The officers were billeted among private citizens, says Mr. Forbes, while several occupied quarters immediately under the Clock Tower. Being young and lusty, they were dowered with an exceedingly good appetite, and as they got little to eat so far as their allowance went, some of them used to have a pulley and hoist their loaves of bread to near the ceiling to prevent themselves from devouring them all, and to ensure something being left over for next repast.
The prisoners were not commonly spoken of by name, but were known by the persons with whom they resided, e.g., ‘Nannie Tamson’s Frenchman’, ‘Widow Ross’s Frenchman’. The boys were a great plague to the Frenchmen, for when a great victory was announced their dominie gave them a holiday, and the youngsters celebrated it too frequently by jeering the prisoners, and by shouting and cheering. The boys at a school then beside the road at No. 1 Milestone, were prominent in these triumphant displays, and sometimes pelted the prisoners with stones.
The manners of the Jedburgh prisoners are thus alluded to in the False Alarm, a local pamphlet:
‘They were very polite, and not infrequently put us rough-spun Scotchmen to the blush with their polished manners. They came in course of time to be liked, but it seems some of the older members of the community could never be brought to fraternize with them. One old man actually pointed his gun at them, and threatened to fire because they had exceeded their walking limit.’
An aged Jedburgh lady’s reminiscences are interesting. She says:
‘Among the officers was M. Espinasse, who settled in Edinburgh after the Peace and engaged in teaching; Baron Goldshord or Gottshaw, who married a Jedburgh lady, a Miss Waugh; another, whose name I do not remember, married a Miss Jenny Wintrope, who went with him to the South of France. There was a Captain Rivoli, also a Captain Racquet, and a number of others who were well received by the townspeople, and frequently invited to parties in their homes, to card-clubs, etc. They were for the most part pleasant, agreeable gentlemen, and made many friends. Almost all of them employed themselves in work of some kind, besides playing at different kinds of games, shooting small birds, and fishing for trout. They much enjoyed the liberty granted them of walking one mile out of the town in any direction, as within that distance there were many beautiful walks when they could go out one road, turn, and come back by another. During their stay, when news had been received of one great British victory, the magistrates permitted rejoicing, and a great bonfire was kindled at the Cross, and an effigy of Napoleon was set on a donkey and paraded round the town by torchlight, and round the bonfire, and then cast into the flames. I have often heard an old gentleman, who had given the boots and part of the clothing, say he never regretted doing anything so much in his life, as helping on that great show, when he saw the pain it gave to these poor gentlemen-prisoners, who felt so much at seeing the affront put upon their great commander.
‘The French prisoners have always been ingenious in the use they made of their meat bones ... they took them and pounded them into a powder which they mixed with the soft food they were eating. It is even said that they flourished on this dissolved phosphate of lime and gelatine.
‘There was an old game called “cradles” played in those days. Two or three persons clasp each other’s hands, and when their arms are held straight out at full length, a person is placed on these stretched hands, who is sent up in the air and down again, landing where he started from. A farmer thought he would try the experiment on the Frenchmen. Some buxom lassies were at work as some of them passed, and he gave the girls the hint to treat the foreigners to the “cradles”. Accordingly two of them were jerked well up in the air to fall again on the sturdy hands of the wenches. The experiment was repeated again and again until the Frenchmen were glad to call a halt.’
Parole-breaking was rather common, and began some months after the officers arrived in the town. A party of five set out for Blyth in September 1811, but were brought to Berwick under a military escort, and lodged in jail. Next day they were marched to Penicuik under charge of a party of the Forfarshire Militia. Three of them were good-looking young men; one in particular had a very interesting countenance, and, wishing one day to extend his walk, in order to get some watercress for salad, beyond the limit of the one-mile stone, uprooted it, and carried it in his arms as far as he wished to go.
Three other officers were captured the same year, and sent to Edinburgh Castle, and in 1813 occurred the escape and capture to be described later (p. [388]).
The highest number of prisoners at Jedburgh was 130, and there were three deaths during their stay.