Norman Cross Barracks had recourse to the
following stratagem to obtain his liberty: He made himself a complete
uniform of the Hertfordshire Militia, and a wooden gun, stained,
surmounted by a tin bayonet. Thus equipped, he mixed with the guard
(consisting of men from the Hertford Regiment), and when they were
ordered to march out, having been relieved, Monsieur fell in and
marched out too. Thus far he was fortunate, but when arrived at the
guard room, lo! what befel him. His new comrades ranged their
muskets on the rack, and he endeavoured to follow their example; but
as his wooden piece was unfortunately a few inches too long, he was
unabled to place it properly. This was observed, and the unfortunate
captive obliged to forego the hopes of that liberty for which he had
so anxiously and so ingeniously laboured.”
Before concluding this chapter, which has dealt with the conduct of the
prisoners, two other facts may be mentioned. Shortly after the opening
of the prison a disturbance among a batch of prisoners from Chatham led
to the construction of the Black Hole and the requisition for two dozen
handcuffs. In October of the following year the Depot narrowly escaped
destruction by fire—whether accidental or the work of an incendiary is
not known; two thatched huts adjoining the wooden buildings were in
flames, but the exertions of the Military were sufficient to prevent the
spread of the conflagration which would so easily, in unfavourable
conditions as to wind, etc., have consumed the whole building. It was
after this fire that an application was made for a fire-engine.