Fortescue: History of the British Army, iv. 904–6. Clode: Military Forces of the Crown, i. 240. The Story of Dartmoor Prison, by Basil Thomson. (London: William Heinemann. 1907.) The French Prisoners of Norman Cross. A Tale by the Rev. Arthur Brown, Rector of Catfield, Norfolk. (London: Hodder Brothers, 18, New Bridge Street, E.C.) Vattel, Les Droits des Gens, book iii, chap, iii, sec. 49, p. 150. “Prisoners of War,” Chambers’ Journal, No. 21, 1854, p. 330. It will be seen in a later chapter what class of men the prisoners were to whom these words would come home. July 1797—Reports House of Commons, “18th Report of Committee of Finance.” Schomberg, Naval Chronology, chap. v., p. 213. In 1803 the Earl of Carysfort of the Irish Peerage took the title of Lord Carysfort of Norman Cross, as a Peer of the United Kingdom. The price of timber had risen in December 1806 to £8 8s. a load; at one date the contractor complained that even by paying £12 a load he could not obtain fifty loads in Plymouth. The Story of Dartmoor Prison, Basil Thomson. (London: William Heinemann, 1907.) The sum of £14,800 was paid to Adams between the 1st January 1797 and 29th November 1797 in the following instalments:
| Jan. | 1797 | £1,500 | April 12th 1797 | £1,000 |
| ,, | 2nd 1797 | 1,000 | May 5th 1797 | 500 |
| ,, | 6th 1797 | 1,000 | Aug. 5th 1797 | 150 |
| ,, | 13th 1797 | 1,000 | „ 15th 1797 | 400 |
| ,, | 17th 1797 | 500 | Sept. 28th 1797 | 500 |
| ,, | 31st 1797 | 1,000 | Oct. 6th 1797 | 370 |
| Feb. | 9th 1797 | 500 | ,, 9th 1797 | 500 |
| ,, | 21st 1797 | 600 | ,, 13th 1797 | 500 |
| Mar. | 5th 1797 | 500 | Nov. 23rd 1797 | 1,000 |
| ,, | 19th 1797 | 500 | ,, 28th 1797 | 500 |
| ,, | 26th 1797 | 450 | „ 29th 1797 | 500 |
| ,, | 30th 1797 | 330 | | |
The total amount paid to 19th November 1797 for the Norman Cross Prison was £34,518 11s. 3d., for Hull £22,600, for Lewes £12,400, and for Colchester £15,620. As illustrating the hardship which, already in its fourth year, this war had imposed upon the nation, the following extract from the report furnished to the Transport Office, by Captain Woodriff, R.N., agent to the Commissioners, of the average price of provisions and the rate of wages in the district in which the Depot had been established, during the time that the prison and barracks were erecting, may be of interest. Mutton was 10½d. per lb., beef 1s. per lb., bread 1s. per quartern loaf. Carpenters’ wages were 12s. per week, shoemakers’ 10s., bakers’ 9s., blacksmiths’ 8s., and husbandmen 7s. Starvation wages were then a literal truth. Four years later from a Parliamentary Report we find the Government granting a bounty on all imported wheat, in order to keep the price down to £5 a quarter, other grain being treated in the same way. We can well understand that, as the price of provisions went up, and the taxation increased with the prolongation of the war (a war which, however it originated, was prolonged for years by the ambitious projects of Buonaparte for the aggrandisement of himself and of France), the animosity not only of the actual combatants, but also of the suffering men, women, and children, steadily grew against the man and the nation whom they regarded as the authors of all their misery. Appendix A. Auctioneer’s Catalogue, (Jacobs’ Peterborough, 1816). M. Foulley’s description of his model on Key Plan, Pl. xx., p. 251. The following entry in the Register of Marriages in St. John’s Church, Peterborough, probably explains the reason for the housing of the surgeon in a comfortable brick house within those prison walls, instead of in the very indifferent quarters in the hospital casern:—
“October 18th, 1808, George H. Walker of Yaxley to Elizabeth Colinette Pressland of St. John’s.—Witnesses: Thomas Pressland, Thomas Alderson Cook, James Gibbs.”
Mr. George H. Walker was the surgeon to the Prison, which was in the Parish of Yaxley, and Captain Pressland, R.N., had been for some years, after the renewal of the war in 1803, Superintendent of the Prison, so among all these dry details crops up the picture of our human life. We see the young medical officer passing through the door in the Prison wall which communicated with the Superintendent’s house (the door over which the wall is seen rising with a ramp in the photographs of the only fragments of the wall now remaining) to spend happy hours with Captain Pressland’s family. We see friendship ripening into love, the story told by the entry in the Register of St. John’s Church, Peterborough, and then in the Register of St. Peter’s, Yaxley, we are brought face to face with a tragedy, for the last entry of a burial from the Depot is “Captain Thomas Pressland, Norman Cross. March 21st, 1814. 59 years. Signed, J. Hinde, Curate,” and there can be little doubt that from the house to which, mainly through his future father-in-law’s influence, Surgeon Walker was able in the third year of its existence to bring Elizabeth Colinette Pressland as his bride, while the bells of Yaxley Church rang out a merry marriage peal, six years later passed the body of Captain Pressland himself to be laid in Yaxley Churchyard, while the death bell tolled its solemn note. For six years this house was the house of the couple for whom it was built. It was in the auctioneer’s catalogue, when it was sold on the 2nd October 1810, nothing more than “An excellent brick dwelling-house, containing a cellar 12 ft. 6 in. by 11 ft. 2 in., parlour 13 ft. 3 in. by 13 ft. 8 in., etc., etc.” To us, 100 years later, it is a part of the great tragedy of Norman Cross, and by the light of the registers we see it in those short eight years from its building to its destruction the scone of the brightest joys and the deepest griefs of men and women whose names we know, whose persons we can imagine, and who help to clothe those cold, dry records with the warmth of human life. On a range of the stabling purchased in 1816 to be re-erected as farm buildings in a neighbouring village, over one of the doors there stands out in bold relief, owing to the protective influence of the paint, the letters B. A. T., and in the auctioneer’s catalogue the Range is described as Bathorse Stable Range. From Stoequeler’s Military EncyclopÆdia, we learn that “Bat” signified a pack saddle; “Bathorse,” one which carried a pack; “Batman,” the man in charge of the Bathorse. The latter term came to be used for an officer’s servant, while the Bathorse Stable was applied to a military stable for draught and other horses. In his interesting romance, The French Prisoners of Norman Cross, the Rev. Arthur Brown speaks of Mr. Vise as Chief Surgeon at the Prison; this, of course, is an error, the prisoners were not attended by the neighbouring practitioners. The statement that the surgeons were all English is also erroneous. Major Kelly was highly esteemed and at the time of his death (when the Indian Mutiny was not yet quelled) the following lines were published in a local newspaper:—
A MONODY ON THE LATE MAJOR KELLY
Peace to the virtuous brave!
Another son of chivalry lies low:
Not in the flush of youth he finds a grave,
Not stricken to the dust by foreign foe
He fainting falls;—but laden with full years,
With white-hair’d glory crown’d, he lays him down
In earth’s maternal lap, and with him bears
Benevolence, high honour, renown,
And love-begetting mem’ries, such as throw
A halo round the thoughts of mortals here below.
Earth! keep thy treasured dead
Awhile, in holy trust! Not with vain tears
Wail we the loss of him who bravely bled
For England’s might and weal, in early years,
When life’s warm pulse beat high, and buoyant hopes
On tip-toe look’d afar at distant fame;
When views of greatness fill’d his vision’s scope,
And daring deeds lent glory to a name:
Here on our soldier’s grave no tear should fall;
All hidden be our grief, as ’neath a funeral pall.
O! that in this, our need,
This hour of trial, when the swart Sepoy
Blurs the fair front of nature, with each deed
Of villainy conceiving; when the joy
That, like the sun, lights up affection’s eyes,
Is blotted out by Indian hate and lust—
O! that a host of Kellys could arise,
And with avenging steel, unto the dust,
Smite down the Smiter, that the world might know
How true the Briton as a friend, how mighty as a foe!
O. P.
The Peterborough Advertiser, 13th February 1858.
This monody not only shows the esteem in which the Major was held by the local poet and his neighbours, but in the last stanza it revives the memory of a crisis in the history of the empire, and of the throes of the Indian Mutiny, from which our country was suffering when Major Kelly died. Auctioneer’s Catalogue (Peterborough: G. Robertson, Bookseller. 1816!) The most valuable direct evidence as to the appearance of the barracks and prison which I was able to obtain in 1891, was from an old Mr. Lewin of Yaxley, who was born in 1802, and had been very familiar with the Depot in his childhood. He used frequently to ride in through this west gate in the tradesmen’s carts, but he spoke always of the entrance on the south front as the main entrance. This old gentleman’s memory was wonderfully clear, and his accounts I regarded as thoroughly trustworthy. The well-known Stilton cheese was never made at Stilton, which was not in a dairy district; it was made in Leicestershire and sent to Stilton, where Mr. Cooper Thornhill, the sporting landlord of the old sixteenth-century coaching inn, The Bell (he once for a wager rode 218 miles on horseback in 12 hours and 15 minutes), used to supply it to his customers, selling the cheeses, it is said, at half a crown a pound. To the post of agent at Norman Cross there were appointed, during the seventeen years in which the prison was occupied, two civilians and four naval officers. Of the two civilians, Mr. John Delafons sent in his formal resignation eight days after his appointment.
Mr. James Perrot, appointed on the 7th April 1797, held his office until January 1799.
Captain Woodriff, R.N., appointed January 1799, held his office until the Peace of Amiens, April 1802 (see Appendix B).
Captain Thos. Pressland, R.N., was appointed after the War was renewed in May 1803, and served from 18th June 1803 until August 1811.
Captain J. Draper, R.N., succeeded to the post, and held it until his death in February 1813.
