In the Cambrian of May 2, 1806, is the following:
‘At the last Quarter Sessions for Montgomeryshire, a farmer of the neighbourhood of Montgomery was prosecuted by order of the Transport Office for assaulting one of the French prisoners on parole, and, pleading guilty to the indictment, was fined £10, and ordered to find sureties for keeping the peace for twelve months. This is the second prosecution which the Board has ordered, it being determined that the prisoners shall be protected by Government from insult while they remain in their unfortunate position as Prisoners of War.’
Bishop’s Castle
At Bishop’s Castle there were many prisoners, and in Bygones Thomas Caswell records chats with an old man named Meredith, in the workhouse, who had been servant at the Six Bells, where nine officers were quartered. ‘They cooked their own food, and I waited upon them. They were very talkative ... they were not short of money, and behaved very well to me for waiting upon them.’
The attempted escape of two Bishop’s Castle prisoners is described on page [391].
Newtown
‘Mr. David Morgan of the Canal Basin, Newtown, who is now (February 1895) 81 years of age, remembers over 300 prisoners passing through Kerry village on their way from London via Ludlow, to Newtown. He was then a little boy attending Kerry school, and the children all ran out to see them. All were on foot, and were said to be all officers. A great number of them were billeted at various public-houses, and some in private houses in Newtown. They exerted themselves greatly in putting out a fire at the New Inn in Severn Street, and were to be seen, says my informant, an aged inhabitant, “like cats about the roof “. When Peace was made, they returned to France, and many of them were killed at Waterloo. The news of that great battle and victory reached Newtown on Pig Fair Day, in June 1815. I have a memorandum book of M. Auguste Tricoche, one of the prisoners, who appears to have served in the French fleet in the West Indies, and to have been taken prisoner at the capture of Martinique in 1810.’
Welshpool
‘On the occasion of a great fire at the corner shop in December 1813, there was a terrific explosion of gunpowder which hurled portions of timber into the Vicarage garden, some distance off. The French prisoners were very active, and some of them formed a line to the Lledan brook (which at that time was not culverted over), whence they conveyed water to the burning building to others of their comrades who courageously entered it.
‘Dr. P. L. Serph, one of the prisoners, settled down at Welshpool, where he obtained a large practice as a physician and surgeon, and continued to reside there until the time of his death. Dr. Serph married Ann, the daughter of John Moore, late of Crediton in the county of Devon, gentleman, by Elizabeth his wife. Mrs. Serph died in 1837, and there is a monument to their memory in Welshpool churchyard.
‘There is at Gungrog a miniature of Mrs. Morris Jones painted by a French prisoner; also a water colour of the waterfall at Pystyl Rhaiadr, which is attributed to one of them. I recollect seeing in the possession of the late Mr. Oliver E. Jones, druggist, a view of Powis Castle, ingeniously made of diverse-coloured straws, the work of one of the prisoners.
‘It is said that French blood runs in the veins of some of the inhabitants of each of these towns where the prisoners were located.
‘R. Williams.’