This was Mary Clarke’s evidence in court.
In defence, Montbazin said that he had been exchanged for four British seamen, who had been landed from France, but that the Transport Office had refused to let him go, so he had considered himself absolved from his parole.
It is hardly necessary to say that the girl’s story was concocted, that her meeting with Montbazin was part of a prearranged plan, and the Court emphasized their opinion that this was the case by sending the lieutenant to a prison afloat, and Mary Clarke to one ashore.
In October 1812, eight French officers left Andover quietly in the evening, and, a mile out, met two mounted escape-aiders. Behind each of them a prisoner mounted, and all proceeded at a walk for six miles, when they met another man with three horses. On these horses the remaining six prisoners mounted, and by daybreak were at Ringwood, thirty-six miles on their road to liberty. All the day they remained hidden in the forest, living upon bread, cheese, and rum, which their guides procured from Ringwood. At nightfall they restarted, passed through Christchurch to Stanpit, and thence to the shore, where they found a boat waiting for them; but the wind being contrary and blowing a gale, they could not embark, and were obliged to remain hidden in the woods for three days, suffering so much from exposure and want that they made a bargain with a Mrs. Martin to lodge in her house for £12 until the weather should moderate sufficiently for them to embark. They stayed here for a week, and then their suspense and anxiety, they knowing that the hue and cry was after them, became unbearable, and they gave the smuggler-skipper of the Freeholder a promissory note for six hundred guineas to hazard taking them off. He made the attempt, but the vessel was driven ashore, and the Frenchmen were with difficulty landed at another spot on the coast; here they wandered about in the darkness and storm, until one of them becoming separated from the others gave himself up, and the discovery of his companions soon followed.
The result of the trial was that the officers were, of course, sent to the hulks, the master of the Freeholder was transported for life, four of his men for seven years, and the aiders acquitted. This appears curious justice, which can only be explained by presuming that the magistrates, or rather the Admiralty, often found it politic to get escape-aiders into their service in this way.
Of course, all ‘escapes’ were bad offences from an honourable point of view, but some were worse than others. For instance, in 1812, the Duc de Chartres wrote a strong letter of intercession to the Transport Office on behalf of one Du Baudiez. This man had been sent to Stapleton Prison for having broken his parole at Odiham, and the duke asked that his parole should be restored him. The Transport Office decidedly rejected the application, and in their reply to the duke quoted a letter written by Du Baudiez to his sister in France in which he says that he has given his creditors in Odiham bills upon her, but asks her not to honour them, because ‘Les Anglais nous ont agonis de sottises, liés comme des bêtes sauvages, et traités toute la route comme des chiens. Ce sont des Anglais; rien ne m’étonne de ce qu’ils ont fait ... ce sont tous des gueux, des scélérats depuis le premier jusqu’au dernier. Aussi je vous prie en grâce de protester ces billets ... je suis dans la ferme résolution de ne les point payer.’
On one occasion an unexpected catch of ‘broke-paroles’ was made. The Revenue Officers believed that two men who were playing cards in an inn near Canterbury were escaped prisoners, and at 8 p.m. called on a magistrate to get help. The magistrate told them that it was of no use to get the constable, as at that hour he was usually intoxicated, but authorized them to get the military.
This they did, but the landlord refused to open the door and, during the parleying, two men slipped out by the back door, whom the officers stopped, and presently two others, who were also stopped. All four were French ‘broke-paroles’ from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, and the card-players within were not prisoners at all. The captured men said that on Beckenham Common they had nearly been caught, for the driver of the cart stopped there at 10 p.m. to rest the horse. The horse-patrol, passing by, ordered him to move on. As he was putting the horse to, the Frenchmen, all being at the back of the cart, tilted it up and cried out. However, the horse-patrol had passed on and did not hear.
In the two next cases English girls play a part. In 1814 Colonel Poerio escaped from Ashbourne with an English girl in male attire, but they were captured at Loughborough. At the trial an Ashbourne woman said that one day a girl came and asked for a lodging, saying that she was a worker at ‘lace-running’; she seemed respectable, and was taken in, and remained some days without causing any suspicion, although she seemed on good terms with the French prisoners on parole in the town. One evening the woman’s little girl met the lodger coming downstairs, and said: ‘Mam! she has got a black coat on!’ When asked where she was going, she replied, ‘To Colonel Juliett’s. Will be back in five minutes.’ (Colonel Juliett was another prisoner.) She did not return, and that was the last witness saw of her.
Upon examination, the girl said that she kept company with Poerio, but as her father did not approve of her marrying him she had resolved to elope. She took with her £5, which she had saved by ‘running’ lace. They were arrested at the Bull’s Head, Loughborough, where the girl had ordered a chaise. Counsel decided that there was no case for prosecution!