Wirion, by Napoleon’s orders, gave notice in 1805 after three escapes that the captives must be responsible for one another if they wished to be treated as men of honour, and that at the first escape all would be sent to fortresses. In 1806, moreover, a reward of 50 francs for the capture of any fugitive was offered at Valenciennes. It was very hard on the sureties to be shut up in a fortress if the men for whom they were answerable did not return on the expiration of their leave of absence, but this may in some cases have been preconcerted. When in 1807 the Arras and Valenciennes captives were removed to Verdun, Wirion gave warning that the first man attempting to escape would be shot, such being the legal punishment for breach of parole. This excited murmurs against terror and tyranny. Yet very shortly afterwards he reported escapes, and it does not appear that he ever enforced his threat, although Napoleon in January 1811 ordered that attempted escapes should be punished with death and that the sentences should be placarded.[196] It is obvious, indeed, that England would have threatened reprisals. Sentences of six years’ confinement in irons were, however, inflicted on private soldiers and sailors, for I find that in 1812 Thomas Hudson, who by means of a forged passport had attempted in 1808 to escape from Metz, had the remainder of the penalty remitted on the ground that he had been instigated by a fellow-prisoner.[197] Had such punishments been imposed on captives of higher status England would manifestly have retaliated. Alexander Don, heir to a Scottish baronetcy, escaped from Paris in 1810. In 1808 he had been required to leave that city for either Verdun or Melun, but must have obtained leave to return. An Italian lady, claiming to have been married to him in Paris, but suspected of being merely his mistress, was living at Florence in 1812. He became intimate with Sir Walter Scott, who speaks of his literary and artistic tastes, his lively manners, his love of sport, and his oratorical powers, while Lockhart describes him as courteous, elegant, accomplished, and the model of a cavalier. He was latterly M.P. for Roxburghshire, and died in 1826 at the age of forty-seven. His uncle, General Sir George Don, had been captured and detained at Lille in 1799, when he went with a flag of truce to General Daendels bearing a proclamation from the exiled Statthalter. The French Government threatened to shoot him in reprisals if Napper Tandy and his companions were executed. An exchange for Don with Tandy was declined by England, as also an exchange with a French general. England in 1800 claimed his unconditional release, on pain of imprisoning the French generals at liberty on parole. His wife, seeing no prospect of his release, applied for a passport to join him. He continued a captive till June 1800. John, afterwards General Sir John Broughton, a Staffordshire baronet’s heir, got off in the guise of a courier.
Two sailors named Henson and Butterfield escaped from Verdun, traversed all France, and reached the Mediterranean coast, but were there arrested and sent to Bitche. Philip Astley, the circus owner whose arrival in Paris has been mentioned, obtained a passport for Savoy on pretence of wishing to open a circus there, but he went on to Italy and thence escaped. He was destined to revisit and be buried in Paris in 1814. James Callender or Campbell of Ardinglas, endeavouring to escape, was sent to Ham, the fortress in store forty years later for Louis Napoleon. While there he became the successor to a cousin’s estates of £3000 a year, but it was several years before he heard of it. He offered to present his horse to Napoleon, thinking thus to be liberated, but Napoleon insisted on his fixing a price and then sent him double the sum. Campbell revisited Paris in 1815 and was sent by Napoleon to the Conciergerie. This was probably at the instigation of his alleged wife.[198] Captain Charles Cunliffe Owen, father of Sir Philip of South Kensington fame, seems in 1811 to have shammed lunacy and was consequently placed in an asylum at Valenciennes.[199] He had cut a vein, but not dangerously, and had denounced an imaginary plot for seizing Belleisle. He was transferred to a private asylum in Paris, whence in July 1812 he escaped. Captain Francis Tulloch, who in 1808 had been removed from Cambrai to Verdun, effected his escape in December 1810.
