The application by the French prisoners at Norman Cross of their skill to the felonious forging of bank-notes has already been alluded to. So cleverly did they manage this, that it is said, that the only way in which the forgery could be detected was by wetting the notes and observing the different behaviour of the ink used by them and that used by the printers of genuine notes.
A writer in All the Year Round (1892, pp. 41–3) remarks that “when the £1 note was introduced in the last decade of the eighteenth century, forgery from the first was the great trouble, and the hasty manner in which the notes were engraved and issued greatly facilitated the operations of the forger.” In The Bankers’ Magazine, vol. lxvii., pp. 390–410, [147] is an article by J. Macbeth Forbes, “French Prisoners of War and Bank Note Forging,” in which is an illustration of a partially executed forgery of a Guinea Note of the Bank of Scotland. Another illustration is that of the words “BANK OF SCOTLAND” carved on a bone by the prisoners in Edinburgh, the letters measuring ⅞ inch, but so rough and irregular are these, that, even if they were successfully reproduced, they could hardly have deceived a simpleton, much less a Pawky Scot. This block might have been an early effort to make a tool for imitating the water-mark; the type is not reversed, so it cannot have been a stamp for printing. It is possible, however, that bone was the material used for type by the Norman Cross forgers. The deft fingers which executed many of their legitimate works of art were sufficiently skilled to carve an imitation of a £1 note.
The resemblance of the oak block with the name “Louis Chartie” carved on it to that referred to in The Bankers’ Magazine, suggests the possibility of its having been a tool for one step in the process of forging M. Charretie’s name.
The fact that the prisoners were able to have in their possession, and to use a plant and tools necessary for such a trade as forging, illustrates the absence of any but a very casual supervision of the thousands of prisoners concentrated in the four courts of the prison.
One would gladly pass over another illegal traffic which was with difficulty suppressed. To the disgrace of those British purchasers whose depraved tastes made it worth the while of the prisoners to expend their ingenuity on the production of obscene pictures and carvings, it must be mentioned that an illicit, secret trade in such articles was carried on at Norman Cross. At one time in the year 1808 the trade in such goods, clandestinely made and sold, reached such a pitch that respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood complained to the Transport Commissioners, and on the 18th December an order was issued totally closing the market. It was a severe punishment, as it at once stopped the supply of all the little necessaries, luxuries, and comforts the prisoners could obtain—the vegetables, sugar, condiments, tobacco, beer, clothing, which they were in the habit of purchasing—and it also stopped the sale of their legitimate manufactures. The offence merited such a punishment, and the practice had to be stopped.
The order pointed out that the innocent had to suffer with the guilty, “If they connive at such scandalous proceedings they themselves can no longer be considered free from blame, but if they give the names of those who make or sell the toys and drawings the market will again be opened.” Prisoners’ letters were intercepted, and a Corporal Hayes of the garrison and a prisoner known as Black Jimmy were found to be concerned in the traffic. Many articles were seized, and Black Jimmy and others were sent to the hulks at Chatham—such scum were among the men to whom Buonaparte appealed on the eve of Waterloo to tell their comrades how they had suffered in the British hulks.
In the course of the investigations undertaken with a view to the suppression of this vicious manufacture, it was found that those outside the prison who shared in the profits of the smuggling trade in straw plait, became sufficiently demoralised to assist the makers of these obscene articles in the disposal of their goods, sharing with them the profits of the business. It was probably in the sacks of straw, smuggled in by the accomplices of the prisoners, that the weapons discovered in the prison were introduced.
Before leaving the subject of the employment of the prisoners, we must again remind our readers that the inmates performed the fatigue duties of their prisons, and that there were other distractions besides, which we have attempted to show in the imaginary views of the life of the quadrangles given in the last chapter.
As to the conduct of the captives, although it has been necessary in the interests of truth to show the seamy side of the prison life, it must in fairness be said that their general conduct was good.
Deeds of violence did occur at times, as was only natural in a community circumstanced and constituted as was this crowd of prisoners of war; such deeds were, however, apparently rare. Some instances with a fatal termination are culled from entries in the register of deaths. “A seaman, aged twenty-three, killed from a blow in Prison by the following Black Man”—the next entry being one of a prisoner born in Dominique—“who hung himself in the Black Hole”; this man, “born in Dominique,” being undoubtedly the Black Man of the previous entry. “A soldier, a French prisoner, killed by one Jean François Pors in self-defence as the verdict at Coroner’s inquest.” A sailor, captured at Trafalgar, “shot by a sergeant of the West Essex Militia, verdict by Coroner’s Inquest, Chance Medley.” As to this entry, is it not probable that this sergeant of the West Essex Militia was the victim of the outrage reported in The Stamford Mercury, 12th February 1812, and that the chance medley may have been a struggle over a bundle of straw plait. In another entry death is occasioned by a stab from one of the prisoners accidentally; this might well have been a death in a duel, the witnesses of the duel, to exculpate the man who gave the fatal wound, giving evidence which satisfied the authorities that the stab was accidental.