Captain W. Hansell, R.N., became agent on the death of Captain Draper, and relinquished the post in August 1814 after the Abdication of Buonaparte and his retirement to Elba. There is evidence in correspondence still extant, that much friction arose between the commander of the Military Guard and the agent, as to the power of the latter to interfere in the steps required for the safe custody of the prisoners. This shows that about 4,000 prisoners were to be removed from Falmouth to Norman Cross, their hammocks, added to the 1,000 on the way from London, making the number correspond with the 5,000 sets of bedding. Lavengro, chap. iii. Evidence that two years later meat could be obtained at a much lower rate has come under my notice, from an unexpected source. On the fly-leaf of a copy of Batty’s Bible, in the possession of a descendant of Mr. W. Fowler, is written below the name W. Fowler (in the same writing, but in paler ink), “Came down to Norman Cross March 10th, 1799, to serve the prisoners of War at Yaxley.” In a different handwriting has been inserted after “Came down,” “from London,” and after Yaxley, “with Beef at 28s. the cwt.” The date 1799 has also been altered in dark ink to 1795, which was of course a wrong correction, as there was no prison at Norman Cross until 1797.—T. J. W. Appendix B, Biographical Sketch of Captain Woodriff. So slowly did the Government inquiry which followed on Captain Woodriff’s report progress, that it was not until two years later that judgment was pronounced.—Naval Chronicle, vol. i., pp. 523–6. For examples of the individual entries in the General Register, the Death Register, and the Register of Prisoners on Parole, see Appendix C. Cartel is an agreement between foreign states as to the exchange of the prisoners; its meaning was extended to the document authorising the exchange of an individual prisoner, and it was even used to signify the transport vessel engaged to convey the exchanged prisoners to their native country. In All Souls’ Church at Peterborough is preserved the Register, kept by the resident Priest at King’s Cliff, of the baptisms performed by priests within the mission of his church. Stilton, the Depot, and the surrounding villages were within that district. Two of the entries are baptisms of the sons of Delapoux; they will be referred to in a future chapter. They have always been supposed to be those of the baptism of the children of a French prisoner, who had married an English wife (these marriages were of rare occurrence), and the discovery in the Record Office of this entry of John Andrew Delapoux’s appointment as a clerk is an instance of the way in which research upsets old traditions. I find the entry of Delapoux’s marriage to Sarah Mason on the 2nd September 1802, in the Register of Stilton church. His children were baptized as Catholics, and the priest specially calls Sarah Mason his lawful wife. Another instance in this list, selected haphazard by Mr. Rhodes from papers in the Record Office, shows how in two generations a false family tradition may arise. In 1894 I visited, in search of information, the daughter-in-law, then a widow aged eighty-six, of the James Robinette whose engagement as a permanent mason and labourer at the Depot is recorded on page 61. She told me her husband’s father was a French prisoner, who had been made a turnkey at the Barracks! On searching the church Register, 1 found that the Robinettes had been residents in Yaxley fifty years at least before the arrival of the prisoners at Norman Cross, and between 1748 and 1796 the records of three generations appear in the register—James, the son of James and Catherine Robinette, born in 1780, was doubtless the man appointed in 1813 to the job at the Barracks.
The Robinettes were probably some of the many French Huguenots who came over after the repeal, on the 15th October 1685, of the Edict of Nantes, and settled in the neighbourhood of Peterborough to further reclaim and cultivate the lately drained fens. The fallacy of coming to conclusions, founded on names only without other evidence, is illustrated by the following sentence in a series of papers on Norman Cross published in the Peterborough Advertiser by the late Rev. G. N. Godwin: “At Stilton the names of Habarte, of Drage, and of Tesloff, and near Thorney the name of Egar, and at Peterborough, among others, the name of Vergette, still speak of the old war time.” Of these names, Habarte alone is that of descendants of a French prisoner, the majority of those bearing the others are of the old Huguenot stock, while the Vergettes, who formerly believed themselves to be descendants of an ancestor of this same stock, now know that they were an old-established English family in 1555, when their ancestor, Robert Vergette, was Sheriff of Lincoln. Loc. cit., 93–95. In a Parliamentary Report for the year 1800 it is stated that the price of wheat was only kept down to £5 a quarter by the system of bounties on imported wheat, the same applying to the prices of other grain. The present proprietor of “The Oundle Brewery” kindly extracted from the Books of the Firm particulars as to the beer supplied to the Regiments quartered at Norman Cross in the year 1799. The total amount was 4,449 barrels of 36 gallons each. This gentleman adds, the beer could not be very good, the price being about 6d. a gallon. His father said that he had often been told by his father, that the great expansion of the business was due to the contract with the Barracks. Buckles Brewery, a Peterborough business, also flourished on a large contract to supply the prisoners with “Small Beer.” Mr. George Gaunt, who was formerly in a large business as a butcher, informed me that, taking the figures which I gave him as a basis, and the average weight of a bullock at about 850 lb., he considered that from five to six would be required every day, if beef alone and no other meat were supplied. These figures give some idea of the advantages derived by the neighbouring traders from this great Government Establishment.
The following extract from a letter addressed to me by Mr. Samuel Booth shows how many people in one family group alone found employment in connection with the Depot:
“I send you a few particulars about my relatives, which may, or may not, be useful to you.
“My great-grandmother, Mrs. Allen, who lies in the old graveyard, used to carry green-grocery to sell to the prisoners.
“My father’s father was Pay-Sergeant at the Barracks.
“My grandfather, Samuel Briggs, of Ailsworth, was constable; he was also in the Militia, and was told off to keep guard on Thorpe Road, at the entrance to Peterboro’, on the escape of some prisoners, but who went the way to Ramsay. I have a box made by the prisoners, presented to my grandfather, who was also a carpenter, and at times went to work there. The prisoners used to beg pieces of wood and other materials of him. He used to speak of their cleverness in the making of fancy articles, and of their endeavours to escape—one got in the manure cart, and got away.”
When Greens are issued in lieu of Pease, one pound stripped of the outer leaves and fit for the copper shall be issued to each prisoner.
