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

Divers writers, one after another, have attributed to him the qualifications of a saint, finding everything he did so good and wonderful, that the last, the late Rev. M. C. Godwin, mentions as a merit that the Bishop walked a mile to his duties at the prison.

Mr. Brown, in the footnote just quoted, says: “It would be interesting to know the history of this good man after the prisoners were discharged in 1814.”

The Bishop’s association with Norman Cross entitles him to a prominent place in this narrative, and such further particulars of his life as have after much research been established add something to the little that is known of the émigrés and the déportés who took refuge in England.

Without the halo of a saint, the Bishop is still revealed as a good priest winning the hearts and the esteem of those among whom he ministered, seeking to lighten the lot of the prisoners who were his flock.  What light is thrown on his character by the legend written against the boys’ prison on the prisoner Foulley’s model of the Norman Cross Depot, in the Invalides! 89 (vide Plate XX, p. 251).  The Bishop was working when many another ecclesiastical emigrant was idle, and there is every reason to believe that he was worthy of his hire, as far as his work was concerned.  Probably the advent of the Bishop to Norman Cross did for the prisoners what Buonaparte’s reinstatement of religion did for the population of France.  The correspondence shows that it was his strong political opinions, his stedfast loyalty to the House of Bourbon, strengthened as it was by gratitude and affection, and his determined refusal to accept office on the terms of the Concordat, and to swear fealty to the Emperor, whom he regarded as a usurper, which kept him in England as a mere Bishop-designate instead of a consecrated endowed Bishop.  So strong were his feelings on these points, that he was one of the ecclesiastics who signed the Remonstrance against the Concordat and thus incurred the Pope’s displeasure.

Outside his office there is good ground for believing that he was an accomplished and learned man, with a fine presence and attractive, courteous manners. 90  He was apparently persona grata at Milton, the residence of Earl Fitzwilliam, seven miles from Stilton.  But the correspondence reveals the Bishop as a normally imperfect man.  In the opinion of the authorities (with which the historian must agree) he abused the extraordinary privileges granted to him by the British Government, and on his own showing he was, to say the least of it, injudicious in the management of his affairs.  He incurred heavy debts to money-lenders without any certain prospect of being able to repay them.  In extenuation of these financial errors, it may be said that misfortune and over-generosity, not personal extravagance, led to his impecuniosity and his dealings with usurers, and as to the Bishop’s connivance in the matter of his servant taking up as his occupation illicit dealing in the straw plait made in the prison, Earl Fitzwilliam clearly did not regard it as a heinous offence, when it was brought before his notice by Lord Mulgrave, but continued his pleading for the Bishop, and eventually succeeded in obtaining for him the favour he craved.

The Bishop’s work at Norman Cross continued until he returned with the Bourbons to France after the banishment of Buonaparte to Elba in 1814.  Several articles in the Peterborough Museum are described in the catalogue as presents from grateful prisoners to the Bishop.  If they were, it would be interesting to know why he left them behind instead of taking them to France when he returned.

From other sources we gather that the Rt. Rev. Etienne Jean Baptist, Louis de Galois de la Tour, who was fifty-four years of age at the date of the correspondence, 91 was an ecclesiastic of great distinction.  He was the son of Charles Jean Baptist de Galois de la Tour, who was French Administrator in 1788 at Moulins and first President of the Department of Aix, where the future Archbishop was born in 1754.  He became Vicar-general of the See of Autun and doyen of the College of St. Pierre at Moulins.  He had been designated to the See of Moulins, when in 1791 the order for his arrest was issued, and he was “déporté” according to the official list of émigrés published in Paris in 1793.  In the Bishop’s own narrative he says, “L’Évêque de Moulins, parti de France en 1791.”  Of his life and fortunes from that year until 1808 we have his own account.  In 1814, after twenty-three years of exile, he returned with the Bourbons to France, but he was not at once consecrated or even appointed to the See of Moulins.

His attitude towards the Pope and the French Government during his banishment can be seen in three rare pamphlets published in London in 1802 and 1803. 92  The Pope (Pius VII.) was remonstrated with for coming to terms with the French Government.  To the first remonstrance, dated 23rd December 1801, one archbishop and twelve bishops affix their signatures, to which a cross is prefixed; Etienne de la Tour signs last, as nominated Bishop of Moulins, without the cross.  In April 1803 he signs at the end of three archbishops and thirty-five bishops, this time with a cross. 93  The history of the quarrel between the parties and final reconciliation can be seen in Thiers: History of the French Revolution (Shobul’s Trans.), 1895, vol. i., pp. 105–6, 145, 187.

After some correspondence and an acknowledgment of his error the Bishop-designate was consecrated, and two years later he was elevated to the archbishopric of Bourges.

The Archbishop did not live more than four years to occupy the lofty position which he had won by his personal attributes, by his fidelity to the House of Bourbon, by his services to the Church, by his twenty-three years’ banishment from France involuntary and voluntary, by his experiences at Norman Cross, 94 among which the little incident of his association, through Jean Baptiste David, with the straw-plait smuggling business might, by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and even by the Bourbon Government, not be reckoned as otherwise than meritorious.

The Archbishop, who had for so many years lived at Stilton on a pittance allowed by the British Government, and had served his fellow countrymen within the walls of the Norman Cross Prison, died in his palace at Bourges on 20th March 1820.

No evidence has been procured, beyond the statement of the relative of the Rev. T. Hinde (p. 176), that, at any time, a Protestant clergyman was officially appointed as chaplain to the Depot.  There is, however, sufficient evidence that, during the first period of the war, between the opening of the prison (1797) and its evacuation (1802), the services of Roman Catholic priests were accepted, a record existing that two priests were for a short time allowed to reside within the walls.  After the resumption of hostilities in 1803, notwithstanding the very strong directions issued to Captain Pressland, on the reopening of the prison, that “no priests were to be admitted except in extreme cases, etc.,” we find the Bishop-designate of Moulins practically established as the priest ministering to his countrymen in captivity, and living on the income derived from the British Government.

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: