As soon as I had got fixed at Verdun, and had time to look round me, my first object was to inquire into the situation of the soldiers confined in the dépôts, which I found extremely distressing, both from want of clothing and from scanty nourishment. As senior officer, I felt it my duty to represent their sufferings to the government, which immediately empowered me to draw for and pay them the moiety of their pay, besides an allowance for clothing; the result of which was, that these poor fellows have since enjoyed comforts they never knew before. The inducements to desertions have been entirely done away, and many valuable lives have been saved, by the comforts of warm clothing and good food during the inclemency of winter. The corresponding with the several dépôts, and the necessary regulations I was obliged to form for supplying the prisoners, were sufficient fully to occupy me; but from the situation I was placed in, I was every day addressed by foreigners, who, though not actually in the British service, had been made prisoners, fighting in the general cause; all of whom were relieved as far as propriety would admit. The general measures I adopted in every instance, I feel happy in being able to say, have been approved by the government; and though captivity is incalculably injurious to my own interest, I feel the counterbalancing satisfaction of knowing that I have left nothing undone to render it supportable to my fellow prisoners; and the still greater pleasure of observing, that I have succeeded farther than I could have hoped, from the situation of the dépôts on my first arrival.

I was not, however, long allowed to enjoy the tranquillity I hoped for; jealousy and suspicion, the constant companions of weak governments as well as of little minds, soon became fixed on me, and at seven o’clock one morning my house was surrounded by guards, and every avenue of escape secured. A general officer, commanding the department, then entered my bed room, in which I was dressing, and addressing me very politely, informed me, “his Majesty had received certain information of my being in possession of papers of consequence, which he was ordered to seize, and forward to Paris.” In consequence, my writing-desk, &c. were soon emptied, and the whole of the private letters and manuscripts they found, were carried off to be examined. Among other papers of equally little importance, were some drawings of the country, and a few rough sketches of imaginary fortifications. At sight of these the General thought he had caught me; but being unable to make any thing of them, he said, “certainly you have taken plans of the neighbouring country;” to which I replied; “surely, Monsieur le Général, you cannot think I would throw away my time in secretly taking plans, which I can buy in any bookseller’s shop for a few francs, and infinitely more accurate than it would be possible for me to make them.” He then said, “but you have written disrespectfully of his Majesty the Emperor!” In answer to which I observed that, “he was in possession of my papers, and would most probably find on perusing them, that I never gave myself a thought about his Emperor; but that if he should happen to find him mentioned, he would be pleased to consider that I was a British officer, by whom his Majesty could not in reason expect to be paid compliments.”

My papers, after being six weeks at Paris, were returned to me, with a polite note from the Duc de Feltre, Minister of War, to the commandant of the dépôt, expressing his sorrow for the trouble occasioned me on this subject.

Not long after this, I was visited one morning by the lieutenant of gend’armerie, who notified the commandant’s desire to see me immediately. On my arrival, this officer expressed his concern at the very unpleasant duty imposed on him, in being obliged to inform me that I was a close prisoner, by order of the Emperor, and then read a letter from the Minister of War, explaining the cause.*  From the General I was conducted to the convent of St. Vannes, in the citadel, where a small room, about fourteen feet square, was allotted me, the window of which was strongly barred. Two gend’armes were placed in a little passage leading to the room, each of whom I was obliged to pay for guarding me. The commandant was, however, so kind as to permit me to take the air within the citadel during the day, at which times a gend’arme always kept a few paces behind me; but during the night I was grievously tormented by these myrmidons, for as they kept watch alternately for an hour, each, when it was his turn to mount, opened my door, and politely inquired if I wanted any thing? So strict were their orders to take care of me, that not content with this hourly intrusion, they would often repeat the same kind inquiry in the interval; so that during the whole time I remained here, I scarcely got one hour’s continued rest. I could not help comparing my situation to that of the unfortunate Dauphin, in the Temple, when Simon the monster of a shoemaker, who had charge of him, and who, no doubt, was directed to torment him to death, would cry out every hour, “comment tu portes toi, Capet?”

* See appendix. [Appendix not included in this electronic text.]

In this close confinement I remained for seven weeks, as an hostage, to deter the English government from punishing a French general officer, who had not only broken his parole, but had also laid plans for arming and raising of the French prisoners in England; which, according to the laws of war, subjected him to the punishment of a spy. When I was at length set at liberty, it was without the slightest expression of concern that such harsh measures had been necessary; a species of apology I had a right to expect at least.

During my confinement I feared nothing so much as being removed to Bitche, of which place I had received such accounts, as left scarce a doubt of death being preferable. One of these narratives,which I received from a gentleman who had inhabited its subterraneous dungeons, I shall beg leave to present to my readers.

