Prisoners of war in Britain, 1756 to 1815; a record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings

1914·22.1 MB·English

by  Abell, Francis

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Frontispiece
WAR
PRISONERS OF
IN BRITAIN
TO
1756 1815
A RECORD OF THEIR THEIR ROMANCE
LIVES,
AND THEIR SUFFERINGS
BY
FRANCIS ABELL
HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW
NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY
1914
OXFORD: HORACE HART
PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY
JX
PREFACE
Two influences have urged me to make a study of
the subject of the prisoners of war in Britain.
First : the hope that I might be able to vindicate
our country against the charge so insistently brought
against her that she treated the prisoners of war in
her custody with exceptional inhumanity.
Second a desire to rescue from oblivion a not
:
unimportant and a most interesting chapter of our
national
history.
Whether my researches show the foregoing charge
to be proven or not proven remains for my readers
to judge. I can only say that I have striven to the
utmost to prevent the entrance of any national bias
into the presentation of the picture.
As to the second influence. It is difficult to account
for the fact that so interesting a page of our history
should have remained unwritten. Even authors of
fiction, who have pressed every department of history
into their service, have, with about half a dozen
exceptions, neglected it as a source of inspiration,
whilst historical accounts are limited to Mr. Basil
Thomson's Story ofDartmoor Prison, Dr. T. J. Walker's
Norman Cross, and Mr. W. Sievwright's Perth Depot,
all of which I have been permitted to make use of,
and local handbooks.
Yet the sojourn among us of thousands of war
PREFACE
iv
prisoners between the years 1756 and 1815 must have
been an important feature of our national life
especially that of officers on parole in our country
towns despite which, during my quest in many
;
counties of England, Scotland, and Wales, I have been
surprised to find how rapidly and completely the
memory of this sojourn has faded how faintly even it
;
lingers in local tradition how much haziness there
;
is, even in the minds of educated people, as to who or
what prisoners of war were and how the process of
;
gathering information has been one of almost literal
excavation and disinterment. But the task has been
a great delight. It has introduced me to all sorts and
conditions of interesting people ; it has taken me to all
sorts of odd nooks and corners of the country and
;
it has drawn my attention to a literature which is not
less valuable because it is merely local. I need not
say that but for the interest and enthusiasm of private
individuals I could never have accomplished the task,
and to them I hope I have made sufficient acknow-
ledgement in the proper places, although it is possible
that, from their very multitude, I may have been
guilty of omissions, for which I can only apologize.
FRANCIS ABELL
LONDON, 1914.