[6] He escaped, subsequently to me, with some other naval officers, from Bitche.
[7] Probably the Préfet Maritime of Brest is meant; the Minister of Marine would of course be at Paris.
[8] In Sir Jahleel Brenton’s interesting Autobiography the reader may find a long account of the misery prevalent among the British prisoners at Givet, and of the efforts which he took to get their grievances redressed.
[9] He died at Port Mahon on the 25th of July 1811, having been mortally wounded on 28th June, the day of the storming of Tarragona by Marshal Suchet.
[10] They made midshipmen, notwithstanding their officers were responsible for them, attend two appels, or musters, per diem; the not appearing at the exact time was formerly a fine of three livres (2s. 6d.), but afterwards the offenders were sent to Sarrelouis or Bitche, the depots of punishment.
[11] This town is seated on the banks of the river Serre, in Picardy. We learned since that it is famous for serge manufactories.
[12] Ashworth and Tuthill, as we shall see, were recaptured by the gendarmes almost immediately. They were sent to Bitche and shared O’Brien’s captivity there. Ultimately they escaped, though not in our hero’s company, and made their way, like him, to Trieste, where they reached an English ship.
[13] Certainly not Zürich, which is over thirty miles away, with some high ground between. Perhaps O’Brien means Schaffhausen.
[14] The Ueberlinger See, or northern arm of the forked Boden See.
[15] O’Brien’s political geography is all wrong here. Both Constance and his destination, Meersburg, were in Baden territory. Hence there was no frontier difficulty, or requisition for passports. He really crossed the Würtemberg and Bavarian frontiers without knowing it, during his night march between Meersburg and Lindau.