‘As to the French priests and the procurement of lodgings at Stilton, we have nothing to do with them, but with respect to the proposal of their inhabitation in our Dépôts, we cannot possibly allow of such a measure at this critical time to Foreigners of that equivocal description.’
The ever-recurring question as to the exact lines of demarcation to be drawn between the two chief men of the prison, the Agent and the Commander of the garrison, occupies a great deal of Departmental literature. We have given one specimen already, and in 1804 Captain Pressland was thus addressed by his masters in London:
‘As the interior regulation and management of the Prison is entirely under your direction, we do not see any necessity for returns being made daily to the C.O. of the Guard, and we approve of your reason for declining to make such returns; but as, on the other hand, the C.O. is answerable for the security of the Prison, it is not proper that you should interfere in that respect any further than merely to suggest what may appear to you to be necessary or proper to be done.’
In the same year a serious charge was brought against Captain Pressland by the prisoners, that he was in the habit of deducting two and a half per cent from all sums passing through his hands for payment to the prisoners. He admitted having done so, and got off with a rebuke. It may be mentioned here that the pay of a prison agent was thirty shillings per diem, the same as that of a junior post captain on sea fencible service—quarters, but no allowances except £10 10s. per annum for stationery. In 1805 the boys’ building was put up. At first the suggested site was on the old burial ground; but as it was urged that such a proceeding might produce much popular clamour, as well as ‘other disagreeable consequences’, it was put outside the outer stockade, north of the Hospital. It is said that the boys were here brought up as musicians by the Bishop of Moulins.
At this time escapes seem to have been very frequent, and this in spite of the frequent changing of the garrison, and the rule that no soldier knowing French should be on guard duty. All implements and edged tools were taken from the prisoners, only one knife being allowed, which was to be returned every night, locked up in a box, and placed in the Guard-room until the next morning, and failure to give up knives meant the Black Hole. Any prisoner attempting to escape was to be executed immediately, but I find no record of this drastic sentence being carried into effect.
From The Times of October 15, 1804, I take the following:
‘An alarming spirit of insubordination was on Wednesday evinced by the French prisoners, about 3,000, at Norman Cross. An incessant uproar was kept up all the morning, and at noon their intention to attempt the destruction of the barrier of the prison became so obvious that the C.O. at the Barrack, apprehensive that the force under his command, consisting only of the Shropshire Militia and one battalion of the Army of reserve, would not be sufficient in case of necessity to environ and restrain so large a body of prisoners, dispatched a messenger requiring the assistance of the Volunteer force at Peterborough. Fortunately the Yeomanry had had a field day, and one of the troops was undismissed when the messenger arrived. The troops immediately galloped into the Barracks. In the evening a tumult still continuing among the prisoners, and some of them taking advantage of the extreme darkness to attempt to escape, further reinforcements were sent for and continued on duty all night. The prisoners, having cut down a portion of the wood enclosure during the night, nine of them escaped through the aperture. In another part of the prison, as soon as daylight broke, it was found that they had undermined a distance of 34 feet towards the Great South Road, under the fosse which surrounds the prison, although it is 4 feet deep, and it is not discovered they had any tools. Five of the prisoners have been re-taken.’
A little later in the year, on a dark, stormy Saturday night, seven prisoners escaped through a hole they had cut in the wooden wall, and were away all Sunday. At 8 p.m. on that day, a sergeant and a corporal of the Durham Militia, on their way north on furlough, heard men talking a ‘foreign lingo’ near Whitewater toll-bar. Suspecting them to be escaped prisoners, they attacked and secured two of them, but five got off. On Monday two of these were caught near Ryall toll-bar in a state of semi-starvation, having hidden in Uffington Thicket for twenty-four hours; the other three escaped.
One of the most difficult tasks which faced the agents of prisons in general, and of Norman Cross in particular, was the checking of contraband traffic between the prisoners and outsiders. At Norman Cross, as I have said, the chief illicit trade was in straw-plaiting work. Strange to say, although the interests of the poor country people were severely injured by this trade, the wealth and influence of the chief dealers were so great that it was difficult to get juries to convict, and when they did convict, to get judges to pass deterrent sentences. In 1807, for instance, legal opinion was actually given that a publican could not have his licence refused because he had carried on the straw-plait traffic with the prisoners, although it was an open secret that the innkeepers of Stilton, Wansford, Whittlesea, Peterborough, and even the landlord of the inn which in those days stood opposite where now is the present Norman Cross Hotel, were deeply engaged in it.
In 1808, ‘from motives of humanity’, the prisoners at Norman Cross were allowed to make baskets, boxes, ornaments, &c., of straw, if the straw-plaiting traffic could be effectually prevented. The manufacture of these articles, which were often works of the most refined beauty and delicacy, of course did not harm the poor, rough straw-plaiters of Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire; but the radius of its sale was limited, the straw-plaiting meant quick and good returns, and the difficulty to be faced by the authorities was to ensure the rightful use of the straw introduced. In 1808 there were many courts-martial upon soldiers of the garrison for being implicated in this traffic, and in each case the soldier was severely flogged and the straw bonnet ordered to be burned. It was no doubt one of these episodes which so aroused George Borrows ire.[[4]] The guard of the coach from Lincoln to Stilton was put under observation by order of the Transport Office, being suspected of assisting people to carry the straw plait made in the prison to Baldock to be made into bonnets.