The Depot for Prisoners of War at Norman Cross, Huntingdonshire. 1796 to 1816. Thomas James Walker

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Herring Fishery, the majority of the officers were allowed on parole at Peterborough, several seamen joined the British Navy, one was discharged on the condition he elected to serve under the Prince of Orange, one enlisted in the York Hussars, and at various dates many enlisted in the 60th Regiment of Foot.  Of the soldiers, the officers were allowed on parole at Peterborough, some privates joined the Royal Marines at Chatham, nine joined the 60th Foot, and in 1800 the remainder, with the sailors, were sent to Holland under the Alkmaar Cartel. 30  An analysis of the columns giving the disposal of the next ship’s company shows that nine were on parole at Peterborough, two were sent to serve under the Prince of Orange, two joined the British Herring Fishery, seven the British Navy, two the Merchant Service, four the Dutch Artillery, three died, ninety-three enlisted in the 60th Foot, and the rest were sent to Holland.

      In explanation of the preponderance of recruits for the 60th Foot, it may be pointed out that this regiment was originally raised in America in 1755, under the title of the 62nd Loyal American Provincials, and consisted principally of German and Swiss Protestants who had settled in America, the principal qualification being that they were “antagonistic to the French.”

      In 1757 the title was changed to the 60th Royal Americans, which title it bore till 1816.  The regiment is now the King’s Royal Rifle Corps.  It served in America and the West Indies up to 1796.  It was in England till 1808, when it went to the Peninsula.  At Quebec it was described by General Wolfe as “Celer et Audax,” which is now the regimental motto.

      The crew of the Jupiter, with the captain, four lieutenants, and the Admiral’s steward, 144 in all, were received 8th November 1797, and were ultimately distributed in much the same manner, fifty entering the 60th.  In December, a month after their reception, the Dutch captain and two lieutenants of this ship were sent to London to give evidence against two British subjects who were taken in arms against this country on board the Jupiter when it was captured.  Coach hire was allowed them, and double the subsistence usually given to officers on parole.

      Of the crew of the privateer Stuyver, numbering thirty-eight, captured on 1st June 1797 by the Astrea, eight joined the English Navy.

      From the registers we get information as to the length of time the various crews, etc., remained in captivity.  Thus the crew of the Furie, a Dutch frigate, numbering 115, received at Norman Cross on the 4th October 1798, remained there until the Peace of Amiens in February 1802; the officers were out on parole, and the majority of them were released in February 1800, under the Alkmaar Cartel.

      Unfortunately the registers are very imperfectly kept; they are filled in without any regularity; the entries appear to have been copied from other documents, and there are weeks and months when column after column is left blank.  There is no doubt that the staff was too limited for the work that was expected of it.  Incomplete and bad clerical work was the result.  The names of several sloops and schooners are duly returned as “Taken,” but in the columns “By whom and when taken,” is the entry “Unknown.”  There is an entry of three names bracketed together, probably the crew of a fishing-boat: “Andreas Anderson, 1st Steerman; Johanna Maria Dorata Anderson, Woman, his wife; Margrita Dorothea Anderson, child.  Received into custody 31st May 1800.”  On 3rd June they are marked as “On parole at Peterborough.”

      There are occasional marginal notes, of which the following is an example:

      “This man was brought in by an escort of the Anglesea Militia from Peterborough; never been here before.—Ideot.”

      The reader must decide for himself, without any assistance from the author, whether the word spelt “Ideot” was intended as a description of the supposed escaped PRISONER, or as that of the officer who had sent him in.

      Norman Cross was not one of the prisons to which Americans were consigned in any numbers, and was not affected by the positive order against any natives of America being allowed to enter the British Service, or being exchanged on any account whatever.  The surgeons captured were allowed special privileges in consideration of their devoting their professional skill to the service of their fellow prisoners.

      The registers are sufficient to indicate the nationality and the social position of the population of the prison.  The large number of the Dutch who joined the English service shows that their hatred of imprisonment was stronger than their hatred of the enemy who had captured them.  As to the nationality of the prisoners, they were in the first period of the war, from 1797 to 1802, almost all French or Dutch; in the second period, 1803 to 1814, they were almost all French, and for those eleven years, although there were representatives of various nationalities who had been fighting on the side of the French, either as allies or actually serving in the French ranks, the captives were always spoken of in the neighbourhood as the French prisoners.  There were published, in a recent issue of the Peterborough Advertiser, extracts from newspapers contemporary with the period of the Norman Cross Depot, the following paragraph from a newspaper, the name of which is not given, is included:

      “March 25th, 1814, Yarmouth.  Yesterday morning the Dutch Volunteers from Yaxley Barracks, who were organised, and have been in training here about ten weeks, embarked in two divisions for the Dutch Coast.  They amounted to over 1,000 men.  They were completely armed and clothed, and made a soldier-like appearance.  Their uniform was blue jackets, faced with red, white trimmings, orange sash, and white star on the caps.  The cry of Orange Bonon, just after starting from the Jetty, was universal.”

      We have found no record of any numbers of Dutch prisoners being at Norman Cross in this or any other year of the second period of the war.  The great bulk of this contingent, going out to serve against Napoleon, were probably not Dutch, but men of various nationalities, who had gained their freedom by volunteering for service under the allies, who were, on the 25th March, within five days’ march of Paris.  This Dutch contingent was doubtless destined to join the army of Bernadotte.

      The consideration of the prison life of our captives at the close of the eighteenth century will serve to accentuate the difference between their surroundings, their life, and their fate, and that of the prisoners taken one hundred years later by either side in the South African War; and the picture of the French and Dutch prisoners in the hulks or even in the Depots in 1800, contrasted with that of the Boers in St. Helena and Ceylon in 1900, must fill us with thankfulness for what the century’s advance inhumanity, together with the altered conditions in which we live, have enabled us and other nations to do to mitigate the miseries of prisoners of war—woes which have existed from time immemorial, and which are recognised in the prayer in the Litany, which has been offered up for nearly two thousand years, invoking God’s pity “for all prisoners and captives.”

      In 1900, steam navigation, telegraphic communication, and Britain’s command of the sea made it possible for her to place her prisoners hors de combat in islands whence escape was almost impossible, and where the conditions of life were comparatively comfortable.  In the war in which we were engaged one hundred years before, there is abundant documentary evidence to show that, although the conditions of that time made close confinement within prison walls a cruel necessity, nevertheless, in the treatment of our captives, the dictates of humanity were carried out, as far as was possible, without defeating the main object of our Government—the termination of the war with peace, safety, and honour for England.

      In December 1795, M. Charretie, who had resided for some time in England, was appointed the commissary for France to look after the interests of his countrymen in captivity in this country, and he still occupied the post sixteen months later, when the first prisoners arrived at Norman Cross, Mr. Swinburne being the agent for the British Government in France.

      At the time that the Norman Cross Prison was opened, the French and British Governments were mutually accusing one another of inhumanity and neglect in the treatment of their captives; the consideration of the facts which СКАЧАТЬ