PRISONERS ON PAROLE—SOCIAL HABITS—MARRIAGES—EXCHANGE OF PRISONERS
Law that is obeyed is nothing else but law; law disobeyed is law and
jailor both.
PHILISTION, _Menandri et Philistionis_.
They enjoy a moderate degree of liberty, which, when kept within
bounds, is most salutary both for individuals and for communities,
though when it degenerates into licence, it becomes alike burdensome
to others, and uncontrollable and hazardous to those who possess it.
LIVY, _Histories_, xxxiv. 49.
THE conditions of life for prisoners out on parole have hitherto not been
considered. In more chivalrous days a prisoner on parole was allowed to
live free in his own country, pledged only on his word of honour to take
part in no action which should be directly or indirectly hostile to the
country which had captured him. The spirit of animosity and mistrust
which animated the combatants in the struggle which filled with captives
Norman Cross and other prisons in both countries, would certainly admit
no such arrangement as this, although M. Otto, the French Commissary in
London, suggested it, either satirically or knowing that, if accepted,
the arrangement would mean that while England would receive back only
5,000, France would receive 22,000.
M. Otto’s words were:
“If the scarcity of provisions is so notorious that the Government”
(the British Government), “notwithstanding its solicitude cannot
relieve the wants of its people, why should the Government
unnecessarily increase the consumption, by feeding more than 22,000
individuals? I have already had the honour of laying before you, Two
Proposals on this Subject, namely, that of ransoming the Prisoners,
or that of sending them back to France on Parole. Either of these
alternatives would afford an efficient remedy for the evil in
question; the plan of Parole has already been adopted with respect to
French Fishermen.” {191a}
This proposal was not likely to be accepted, and the great bulk of the
prisoners in both countries remained in strict durance throughout the
war. Those who were allowed on parole were naval and military officers,
commanders and first lieutenants of privateers mounting fourteen guns,
{191b} commanders and first mates of merchantmen, and non-combatants.
These latter, in the second period of the war, constituted a considerable
proportion of the parole prisoners. One of the first duties imposed by
the regulations for the guidance of the agents at the various prisons was
that when a fresh party of prisoners arrived, he should go thoroughly
into the question of the rank, social condition, employment, and
character of each man, in order to determine who were qualified to go on
parole, and the captain of the ship in which the prisoners had been taken
was expected to send such information as he could to enable the agents to
carry out this duty.
The last sentence of the passage quoted from M. Otto’s letter to the
Transport Board shows that for one class of non-combatants, the French
fishermen, the British Government had adopted the plan of returning them
to France.
A note in the register of the soldiers received at Norman Cross states
that with certain chasseurs français who arrived at the prison on 9th
September 1809, arrived two women and a child. How they were disposed of
between that date and 24th December of the same year, when they were
discharged to France, is not recorded. One of the women got only as far
as Lynn on her way home, and in the following March returned to Norman
Cross; her further adventures are not recorded.
The numbers of those on parole varied greatly in the course of the war.
In the year 1796, in which the building of Norman Cross was commenced,
the number was 1,200; on 30th April 1810, out of a total of 44,583
prisoners, 2,710; and on 11th June 1811, out of 49,132 prisoners, 3,193.
The number on parole would greatly increase as more prisoners passed into
the country. The Duke of Wellington, in one of his despatches dated 23rd
December 1812, summarising the result of the campaign in Spain, mentions
that “In the months which have elapsed since January, this army has sent
to England little short of 20,000 prisoners.” Of these many came to
Norman Cross. The number continued to increase until the total in
Britain reached 67,000, that being the number returned to France after
the Treaty of Paris was signed on 30th May 1814.
The prisoners on parole were widely distributed in various towns, many of
them distant from any large depot. {192} Agents were appointed in each
place to look after and pay the prisoners who lodged either in the town
itself or in the neighbouring villages. Of the 1,200 on parole in 1797,
100 were in Peterborough and its neighbourhood, and the agent who
accepted the responsibility of looking after them, paying them and
mustering them at stated intervals when they had to report themselves to
him, was Mr. Thomas Squire, a merchant and banker living in the Bridge
House, in whose field, on the river bank, the second batch of prisoners
consigned to Norman Cross in April 1797 landed from the barges which had
brought them from Lynn. The only parole register relating to
Peterborough which the author could find in the Record Office is a volume
dating from 1795 to 1800, and refers mainly to the Dutch. In this volume
there are entered, between 10th November 1797 and 3rd July 1800, the
names of 100 Dutch prisoners on parole at Peterborough. The first French
were the captain, four lieutenants, the purser, surgeon, and first pilot
of _La Jalouse_, in June 1797.
No corresponding record has been found as to the disposal of those who
arrived at Norman Cross in the second period of the war, 1803–15, and who
by their rank or social status were entitled to parole. It is probable
that on the officer who received them at the port where they landed,
devolved the duty of selecting the parole prisoners and sending them
direct to the towns where they were to be interned when the general body
of prisoners went to Norman Cross.
From the general register of the prisoners at Norman Cross between 1803
and 1810 we can, however, gather a few notes which sufficiently indicate
that the custom was _not_ to allocate them in the immediate
neighbourhood, but at more distant depots for parole prisoners. Thus we
find that Jean Casquar, a boatswain’s mate, was sent to Tiverton; Antoine
Sivié, a passenger, to Leek; Pierre Kervain, a servant on parole, to
Ashbourne; Eustache, a black, to Ashbourne; Jean C. Le Prince, a clerk,
to Montgomery; Captain Nicholas Lanceraux to Lichfield; Jean Maistey,
second mate on a privateer, with three passengers taken in the same ship,
to Leek. Then a more complicated transaction is shown: Louis Feyssier, a
passenger on parole at Leek, was sent to Norman Cross, it being noted
that he had not previously been there; he was probably sent for
imprisonment, as a punishment for breach of his parole at Leek.
