They reached Guildford at daybreak, and two carriages were hired, one to take Bonnefoux to London, the other to take Sarah back to Odiham. They parted with a tender farewell, Bonnefoux started, reached London safely, and put up at the Hôtel du Café de St. Paul.
In London he met a Dutchman named Vink, bound for Hamburg by the first vessel leaving, and bought his berth on the ship, but had to wait a month before anything sailed for Hamburg. He sailed, a fellow passenger being young Lord Onslow. At Gravesend, officers came on board on the search for Vink. Evidently Vink had betrayed him, for he could not satisfactorily account for his presence on the ship in accordance with the strict laws then in force about the embarkation of passengers for foreign ports; Bonnefoux was arrested, for two days was shut down in the awful hold of a police vessel, and was finally taken on board the Bahama at Chatham, and there met Rousseau, who had escaped from the Portsmouth hulk but had been recaptured in mid-Channel.
Bonnefoux remained on the Chatham hulk until June 1809, when he was allowed to go on parole to Lichfield. With him went Dubreuil, the rough privateer skipper whose acquaintance he made on the Bahama, and who was released from the prison ship because he had treated Colonel and Mrs. Campbell with kindness when he made them prisoners.
Dubreuil was so delighted with the change from the Bahama to Lichfield, that he celebrated it in a typical sailor fashion, giving a banquet which lasted three days at the best hotel in Lichfield, and roared forth the praises of his friend Bonnefoux:
De Bonnefoux nous sommes enchantés,
Nous allons boire à sa santé!
Parole life at Lichfield he describes as charming. There was a nice, refined local society, pleasant walks, cafés, concerts, réunions, and billiards. Bonnefoux preferred to mix with the artisan class of Lichfield society, admiring it the most in England, and regarding the middle class as too prejudiced and narrow, the upper class as too luxurious and proud. He says:
‘Il est difficile de voir rien de plus agréable à l’œil que les réunions des jeunes gens des deux sexes lois [sic] des foires et des marchés.’
Eborall, the Agent at Lichfield, the Baron calls a splendid chap: so far from binding them closely to their distance limit, he allowed the French officers to go to Ashby-de-la-Zouch, to the races at Lichfield, and even to Birmingham. Catalini came to sing at Lichfield, and Bonnefoux went to hear her with Mary Aldrith, his landlord’s daughter, and pretty Nancy Fairbrother.
And yet Bonnefoux resolved to escape. There came on ‘business’ to Lichfield, Robinson and Stevenson, two well-known smuggler escape-agents, and they made the Baron an offer which he accepted. He wrote, however, to the Transport Office, saying that his health demanded his return to France, and engaging not to serve against England.