Transport Office,
25th June 1812.
NUMBER OF ALL FRENCH COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, PRISONERS OF WAR, ON PAROLE IN GREAT BRITAIN
| Total No. of Com. Off. on Parole. | No. that broke their Parole. | Been retaken. | Effected escape. |
Year ending 5th June 1810 | 1,685 | 104 | 47 | 57 |
,, ,, ,, ,, 1811 | 2,087 | 118 | 47 | 71 |
,, ,, ,, ,, 1812 | 2,142 | 242 | 63 | 179 |
| 5,914 | 462 | 157 | 307 |
Beside the above Commissioned Officers, otherFrench Prisoners, such as Masters and Mates of Merchant Vessels,Captains, 2nd Captains, and Lieutenants of Privateers, Civiliansholding situations connected with the Army and Navy, Passengersand other Persons of respectability, have broken their Parole inthe three years above mentioned | 218 | 85 | 133 | |
| 682 | 242 | 440 | |
N.B.—The numbers stated in this Account include those Persons only who have actually absconded from the places appointed for their Residence.
A considerable number of Officers have been ordered into confinement, for various other breaches of their Parole Engagements.
(Signed) Rup. George, J. Bowen, J. Douglas. [213a]
There are no records to show that the conduct of those on parole from Norman Cross, whether they were lodged in the prison or in the neighbouring towns and villages, was otherwise than that of gentlemen, and the records of broken parole are very scanty.
The prisoners reported themselves regularly twice a week, as the custom was, to the agent at Peterborough, when he paid each his allowance; they kept within bounds, and returned to their lodgings within the prescribed hours.
No such amusing incident is told of any of them, as that told of the French officer at Jedburgh, who, being an antiquarian, soon exhausted all places of interest within the circle of one mile radius, beyond which the country was out of bounds. Being told of a most interesting building a little beyond the first milestone from the town, he nobly struggled against the longing to go beyond that stone, and he was rewarded for his strict adherence to his “Parole d’honneur,” for an inspiration came to him, and, borrowing a spade and a wheel-barrow, he laboriously dug up the milestone, and, putting it into his wheel-barrow, carted it beyond the spot of his heart’s desire, and, replanting it there, revelled in his research with unspotted honour. [213b]
Mr. Palmer, who was born in 1812, three years before Waterloo, and lived on the North Road in a pretty farmhouse at Stibbington, opposite the first milestone from Wansford, told the writer that when his grandfather took the farm in 1797, the house was the Wheat Sheaf, a coaching inn, which came to grief in 1841, killed by the railways, the house being rechristened The Road Side Farm. The milestone was the outside limit for those on parole who were quartered at Wansford (it was more than five miles from Norman Cross), and Mr. Palmer pointed out the small room which the prisoners used for smoking and recreation. His grandmother was renowned for cooking, and could even please the fastidious taste of the French officers. Mr. Palmer’s little baby eyes must often have looked with wonder at the prisoners, talking in a language he could not comprehend, and he must have gazed after them with childish curiosity, as they turned—after a longing look into the forbidden land beyond—to retrace their steps and reach their lodging within the time prescribed.