John Harvie Christie, who had gone to France to economise, after spending three weeks in Paris repaired to Bordeaux. Returning after two months to the capital, he found that arrests had just been ordered. He went to the Norman coast, hoping to embark as an American, but was apprehended at Fécamp, having unluckily in his possession a manuscript copy of satirical verses on Napoleon and Josephine.[200] He was tried on the charge of espionage, and though acquitted remained a prisoner. Henry Dillon and Lynch were arrested at Caen in 1809, and Poppleton, the teacher of English, who with three Frenchwomen had abetted their escape, was sent to prison for two months.[201] John Giffard, arrested in 1811 on the point of embarking at Honfleur, was consigned to a lunatic asylum. William Throckmorton, a friend of Miss Berry, was also recaptured at Honfleur in the same year. Another fugitive bore the appropriate name of Hurry, and Wirion being just then absent, his subordinate Courselles was suspected of having been bribed. Hurry was a freemason, and with a hundred of the captives had been admitted into the Verdun lodge. Wirion recommended that such admissions should be forbidden, for a French mason had confessed in private conversation that he should have felt bound, had Hurry applied to him, to facilitate his escape.[202] But non-masons also promoted escapes, for filthy lucre’s sake. Indeed this became a trade, and in 1811 two captains at Bruges were arrested for visiting the dépôts and offering passports.[203] In 1809 six inhabitants of Arras were prosecuted for facilitating the escape of an English lord, and at Verdun a breach was discovered in the walls just in time to prevent escapes. These had been so numerous among captains and officers of merchantmen that, with the exception of those above fifty years of age or those having their wives with them, they were ordered to sleep in the citadel. Permission to go outside the town within four miles was also revoked, but was afterwards renewed on condition of mutual suretyship. Augustus Bance, at Valenciennes, applied for French citizenship and for permission to open a soap factory at Antwerp. The latter application was refused, on the ground of Antwerp being too near the frontier, but while the naturalisation question was pending he escaped.
Mogg and three companions escaped from Arras in 1810, concealing themselves in the day-time and guided at night by the moon towards the coast. In a wood near Boulogne, they cut down trees and made a small boat, which a layer of suet rendered watertight, and they had brought sails and rope with them. They were, however, discovered. The authorities ordered the boat to be launched as an experiment, and there was not the slightest leakage. The men’s ingenuity was admired, and they told the police inspector that if the Emperor was informed of their daring scheme he would certainly grant them their liberty. One of them was accordingly taken before Napoleon, who asked him whether his motive had not been a desire to rejoin a mistress. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘it was to see my aged mother.’ Thereupon Napoleon, remarking that she must be a good mother to have such a son, released him, giving him a small sum for his mother. We are not told whether his companions were also liberated. Equally venturesome was William Wright. He became interpreter to General Brabançon, and ultimately contrived to get on board an English flag-of-truce vessel. He crept into a trunk till the usual search before departure was over, and after passing an hour in this uneasy posture was safe. In his Narrative of the Situation and Treatment of the English arrested by order of the French Government, Wright states that at Valenciennes an English hotelkeeper, King, who had resided there for twenty years, was very kind to his captive countrymen. Prisoners without money, says Wright, were harshly treated, but the officials were open to bribes. William Hamilton, according to a Boulogne tradition, was assisted in an unsuccessful attempt to escape by his jailer’s daughter, whom he afterwards married. He had entered the navy in 1803, and was captured in 1805. In 1817 he was appointed Consul at Flushing, in 1818 at Ostend, in 1820 at Nieuport, and in 1822 at Boulogne. He was knighted on his retirement in 1873, and died in 1877, aged eighty-eight, being probably the last survivor of Napoleon’s prisoners.
Stewart Kyd, the ex-radical, and Dr. Barklimore escaped, but the two bankers, Boyd and Benfield, had to undergo the full time of detention. Benfield died in Paris, in straitened circumstances, in 1810. One of his daughters married Grantley Berkeley. According to a police bulletin Benfield was a nullity, whereas Boyd was acquiring a thorough knowledge of French institutions. He arbitrated on a claim against the French Government by Schweizer, Swan’s partner and antagonist, who pronounced him to be a man of great culture and acknowledged probity. He also wrote pamphlets on financial subjects. He was indemnified for French confiscation, and from 1828 to 1830 was M.P. for Lymington. He died in 1837. Another man who made good use of his time was Tuckey, who, captured in 1805, compiled a maritime geography in three volumes. He had previously published an account of a voyage to Botany Bay with a cargo of convicts. He died while exploring the River Congo in 1816.
