Harman, on condition of being set free, offered to make important disclosures to the Government respecting the escape business and its connexion with the smugglers, but his offer was declined, and, much to his disgust, he was sent to serve in the navy. ‘He could not have been disposed of in a way less expected or more objectionable to himself,’ wrote the Admiralty Solicitor, Jones, to McLeay, the secretary.
But Harman’s career was by no means ended. After serving on the Enterprise, he was sent to the Namur, guardship at the Nore, but for a year or more a cloud of mystery enveloped him, and not until 1813 did it come out that he must have escaped from the Namur very shortly after his transfer, and that during the very next year, 1811, he was back at his old calling.
A man giving the name of Nicholas Trelawney, but obviously a Frenchman, was captured on August 24, 1811, on the Whitstable smack Elizabeth, lying in Broadstairs Roads, by the Lion cutter. At his examination he confessed that he was a prisoner who had broken parole from Tiverton, and got as far as Whitstable on July 4. Here he lodged at an inn where he met Mr. ‘Feast’ of the hoy Whitstable. In conversation the Frenchman, not knowing, of course, who Mr. ‘Feast’ really was, described himself as a Jerseyman who had a licence to take his boat to France, but she had been seized by the Customs, as she had some English goods in her. He told ‘Feast’ that he much wanted to get to France, and ‘Feast’ promised to help him, but without leading the Frenchman to suppose that he knew him to be an escaped prisoner of war.
He paid ‘Feast’ £10 10s., and went on board the Elizabeth to get to Deal, as being a more convenient port for France. ‘Feast’ warned him that he would be searched, and persuaded him to hand over his watch and £18 for safe keeping. He saw nothing more of Mr. ‘Feast’ and was captured.
When the above affair made it clear that Harman, alias Feast Moore, was at work again, a keen servant of the Transport Office, Mantell, the Agent at Dover, was instructed to get on to his track. Mantell found that Harman had been at Broadstairs, to France, and in Dover, at which place his well-known boat, the Two Sisters, was discovered, untenanted and with her name obliterated. Mantell further learned that on the very night previous to his visit Harman had actually been landed by Lieutenant Peace of the armed cutter Decoy, saying that he bore important dispatches from France for Croker at the Admiralty. The lieutenant had brought him ashore, and had gone with him to an inn whence he would get a mail-coach to London. Mantell afterwards heard that Harman went no farther than Canterbury.
Mantell described Harman’s usual mode of procedure: how, the French prisoners having been duly approached, the terms agreed upon, and the horses, chaises, boats with sails, oars, charts and provisions arranged for, he would meet them at a little distance outside their place of confinement after dark, travel all night, and with good luck get them off within two days at the outside. Mantell found out that in August 1811 Harman got four prisoners away from Crediton; he lived at Mr. Parnell’s, the White Lion, St. Sidwell’s, under the name of Herbert, bought a boat of Mr. Owen of Topsham, and actually saw his clients safe over Exmouth bar.
His manner, said Mantell, was free and open; he generally represented his clients to be Guernseymen, or émigrés, or Portuguese, and he always got them to sign a paper of recommendation.
In July 1813 news came that Harman was at work in Kelso, Scotland. A stranger in that town had been seen furtively carrying a trunk to the Cross Keys inn, from which he presently went in a post-chaise to Lauder. He was not recognized, but frequent recent escapes from the town had awakened the vigilance of the Agent, and the suspicious behaviour of this stranger at the inn determined that official to pursue and arrest him. The trunk was found to belong to Dagues, a French officer, and contained the clothes of three other officers on parole, and from the fact that the stranger had made inquiries about a coach for Edinburgh, it was clear that an arrangement was nipped in the bud by which the officers were to follow, pick up the trunk at Edinburgh, and get off from Leith.
Harman was disguised, but the next morning the Kelso Agent saw at once that he answered the description of him which had been circulated throughout the kingdom, and sent him to Jedburgh Jail, while he communicated with London.
The result of Harman’s affair was that the Solicitor-General gave it as his opinion that it was better he should be detained as a deserter from the navy than as an aider of prisoners to escape, on the ground that there were no sufficiently overt acts on the parts of the French prisoners to show an intention to escape! What became of Harman I cannot trace, but at any rate he ceased to lead the fraternity of escape agents.