A serious question came up in 1814 concerning the public burden which the illegitimate children of these gentlemen were causing, and complaints were sent to the Transport Office, whose reply was that the fathers of the children were liable to the civil law, and that unless they should provide for their maintenance, they should go to prison.
Two of the prisoners quarrelled about a girl and fought a bloodless duel at Linglee for half an hour, when the authorities appeared upon the scene and arrested the principals, who were sent to jail for a month.
Mr. J. John Vernon wrote:
‘In an article upon the old Selkirk Subscription Library, reference is made to the use of the Library by the officers who were confined in Selkirk and district during the Napoleonic wars.
‘Historical reference is furnished incidentally in the pages of the Day Book—the register of volumes borrowed and returned. There is no mention of such a privilege being conferred by the members or committee, but, as a matter of fact, all the French officers who were prisoners in Selkirk during the Napoleonic wars were allowed to take books from the Library as freely and as often as they chose. Beginning with April 5th, 1811, and up to May 4th, 1814, there were no less than 132 closely written foolscap pages devoted exclusively to their book-borrowing transactions. They were omnivorous readers, with a penchant for History and Biography, but devouring all sorts of literature from the poetical to the statistical. Probably because the Librarian could not trust himself to spell them, the officers themselves entered their names, as well as the names of books. Sometimes, when they made an entry for a comrade they made blunders in spelling the other man’s name: that of Forsonney, for instance, being given in four or five different ways. As the total number of prisoners was 94, it can be concluded from the list appended that only two or three did not join the Library.
‘Besides the French prisoners, the students attending Professor Lawson’s lectures seem to have had the privilege of reading, but for them all about two pages suffice. It is said that, moved by a desire to bring these benighted foreigners to belief in the true faith, Doctor Lawson added French to the more ancient languages he was already proficient in, but the aliens were nearly all men of education who knew their Voltaire, with the result that the Professor made poor progress with his well meant efforts at proselytism, if he did not even receive a shock to his own convictions.’
There were several Masonic Brethren among the foreign prisoners at Selkirk, and it is noteworthy that on March 9, 1812, it was proposed by the Brethren of this Lodge that on account of the favour done by some of the French Brethren, they should be enrolled as honorary members of the Lodge, and this was unanimously agreed to.
It should be noted that the French Brethren were a numerous body, twenty-three of their names being added to the roll of St. John’s; and we find that, as at Melrose, they formed themselves into a separate Lodge and initiated their fellow countrymen in their own tongue.
In what was known as Lang’s Barn, now subdivided into cottages, the French prisoners extemporized a theatre, and no doubt some of their decorative work lies hidden beneath the whitewash. The barn was the property of the grandfather of the late Andrew Lang.
The experiences of Sous-lieutenant Doisy de Villargennes, of the 26th French line regiment, I shall now relate with particular pleasure, not only on account of their unusual interest, but because they reflect the brightest side of captivity in Britain. Doisy was wounded after Fuentes d’Oñoro in May 1811, and taken prisoner. He was moved to hospital at Celorico, where he formed a friendship with Captain Pattison, of the 73rd. Thence he was sent to Fort Belem at Lisbon, which happened to be garrisoned by the 26th British Regiment, a coincidence which at once procured for him the friendship of its officers, who caused him to be lodged in their quarters, and to be treated rather as an honoured guest than as a prisoner, but with one bad result—that the extraordinary good living aggravated his healing wound, and he was obliged to return to hospital. These were days of heavy drinking, and Lisbon lay in the land of good and abundant wine; hosts and guest had alike fared meagrely and hardly for a long time, so that it is not difficult to account for the effect of the abrupt change upon poor Doisy. However, he pulled round, and embarked for Portsmouth, not on the ordinary prisoner transport, but as guest of Pattison on a war-ship. Doisy, with sixty other officers, were landed at Gosport, and, contrary to the usual rule, allowed to be on parole in the town previous to their dispatch to their cautionnement.
At the Gosport prison—Forton—whither he went to look up comrades, Doisy was overjoyed to meet with his own foster-brother, whom he had persuaded to join his regiment, and whom he had given up as lost at Fuentes d’Oñoro, and he received permission to spend some time with him in the prison. I give with very great pleasure Doisy’s remarks upon captivity in England in general, and in its proper place under the heading of Forton Prison (see pp. [217]–18) will be found his description of that place, which is equally pleasant reading.
‘I feel it my duty here, in the interests of truth and justice, to combat an erroneous belief concerning the hard treatment of prisoners of war in England.... No doubt, upon the hulks they led a very painful existence; execrable feeding, little opportunity for exercise, and a discipline extremely severe, even perhaps cruel. Such was their fate. But we must remember that only refractory prisoners were sent to the hulks.’