The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816

The fact that the Vicar-general of Mans and the Bishop-designate of Moulins differed in their politics from the bulk of the prisoners probably led to their obtaining from the British Government the privilege of thus exercising their office—a privilege not apparently without its pecuniary advantages to themselves, for the Bishop in his autobiography tells us that on coming to London he received from the British Government the sum of £10 a month, the usual allowance to a man of his rank, while at Stilton the sum paid to him is doubled, and he has £240 a year.

On the whole, the records of this chapter in the history of Norman Cross, if painful to our national pride and self-respect in many details, would probably not be regarded in the same light by those who, a century since, were engaged in and suffering from this prolonged, sanguinary, bitter, and costly war.

CHAPTER X
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.” ⁹⁵

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, ⁹⁶ 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. ⁹⁷  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 1s. a day.  This was increased to 1s. 6d.; 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 1s. 3d.  The French scale varied from 7s. a day for a General to 10d. 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 9d. a day, while for a similar provision in England, a French officer must pay 2s. 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:

^[200] Basil Thomson, loc. cit., pp. 28, 29.

It therefore appeared clear that the least an officer could live on was 2s. a day in England and 1s. 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 2s. for the higher ranks, coming down to 1s. 8d. 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. ⁹⁸

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. ⁹⁹  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.