In the beautiful hillside garden of Valleyfield House is a monument, erected by Mr. Alexander Cowan, to the memory of these prisoners, inaugurated on June 26, 1830, the day on which George IV died. On it was inscribed:
‘The mortal remains of 309 prisoners of war who died in this neighbourhood between 21st March, 1811, and 26th July, 1814, are interred near this spot.’
‘Grata Quies Patriae: sed et Omnis Terra Sepulchrum.’ ‘Certain inhabitants of this parish, desiring to remember that all men are brethren, caused this monument to be erected in the year 1830.’
On the other side:
‘Près de ce Lieu reposent les cendres de 309 Prisonniers de Guerre morts dans ce voisinage entre le 21 Mars 1811 et le 26 Juillet 1814. Nés pour bénir les vœux de vieillissantes mères, par le sort appelés à devenir amants, aimés époux et pères.
‘Ils sont morts exilés. Plusieurs Habitants de cette Paroisse, aimant à croire que tous les Hommes sont Frères, firent élever ce monument l’an 1830.’
It may be noted that Sir Walter Scott, who showed a warm interest in the erection of the monument, suggested the Latin quotation, which is from Saumazarius, a poet of the Middle Ages. Despite the inscription, the monument was raised at the sole expense of Mr. Alexander Cowan.
Monument at Valleyfield to Prisoners of War.
An interesting episode is associated with this monument. In 1845, Mr. John Cowan of Beeslack, on a visit to the Paris Invalides, found an old Valleyfield prisoner named Marcher, and on his return home sent the old soldier a picture of the Valleyfield Memorial, and in the Cowan Institute at Penicuik, amongst other relics of the war-prison days, is an appreciative letter from Marcher, dated from the Invalides, December 1846.
Marcher, when asked his experience of Valleyfield, said that it was terribly cold, that there were no windows, no warmth, no fruit, but that the cabbages were very large. He lost an arm at Waterloo.
The guard consisted of infantry of the Ayr and Kircudbright militia and artillery, who had their camp on the high ground west of Kirkhill Village. On one occasion an alarm that prisoners were escaping was given: the troops hurried to the scene of action, the artillery with such precipitancy that horses, guns, and men were rolled down the steep hill into the river, luckily without injuries.