Another transaction helps us to learn what was going on at home in the
long years of this terrible war, when only high polities and the military
and naval events beyond our bounds were occupying the pens of historical
writers. Captain A. Strazynski escaped with a midshipman from Ashbourne
in September 1810. The pair of them were retaken at Chesterfield, whence
they were sent to the Norman Cross Prison, where they arrived on 10th
December of the same year. Again, Ensign Louis Pineau escaped from
Greenlaw. He made his way south, until he was retaken and lodged in
Northampton Gaol, whence he was sent to Norman Cross.
These are almost all the notes bearing on the question of the parole
prisoners which occur in the register.
As has been already mentioned, these registers are very incomplete, and
the notes and remarks are few and far between, but there is one long note
dealing with the practice of one prisoner assuming the name of another.
This was sometimes done with the object of establishing a man’s right to
have the privileges of parole. One instance noted is that of a man
entered as Mathuren Nazarean, his real name being Pierre Dussage; the
assumed name was that of the first lieutenant of the _Alerte_, who was
left ill at Lisbon. Dussage hoped to pass himself off as the lieutenant,
and thus to be allowed out on parole.
No record has been found of the precise distribution in the town and the
surrounding villages of the 100 prisoners registered as on parole in
Peterborough. On 25th November 1797 the whole of the prisoners on parole
in England were ordered, without any distinction of rank whatever, to be
imprisoned at Norman Cross. For the sick and the baggage, covered
conveyances were provided. The others of all ranks marched to the Depot,
some of them hundreds of miles. This step was taken in part fulfilment
of the threat already referred to in Chapter V., which had been held out
against the French as a means of compelling them to clothe their own
countrymen in the English prisons, and to withdraw their opposition to
certain proposals of the English Government as to the terms of Exchange,
and especially as to the restoration of Captain Sir Sydney Smith, whose
liberation no expostulations of the Government could obtain.
In the later plans of the Depot is seen one block in the south-east
quadrangle fenced off for the officers’ prison. It was probably in this
block, or in No. 13 in the north-eastern quadrangle, that Jean de la
Porte executed his wonderful straw marquetry pictures. At what date the
order for the reincarceration of the officers was cancelled has not been
ascertained, but it is certain that their close confinement was not of
long duration, and that the privileges of parole were soon restored.
This was, however, not the only occasion when such an order was issued,
and when the prisoners on parole were placed in close confinement.
Parole was very frequently broken by the French officers, and a
considerable number were successful in making their escape. Those who
failed to do so or were recaptured were severely treated. In extreme
cases, such as repeated breaking of parole, officers were sent to the
hulks. A cadet of the _Utrecht_, Dutch man-of-war, who broke his parole
at Tenterden, when recaptured was sent to the hulks at Chatham. Unless
there had been some gross misconduct, this punishment cannot fail to be
regarded by some as unduly harsh. On the other hand, it must not be
forgotten that the full term was _parole d’honneur_. The word of honour
of an officer was assumed to be of a specially binding character; the
poor, ignorant soldier or sailor was not trusted, the officer was,
because his “word of honour” was deemed binding. In addition, the
officer signed a document corresponding to the following parole paper,
which was the form used for a prisoner restored on parole to France.
This constituted a legal document.
_Form of Parole Engagement_.
“Whereas the Commissioners for conducting His Britannic Majesty’s
Transport Service, and for the Care and Custody of Prisoners of War,
have been pleased to grant me, the undersigned . . . . . . as
described on the back thereof, late . . . . . . and now a Prisoner of
War, leave to return to France, upon my entering into an Engagement
not to serve against Great Britain, or any of the Powers in Alliance
with that Kingdom, until I shall be regularly exchanged for a British
Prisoner of War, of equal Rank; and upon my also engaging, that
immediately after my Arrival in France, I shall make known the Place
of my Residence there, to the British Agent for Prisoners in Paris,
and shall not change the same on any account, without first
intimating my intention to the said Agent; and moreover, that at the
Expiration of every Two Months, until my exchange shall be effected,
I shall regularly and punctually transmit to the said Agent, a
Certificate of my Residence, signed by the Magistrates or Municipal
Officers of the Place.
“Now, in Consideration of my Engagement, I do hereby declare that I
have given my Parole of Honour accordingly, and that I will keep it
inviolable.
“Given under my Hand at . . . . . . this . . . . . . Day of 17 . . .
. . .
“_On back_, Name, Rank, Age, Stature, Person, Visage, Complexion,
Hair, Eyes, Marks or Wounds, etc.”
Further it must be borne in mind that military punishments are more
severe than civil; they follow more rapidly the crime. A breach of
parole was a military crime as well as a civil offence, for which loss of
liberty on a Chatham hulk was perhaps a fitting punishment. By Clause 4
of Rules to be observed by the prisoners of war in Great Britain,
Ireland, etc.—rules with which all prisoners, whether in captivity or on
parole, were familiar—very severe punishment for any escaped prisoner who
was retaken was laid down for every class. In the case of officers
escaping, it was enacted that if recaptured they “shall from that time be
considered and treated in all respects like common men.” An officer on
parole who escapes, not only escapes, but he breaks his word of honour,
and he therefore merits a more severe punishment than he who only breaks
his prison bars and does nothing dishonourable.
