SKETCH OF NAPOLEON'S EMBARCATION FOR ELBA, MADE BY LIEUTENANT GEORGE SIDNEY SMITH, R.N., AN EX-PRISONER OF WAR, WHOSE BOAT TOOK NAPOLEON FROM THE SHORE

however, to be taken prisoner in the battle at Polotz, in October, 1812, in consequence of his own act of humanity, having given up his horse to enable a wounded Russian to get safely off the field. As a prisoner Captain. Willoughby went through some terrible experiences during the French retreat, "witnessing," we are told, "extraordinary and heart-rending scenes." After that he was ordered off to France on parole, being escorted by a gendarme as far as Mayence. So far he had been treated at least courteously, but from there onwards all was changed. At Mayence, because of his having told people whom he met on the way across Germany of what he had seen of the Moscow disaster, he was summarily deprived of his parole and lodged in the fortress gaol-in the same cell with three Brunswick officers who had been condemned to be shot. Moved on to Metz, he was sent thence in the custody of armed guards to Verdun, and from there, after three months' close detention, to solitary confinement in the dungeons of the Château de Bouillon, where he passed nine months, "daily expecting," as he describes, "the fate of Wesley Wright." He was transferred next to another dungeon in the fortress of Peronne, twelve miles from St. Quentin on the Amiens road, from which place, on the advance of the Allies in March, 1814, he finally made his escape and rejoined the Russians in time to witness the final battle before the gates of Paris.

In regard to the escapes of British prisoners the best known case perhaps is that of Midshipman O'Brien of the Hussar, whose adventurous experiences furnished Captain Marryat with some of the most striking incidents of "Peter Simple." O'Brien's personal narrative of his doings and adventures in crossing Europe to the Adriatic was first published in 1814, in a long defunct magazine, the Naval Chronicle. The even more romantic and venturesome escapes and experiences of Lieutenant R. B. James, as recorded in his manuscript narrative, have been

related in detail in this book, told at full length, as written down after his final escape while the details were fresh in the Lieutenant's recollection.

Midshipman O'Brien had a part in three attempts to

escape.

The first was an effort to undermine one of the dungeons, thirty feet under ground, with hammer and chisels. It was proposed to cut a way through the rock to the outer face, whence the projectors of the enterprise hoped to be able to clamber down over the ramparts and upper fortifications with the aid of a rope made of sheets and string. The scheme, however, failed at the outset. The task of boring a hole through the solid rock with the poor implements at the disposal of the prisoners proved beyond their powers, and it was given up after a short trial.

In the second venture, O'Brien and a party of midshipmen and others, all occupants of the same souterrain, were nearly successful. They contrived to burrow a hole through the rock, and creep along it to the subterraneous passage which has been mentioned as leading beneath the fortifications into the open beyond the outworks of the fortress. On their way they forced three barriers in the tunnel that formed the subterraneous passage. One was an iron door, so strongly clamped and barricaded that they had to excavate a hole under it, by means of which one of the party crawled through and then drew the bolts of the door on the further side. Unfortunately, at the third door, which was near the exit at the outer end of the passage, over-eagerness in forcing back the bolt made a noise which was heard by a sentry outside. He gave the alarm, and O'Brien and his companions had to scurry back to their dungeon and try to escape detection by getting into their beds and shamming to be asleep.

The leaders in the attempt, as far as they could be identified-O'Brien, himself, by luck and cool audacity contrived to escape discovery-were treated with atrocious

vindictiveness. They were packed off to Metz, "heavily ironed and bound in chains," to go before a court-martial there, at whose hands they received sentences appalling in their remorseless severity. Five of them were each condemned to fifteen years penal servitude as galley slaves. One was sentenced to ten years. Four others were ordered to the galleys for nine years.

Fear of reprisals in England when news of the trial reached there, however, fortunately for these luckless prisoners, prevented the sentences from being carried out. Napoleon did not venture to confirm them. They were all remitted and the prisoners were sent back to undergo increased rigours at Bitche once more.

It is on record, though, that the monstrous outrage of sending prisoners of war to the galleys was perpetrated in the case of certain British prisoners of lower rank. To take one instance. Two seamen, John Gardner and Henry Hudsell by name, were tried by court-martial: the former for forging a passport for his shipmate, Hudsell for escaping and getting half-way across France by means of the forged passport. They were each sentenced to six years as galley slaves at Toulon, and the sentences were carried out; the forgery of the passport being laid stress on to justify the infliction of the savage penalty.

In O'Brien's third and successful attempt to escape from Bitche, made in September, 1808, nearly a twelvemonth after the second attempt, he had three companions: a brother midshipman named Hewson, a dragoon officer in a cavalry regiment of the East India Company's service named Batley, and a surgeon named Barklimore. The four elected boldly to try and let themselves down over the ramparts at night and trust to be able to get away across the outer ditch, and so into the open country beyond, where they proposed to make for the Rhine, cross Bavaria, and get into Austrian territory, finally working their way to the Adriatic.

They secretly made a rope of cloth, obtained ostensibly