Each prisoner shall receive two ounces of Soap per week. Knowing how dogs as a rule refuse to eat meat impregnated with herbs and condiments, we probably have here the explanation of little George Borrow’s impression of the food of the prisoners, which forty years later made him write of it, “Rations of Carrion meat and bread from which I have seen the very hounds occasionally turn away.” Every one who knows the habit of dogs, knows that many of them would turn away from the meat which had been boiled for four or five hours with a broth impregnated with herbs. In the light of modern science, we can well understand the origin of the accusation by the British that the wells had been purposely poisoned in order to kill the English prisoners. Enteric fever had not then been differentiated from typhus, the mode of its spread was unknown, and probably defective sanitation had led to poisoning of the well, as it has done and still is doing in many a British town and village. Correspondence with the French Government relative to Prisoners of War Supplement, 1801, to Appendix No. 59. Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798. This will be dealt with in the following chapter. Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798, Appendix No. 59—Most valuable information on the merits of the dispute between the two Governments has been obtained from the Report and its Appendix, and from an imperfect copy of a Supplement to the Appendix, issued from Downing Street, 6th Jan. 1801. This supplement is not to be found either in the Library of the House of Commons or in the British Museum, and the Fragment which contained thirty-nine out of fifty-three letters indexed in the table of contents, in the course of its travels through my hands and my agents’ and the typewriters’, has been lost. This loss is irreparable, but I am able to publish in the text or in the Appendix five of the fifty-three letters which were printed in this supplement to the report. Appendix D. AFFIDAVITS OF PERROT, THE ENGLISH AND FRENCH SURGEON
Copy of an Affidavit made by Mr. James Perrot, Agent for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross. Dated Peterboro’, 15th December 1797.
These are to certify, that James Perrot, Agent for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, voluntarily maketh Oath, that to the best of his knowledge and belief, the Certificate and Affidavits given by Dr. Higgins, Physician, Mr. James Magennis, Surgeon, and Messiours Chatelin and Savary, the French Assistant Surgeons to the Hospital at Norman Cross Prisons, are strictly true, and corresponding with the accounts, daily brought to him; and that the number of Patients in the said Hospital on the 19th day of November last, were one hundred and ninety-four, including twenty-four nurses, and the whole number of Prisoners, including the Sick, were on that day confined in the said Prisons, 5028, and from the first the establishment never exceeded 5178, and that to the present date only 59 have died in the said Hospital; and further to the best of his knowledge, neither contagious or epidemic disorders have ever prevailed in the said Hospital or Prisons.
(Signed) J. Perrot, Agent.
Given under my hand at Peterboro’ this 15th day of December 1797.
(Signed) H. Freeman.
Copy of an Affidavit made by Dr. Higgins, Physician, and Dr. Magennis, Surgeon.
We the undersigned do voluntarily certify upon Oath that the number of Sick in the Hospital under our care at Norman Cross, on the 19th November last, was 194, including 24 nurses; that the daily number from the 7th August was always less; and that at no one period since the commencement of the establishment did the actual number exceed 260. That the prisons are systematically visited and searched every morning by the surgeon or his assistants, and that every prisoner having feverish symptoms, however slight, is immediately removed to the hospital.
No epidemic or contagious Fever.
(Signed) James Higgins, M.D., Physician,
James Magennis, Surgeon.
Translation of a certificate by the French Surgeons, M. Savary of the Hardy, and M. Chatelaine, Surgeon-Major of the Ville de l’Orient.
The 24 men were employed as nurses. Whenever the prisoners are sent to the Hospital, they are admitted, whether their disorders are slight or violent, and while there, they are treated with humanity and attention, and provided with everything necessary for the re-establishment of their health. No epidemic or contagious distemper.
(Ref. Parly. Paper, 1797–8, vol. 50. pp. 131–3.) These extracts are from the lost supplement of date 1801 to the Parliamentary Report, 1798. Alison’s History of Europe, from the commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. The total number of prisoners in Britain increased greatly during the second period of the war, until in 1814, after the abdication of Buonaparte, there were 67,000 prisoners to be returned to France. To provide for this vast body, Dartmoor and Perth, each capable of holding as many prisoners as Norman Cross, had been built. My mother, who remembered being driven over at the age of five to the stalls at the prison gate to buy a toy, could recall the appearance of the stalls and the toys, but nothing more. It was probably one of the fixed stalls shown at the eastern gate in MacGregor’s plan. The materials of the stalls, the pebble paving, and the paled fence in front of the market were sold, when the prison was demolished, for £20.
—T. J. W. Appendix D. Loc. cit., p. 131. Capt. Woodriff’s letter, Appendix D. In July 1799 the Dutch prisoners applied for the use of a building for theatrical exhibitions, but “My Lords” would not hear of such a thing, as “not being according to law, and might be attended with inconvenience to the neighbourhood”; but about ten years later, as seen in Foulley’s model, there is a theatre in the centre of the south-west quadrangle. Appendix A. Appendix D. No. 10, Appendix D. When M. Foulley knew the prison seven years later, this block was set apart for petty-officers and civilians. The remainder of this chapter is quoted verbatim from the Story of Dartmoor Prison (Basil Thomson). Basil Thomson, loc. cit., chap, xix., p. 202. Vide Appendix A. In the great action off Cape Trafalgar on 21st October 1805, the Leviathan, seventy-four guns, under Captain Bayton, was next to the Victory. After passing through the enemy’s line she dismasted her opponent, raked the Santissima Trinidad, and passed on to the San Augustin, one of seven coming to surround her; this ship was silenced in fifteen minutes, and the crew of the Leviathan, making her fast with a hawser, towed her into the English Fleet with the English Jack flying. The French ship L’IntrÉpide had by distant firing cut into the sails and rigging of the Leviathan, but three more British ships coming up, L’IntrÉpide was, after a noble resistance, also compelled to surrender, and was set on fire by the Britannia. The crews were landed at Portsmouth and transferred to Norman Cross, where they were received on 8th January 1806. One was Corporal Jean De la Porte, whose name appears as the maker of signed straw marquetry pictures, and to whom are attributed many other unsigned pictures of the same character. Mr. Jean De la Porte is spoken of as an officer; had he been of that rank he would not have been in the prison, but out on parole. He was a Petty Officer, and would be in the Petty Officers’ prison. He was confined at Norman Cross for nearly nine years, and during this long captivity his artistic skill and taste must have enormously mitigated his suffering. On Horn and Tortoiseshell, by H. Akin, late Secretary of the Society of Arts, London. Journal of the Franklin Institute, London. Series vol. xxvi., pp. 256–9. 