Both the French and British Governments, to their credit, were ever ready
to deal generously and even magnanimously in the way of exchange or
release as a reward for some uncalled-for act of bravery or kindness on
the part of prisoners in connection with their captors. The following
are a few out of many such instances: In December 1811, twenty-one
English prisoners were released for assisting to extinguish a fire at
Auxonne; among these was the mate of an English merchant vessel, and for
him the mate of the French vessel _Achille_ was released from Lichfield,
he having assisted to put out a fire there. The colonel of the (French)
36th Regiment was allowed to go to France on parole to try to effect the
exchange of Colonel Cox, and failing this to return in three months. In
December 1810, Captain Bourde, of the French ship _Neptune_, was released
in consequence of his humanity to the officers and crew of the _Comet_, a
ship in the East India Company’s service. A French surgeon detained on
the prison ship _Assistance_, at Portsmouth, was exchanged “in
consequence of his attention to the British sick soldiers on board the
_Spence_ transport as represented by Lieut. J. W. Lloyd of the 8th King’s
Regiment.” A French captain of the land forces being taken prisoner, was
allowed to return to France “for his meritorious conduct in saving the
life of a British officer in the last war.” Five French officers were
released from Andover “for their exertions in extinguishing a fire at
that town.” A naval lieutenant was released by Admiralty order “for
saving a child’s life from a lion at Oswestry.” In April 1812, Pierre
Marie Tong was released from Portsmouth “in consideration of services
offered by his father to assist the _Conquisador_ when on shore on the
coast of France.” About the same date the second captain and clerk of a
privateer obtained their liberty “for saving the lives of seventy-nine
British seamen wrecked on the coast.”
Nor were these courtesies confined to officers. A seaman, prisoner at
Plymouth, was to be exchanged “for having leaped overboard and saved the
life of Alexander Muir on board the _Brave_, as per letter 3rd June
(1810) from Captain Hawkins.” A number of Lascars, prisoners at Dunkirk,
were exchanged for seamen at Norman Cross, the second captain for two,
and the captain at Chatham was considered worth three Lascars. We have,
in Appendix B, alluded to the release of Captain Woodriff. These bright
examples serve to illuminate what is otherwise a gloomy episode.
The allowance paid by the British Government to the officers on parole
was at first only 1_s._ a day. This was increased to 1_s._ 6_d._; but
even that amount, although more than was paid by the French to the
English prisoners on parole in France, was altogether inadequate, owing
to the greater expense of living in England. The inferior officers and
others received only 1_s._ 3_d._ The French scale varied from 7_s._ a
day for a General to 10_d._ a day for officers of merchantmen. Frequent
complaints being made of the insufficiency of the English allowance, M.
Riviere, of the French Admiralty, who nine years before denied the right
of our Government to inquire into the treatment of British prisoners in
France, adding, “that it (the treatment) was the will of the Emperor,”
wrote a long letter to the Transport Board on the subject, stating that
the cost at which an English officer could live in France was 9_d._ a
day, while for a similar provision in England, a French officer must pay
2_s._ a day. The Board called upon Lieut. Wallis, who had recently
escaped from France, to check each item by the market prices of
provisions in France and in England, and he arrived at the following
comparison:
An English Gentleman in France will require daily: A French Gentleman in
England will require
daily:
_s._ _d._ _s._ _d._
1 lb. Bread 0 2 ⅓ quartern 0 5
loaf of
Bread
1 lb. Beef 0 4 ¾ lb. of 0 7½
beef, 10_d._
a lb. at
least
¾ of beer (this measure is not known) 0 1 2 quarts of 0 6
beer
Beer, very bad, is 3_d._ a bottle, 0 5¼ A pot of 0 5
wine 7½_d._; say they are taken porter
alternately, a bottle a day
Vegetables and fruit (vegetables are 0 0½ Vegetables, 0 2
very cheap) including
apples
Milk 0 0½ Milk 0 2
Expense of cooking 0 1 Cooking, at 0 2
least 2_d._
Wood (at Verdun very dear, 36 livres a 0 2
corde) 2_d._ per day probably
1 day’s subsistence in France, 0 9 1 day’s 2 0
according to M. Riviere subsistence
in England,
according to
M. Riviere’s
information
1 day’s subsistence in France, 1 5¼ More 2 0½
according to Lieut. Wallis’s price probably
list
Average of the two estimates 1 1¼ {200}
It therefore appeared clear that the least an officer could live on was
2_s._ a day in England and 1_s._ a day in France. To double the
allowance to the French officers in England would, it was estimated, cost
the Government £43,823, and ultimately it was decided to increase the
allowance to 2_s._ for the higher ranks, coming down to 1_s._ 8_d._ in
the lower, at an increased cost of £28,000 a year. When invalided, the
prisoners received an extra allowance, and were attended by doctors
practising in their neighbourhood selected by, and paid by, the
Government. Their allowance was doubled when a nurse was required.
These extra charges were borne by the Commissioners for the Care of the
Sick and Hurt, not by the Transport Board.
The majority of the officers on parole were not entirely dependent on the
allowance received from the British Government, their income being
supplemented by remittances sent from France.
Several of the officers of high rank, and other prisoners whose means
enabled them to do so, sent for their wives and lived comfortably in
lodgings. Judging from the traditions of the Norman Cross district, and
from the literature of the period, the presence of the prisoners on
parole made but little change in the social life of the towns and
villages in which they were quartered, not sufficient to leave an
enduring impression. This is strange, for the presence of 100 foreigners
of varying social position in and round about a quiet little cathedral
city, such as Peterborough was a century ago, must certainly have
modified the usual routine of the social life of its citizens, and of the
dwellers in the neighbouring villages in which some of the prisoners
lodged.
Although the bitter antagonism which existed between the French and the
British during this long war would militate against it, there is no doubt
that occasionally the prisoners on parole visited and formed friendships,
and even attachments, among their neighbours according to their degree.
This general statement made to the writer by his parents and other
nonagenarians is borne out by the marriages to be mentioned directly, but
although the writer has lived in Peterborough, excepting the few years
when his education took him away, for three-quarters of a century, he
does not recollect ever to have heard of any special instance of the
survival of such a friendship in the city or in the immediate
neighbourhood of Norman Cross, excepting those to be detailed when the
marriages of the prisoners are dealt with.
It has been thought not irrelevant to the history of Norman Cross to
devote the succeeding chapter to the subject of the English Prisoners in
France, and it will be there seen that in the letter written by Lieut.
Tucker from Verdun, he specially says, “there is no society between the
English and the French.”