In several instances besides those already mentioned detention was followed up by actual incarceration. James Smith, the filter-maker, was sent to the Temple in 1804 for talking against the French and extolling the defences of England, to which he had paid frequent visits.[204] Colonel Stack was charged in the same year with espionage. It is even alleged, but this cannot be verified, that he was condemned to be shot as an accomplice of the Due d’Enghien, but was reprieved. What is certain is that he spent three years in Bitche citadel, afterwards remaining a prisoner at Verdun till 1814. Colonel William Edwards, a Jamaica planter, brother I think of Bryan Edwards, M.P., was imprisoned seven years on suspicion of having facilitated escapes. The youngest of his twenty-nine children, born at Bruges in 1800, was Milne Edwards, the eminent French naturalist.
We now come to the liberations and permissions to visit or settle in various towns, for each of which Napoleon’s express sanction was necessary, and we may begin with Lord Yarmouth, since he owed his liberty to negotiations, albeit fruitless, for peace. He had become a prisoner under trying circumstances. He went over to fetch his wife and children just as the rupture had occurred, and he inquired at Calais whether he might safely land. He was answered in the affirmative, yet no sooner had he done so than he, with all his fellow-passengers, was declared a prisoner. Curiously enough, however, he professed to consider the detentions as justified by the embargo in England. He was sent to Verdun, but it was alleged in March 1804 that he had been seen in Paris. Wirion, reproached with laxity on this account, denied, however, that he had gone further afield than Clermont on an affair of gallantry. He had been exempted, indeed, from the twice-a-day roll-call till all exemptions had been abolished, and he had also been allowed to go out shooting; but Wirion urged that permission to go outside the town tended to prevent escapes by rendering them dishonourable, and if such permissions were to be refused the garrison should be strengthened, the walls being so dilapidated that egress was easy.[205] Yarmouth’s mother had been in favour with the Prince of Wales, and he himself had then, as a youth, been admitted to Carlton House. When, therefore, Fox in 1806, on the death of Pitt, became Foreign Secretary, the Prince asked him to intercede with Talleyrand for Yarmouth’s release. Napoleon is said to have imagined that Fox was himself interested in Yarmouth. He consequently not only gave Yarmouth unlimited leave of absence, but suggested that negotiations should be opened through this channel. In August 1805 Yarmouth had already been authorised to quit Verdun for six months and to live near, but not at, Paris. He announced that he chose Versailles, but nevertheless joined his wife in Paris. This contravention was reported by the police, but was winked at for a time.[206] In September, however, he was ordered to repair to Melun. In May 1806 he was allowed, together with Lord Elgin, General Abercromby, and Captain Leveson-Gower, to embark at Morlaix for England. He returned viâ Calais in June with credentials authorising him to negotiate. He was not a novice in diplomacy, for in 1793 he had been sent on a mission to Prussia, charging only his expenses. The police bulletins show how closely all his movements were now watched. They tell us how he went to the Opera, and how he wanted to buy French rentes to the amount of a million francs at one stroke, but could only purchase first 100,000 francs and then 500,000 francs. He called on Quintin Craufurd, Mrs. Sullivan being a friend of Lady Yarmouth, and he was said to be in love with her daughter, the so-called Mademoiselle de Dorset.[207] In case of the success of his mission he was said to intend buying up all the French brandy in the market and selling it at triple price. A man of pleasure and an art connoisseur, Yarmouth could scarcely be much of a diplomatist, and in August Lord Lauderdale was sent to join him. He was believed to feel annoyance at this. Lauderdale, as we have seen, was a follower of Fox and had always advocated peace. At the end of August Yarmouth was recalled, announcing, however, that he should return in January, and hoped then to conclude peace, but Lauderdale had really superseded him. Lauderdale nevertheless had committed a mistake at the outset. He had asked to be presented to Napoleon, and had had to be told that it was not customary for a plenipotentiary of a country still at war to be allowed an audience, yet it was evidently no fault of his if the negotiations proved abortive. According to a French writer who had studied the documents of the French Foreign Office,[208] Yarmouth on the 17th July submitted to Champagny a draft treaty by which England gave up Sicily to Joseph Bonaparte and recognised Napoleon’s conquests in Holland, Germany, and Italy; but Napoleon, instead of closing with so advantageous an offer, awaited the result of his negotiations with Russia. All August was consequently wasted in futile discussions of formalities, and when the Russian negative answer arrived Napoleon gave vent to his exasperation by breaking off the negotiations with England, so that Lauderdale at the beginning of October quitted Paris. The last police bulletin in which he is mentioned absurdly describes him as a spy, who had doubtless sent home information of military movements and of public feeling in Paris.