1840. I have a drinking-horn, given to me by the daughter-in-law of the man for whom it was made, engraved with his name—J. Bates—surrounded by a floral pattern.—T. J. W. This art was practised by amateurs in the 18th century. In 1875 an attempt was made to reintroduce the work. “Mosaicon, or Paper Mosaic,” W. Bemrose, jun. (Bemrose & Sons, 10, Paternoster Buildings, E.C., and Irongate, Derby.) The authenticity of the wine slides as Norman Cross work is absolute. Mr. Vinter, who gave them to the author for presentation to the museum, affirmed that his mother had known them all her life in the house of her parents, an inn opposite the prison. Her father had purchased them in the prison market. Mr. Vinter’s mother had herself seen from a window of the house a prisoner shot by a sentinel as he was attempting to escape. Of the caddies, one is in the possession of the Countess of Lindsey at Uffington Park, twelve miles from Norman Cross (Plate VII., Fig. 2, p. 40). Mr. Bodger has the second; it is of beautiful design, but dilapidated. The third is in the collection of Miss Paull, of Truro, and is known as the work of a French prisoner at the Falmouth Depot (Plate VIII, Fig. 1, p. 46). It is possible that the three caddies were all the work of the same artist, who may have been one of the thousands of prisoners who were sent from Falmouth to Norman Cross. Parliamentary History, xxxvi. 450. There were two rates for the tax on hats, those of a wider diameter being taxed at the higher rate. Norman Cross. Correspondence with the French Government relative to prisoners of war, issued from Downing Street 1st January 1801, as a supplement to Appendix 59. Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798. The Rev. E. Bradley (Cuthbert Bede), who half a century ago was the incumbent of Denton, a village a little over a mile from Norman Cross, left the following note among the MSS. which were prepared for a history of Huntingdon, or, as he called it, Cromwell’s County, which was never completed:
“The French prisoners at the prison made beautiful straw plaits, which were purchased by people in Stilton and sold at a high rate. For a long time they were forbidden to sell these plaits, but they found means to do so through the soldiers. No doubt the soldiers made a great deal of money in this way, although the plaits were sold so cheaply that many people in Stilton made very respectable fortunes by their sale. The soldiers secretly brought the straw plaits to the houses, sometimes wrapped round their bodies under their clothes; in this case they would go upstairs and undress, and then come down with the straw plaits.
“I do not know how the prisoners got the straw, but as they could no more make straw plaits without straw than the Israelites could make bricks, I suppose the soldiers helped them to it. Much of the plait (which was more neatly made than the English manufacture) was made up and sold in Stilton. Other was hawked about round the district; also sent to wholesale houses in London or elsewhere. One vendor of the straw plaits cleared a thousand pounds in a few years.”
Vol. 106. An old lady friend of mine, recently deceased, remembered in her childhood seeing the children following a woman in the streets of Peterborough, and singing, “Wind or storm, hail or snow, To the Barracks she will go,” a doggerel which had been fastened on to her when she carried over goods for sale at the market, and was supposed to smuggle in cut straw and to bring back concealed about her person straw plait, which she disposed of to the bonnet makers.—T. J. W. Chambers’ Journal, xxiii. 327. In the same journal (issue of September 1908) is an article by A. F. Morris upon straw marquetry, in which the introduction of that art into this country is ascribed to the French.
Historical Sketch of the Old Depot, Perth, William Sievwright, 1894. Vol. ix., chap. lxiv., par. 127. This information Alison gave from his own personal recollection. I can confirm his account from what I have been told by my father, who in his sixteenth and seventeenth years was living in Perth, and was in the habit of going to the prison to take lessons in French and in fencing from one of the officers confined there.—T. J. W. Curiously this article does not appear in Poole’s original Index, but in the second supplement under “Banker’s Notes.” These were a part of the troops who in 1797 landed at Fishguard to invade England through Wales. This long-planned invasion ended in a fiasco. Laws, Little England Beyond Wales, pp. 373–4. Legends of Huntingdonshire, W. B. Saunders. W. H. Bernard Saunders, loc. cit., 1888. ArchÆologia Cantiana, ix.–xciii. Chambers’ Miscellany, No. 92, vol. vi., p. 32, New Edition. Story of a French Prisoner of War in England. Story of Dartmoor Prison, pp. 32, 33. AperÇu du Traitement qu’Éprouvent les Prisonniers de Guerre franÇais en Angleterre: Paris, 1813. Appendix E. Naval Chronicle, xxviii., 282. The expense of the prisoners’ clothing, provision, and supervision was £1,000 a day exclusive of buildings.—Naval Chronicle, xxxiv., 460. Appendix F. Full return, with names, etc., of the hospital staff. The following, copied from a loose paper lying between the pages of Reg. 628 at the Record Office, is evidently an answer to the inquiries of a prisoner’s friends, made ten years after his death. It gives a chance insight into one of the duties of the agent, and is evidence that the French were at least treated with courtesy:
“Le SoussignÉ Agent du Gouvernement Britannique ChargÉ du soin et de la Surveillance des Prisonniers de Guerre au DÉpÔt de Norman Cross, Certifie que le NommÉ Vincent Fontaine, natif de Veli, Pris À Bord du transport La Sophie, en qualitÉ de soldat, entre en Prison au DÉpÔt de Norman Cross le 25 Septembre 1804, est mort À l’hospital du susdit DÉpÔt le Vingt trois mars, mil huit cent huit, ÂgÉ de Trente ans et demi, ainsi qu’il couste par les Registres de la Prison.
