A very different version of this affair was given in a contemporary Times. According to this, Decourbes, about ten days before the duel, was out of his lodgings after the evening bell had rung, and the boys of Leek collected and pelted him with stones. His behaviour caused one of his brother officers to say that he was ‘soft’ and would faint at the sight of his own blood. Decourbes gave him the lie, the other struck him, and the result was a challenge and the duel as described. But the verdict, ‘Died by the visitation of God,’ was questioned, and the writer of a letter to The Times declared that there was no evidence of a duel, as Decourbes’ body was in a putrid state, and that three French and two English surgeons had declared that he had died from typhus.

In 1807 a tragedy was enacted at Chesterfield which caused much stir at the time. Colonel Richemont and Captain Méant were fellow prisoners, released from the Chatham hulks, and travelling together to Chesterfield where they were to live on parole. On the road thither they slept at Atherstone. When Richemont arrived at the Falcon Hotel at Chesterfield he found that his trunk had been robbed of a quantity of gold dust, a variety of gold coins, and of some gold and silver articles. Suspecting that it had been done at the inn in Atherstone, he caused inquiry to be made, but without result. He then suspected his fellow traveller Méant, caused his box to be searched, and in it found silver spoons and other of his missing property.

Méant, on being discovered, tried to stab himself, but, being prevented, seized a bottle of laudanum and swallowed its contents. Then he wrote a confession, and finding that the laudanum was slower in action than he expected, tried to stab himself again. A struggle took place; Méant refused the emetic brought, and died. Méant’s brother-in-law brought an action against Richemont, declaring that the latter in reality owed the dead man a large sum of money, and that Méant had only taken his due. During the trial Colonel Richemont was very violent against the British, and especially when the jury decided the case against him, and found that the dead man was his creditor, although, of course, the means he employed to get what was his were illegal.

Méant was buried, according to usage, at the union of four cross roads just outside the borough boundary, with a stake driven through his body. The funeral took place on a Sunday, and great crowds attended.

On April 13, 1812, Pierre de Romfort or De la Roche, a prisoner on parole at Launceston, was hanged at Bodmin for forgery. ‘He behaved very penitently, and was attended to at the last moment by Mr. Lefers, a Roman Catholic priest living at Lanhearne.’

I quote this because it is one of the very few instances of this crime being committed by a prisoner on parole.

International Courtesies

It is gratifying to read testimonies such as the following, taken out of many, to chivalry and kindness on the part of our enemies, and to note practical appreciations of such conduct.

In 1804 Captain Areguandeau of the Blonde privateer, captured at sea and put on the parole list, was applied for by late British prisoners of his to whom he had been kind, to be returned to France unconditionally. The Commissioners of the Transport Board regretted that under existing circumstances they could not accede to this, but allowed him a choice of parole towns—Tiverton, Ashbourne, Chesterfield, Leek, or Lichfield.

In 1806, Guerbe, second captain of a transport, was allowed to be on parole although he was not so entitled by his rank, because of his humane treatment of Colonel Fraser and other officers and men, lately his prisoners.