Both he and Yarmouth now disappear from the scene, but Lady Yarmouth remained in France, being allowed to pay occasional visits to England.[209] Lady Hester Stanhope alleges that she had a French lover. If this scandal has any foundation Yarmouth shared the fate of Lord Elgin, who, as we have seen, was liberated with him. His too was a hard case. Returning from the Constantinople Embassy, he had passports from French consuls in Italy, and though not reaching Paris till after Whitworth’s departure had been assured by Talleyrand that he might safely remain, and he doubtless hoped French waters might relieve his chronic rheumatism. Lord Hawkesbury (afterwards Lord Liverpool), who, according to Trotter’s Life of Fox, had in 1802 accepted a handsome Sèvres dinner-service from Napoleon, in his diplomatic circular of the 30th April 1804 made a pointed allusion to Elgin when he said:—
‘They (the French Government) promised their protection to such of the subjects of England as were resident in France who might be desirous of remaining there after the recall of His Majesty’s ambassador. They revoked this promise without any previous notice, and condemned these very persons to be prisoners of war, and still retain as such in defiance of their own engagements and of the universal usage of all civilised nations. They applied this new and barbarous rule even to individuals who had the protection and authority of French ambassadors and ministers at foreign courts to return in safety through France to their own country.’
Talleyrand, in his annotations to this circular in the Moniteur of the 5th November 1804, and in his counter-circular, was significantly silent on this passage, which indeed was obviously unanswerable. Elgin, at first detained with sixty fellow-captives at Orleans, was allowed to go to Barèges and to send to England in October 1803 for Dr. William Scott, on whose report he was permitted to repair to Paris. Owing, however, to an unfounded rumour that General Boyer was incarcerated in Scotland, whereas he was really on parole at Chesterfield, Elgin was ordered back to the Pyrenees. His wife remained in Paris, and he was not allowed to go thither to her confinement, which took place on the 4th March 1804; but the infant expired on the 20th April. He arranged, however, for daily tidings of her. When Thiébault delivered a message from him to her she showed no sign of affection, and General Sebastiani was then lolling on her sofa as though quite at home. She had, however, already made the acquaintance of Robert Ferguson of Raith, son of William Ferguson, who in 1793 had succeeded to the property of his uncle Robert Ferguson, a rich China merchant. Being also one of the British captives, Ferguson was frequently invited to the Elgins’ Paris house. He was released as an F.R.S. and a mineralogist in 1805. Lady Elgin, who had joined her husband at Barèges in June 1804, went over to England in 1806 to try and get her husband exchanged for General Boyer. Thence she wrote affectionate letters, and Ferguson also wrote as though interested in the exchange. But Elgin on his release in 1807 discovered letters addressed to her by Ferguson, which Garrow, Ferguson’s counsel at the crim. con. trial, described as ‘a most ridiculous medley of love and madness, or love run mad.’ ‘They would disgrace,’ he said, ‘the worst novel of the last century.’ £10,000 damages were awarded. Ferguson married the frail lady—Anne Nesbit was her maiden name[210]—got into Parliament for Fife in 1806, and died in 1841. He was cousin to the Miss Berrys, and had once been engaged to Agnes. Before leaving Elgin, it should be stated that Napoleon, styling him ‘one of the greatest enemies of the nation,’ had rebuked General Olivier for showing him attentions at Livourne. Napoleon had a grudge against Elgin, who, he imagined, sent the information which enabled Nelson to follow the French fleet and destroy it at Aboukir. Elgin married again in 1810, was the father of Dean Stanley’s wife, and died in Paris in 1841.