It may be difficult, even after this long lapse of time, for either a Frenchman or an Englishman to make an impartial summing up of a controversy carried on in hot blood and generating bad feeling which lasted long after Waterloo and the return of the Bourbons. The British did not shrink from publishing at the time all the facts and correspondence relating to these controversial matters, thus enabling their contemporaries of all nationalities to come to a right judgment and, fortunately for us, if exaggerated and even lying accusations came from French sources, their exaggeration and falsehood could usually be proved by French witnesses.
The piteous letter of M. Charretie has been already quoted as evidence of where the fault really lay in November 1797.
In 1815 a work was published in Paris called L’Angleterre vue à Londres et dans ses Provinces, pendant un séjour de dix années. An English translation was published in America in 1818, to the title being added, “six of them as a prisoner of war.” The author was René Martin Pillet, who, according to his account, was taken prisoner at the Battle of Vimiera, 1808. He was confined at Norman Cross and Bishop’s Waltham, and at Chatham on the Brunswick hulk. Space forbids an examination of all his statements regarding England and English society; his account of the treatment of prisoners of war alone concerns us. The nature of his statements can best be understood by the replies made. There was a pamphlet by some one hailing from Warrington, issued in 1816, with the title A Defence of our National Character and our Fair Countrywomen. One paragraph must suffice:
“It has been accurately calculated that not more than one in ten of the French prisoners died during the last two wars: if therefore 150,000, as you state, died in the prison-ships by torture or otherwise, the amount of French prisoners in these ships must have been 1,500,000, to contain which it would have required 2,000 ships of the line, but as not half of the number of prisoners were confined in ships, we must have taken during the last twenty years double that number, namely, 3,000,000! Any further comment would be idle and superfluous.” (P. 16.)
A detailed examination of Pillet’s book was published in 1816, entitled, Tableau de la Grande-Bretagne. The author was Jean Sarrazin, a very remarkable man. He was born in 1770, of humble parentage, and served as a private soldier in the ranks of the French army, but rose very rapidly to high rank, being General of Brigade in the expedition to Ireland in 1798, where he was taken prisoner, and, to use his own words, he was treated as a prisoner of war “with the highest distinction,” and was exchanged for the English Major-General Sir Harry Burral, an ensign, one sergeant, and five privates. He married an English lady, a native of Exeter, who returned with him to France.
His brilliant military services under Napoleon, with whom he was on intimate terms, were varied with literary works of high value on military subjects. Now comes the stain on his character. His subsequent career in England proves that he had a very exaggerated view of his abilities and services, and when holding a high position in the French army assembled at Boulogne, he deserted and came over to this country to sell to the British Government the secrets of the French plan of campaign. In his absence he was condemned to death. The nature of his claims on the English Government were considered extravagant. They comprised:
1. Letters of naturalisation.
2. His wife and son to be considered as prisoners of war in France (thereby entitling them to an allowance from the British Government).
3. That his rank of Lieut.-General be acknowledged in accordance with the cartel of exchange of 1798.
4. A pension of £3,000 a year for life.