There are instances of attempts by the prisoners on parole to escape. At the Devon Summer Assize, 1812, Richard Tapper, described as of Moretonhampstead, Carrier, Thomas Vinnacombe and William Vinnacombe (his brother) of Cheriton Bishop, described in the indictments as Smugglers (a curious and, one would have thought, a somewhat prejudiced description of their occupation), were indicted and convicted of misdemeanour for aiding and assisting, with divers other persons unknown, Casimer Baudouin, an officer in the French Navy; Allain Michel and Louis Hamel, Captains of Merchant Vessels; Pierre Joseph Dennis, a Second Captain of a Privateer; and Andrew Fleuriot, a Midshipman of the French Navy, to escape from Moretonhampstead. The French prisoners paid £25 down, and subsequently £150 for the assistance rendered. They were taken on horseback to Topsham, and placed in a large boat described as eighteen feet long, but in going down the estuary of the Exe, however, not far from Exmouth, the boat grounded on the Bar, and they were apprehended. The story is somewhat graphically, though at considerable length, told in the records of the proceedings.
The French prisoners formed no less than twenty-six Lodges and Chapters of Freemasons in England and elsewhere. The only one in the neighbourhood of Dartmoor was at Ashburton, and the only evidence of it is an undated certificate granted to one Paul Carcenac, described as Assistant Commissary, the Lodge being described as “Des Amis Reunis” (the Re-united Friends). A copy of the certificate and many further interesting details concerning this and other Lodges, notably those at Abergavenny, “Enfants de Mars et de Neptune”; at Plymouth “Amis Reunis”; at Tiverton, “Enfants de Mars” (see Bro. Sharland’s Freemasonry in Tiverton, published in 1899), are given in a most interesting book by Bro. John T. Thorp entitled French Prisoners’ Lodges, published in 1900, and printed at Leicester by Bro. George Gibbons, King Street.
There appear to be but few records of the prisoners at the various towns, and only the vaguest reminiscences. In Okehampton it is said that there were about 150 prisoners on parole. In the Churchyard is a tombstone—a rough slate slab—on which appears the following:—
Cette Pierre Fut
Elevee Par
Lamitie a La Memoire
Darmand Bernard
ne au Harve
En Normande Marie a
Calais a Madcle Margot