As we shall see, Sir Walter Scott took kindly notice of the foreigners quartered in his neighbourhood, but that he never lost sight of the fact that they were foreigners and warriors is evident from the following letter to Lady Abercorn, dated May 3, 1812:
‘I am very apprehensive of the consequences of a scarcity at this moment, especially from the multitude of French prisoners who are scattered through the small towns in this country; as I think, very improvidently. As the peace of this county is intrusted to me, I thought it necessary to state to the Justice Clerk that the arms of the local militia were kept without any guard in a warehouse in Kelso; that there was nothing to prevent the prisoners there, at Selkirk, and at Jedburgh, from joining any one night, and making themselves masters of this dépôt: that the sheriffs of Roxburgh and Selkirk, in order to put down such a commotion, could only command about three troops of yeomanry to be collected from a great distance, and these were to attack about 500 disciplined men, who, in the event supposed, would be fully provided with arms and ammunition, and might, if any alarm should occasion the small number of troops now at Berwick to be withdrawn, make themselves masters of that sea-port, the fortifications of which, although ruinous, would serve to defend them until cannon was brought against them.’
The Scottish towns where prisoners of war on parole were quartered, of which I have been able to get information, are Cupar, Kelso, Selkirk, Peebles, Sanquhar, Dumfries, Melrose, Jedburgh, Hawick, and Lauder.
By the kind permission of Mrs. Keddie (‘Sarah Tytler’) I am able to give very interesting extracts from her book, Three Generations: The Story of a Middle-Class Scottish Family, referring to the residence of the prisoners at Cupar, and the friendly intercourse between them and Mrs. Keddie’s grandfather, Mr. Henry Gibb, of Balass, Cupar.
‘Certainly the foreign officers were made curiously welcome in the country town, which their presence seemed to enliven rather than to offend. The strangers’ courageous endurance, their perennial cheerfulness, their ingenious devices to occupy their time and improve the situation, aroused much friendly interest and amusement. The position must have been rendered more bearable to the sufferers, and perhaps more respectable in the eyes of the spectators, from the fact, for which I am not able to account, that, undoubtedly, the prisoners had among themselves, individually and collectively, considerable funds.
‘The residents treated the jetsam and flotsam of war with more than forbearance, with genuine liberality and kindness, receiving them into their houses on cordial terms. Soon there was not a festivity in the town at which the French prisoners were not permitted—nay, heartily pressed to attend. How the complacent guests viewed those rejoicings in which the natives, as they frequently did, commemorated British victories over the enemy is not on record.
‘But there was no thought of war and its fierce passions among the youth of the company in the simple dinners, suppers, and carpet-dances in private houses. There were congratulations on the abundance of pleasant partners, and the assurance that no girl need now sit out a dance or lack an escort if her home was within a certain limited distance beyond which the prisoners were not at liberty to stray.
‘I have heard my mother and a cousin of hers dwell on the courtesy and agreeableness of the outlanders—what good dancers, what excellent company, as the country girls’ escorts.... As was almost inevitable, the natural result of such intimacy followed, whether or not it was acceptable to the open-hearted entertainers. Love and marriage ensued between the youngsters, the vanquished and the victors. A Colonel, who was one of the band, married a daughter of the Episcopal clergyman in the town, and I am aware of at least two more weddings which eventually took place between the strangers and the inhabitants. (These occurred at the end of the prisoners’ stay.)’
Balass, where the Gibbs lived, was within parole limits. One day Gibb asked the whole lot of the prisoners to breakfast, and forgot to tell Mrs. Gibb that he had done so.
‘Happily she was a woman endowed with tranquillity of temper, while the ample resources of an old bountiful farmhouse were speedily brought to bear on the situation, dispensed as they were by the fair and capable henchwomen who relieved the mistress of the house of the more arduous of her duties. There was no disappointment in store for the patient, ingenious gentlemen who were wont to edify and divert their nominal enemy by making small excursions into the fields to snare larks for their private breakfast-tables.
‘Another generous invitation of my grandfather’s ran a narrow risk of having a tragic end. Not all his sense of the obligation of a host nor his compassion for the misfortunes of a gallant foe could at times restrain race antagonism, and his intense mortification at any occurrence which would savour of national discomfiture. Once, in entertaining some of these foreign officers, among whom was a maître d’armes, Harry Gibb was foolish enough to propose a bout of fencing with the expert. It goes without saying that within the first few minutes the yeoman’s sword was dexterously knocked out of his hand.... Every other consideration went down before the deadly insult. In less time than it takes to tell the story the play became grim earnest. My grandfather turned his fists on the other combatant, taken unawares and not prepared for the attack, sprang like a wild-cat at his throat, and, if the bystanders had not interposed and separated the pair, murder might have been committed under his own roof by the kindest-hearted man in the countryside.’
This increasing intimacy between the prisoners and the inhabitants displeased the Government, and the crisis came when, in return for the kindness shown them, the prisoners determined to erect a theatre:
‘The French prisoners were suffered to play only once in their theatre, and then the rout came for them. Amidst loud and sincere lamentation from all concerned, the officers were summarily removed in a body, and deposited in a town at some distance ... from their former guardians. As a final gage d’amitié ... the owners of the theatre left it a a gift to the town.’
Later—in the ‘thirties—this theatre was annexed to the Grammar School to make extra class-rooms, for it was an age when Scotland was opposed to theatres.