Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815 / A record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings

by Francis Abell

Tragic Events

Tragic events were by no means so common among the prisoners on parole as in the prisons, no doubt because of the greater variety in their lives, and of their not being so constantly in close company with each other.

A French officer, on parole at Andover in 1811, at what is now Portland House in West Street, fell in love with the daughter of his host, and upon her rejection of his suit, retired to a summer-house in the garden, opened a vein in his arm, and bled to death.

Duels were frequent, and not only would there have been more, had weapons of offence been procurable, but the results would have been more often fatal.

In 1812 two French officers at Reading fought in a field near the New Inn on the Oxford road. They could not get pistols, but one gun. They tossed for the first shot with it at fifty paces, and the winner shot his opponent through the back of the neck so that he died.

At Leek in Staffordshire in the same year, a Captain Decourbes went out fishing and came in at curfew. At 8 p.m. in the billiard-room of the Black’s Head, a Captain Robert chaffed him about his prowess as an angler, words were exchanged, and Robert insulted and finally struck him. Decourbes, of course, challenged him. The only weapon they could get was a cavalry horse-pistol which they borrowed from a yeomanry trooper. They met at Balidone on October 17. Decourbes won the toss for first shot and hit Robert in the breech. Robert, who had come on to the ground on crutches, then fired and hit Decourbes in the nape of the neck. Decourbes managed to walk back to Leek, but he died in ten days.

A very different version of this affair was given in a contemporary Times. According to this, Decourbes, about ten days before the duel, was out of his lodgings after the evening bell had rung, and the boys of Leek collected and pelted him with stones. His behaviour caused one of his brother officers to say that he was ‘soft’ and would faint at the sight of his own blood. Decourbes gave him the lie, the other struck him, and the result was a challenge and the duel as described. But the verdict, ‘Died by the visitation of God,’ was questioned, and the writer of a letter to The Times declared that there was no evidence of a duel, as Decourbes’ body was in a putrid state, and that three French and two English surgeons had declared that he had died from typhus.

In 1807 a tragedy was enacted at Chesterfield which caused much stir at the time. Colonel Richemont and Captain Méant were fellow prisoners, released from the Chatham hulks, and travelling together to Chesterfield where they were to live on parole. On the road thither they slept at Atherstone. When Richemont arrived at the Falcon Hotel at Chesterfield he found that his trunk had been robbed of a quantity of gold dust, a variety of gold coins, and of some gold and silver articles. Suspecting that it had been done at the inn in Atherstone, he caused inquiry to be made, but without result. He then suspected his fellow traveller Méant, caused his box to be searched, and in it found silver spoons and other of his missing property.

Méant, on being discovered, tried to stab himself, but, being prevented, seized a bottle of laudanum and swallowed its contents. Then he wrote a confession, and finding that the laudanum was slower in action than he expected, tried to stab himself again. A struggle took place; Méant refused the emetic brought, and died. Méant’s brother-in-law brought an action against Richemont, declaring that the latter in reality owed the dead man a large sum of money, and that Méant had only taken his due. During the trial Colonel Richemont was very violent against the British, and especially when the jury decided the case against him, and found that the dead man was his creditor, although, of course, the means he employed to get what was his were illegal.

Méant was buried, according to usage, at the union of four cross roads just outside the borough boundary, with a stake driven through his body. The funeral took place on a Sunday, and great crowds attended.

On April 13, 1812, Pierre de Romfort or De la Roche, a prisoner on parole at Launceston, was hanged at Bodmin for forgery. ‘He behaved very penitently, and was attended to at the last moment by Mr. Lefers, a Roman Catholic priest living at Lanhearne.’

I quote this because it is one of the very few instances of this crime being committed by a prisoner on parole.