When in 1814 Napoleon abdicated, and the Treaty of Paris was signed on
the 30th May, some 70,000 French prisoners, of whom nearly 4,000 were out
on parole, together with hundreds of émigrés, left our shores. These
friendships and close associations were abruptly cut short, and the
foreign element in British Society appears to have been speedily
forgotten. The intimacies which were kept up, of which we read in the
biographies and family archives of those who lived in the first half of
the last century, were almost all between the British and the French
émigré, not between the British and the prisoners on parole; they were
between persons who, although of different nationalities, agreed in their
political sympathies, and who were equally opposed to the existing French
Government.
Between 1793 and 1814 about 200,000 Frenchmen and other foreigners (at
various periods, not all at one time), either in durance or on parole,
spent a longer or shorter period of their lives in Great Britain. In the
second period of the war (1803–15) there were 122,440, and of these
probably 4,000 at least were out on parole, including in this estimate
not only the commissioned officers, but also the large number of officers
of privateers and of civilians of various occupations who were all
reckoned as prisoners of war. {202}
A comparison of the Census Returns and the official returns as to
prisoners of war for the year 1810 justifies the conclusion that about 2
per cent. of the adult males in Great Britain of the average age of the
prisoners must have been Frenchmen. Of this 2 per cent., the great
majority were, as has been already stated, in confinement; but as those
on parole were not scattered broadcast throughout the country, but were
concentrated in the various towns enumerated in the footnote to page 192,
they would in these towns constitute a far larger proportion than 2 per
cent. of the men of their own age. In Peterborough the 100 parole
prisoners would be about 15 per cent. of their contemporaries in the town
and neighbourhood. It is strange that this considerable element of
French in the society of that period figures so little in the pages of
contemporary authors who deal with social matters. In explanation it
must be borne in mind that the allowance of the Government to the
prisoners on parole was only sufficient for a bare living, and that,
except in the case of those with good private means, these officers would
have to be very economical in their choice of lodgings, and would be
thrown chiefly into the society of persons who were by their
circumstances compelled to let cheap lodgings. The prisoners would form
a little circle among themselves.
Mr. John T. Thorp has with infinite pains gone into the question of how
far Free Masonry brought the parole prisoners into association with their
brethren of the craft. {204} The result of his investigations is that,
although in eleven of the towns in which parole prisoners were
detained—viz. Abergavenny, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leek, Melrose, Northampton,
Plymouth, Sanquhar, Tiverton, Penicuik, Wantage, and Wincanton—French
Lodges were established by the prisoners resident in the towns or their
neighbourhood, only in four is there any evidence of association with
British masons. In _Abergavenny_ two English became members of the
Lodge. In _Melrose_ the members of the French Lodge joined with the
Brethren of the Scotch Lodge in the ceremonial of the laying of the first
stone of a public reservoir, and among the archives of the Scotch Lodge
was a memorial presented by twenty of the members of the French Lodge
expressing their gratitude for the fraternal manner in which they had
uniformly been treated by the Brethren of the Melrose Lodge.
In _Wantage_, the Lodge “Cours unis” was formed by the prisoners, and
when seven members were transferred to Kelso, it is recorded that they
were received as visitors by the Scotch Lodge in that town.
At _Wincanton_ (“La Paix désirée”) two certificates were granted to
Englishmen, one as a joining member and the other as an initiate.
Very little more evidence is found in the minutes of the English Lodges.
At _Ashburton_ is the record of the Initiation of a Frenchman. At
_Selkirk_ twenty-three parole prisoners who were masons were enrolled as
members of the Lodge, and they were allowed the use of the Lodge Room for
their own business and ceremonies.
At _Northampton_, in the neighbouring county to that in which Norman
Cross is situated, a French Lodge (“La Bonne Union”) was established, but
there is no tradition of any association with the English Brethren.
At _Ashby-de-la-Zouch_ a French Lodge was formed, but there is no record
of any intercourse with the English Brethren. Ashby was a large depot
for parole prisoners, some 200 being located in the town and
neighbourhood, and there is a tradition that the French Lodge of
Freemasons gave a ball to which they invited many of the inhabitants.
One reason why the Brethren of the French and English nations apparently
associated to such a small extent, is that the British masons would, as a
rule, regard the French Lodges as irregular and self-constituted, they
having no mandate from the Grandmaster of England or Scotland.
In Peterborough there is no record or tradition of a French Lodge.
Mr. Thorp, in the little history from which these facts are drawn,
mentions the marriage of a member of the French Lodge at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Brother Louis Jan to a Miss Edwards, in 1809. The
couple went to France in 1814, returned to England for some years, but
went back to Rouen, where M. Jan died. His widow came back to Ashby,
where she supported herself and her children by teaching French. She
died in 1867.
As regards the parole prisoners whose headquarters were at Peterborough,
a careful search through the marriage register of St. John’s Church has
failed to discover an entry of any marriage which can be identified as
that of a French prisoner and English girl; but in the years 1800–01 five
marriages between Dutch prisoners and English girls were celebrated in
the church and duly registered.
The first three bridegrooms were young officers, who were married on the
eve of their restoration to liberty under the terms of the Convention of
Alkmaar. From the register of Dutch Prisoners of War in the Record
Office, we have been able to identify these bridegrooms. In the Parish
Church Register there is absolutely no hint that the bridegrooms were
prisoners of war. The names only are given, without any description,
although the statement that there are entries of French prisoners,
designated as such, in this marriage register having been once made, has
been adopted time after time by writers and lecturers on this subject.
1. On the 17th February 1800, Albertus Coeymans was married to Ann
Whitwell. Witnesses who signed the register, B. Pletsz and James Gibbs.
James Gibbs appears to have been the Parish Clerk, who usually witnessed
the marriages. From the register in the Record Office we find that
Albertus Coeymans was 2nd Lieutenant in the _Furie_, was captured when
the ship was taken, received at Norman Cross 19th November 1798, and
“discharged to Holland” 19th February 1800. The witness B. Pletsz was
Captain of the _Furie_, and was received at Norman Cross on the same date
as the Lieutenant.
2. On the 17th February 1800, Adrian Roeland Robberts Roelans was
married to Mary Kingston. Witnesses, Joseph Little and James Gibbs. Mr.
Roelans was a midshipman on the _Jupiter_, and was received at Norman
Cross, with others of the captured crew, on the 4th November 1797, being
released on parole twelve days after his reception. It is interesting to
note that the witness at this wedding was not another Dutch officer, but
Mr. Joseph Little of Thorpe, in which hamlet Miss Kingston resided. That
the marriage of his friend was satisfactory to this witness, and that the
intimacy between them was kept up after the liberation of the midshipman
under the Alkmaar Cartel, may be accepted as established by an entry in
the register nine years later of the marriage of Joseph Little of Thorpe
to Mary Roelans, probably the sister of his friend the midshipman
captured on the _Jupiter_.
Mr. Joseph Little remained at home with his Dutch bride, and as far as
can be traced through the complicated connections of the large clan of
Littles, the blood of Roelans still runs in the blood of several of them.
A brother of Mr. Little’s had married a sister of the Miss Kingston who
became the wife of Cadet Roelans, thus creating another link in the
marriage connection of the Dutch Roelans and the Northamptonshire
Littles.
3. On the 18th February 1800, Charles Peter Vanderaa married Lucy Rose.
Witnesses to the marriage, J. Ysbrands and James Gibbs. Mr. Vanderaa was
Lieutenant on a brig-of-war which was captured. He was received at
Peterborough on parole on 11th June 1798, and was released on 19th
February 1800. The witness J. Ysbrands was the Captain of the _Courier_,
taken prisoner and received at Peterborough on parole 21st June 1798,
released 19th February 1800 in accordance with the Alkmaar Convention.
4. After an interval of six months, on 20th August 1800, is the entry of
the marriage of Antoni Staring to Nancy Rose. Witnesses, E. B. Knogz and
James Gibbs. The bridegroom was Captain on the _Duyffe_ man-of-war. He
was received 27th May 1800, released 26th August, having been married on
the day previous. The witness E. B. Knogz was surgeon on the _Duyffe_,
and was received at Peterborough and released on the same day as the
captain.
5. The fifth marriage of the Dutch prisoners was that of Berthold
Johannas Justin Wyeth to Sarah Wotton. These marriages were all by
licence and not by banns. In this case the entry is “Licence with
consent of Parents,” but this by no means implies that the other
marriages took place without such consent; the addition of these words
depended upon the habit of the officiating minister. The witness was B.
Pletsz. Mr. Wyeth was 2nd Lieutenant of the _Furie_, and was received on
parole on 19th November 1798. He was not exchanged under the Alkmaar
Cartel, but remained a prisoner until the 16th October 1801. {208}
As regards the absence of any evidence of the marriage of the French
prisoners and British women, it must be remembered that the vast majority
of the French were Roman Catholics, and that mixed marriages of members
of that Church with Protestants were discouraged by the authorities of
both Churches alike. There existed also throughout these years a fierce
animosity between the French and the English, and when it is added that
the French Government did not acknowledge the legality of such marriages,
so that in many instances the unfortunate wives when they returned with
their husbands at the close of the war were not allowed to land, we can
understand that almost irresistible pressure would be exercised to
prevent these unions, and that intimacies and flirtations which might
ripen into love would very probably be strongly discouraged.
One instance of an attachment between a French prisoner confined at
Norman Cross and an English girl, and their subsequent marriage, was that
of Jean Marie Philippe Habart to Elizabeth Snow, of Stilton. In the
prison register we find Jean Habart entered as a sailor, captured off
Calais, 20th June 1803, in _L’Abondance_, a small vessel of ten tons. He
was put on board _L’Immortalité_, and from her transferred to the prison
ship _Sandwich_; was sent thence to Norman Cross, being received 27th
August 1803. He acted as baker to Mr. Lindsay, the contractor, and was
discharged on 20th June 1811. This official statement differs from the
family tradition in two points only: the register says (probably
incorrectly) that he was a sailor, the family that he was only
temporarily on the boat fishing; the register says that he was freed on
20th June 1811, his granddaughter believed that he was freed on the
emptying of the prison in 1814 (the register in this case is doubtless
correct). His granddaughter’s account is, that M. Jean M. P. Habart was
the son of a gunsmith in a good position in a town on the north coast of
France, and that he was captured while fishing off the coast, and was
imprisoned at Norman Cross. There, as we learn from the register, not
being a combatant, but a civilian prisoner of war, he was employed as
baker to the contractor.
His future wife, the daughter of a farmer in Stilton, was in the habit of
bringing up the milk bought for the prisoners’ use, and she would
probably have frequent interviews with the contractor’s assistant, and as
her granddaughter says, “she fell in love with him.” The attachment was
mutual, and when after his release he returned to France, he left his
heart behind him. During his imprisonment his father had died, leaving
property for his children, {210a} and Jean, when he had realised his
share, returned to England, married Miss Snow, and settled in business,
as a baker and corn merchant, in Stilton. The years of his imprisonment
had been sweetened by love, but his end was a tragic one. On 24th
January 1840, forty-three years after he passed through the prison gates
and first saw the hated caserns and fenced courts of Norman Cross, he was
killed within sight of the fields on which they stood.
He was returning from a round, which he had been making to collect money
from his customers, and it is supposed that at an inn in Peterborough he
had shown his well-filled purse, and was followed on the Norman Cross
Road to the spot about three miles from Peterborough, where he was found
with his head battered in and his pockets rifled, his empty purse being
found some time after in an adjacent field. {210b}
Such histories as have been here given from the writer’s long and
intimate knowledge of the locality might doubtless be collected in the
neighbourhood of other prisons, but the danger of assuming that the mere
occurrence of French names in the neighbourhood of a depot “still speak
of the old war time” has already been dealt with in Chap. IV, p. 59,
footnote.