“En foi de quoi j’ai dÉlivrÉ le PrÉsent Extrait pour servir À qui de Raison.
“Norman Cross le 1er Juin 1814.
“(Signed) W. Hanwell, Capt. R.N., Agent.”
[Translation]
“The Undersigned Agent of the British Government in charge of the care and the superintendence of the Prisoners of War at the Depot of the Norman Cross, certifies that the named Vincent Fontaine, native of Veli, taken on board the transport La Sophie, as being a soldier, entered into the Prison at the Depot of Norman Cross on the 25th September 1804, died in the Hospital of the above-mentioned Depot, 23rd March 1808, Age 30½ years, as shown by the Prison Registers.
“In Witness whereof I have delivered the present Extract to be used by Whom it may concern.
“Norman Cross, 1st June 1814.
“(Signed) W. Hanwell, Capt. R.N., Agent.”
Vincent Fontaine was the only prisoner who died during the week ending 27th March 1808. The certificate was signed by Thos. Pressland, the agent at that date. Notes and Queries, Ser. ii., v. 204. Appendix G.—Letter enclosing short autobiography from the Bishop of Moulins to Earl Fitzwilliam. Reply from Earl Fitzwilliam and correspondence between his lordship and Lord Mulgrave, etc. The French Prisoners of Norman Cross. A tale by the Rev. Arthur Brown, Rector of Catfield, Norfolk. (Hodder Brothers.) This house is selected by tradition as that of the Bishop, being the one most suited to a wealthy ecclesiastic of high rank. The Bishop’s letters are dated from the Bell Inn, where he probably could live, en pension, on what was left out of his £240 a year, after paying the interest due to the money-lenders. This was a remarkable election, and created immense excitement at the time. There had been no contested election for forty-six years, and in 1807 there were four candidates for the two seats. One, a Mr. Fowkes, received two votes. William Wilberforce, the great advocate for the abolition of slavery, led all the way; the real contest was between Milton and Lascelles. Wilberforce’s expenses were largely met by subscription; the cost to the other two was enormous. The Recorder of Leeds said, “The yellow had not only been in the hats, but had also been in the pockets of the voters for Lord Milton.” The state of the poll at the end was:
| Wilberforce | 11,806 |
| Milton | 11,177 |
| Lascelles | 10,988 |
| Fowkes | 2 |
Smith, Parliaments of England, ii. 136, 140. The Times, 26th, 28th, 30th May, 2nd, 4th, 6th June 1807.
Wm. Wilberforce, Esq.; Rt. Hon. Chas. Wm. Wentworth, commonly called Viscount Milton; Hon. Henry Lascelles. “Ces jeunes captifs furent instruits par les soins de M. l’ÉvÊque de Moulins.” As these pages are passing through the press, the opportunity offers of seeing through the observant eyes of Mrs. Larpent the Bishop as he was when she met him in London, about 1804, and for the “man with a fine presence” we must substitute the “little deformed lively man,” described in that lady’s diary, “Nineteenth Century and After,” No. 438, August 1913, p. 318. Appendix G. MÉmoire des ÉvÊques franÇais rÉsidant À Londres qui n’ont pas donnÉ leur dÉmission, Londres, May 1802; Biographie des Hommes vivant, 1818, Paris; Biographie des Contemporains, Paris. MÉmoire des ÉvÊques franÇais rÉsidant À Londres, pp. 108, 217, 284. The only reference by his French biographer to his work at Norman Cross, which looms so large in this book, is that “he is said to have visited the prisoners of war when in England.” Supplement to Appendix 59, Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons, 1798. Issued from Downing Street 6th January 1801. If the commander of a privateer before lowering his flag threw overboard as many of his guns as he could, in order to prevent their falling into the hands of the enemy, and thus reduced their number below fourteen, he was no longer eligible for parole, but remained in prison. List of places where French prisoners of war were allowed on parole at different periods of the war.
| Abergavenny. | Eye. | Penrith. |
| Alresford. | Falmouth. | Penryn. |
| Andover. | Fareham. | Perth. |
| Ashbourne. | Foxton. | Peterborough |
| Ashburton. | Greenlaw. | Petersfield. |
| Ashby-de-la-Zouch. | Hawick. | Plymouth. |
| Bandon. | Jedburgh. | Pontefract. |
| Basingstoke. | Kelso. | Porchester. |
| Bedale. | Knaresborough. | Portsmouth. |
| Bideford. | Lanark. | Reading. |
| Biggar. | Landore. | Redruth. |
| Bishops Castle. | Launceston. | Regilliack. |
| Bishops Waltham. | Leek. | Richmond. |
| Bodmin. | Lichfield. | Roscor. |
| Boroughbridge. | Llanfyllin. | Sanquhar. |
| Brecon. | Lockerbie. | Selkirk. |
| Bridgnorth. | Lockmaben. | Stapleton. |
| Bristol. | London. | Tavistock. |
| Callington. | Melrose. | Thame. |
| Carlisle. | Mill Prison Hospital. | Tiverton. |
| Carnarvon. | Montgomery. | Tynemouth. |
| Chatham. | Montrose. | Valleyfield. |
| Chepstow. | Moreton Hampstead. | Wakefield. |
| Chesterfield. | Newton. | Wantage. |
| Crediton. | Norman Cross. | Welshpool. |
| Cupar. | Northampton. | Whitchurch. |
| Dartmoor. | Okehampton. | Wincanton. |
| Derby. | Oldham. | Winchester. |
| Dover. | Oswestry. | Wisbech. |
| Dumfries. | Peebles. | York. |
| Edinburgh. | Pembroke. | |
Basil Thomson, loc. cit., pp. 28, 29. A RETURN OF THE PRISONERS OF WAR AT PRESENT IN GREAT BRITAIN
Transport Office,
26th June 1812.
