Nelson & His World

I recently came across this little booklet and from the title assumed it to be about French soldiers and sailors imprisoned in the town.

But no - from a cursory glance it seems to be about the way that smugglers from Whitstable helped French prisoners to escape and return to their homeland.

There is even a section about a James Moore - "the most famous escape agent."

I am desperately short of time at the moment - even to read through it - but I just wondered if anyone came across this booklet or the topic it covers before.

MB

Mark,

Fascinating. I have never heard about this before and I wonder why it is not more widely known.

I did a bit of googling and found that there was apparently quite an 'established' POW trade in Whitstable (I'm not sure they did this anywhere else) during the Napoleonic Wars. It was queried why the smugglers repatriated French POW's, ie. the enemy, and weren't more patriotic. I thought, well obviously they did it for the money, which of course was the reason (everything, both then and now, usually boils down to money!) It seems that the families of the POW's paid quite substantial sums, to get their relatives back. A large proportion of the prisoners, because of the French conscription system, were artisans and craftsmen (as we know from the bone ship models etc. they made) so would presumably be even more valuable. It would be interesting to know, a) how the families were contacted in the first place; b) what sums actually changed hands; and c) how the transactions took place. Presumably payment was mostly in francs, so how was that changed, or wasn't it? It actually crossed my mind that the smuggling inhabitants of Whitstable could quite easily have overcome any inhibitions regarding repatriating the 'enemy' with that incentive, and maybe they were even repaid by the French by having 'business' put their way. (As we've said before, it's strange how the mind works!)

Just reading the bare facts makes you realise there must have been a strong organisation at work, to obtain the prisoners in the first place (I believe they were from the prison hulks), transport them to Whitstable, provide the boats and crews for crossing the Channel, and the boats return (probably with contraband – why come back with an empty boat?) all under the eyes of the British authorities.

Methinks more reading is required!

Kester

Thanks for that.

It's an intriguing story isn't it? - which seems to have passed most of us by.

This little booklet only has 48 pages and that includes the introductory pages and quite a lot of photos, maps etc.

So I will leave it some place handy and see if I can read through it at the earliest opportunity.

Anything I find of specific interest I will report back on.

MB