The parole-breakers who managed to escape, varied from the humblest and
poorest of the non-combatants, who had to pass through many hardships and
trying adventures before securing their freedom, to men in the position
and affluence of General Lefebre, who, in May 1812, accompanied by his
wife, escaped from Cheltenham. He personated a German count; his wife,
in boy’s clothes, passed for his son, and his aide-de-camp acted as
valet. They put up at an hotel in Jermyn Street, got a passport, and
reached Dover in style, whence they were conveyed to the French coast.
From France he wrote an insolent letter to the English Government in
justification of his breach of parole.
A slightly different version was that he reached London as a Russian
General Officer, with two aides-de-camp, one of whom was his wife dressed
in military costume; all conversed in German.
The conduct of the officers on parole both as regards the breaking of
their parole and their general orderly behaviour, varied greatly in
different districts, as also did the attitude of the surrounding
population towards the prisoners when they attempted to escape. A
population which for centuries had been accustomed to receive the
benefits of, and to ignore or assist in, the trade of smuggling, would
view the attempt to escape in a different light to that in which the
quiet agricultural population of the Midlands and East Anglia would
regard it.
The father of the writer, who had seen and heard much of the prisoners of
war during his boyhood in Perth, said that while the British prisoners in
France contrasted unfavourably with the French in England, because they
showed none of the skill and industry which enabled the French to produce
work, by the sale of which they raised large sums of money, the French
displayed a moral inferiority by the frequency with which they broke
their parole, that is, disregarded the pledge given on their word of
honour. The following return shows that in the three years included in
the table, about one in every ten of the officers of the army and navy
who were on parole broke their pledge. The proportion cannot be
calculated in the case of other persons of promiscuous occupations, as
the table does not give the total number of the prisoners of this class,
but only the actual number, 218, who broke their parole.
TRANSPORT OFFICE,
25_th June_ 1812.
NUMBER OF ALL FRENCH COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, PRISONERS OF WAR, ON PAROLE
IN GREAT BRITAIN
Total No. No. that Been Effected
of Com. broke their retaken. escape.
Off. on Parole.
Parole.
Year ending 1,685 104 47 57
5th June
1810
,, ,, ,, ,, 2,087 118 47 71
1811
,, ,, ,, ,, 2,142 242 63 179
1812
5,914 462 157 307
Beside the above 218 85 133
Commissioned Officers,
other French Prisoners,
such as Masters and Mates
of Merchant Vessels,
Captains, 2nd Captains,
and Lieutenants of
Privateers, Civilians
holding situations
connected with the Army
and Navy, Passengers and
other Persons of
respectability, have
broken their Parole in
the three years above
mentioned
682 242 440
N.B.—The numbers stated in this Account include those Persons only who
have actually absconded from the places appointed for their Residence.
A considerable number of Officers have been ordered into confinement, for
various other breaches of their Parole Engagements.
(Signed) RUP. GEORGE, J. BOWEN, J. DOUGLAS. {213a}
* * * * *
There are no records to show that the conduct of those on parole from
Norman Cross, whether they were lodged in the prison or in the
neighbouring towns and villages, was otherwise than that of gentlemen,
and the records of broken parole are very scanty.
The prisoners reported themselves regularly twice a week, as the custom
was, to the agent at Peterborough, when he paid each his allowance; they
kept within bounds, and returned to their lodgings within the prescribed
hours.
No such amusing incident is told of any of them, as that told of the
French officer at Jedburgh, who, being an antiquarian, soon exhausted all
places of interest within the circle of one mile radius, beyond which the
country was out of bounds. Being told of a most interesting building a
little beyond the first milestone from the town, he nobly struggled
against the longing to go beyond that stone, and he was rewarded for his
strict adherence to his “Parole d’honneur,” for an inspiration came to
him, and, borrowing a spade and a wheel-barrow, he laboriously dug up the
milestone, and, putting it into his wheel-barrow, carted it beyond the
spot of his heart’s desire, and, replanting it there, revelled in his
research with unspotted honour. {213b}
Mr. Palmer, who was born in 1812, three years before Waterloo, and lived
on the North Road in a pretty farmhouse at Stibbington, opposite the
first milestone from Wansford, told the writer that when his grandfather
took the farm in 1797, the house was the Wheat Sheaf, a coaching inn,
which came to grief in 1841, killed by the railways, the house being
rechristened The Road Side Farm. The milestone was the outside limit for
those on parole who were quartered at Wansford (it was more than five
miles from Norman Cross), and Mr. Palmer pointed out the small room which
the prisoners used for smoking and recreation. His grandmother was
renowned for cooking, and could even please the fastidious taste of the
French officers. Mr. Palmer’s little baby eyes must often have looked
with wonder at the prisoners, talking in a language he could not
comprehend, and he must have gazed after them with childish curiosity, as
they turned—after a longing look into the forbidden land beyond—to
retrace their steps and reach their lodging within the time prescribed.
One point should be noted, that in searching the records to ascertain the
various regiments quartered at Norman Cross, in order to fix the date of
Macgregor’s plan, it was incidentally found that while the West Kent
Regiment was quartered there in 1813, detachments lay at Peterborough,
Whittlesea, and other neighbouring towns; these were probably for the
purpose of acting if any difficulty arose with the prisoners on parole.
The punishment for breaking parole was, as already mentioned, if the
prisoner were recaptured, very severe. Not only was the ration allowance
reduced until all expenses incurred in the capture were paid off, but
committal to one of the prisons or to the hulks was also inflicted.
The local histories of various towns where depots for prisoners of war on
parole were established have been consulted with very disappointing
results. There must be local sources of information in some of the
ninety-one towns enumerated in the footnote at page 192, and any future
writer on the subject of the prisoners of war confined in Britain between
1793–1814 is advised, if he has leisure for research, to seek information
from these districts. The following condensed notes on the prisoners on
parole at Leek are given as an example of what took place in one of the
towns where facts have been put on record in a local history.