| On Parole. | French Prisoners. | Danish Prisoners. |
| Officers, Army | 1,615 | — |
| Officers, Navy | 718 | — |
| Masters and Mates of Merchant Vessels | 211 | 33 |
| Captains, etc., of Privateers | 176 | — |
| Passengers and other Persons of Respectability | 211 | 3 |
| Servants to Officers | 149 | — |
| Women and children | 115 | — |
| | 3,231 | 36 |
| In Confinement | |
| Soldiers | 22,916 | 5 |
| Seamen, taken in Men-of-War | 11,198 | 305 |
| Seamen, taken in Merchant Vessels | 4,076 | 977 |
| Seamen, taken in Privateers | 10,146 | 530 |
| All others | 1,045 | 15 |
| Women and Children | 37 | — |
| | 49,418 | 1,832 |
| Abstract. | |
| Prisoners belonging to the Army | 24,567 | 5 |
| Prisoners belonging to the Navy | 26,525 | 1,845 |
| Others | 1,557 | 18 |
| | 52,649 | 1,868 |
| N.B.—There are not any prisoners in Ireland. |
| Total, French prisoners | 52,649 |
| Total, Dutch prisoners | 1,868 |
| | 54,517 |
(Signed) Rup. George, J. Bowen, J. Douglas.
(Parl. Pap. 1812, vol. ix., p. 225.)
In reference to this return it may be here mentioned that very few of the Danes were brought to Norman Cross, either in the first period of the war, or in the second period in which this return was made. French Prisoners’ Lodges, by John T. Thorp, Leicester. Printed by Bro. Geo. Gilbert, King Street, 1900. Of the after history of the young men and maidens who contracted these romantic marriages I can give information in only two cases. Charles Peter Vanderaa, entered in the register of the Record Office as lieutenant on a brig-of-war, was married on the day of his release. Whether he took his wife to Holland or not, his grandson, from whom I got my information, did not know. All he knew was that his grandfather, in some capacity or other, again took to the sea, and that he died of yellow fever in Spain or one of the Spanish colonies, leaving his widow with two sons, Thomas and Peter. The widow, after his death, lived in Peterborough in very poor circumstances. The second son, Peter, I well remember earning a living as a schoolmaster in Peterborough, where he had at one time been in the police force; he married and had one daughter, who married a blacksmith named Dawson. The couple moved to London, where there may be a colony of the cadet’s descendants, recking nothing of their Dutch blood. The oldest son, Thomas Vanderaa, had two sons, one of whom I knew well. His mental capacity was not very high; he got his living as a casual, respectable gardener and handy man. He died a few years since, but I have preserved the letter in which he gave me the information about his relatives.
When in 1894 Mr. Vanderaa gave me the information about his family, he said he had a brother, who was, he believed, alive, but he did not know where he was living.
Of the descendants of the Miss Roelans, who married Mr. Joseph Little, several are living in a good social position; but the Dutch blood does not seem to have passed into the collateral branches of Moores, Buckles, and other well-known families who have intermarried with the Littles. The gunsmith’s business was a good one, and remained in the family, and the grandson, M. Hubert Habart, who had succeeded to it, had an exhibit of guns in the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park in 1851. Several of M. Habart’s descendants are still alive. One of his granddaughters, Miss Habart, is my consulting-room attendant. The family of the Rev. Father Robert A. Davis, from whose copy of Macgregor’s plan the plate on p. 18 is taken, is connected by marriage with that of the Habarts.—T. J. W. Parl. Paper, 1812, vol. ix., p. 223. Maberly Phillips, The Connoisseur, xxvii., No. 105, May 1910. Notes and Queries, ser. iv., vol. v., pp. 376, 546. Sleigh, History of Leek, 2nd edn., p. 221. Wellington’s Despatches. This is how the naval authorities summed up the failure of the negotiations for exchange: “There is no fixing the French Government to any basis of exchange. Every concession on our part has produced fresh demands. We have about 50,000 prisoners of war in England, in France there are about 12,000, two-thirds of whom are not prisoners, but dÉtenus, many of them women and children. Even these our Government were willing to exchange, when the French Government proposed that their 50,000 should be sent over en masse, for the 12,000, and then afterwards the Spaniards would be released. This would enable it to man twenty-five sail of the line, and still retain the Spaniards, our allies, in his hands.”—Naval Chronicle, vol. xxiv., p. 327. Appendix H. A good description of Verdun in 1811 will be found in the Narrative of a Forced Journey through Spain and France an a Prisoner of War in the Years 1810 to 1814, by Major-Gen. Lord Blanfrey. In 2 vols. 1814. Vol. ii., chaps, xxxvi.-xxxvii., good account, viii., ix., xl., xli., xlii., xliii., xliv.