“We quitted Quesnoi with a detachment of Spanish and Swedish prisoners, and refractory conscripts. Among them was the wife of a Swedish captain of a ship, who had died of his wounds at Mezieres. He had fought his ship with great gallantry, and his wife had received two musket-balls in the thigh, from which she had not recovered when she was dismissed from the hospital, for the dépôt at Roquelon, and was every night shut up in the common prison with the rest of the prisoners; though her youth, not being above twenty-two; her sex; and above all her beauty, it might be supposed, would have procured her other treatment. The prisoners were thirty-nine in number, all chained together and handcuffed, except the two English, who, though also handcuffed, were indulged with being only tied to the tails of two of the horses of the escort, which was composed of Portuguese chasseurs à cheval, and who treated the prisoners in the most inhuman manner, preventing their receiving any succours from the inhabitants of the towns we passed through; so that many of the Spaniards died of hunger and fatigue. The prisoners were drummed into the towns in ranks, and if any one ventured to look round he was sure to receive a coup de sabre.

“At last we arrived at Bitche, and were marched to the Petite Tête, where we were searched for concealed instruments with which we might attempt our escape. From hence we were conducted to the subterraneous dungeons, and, to our great surprise, were better received than we expected. The first night we were put into the great dungeon, in which were three or four hundred midshipmen, soldiers, sailors, and others, jumbled together. The descent to it was by about fifty or sixty steps; and on reaching the bottom we were received with three cheers, immediately hoisted on the shoulders of four men, and marched round the place with hallowing and shouting. A blanket was then produced, into which we were forced to enter, and received a hearty tossing.  These ceremonies we thought would make us free of these gloomy abodes, but in addition we were obliged to give two bottles of snick, an ardent spirit made from potatoes, which, when mixed with water, turns quite blue; it is not, however, considered more unwholesome than other spirits.

“In two or three days we were shifted from the grand to the little dungeon, called by the seamen Saint Giles’s. The descent was by nearly the same number of steps as to the great one, and we were made free by going through the same ceremonies as before, with a double allowance of snick, which being drank, and some of the party being half seas over, I was asked “if I could shew?” To which, not knowing the meaning, I answered, “yes.” A ring was immediately formed; I was stripped to the buff, and a champion, nearly of my height, but much stouter, stood forward, and in self-defence I was obliged to commence a boxing match, which was regulated by all the rules of pugilism, each having his bottle-holder and second. At the end of every third round we each got a glass of snick; and in this manner I was forced to fight for an hour and a half: but being inferior to my antagonist, I received a drubbing that prevented my moving for six days.

“The dungeon, which resembles a large wine vault, is sunk twenty-five to thirty feet under ground, and excavated in a saltpetre rock. In many places the water drips continually from the vaults, and in winter the cold and damp are beyond description; nor had the prisoners in general clothing sufficient to prevent the baneful effects on their health; the blanket allowed to each being usually one condemned from the soldiers’ barracks. In these shocking dungeons the prisoners were locked up from eight o’clock at night till the same hour in the morning, when they were mustered out, and permitted to remain in the yard, which is about one hundred and twenty paces in length and thirty in breadth, until noon; they were then again mustered into the subterraneous receptacle, and remained there till two, when they were again let out into the yard until six in the evening.

“From such horrid abodes it is natural to conclude that many attempts would be made to escape. In many instances they have been successful, neither bars nor walls being capable of resisting the perseverance and determination of despair. Four midshipmen in particular escaped, by excavating a depth of seventy feet, until they arrived at a subterraneous passage, which leads from the fort to the neighbouring woods, and is three leagues in length. This successful attempt some time after induced the whole of the prisoners to make a similar one, and each was sworn to secresy and perseverance. In a few days they arrived at the subterraneous passage, but there were still three wooden doors and an iron one to be forced, before they could gain the outside of the fort. These obstacles were also overcome, and the moment of accomplishment had just arrived, when one of the prisoners, a Jerseyman named Williams, waited on the Commandant, to whom he discovered the whole plot. The Commandant, with a decree of ferocity without excuse, because without necessity, ordered a guard of veteran soldiers to be placed at the spot where the prisoners were to emerge from their gloomy abode, with orders not to fire till a dozen at least were on the outside. These orders were exactly obeyed: the whole were shot dead, and their bodies exposed in the yard of the fort.

“This indeed was not, by many, the only instance of prisoners being killed in a cruel and wanton manner. Among the most lamented was Mr. Thomas Thomson, of his Majesty’s cutter the Dove, who was run through the body with a bayonet by a sentinel, who quitted his post sixty yards for the purpose. Another circumstance of cool atrocity also deserves to be mentioned; Lieutenant Essel, of the Navy, and fourteen others, had prepared a rope, to descend the formidable wall of the fort, which was well secured and sufficiently strong, but as descending one at a time would have caused too much delay, the whole fifteen determined to descend at once. This plan, however, was discovered to a veteran officer, who waited patiently until all these unfortunate young men were on the rope, when, to the shame of humanity, he cut it: several were dashed to pieces, and their mutilated bodies exposed, while none escaped without a broken limb.”

Such is the melancholy picture of what the English prisoners had to expect from French generosity.