Unfortunately no such record is available for any of the towns in the
Norman Cross district. It was only within the last fifty years that the
following scanty information was collected and recorded. Sleigh’s
_History of Leek_ was published in 1862, only forty-seven years after
Waterloo, when Mr. Neau was still alive, and when the children of the few
parole prisoners who settled in Leek when their captivity was at an end
must have been still only middle-aged people, and yet in this first
edition the prisoners are not mentioned.
In 1883 there were published, in _Notes and Queries_, {215a} some
interesting paragraphs dealing with the subject of the prisoners of war,
and these were embodied in the second edition of Sleigh’s _Leek_,
published in 1883. {215b} From these paragraphs the following condensed
notes are culled. The officers received all courtesy and hospitality
from the principal inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood. Those with
good private means used to dine out in full uniform, each with his body
servant stationed behind his chair. It is also stated that these
prisoners used to go out early and collect snails as a bonne-bouche for
breakfast. There were some men of mark among them. Of these, three died
during their captivity, and were buried with many other parole prisoners
in the God’s acre attached to the old church. There are memorial stones
to Joseph Dobee, Captain of _La Sophie_, ob. 2nd December 1811, æt. 54;
to Chevalier J. Baptiste Mullot, Captain of the 72nd French Regiment, ob.
9th June 1811, æt. 43; and to Charles Luneand, Captain in the French
Navy, ob. 4th March 1822. The latter officer must have settled in Leek,
the date of his death being seven years after Waterloo.
There are short notes on several others who were on parole at the Depot.
General Brunet, captured at St. Domingo in 1803, his aide-de-camp, his
adjutant, Col. Felix of the Artillery, and Lieut. Devoust of the Navy,
son of the Senator of that name, are mentioned. There is a note that M.
Bartin, a French naval officer, prisoner on parole about the space of
eleven years, behaved himself extremely well all the time he lived with
us. John Mien, servant to General Brunet, who was living in his
eighty-fifth year in 1870, as a boy of seven witnessed the execution of
Louis XVI., and heard the drums roll at Santerre’s command to drown the
monarch’s speech.
Several of the parole prisoners married. M. Salvert, commander in the
navy, married Helen Govstry of Leek Moor. Jean Toufflet, a sea-captain,
left issue in the town; his widow, _née_ Lorouds, died the 5th February
1870, æt. 84. M. Chouquet, a sea-captain, left a son living in 1870.
Joseph Vattel, cook to General Brunet, married Sarah Spilsbury. One,
Vandome, a naval officer and a most excellent linguist, used to render
the English papers into his native tongue for the benefit of his comrades
at the billiard-tables established by the officers.
That the prisoners on parole, like their fellow countrymen in close
confinement, added to their means of living by their industry, is proved
by the note in the history of Leek that there is in existence an old
card, intimating that “James Francis Neau, of Derby Street, sold straw
hats, beautiful straw, ivory and bone fancy articles, made by the French
prisoners,” and many exquisite models of ships and other nick-nacks,
still in existence, testify to the facile talent and marvellously patient
industry of these prisoners.
This Francis Neau was a privateer officer who married a Mary Lees; she
was living in 1870.
There was a remarkable duel. A Captain Decourbes had been fishing, and,
coming in after curfew bell had tolled at 8 p.m., had to report himself
to Captain Grey, R.N., the Commissary. He afterwards met a Captain
Robert at the billiard-room at the Black’s Head, who grossly insulted him
and struck him in the face, so that the duel became inevitable. Neau,
who was present, was deputed to furnish them with firearms; but after
ransacking the town, he could only succeed in borrowing one horse-pistol
from a private in the Yeomanry. The two met on Balidone Moor at three
the next morning, and tossed for the first shot. Decourbes won, and hit
his adversary in the breast so that the ball entered at one side and came
out at the other. Robert, who was previously lame and had come on to the
ground on crutches, then, grievously wounded as he was, gathered himself
up and returned the fire, shooting Decourbes in the nape of the neck.
Lieut. Vird of the 72nd Regiment of Foot acted as Robert’s second; he was
subsequently killed at Waterloo.
They all walked back together to Leek, the two combatants treating their
wounds very lightly; but Decourbes’ wound went wrong, and he died of it
in the course of ten days or a fortnight.
The number of prisoners at Leek never exceeded 200, and they came by
detachments in 1803, 1805, 1809, and 1812, almost all clearing out after
Napoleon’s abdication 5th April 1814.
It will not be forgotten that in the earlier period of the war the
prisoners on parole in various parts of the country were all removed to
Norman Cross; whether any similar change in their condition was
experienced, after the resumption of hostilities in 1803, by the
prisoners out upon their parole, remains a matter of uncertainty.
Passing now to the subject of the Exchange of prisoners, and the chances
that a prisoner at Norman Cross or elsewhere had of obtaining his liberty
by an exchange for an English prisoner of equal rank, it must be borne in
mind that a large number of civilians were in captivity, especially in
the second period of the war.
This practice of taking captive so many civilians in the second period of
the war, 1803–15, was attributed to the British system of seizing all
French vessels of every kind and making their crews captive. This
practice was adopted as a retaliation for the first act of Buonaparte,
then ruling France as First Consul, when hostilities were resumed in May
1803. As a reprisal for what he considered the dishonourable action of
two British frigates in seizing in harbour French merchantmen before the
formal declaration of war had reached France, the Consul ordered the
immediate arrest of every British subject between the age of eighteen and
sixty who happened to be in France at that time, thus throwing 10,000
peaceable travellers and others into captivity.
Wellington, replying 4th September 1813 to an application from Mr. J. S.
Larpent requesting the General to obtain his release from captivity,
wrote:
“In this war, which on account of the violence of animosity with
which it is conducted, it is to be hoped will be the last, for some
time at least, everybody taken is considered a prisoner of war, and
none are released without exchange. There are several persons, now
in _my_ power, in the same situation as yourself in that respect,
that is to say, non-combatants according to the known and anciently
practised rules of war; among others there is the secretary of the
Governor of San Sebastian. . . .” {218}
Such being the spirit of the war, negotiations for exchange continually
fell through.