The author says he was confined for seven weeks as a hostage to prevent the English Government from punishing a French officer who had projected a rising of the French prisoners in England. Naval Chronicle, xiv., 17; xv., 122; xvi., 108; xvii., 108; Douglas Jerrold, The Prisoner of War, 1842; A Picture of Verdun, or the English detained in France, from the Portfolio of a DÉtenue, 1810, 2 vols.; Letters from France, written in the Years 1803 and 1804, including a Particular Account of Verdun and the Situation of the British Captives in that City, 2 vols. 1806; Chambers’ Journal of Literature, Science, and Art, 1854, vol. i., p. 330. Few of the Danes were brought to Norman Cross, either at this period of the war or in the second period when there were a considerable number confined in Great Britain. From a return made to the House of Commons in 1812, it appears that of 54,508 prisoners confined at the various depots, 52,640 were French and 1,868 Danes, but no register of Danish prisoners confined at Norman Cross has been found. Mr. Share often heard his grandmother speak of her husband’s acts of kindness to the prisoners who were landed at Plymouth. One incident which he recollects was, that one day, just as the family were sitting down to dinner, Captain Holditch ran in, seized the large beefsteak pie just placed on the table, and carried it off, saying, “I want this, there are a batch of French prisoners going by, and they look famished, they must have it.”
Mr. Godwin (loc. cit.), mentioning that on Christmas Day 1805 some 250 French prisoners from Porchester Castle marched into Basingstoke on their cheerless way to Norman Cross (probably some of the heroes who had fought against Nelson and his captains on the 21st October), asks the question, “Did the Hampshire folk give them a share in their festivities?” The above anecdote justifies us, I hope, in saying that the answer to this question would be “Yes.” These had been a considerable source of profit to the farmers, who had contracted to remove them regularly from their positions below the latrines, and had used their contents, with the rest of the refuse of the prison, as a guano to the great benefit of their land. Histoire gÉnÉrale des traitÉs de paix et autres transactions principales entre toutes les puissances de l’Europe depuis la paix de Westphalie. Ouvrage comprenant les travaux de Koch, Schoell, etc., entiÈrement refondus et continuÉs jusqu’À ce jour. Paris 1848–87, 15 tom., vol. vi., p. 49. His staff was as follows:
Wm. Gardiner, entered first clerk 1st September 1803 at £118 per annum, abate taxes 1s. in the pound, £9 6s., Civil List at 6d., leaving £8 19s. 8¾d. net per month.
Wm. Todd, 1st September, as store-clerk, at £118 per annum, and an extra £30 as French interpreter, with 18s. abatement; net per month £11 5s. 3½d.
John Andrew Delapoux, extra clerk, 1st September, at 3s. 6d. per diem. He was very uneasy about the proclamation against aliens, but was assured it would not apply to him.
Wm. Belcher, steward, at 3s. per day.
Thos. Adams, steward, 3rd September, at 3s. per day.
John Hobbs, turnkey, £50 per annum.
John Nolt, turnkey, £50 per annum.
John Belcher, turnkey, £50 per annum.
Alex Halliday, ditto, and as superintendent carpenter, £20, with 2s. 10½d. abatement for Civil List.
John Hayward, labourer, 12s. a week.
Wm. Powell, labourer, 12s. a week.
Captain Pressland was informed that no clothing of any kind was to be served out to any prisoner, though most were captured with none beyond what they stood upright in. No soup was to be served out, except to the prisoners who acted as barbers. He asked for some modification of this, but was refused. He was allowed £25 per annum for coals and candles, and 10s. 6d. each time he went to Peterborough on the Board’s Order or to make affidavits as to his accounts, etc. A few days afterwards this was increased to 12s. 6d. The military guard consisted of 400 of the North Lincoln Militia. Chambers’ Journal of Literature, etc., loc. cit. At this time Norman Cross and the other existing prisons were greatly overcrowded, but Wellington found it impossible to guard and maintain his prisoners on the Continent. Not only were the troops actually captured overwhelmingly numerous, but to their number were added deserters. In one of his dispatches, he writes: “Two battalions of the Regiment of Nassau, and one of Frankfort having quitted the enemies’ Army and passed over to that under my command. . . . I now send these troops to England.” The long-delayed completion of the prisons at Dartmoor and Perth would relieve the overcrowding of Norman Cross; but the resources of the staff must, in the meantime, have been strained to an extreme point to prevent the evils which might result from the state of matters. The breakdown of the various negotiations for exchange prevented the relief which was afforded during the first period of the war by the steady drain of prisoners sent back to their own country. It is said that a memorandum exists in a private diary that the price paid for a picture of straw marquetry of Peterborough Cathedral was only £2; the picture must have taken weeks to construct. The prison register confirms this paragraph. The last death certificate is that of Petronio Lambertini, a soldier of the Italian Regiment of the French Army. He died of consumption, and was presumably the last prisoner buried in the cemetery adjoining the North Road. Loc. cit., p. 120. The copy of the catalogue used by the auctioneer, with his note of the purchaser of and the price paid for each lot, is for the time in the writer’s hands, and has afforded much information, especially as to the construction of the buildings and the use to which each was appropriated.
Two years before this sale took place the Depot had been evacuated, and in the Public Record Office is the Barrack Master’s receipt to Captain Hanwell, dated 30th October 1814, for the Depot at Norman Cross, delivered over to him, agreeably to the Transport Board’s order of 24th September 1814. The document consists of ten pages in double columns. Admiralty Records, Transport Department, Minutes No. 38; Records of Captains’ Services, O’ Byrne; Naval Biographical Dictionary; Naval Chronicle, vol. viii., 438; xiv., 283; xvi., 107, 108; xviii., 28; xix., 170–2; The Times, 26th February 1842. M. Otto had at the date of this letter succeeded M. Niou as Commissary for the French Prisoners of War confined in Great Britain. This was written three months before the fatal epidemic broke out in the prison.—T. J. W. The number stated to be sick, on the 30th April 1810, includes convalescents, cases of wounds, accidents, etc. Parliamentary Papers, 1810–11, vol. xi. (263), p. 115. This is not a facsimile copy of the Register, which contains many abbreviations; it has been set out in columns, and abbreviated words have been written in full.
