In this and the succeeding chapter I gather together a number of notes connected with the life of the paroled prisoners in Britain, which could not conveniently be classed under the headings of previous chapters.
Bedale, Yorkshire
During the Seven Years’ War prisoners were on parole at Bedale in Yorkshire. The following lines referring to them, sent to me by my friend, Mrs. Cockburn-Hood, were written by Robert Hird, a Bedale shoemaker, who was born in 1768:
‘And this one isle by Frenchmen then in prisoners did abound,
’Twas forty thousand Gallic men. Bedale its quota found:
And here they were at liberty, and that for a long time,
Till Seventeen Hundred and Sixty Three, they then a Peace did sign,
But though at large, they had their bound, it was a good walk out,
Matthew Masterman in their round, they put him to the rout;
This was near to the Standing Stone: at Fleetham Feast he’d been,