(I should say here that for many of the details about Sanquhar and Dumfries I am indebted in the first place to Mrs. Macbeth Forbes, for permission to make use of her late husband’s notes on the prisoner-life at these places, and in the second to the hon. secretary of the Dumfriesshire and Galloway Natural History and Antiquarian Society, for the use of a résumé by him of those notes.)
Melrose
In the life of Dr. George Lawson, of Selkirk, the French prisoners on parole at Melrose are alluded to. The doctor astonished them with his knowledge of the old-world French with which they were unacquainted, and several pages of the book are devoted to the eloquent attempts of one of the prisoners to bring him to the Roman Catholic communion.
Appended to the minutes of the Quarterly Meeting of the Melrose Freemasons on September 25, 1813, in an account of the laying the foundation-stone of a public well, there is the following reference to the French prisoners interned at Melrose (the minutes of the Kelso, Selkirk, and other lodges record the fraternal exchange of courtesies, and the reception of these alien Brethren into the lodges, but at Melrose it would seem that these Brethren held a lodge of their own, which they no doubt worked in their native tongue and style, by leave and warrant of the Melrose Lodge):
‘The French Brethren of the Lodge of St. John under the distinctive appellation of Benevolence constituted by the French prisoners of war on parole here, were invited to attend, which the Master, office-bearers, and many of the Brethren accordingly did.’
The lodge has preserved in its archives a document with the names of the French prisoners, adhibited to an expression of their appreciation of the kindness they had received during their sojourn at Melrose, which was given to the Brethren at the conclusion of the war when they were permitted to return to their own country and homes.
Jedburgh
Mr. Maberley Phillips, F.S.A., from whose pamphlet on prisoners of war in the North I shall quote later (pp. [388]–9) a description of an escape of paroled prisoners from Jedburgh, says:
‘Jedburgh had its share of French prisoners. They were for the most part kindly treated, and many of them were permitted a great amount of liberty. One of these had a taste for archaeology and visited all the ruins within the precincts of his radius, namely, a mile from the Cross. There is a tradition that on one of his excursions, he was directed to a ruin about a quarter of a mile beyond his appointed mark, which happened to be a milestone. He asked the Provost for permission to go beyond; that worthy, however, refused, but he quietly added: “If Mr. Combat did walk a short distance beyond the mile and nobody said anything, nothing would come of it.” But the Frenchman had given his word of honour, and he could not break it. A happy thought struck him. He borrowed a barrow one afternoon, and with it and the necessary implements proceeded out to the obnoxious milestone. Having “unshipped” the milestone, he raised it on to the barrow, and triumphantly wheeled it to the required distance, where he fixed it.... For a generation the stone stood where the Frenchman placed it, no one being any the worse for the extra extent of the Scotch mile.’
Many of the prisoners were naval officers and were deeply versed in science, including navigation and astronomy. A favourite resort of these was Inchbonny, the abode of James Veitch, the self-taught astronomer. Inchbonny is situated up the Jed about half a mile from Jedburgh. Among the prisoners who made a point of visiting Veitch’s workshop we may mention Scot, an old naval lieutenant, who with a long grey coat was to be seen at every gleam of sunshine at the Meridian line with compasses in hand, resolving to determine the problem of finding the longitude, and M. Charles Jehenne, who belonged to the navy, and who was captured at the battle of Trafalgar. He on that memorable day from the masthead of his vessel observed the British fleet under Nelson bearing down upon the French and Spanish vessels. ‘They saw us’, he was wont to say, ‘before we saw them.’ He was a constant visitor to the workshop, and constructed a telescope there for his own use. He was most agreeable in his manner, and careful not to give any trouble when doing any work for himself with Veitch’s tools. He also was an astronomer, and would often stay out at Inchbonny, in order to view the stars through Veitch’s telescopes, until long after the tolling of the bell which warned the prisoners that the daily period of liberty had again expired. In order that he might escape being noticed by the observant eyes of any who might be desirous of obtaining the reward given for a conviction, he usually got the loan of Veitch’s plaid, and, muffled in this, reached his quarters undetected.