Naturally, the rules about the correspondence of prisoners on parole were strict, and no other rules seem to have been more irksome to prisoners, or more frequently violated by them. All letters for prisoners on parole had to pass through the Transport Office. Remittances had to be made through the local agent, if for an even sum in the Bank of England notes, if for odd shillings and pence by postal orders. It is, however, very certain that a vast amount of correspondence passed to and from the prisoners independently of the Transport Office, and that the conveyance and receipt of such correspondence became as distinctly a surreptitious trade called into existence by circumstances as that of aiding prisoners to escape.
Previous to 1813 the money allowance to officers on parole above and including the rank of captain was ten shillings and sixpence per week per man, and below that rank eight shillings and ninepence. In that year, complaints were made to the British Government by M. Rivière, that as it could be shown that living in England was very much more expensive than in France, this allowance should be increased. Our Government admitted the justice of the claim, and the allowances were accordingly increased to fourteen shillings, and eleven shillings and eightpence. It may be noted, by the way, that this was the same Rivière who in 1804 had denied our right to inquire into the condition of British prisoners in France, curtly saying: ‘It is the will of the Emperor!’
The cost of burying the poor fellows who died in captivity, although borne by the State, was kept down to the most economical limits, for we find two orders, dated respectively 1805 and 1812, that the cost was not to exceed £2 2s., that plain elm coffins were to be used, and that the expense of gloves and hat-bands must be borne by the prisoners. Mr. Farnell, the Agent at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, was called sharply to order for a charge in his accounts of fourteen shillings for a hat-band!
In 1814 funerals at Portsmouth were cut down to half a guinea, but I presume this was for ordinary prisoners. The allowances for surgeons in parole places in 1806 were:
For cures when the attendance was for more than five days, six shillings and eightpence, when for less, half that sum. Bleeding was to be charged sixpence, and for drawing a tooth, one shilling. Serious sick cases were to be sent to a prison hospital, and no allowance for medicines or extra subsistence was to be made.
We must not allow sentimental sympathy with officers and gentlemen on parole to blind our eyes to the fact constantly proved that it was necessary to keep the strictest surveillance over them. Although, if we except their propensity to regard lightly their parole obligations, their conduct generally may be called good, among so many men there were necessarily some very black sheep. At one time their behaviour in the parole towns was often so abominable as to render it necessary to place them in smaller towns and villages.
In 1793 the Marquis of Buckingham wrote thus to Lord Grenville from Winchester (Dropmore MSS.):
‘I have for the last week been much annoyed by a constant inundation of French prisoners who have been on their route from Portsmouth to Bristol, and my officers who, during the long marches have had much of their conversation, all report that the language of the common men was, with very few exceptions, equally insolent, especially upon the subject of monarchy. The orders which we received with them were so perfectly proper that we were enabled to maintain strict discipline among them, but I am very anxious that you should come to some decisions about your parole prisoners who are now nearly doubled at Alresford and (Bishop’s) Waltham, and are hourly more exceptionable in their language and in their communication with the country people. I am persuaded that some very unpleasant consequences will arise if this practice is not checked, and I do not know how it is to be done. Your own good heart will make you feel for the French priests now at Winchester to whom these people (230 at Alresford, 160 at Waltham) have openly avowed massacre whenever the troops are removed.... Pray think over some arrangement for sending your parole prisoners out of England, for they certainly serve their country here better than they could do at sea or in France (so they say openly).’
The authorities had to be constantly on their guard against deceptions of all kinds practised by the paroled prisoners, in addition to the frequent breaches of parole by escape. Thus applications were made almost daily by prisoners to be allowed either to exchange their places of residence for London, or to come to London temporarily ‘upon urgent private affairs’. At first these permissions were given when the applicants were men whose positions or reputations were deemed sufficient guarantees for honourable behaviour, but experience soon taught the Transport Office that nobody was to be trusted, and so these applications, even when endorsed by Englishmen of position, were invariably refused.
For instance, in 1809, the Office received a letter from one Brossage, an officer on parole at Launceston, asking that he might be removed to Reading, as he was suffering from lung disease. The reply was that as a rule people suffering from lung disease in England were only too glad to be able to go to Cornwall for alleviation or cure. The truth was that M. Brossage wanted to exchange the dullness of a Cornish town for the life and gaiety of Reading, which was a special parole town reserved for officers of distinction.