In the early period it was the want of good faith on the part of the
French, and the unfairness with which the exchange was conducted by them,
that on more than one occasion put a stop to the general exchange which
was going on. Thus in 1798, when a general exchange had been arranged,
and the Depot at Norman Cross was rapidly emptying, the _Samaritan_
cartel took 201 French prisoners to France, but returned with only 71
British. The _Britannia_ carried over 150, and 450 were conveyed by two
other cartels; the three returned without a single British prisoner. The
captains of the vessels were told that there were no British prisoners to
return, and they were ordered to sea at once, regardless of wind or
weather.
During the early negotiations a return was furnished to show what had
been the result of the general exchange up to the date when fresh
arrangements were to be made, and it appeared that 6,056 British
prisoners had been received from France, while she had received from the
British 16,334, including 4,986 captured at Martinique and Guadeloupe.
On 19th March 1798 by the fresh exchange France had received 12,543,
Britain only 5,045, leaving a balance of 7,498 due to England. The
earliest prisoners to be exchanged from Norman Cross left on 24th August
1797, only four months after the first prisoners had been received there.
The contingent was sent to Lynn; it numbered 305, and consisted of 7
captains of privateers, 4 sergeants, 6 corporals, 148 soldiers, 127
seamen and 7 boys, and 6 not specified. They sailed in the _Rosine_,
which had brought the same number of British to England.
The article of the agreement providing that the prisoners for exchange
were not to be selected, but were to be taken according to the priority
of their capture, was afterwards modified, so as to select the aged, the
infirm, such as were not seamen, and boys under twelve years of age!
Amid all the bickering and obstinacy on both sides in the negotiations as
to the treatment and exchange of the prisoners, there is one instance
which shows that the chivalrous spirit of the French was not dead.
In March 1797 M. Charretie, the French Commissary in England, enclosed a
list of thirty-six British seamen to be released without exchange for
their humanity in rescuing and aiding the crew of a French vessel bearing
the appropriate name of _Les Droits de l’Homme_.
Although it was a traffic strictly forbidden, some of the prisoners sold
their turn of exchange to their more wealthy comrades, the purchaser
assuming the name of the vendor, and vice versa. If detected, the vendor
forfeited his rights of exchange, and was kept a prisoner until the end
of the war. Notwithstanding this regulation, it was said that one man
had contrived to carry on these transactions from 1797 to 13th January
1800 without detection. This voluntary prolongation of the imprisonment
surely helps to prove the falsity of the statements of the French as to
the treatment of the prisoners by the British.
This practice of personating a fellow prisoner was carried out
occasionally under more tragic conditions.
In the course of the investigations to establish the facts of the
epidemic of 1800–01, a certificate was found with the name François le
Fevre crossed out, and the name of Bernard Batrille substituted, with a
note that the name of François le Fevre was assumed by Batrille when he
entered the hospital to die of consumption. This was, doubtless, not the
sole instance of such practices among the prisoners. A prisoner high up
in the list for exchange, who knew that he was dying, would, when about
to enter the hospital, for a sum of money or from friendship, exchange
his current number and his name with another man low down in the list,
the dying man, if this was done for payment, thus securing a sum of money
for his heirs in France, and the other increasing his chance of release
by exchange.
The case of Le Fevre and Batrille would have escaped detection, but for
the special investigation made by Captain Woodriff to establish the
identity of those who had died in the epidemic unrecognised. The
investigation led to the identification among the living prisoners of
François le Fevre, who had been personating Batrille, since he entered
the hospital, and had died, and was buried in the name of the former man.
During the first period of the war, 1793–1802, exchange went on, with
interruptions from the causes mentioned. The prisoners passed in a
sluggish stream through Norman Cross, but so sluggish that many of them
were there, confined or out on parole, during the whole five years.
Notwithstanding the exchange the prisons were at times greatly
overcrowded, and in 1801, when the French army in Egypt surrendered to
Abercrombie, such was the burden of prisoners that no attempt was made to
claim the troops as captives, but they were transported in British ships
to France.
During the second period of the war negotiations for exchange completely
failed. In April 1810, when there were about 10,000 British prisoners in
France, and 50,000 French in Britain, Mr. Mackenzie was sent by the
British Ministry to treat for a general exchange, the main condition in
the British proposal being that for every French prisoner returned to
France, a British prisoner of equal rank should be returned to Britain;
that this should go on until the whole of the British prisoners were
restored; and after that was accomplished, the British Government would
continue the restoration of the French, on the understanding that France
on her part returned to his native country, man for man, one of the
prisoners of Britain’s allies—_i.e._ a Spanish or Portuguese of equal
rank with the French prisoner handed over by Britain.
To this the French Emperor would not agree; he insisted that the British
and their allies should be reckoned as one army, and that for four
Frenchmen released from the British prisons and returned to France, only
one British subject should be returned to England, and three other
prisoners of various nationalities restored to their respective
Governments. On this plan, if the negotiations fell through while the
exchange was going on, say, when it was half way through, France would
have got back from Britain 20,000 of her veterans, England would have
received only 5,000 Britons, the balance, 15,000, being a rabble of
Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian levies of practically no value, and this
contention Buonaparte held to, although it was his opinion expressed a
few years later “that while as a fighting unit, you might set against
_one_ Frenchman _one_ Englishman, you would require _two_ Prussian,
Dutch, or soldiers of the Confederation.”
Buonaparte, referring to the failure of these negotiations, accounted for
his firmness by his want of faith in the British, and his conviction that
when they got their 10,000 countrymen back, they would find some excuse
to stop the further exchange. Could we, on our part, after the unfair
conduct of the exchanges, in the early part of the war, instances of
which with the Norman Cross prisoners have been given, rely on the French
Government carrying out in good faith even its own scheme, which on the
face of it showed a disregard of British rights. {222} The negotiations
fell through, and the great bulk of the prisoners at Norman Cross had to
drag out their weary life until the abdication of Buonaparte and his
retirement to Elba in 1814.