INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO APPENDIX D
Two years ago I received from Mr. W. T. Mellows, Solicitor of Peterborough, the loan of an imperfect copy of a Parliamentary paper endorsed, “Supplement 1801 to Appendix No. 59, Report of the Transport Board to the House of Commons 1798, being correspondence with the French Government relative to Prisoners of War.” The fragment contained, as far as I recollect, thirty-eight out of the fifty-eight or fifty-nine letters enumerated in the index of contents. Those missing were apparently so important that I went to the British Museum to search through the Parliamentary Reports for this appendix. Failing to find the document, I left the imperfect copy with the assistant librarian, who finally returned it to me, saying that extraordinary as it was, this supplement was not in the Museum library. A search in the library of the House of Commons, in which I was assisted by Mr. George Greenwood, M.P., gave the same result—this supplement was not to be found. I have now to acknowledge that last year this unique but imperfect copy disappeared while under my care—my own impression is that it was lost in its travels through an intermediary from my hands to those of the typist. Fortunately I had already included some of the letters in the text of this work, and Mr. W. T. Mellows, intending to present the document to the Museum when I had done with it, had made his clerk copy six of the letters and an extract from the report of Commissioner Serle; these I reproduce in this appendix, regretting deeply that I am unable to publish the whole of the thirty-eight letters which were once in my possession, but are now lost and probably destroyed.—T. J. W.
APPENDIX D
EXTRACTS FROM PARLIAMENTARY REPORT SUPPLEMENT 1801 TO APPENDIX NO. 59, REPORT OF THE TRANSPORT BOARD TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 1798, BEING CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT RELATIVE TO PRISONERS OF WAR
At a former period of the present War it became necessary in order to vindicate the Character of this Country for good Faith and Humanity, to render publick the Proceedings and Correspondence of the Governments of Great Britain and France with respect to Prisoners of War. The whole was submitted to a Committee of the House of Commons and became the subject of a Report, followed by certain Resolutions unanimously adopted by the House. The following Correspondence may be considered as a Supplement to the Documents which were printed with that Report, and the motives for rendering it publick are the same as on the former occasion.
Downing Street,
6th January 1801.
Downing Street,
15th December 1799.
My Lords,
In the absence of Mr. Secretary Dundas, I lost no time in laying before the King your Lordship’s Letter to Him of the 12th Instant inclosing the Communication made to Captain Cotes at Paris, respecting the future maintenance of the English and French Prisoners of War, now detained in respective Countries.
It is the less necessary on this Occasion, to recall the Circumstances which gave rise to the Arrangement under which Two Governments agreed to provide for the wants of their respective subjects during their Detention as they have been submitted to Parliament and published to the World, in Refutation of the false and unwarrantable Assertions brought forward by the French Government on this Subject; but His Majesty cannot witness the Termination of an Arrangement, founded on the fairest principles of Justice and Protection, due by the Powers at War to their respective Prisoners, and proved by Experience to be the best calculated to provide for their Comfort, without protesting against this Departure (on the Part of the French Government) from an Agreement entered into between the Two Countries, and which tended so materially to mitigate the Calamities of War.