‘Kelso: die duodecima mensis Augusti anni 1811.

‘Honorifice Praefecte:

‘Monitum te facio, hoc mane, die duodecima mensis Augusti, hora decima et semi, per vicum transeuntem vestimenta mea omnino malefacta fuisse cum aqua tam foetida ac mulier quae jactavit illam.

‘Noxia mulier quae vestimenta mea, conceptis verbis, abluere noluit, culpam insulsitate cumulando, uxor est domino Wm. Stuart Lanio [Butcher?]

‘Ut persuasum mihi est hanc civitatem optimis legibus nimis constitutam esse ut ille eventus impunitus feratur, de illo certiorem te facio, magnifice Praefecte, ut similis casus iterum non renovetur erga captivos Gallos, quorum tu es curator, et, occurente occasione, defensor.

‘Quandoquidem aequitas tua non mihi soli sed cunctis plane nota est, spe magna nitor te jus dicturam expostulationi meae, cogendo praedictam mulierem et quamprimum laventur vestimenta mea. In ista expectatione gratam habeas salutationem illius qui mancipio et nexo, honoratissime praefecte, tuus est.

‘Matrien.

‘Honorato, Honoratissimo Domino Smith,

‘Captivorum Gallorum praefecto. Kelso.’

The gist of the above being that Mrs. Stuart threw dirty water over M. Matrien as he passed along the street in Kelso, and he demands her punishment and the cleansing of his clothes.

The second letter runs:

‘Paris, on the 6th day of May, 1817.

‘Dear Sir,

‘I have since I left Kelso wrote many letters to my Scots friends, but I have been unfortunate enough to receive no answer. The wandering life I have led during four years is, without doubt, the cause of that silence, for my friends have been so good to me that I cannot imagine they have entirely forgotten me. In all my letters my heart has endeavoured to prove how thankful I was, but my gratitude is of that kind that one may feel but cannot express. Pray, my good Sir, if you remember yet your prisonner, be so kind as to let him have a few lignes from you and all news about all his old good friends.

‘The difficulty which I have to express myself in your tongue, and the countryman of yours who is to take my letter, compel me to end sooner than I wish, but if expressions want to my mouth, be assure in revange that my heart shall always be full of all those feelings which you deserve so rightly.

‘Farewell, I wish you all kind of happiness.

‘Your friend for ever,

‘Le Chevalier Lebas de Ste. Croix.

‘My direction: à Monsieur le Chevalier Lebas de Ste. Croix, Capitaine à la légion de l’Isère, caserne de La Courtille à Paris. P.S.—All my thanks and good wishes first to your family, to the family Waldie, Davis, Doctor Douglas, Rutherford, and my good landlady Mistress Elliot.

‘To Mister John Smith Esq.,

‘bridge street,

‘Kelso, Scotland.’

(In Kelso, towards the end of 1912, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Mr. Provost Smith, grandson of the gentleman to whom the foregoing two letters were addressed, and Mr. Smith was kind enough to present me with a tiny ring of bone, on which is minutely worked the legend: ‘I love to see you’, done by a French officer on parole in Kelso in 1811.)

The third letter is as follows:

‘Je, soussigné officier de la Légion d’Honneur, Lieutenant Colonel au 8e Régiment de Dragons, sensible aux bons traitements que les prisonniers français sur parole en cette ville reçoivent journellement de la part de Mr. Smith, law agent, invite en mon nom et en celui de mes compagnons d’infortune ceux de nos compatriotes entre les mains desquels le hasard de la guerre pourroit faire tomber Mesdemoiselles St. Saure (?) d’avoir pour elles tous les égards et attentions qu’elles méritent, et de nous aider par tous les bons offices qu’ils pourront rendre à ces dames à acquitter une partie de la reconnaissance que nous devons à leur famille.

‘Kelso. 7 Avril, 1811.

‘Dudouit.’

Selkirk

In 1811, ninety-three French prisoners arrived at Selkirk, many of them army surgeons. Their mile limits from the central point were, on the Hawick road, to Knowes; over the bridge, as far as the Philiphaugh entries; and towards Bridgehead, the ‘Prisoners’ Bush’. An old man named Douglas, says Mr. Craig-Brown (from whose book on Selkirk, I take this information, and to whom I am indebted for much hospitality and his many pains in acting as my mentor in Selkirk), remembered them coming to his father’s tavern at Heathenlie for their morning rum, and astonishing the people with what they ate. ‘They made tea out of dried whun blooms and skinned the verra paddas. The doctor anes was verra clever, and some of them had plenty o’ siller.’

On October 13, 1811, the prisoners constructed a balloon, and sent it up amidst such excitement as Selkirk rarely felt. Indeed, the Yeomanry then out for their training could not be mustered until they had seen the balloon.