On October 14 a desperate attempt to escape was made, and frustrated in an unnecessarily brutal manner. A prisoner named Artus, his brother, and other prisoners discovered a disused latrine. Into this they crept, broke through a brick wall by a drain, and reached the edge of the moat, and crossed it to the opposite bank close to the first of the three sentries on duty along it. This was at ten o’clock on a moonlight night. Two of the prisoners passed the first and second sentries and got some way into the fields. Artus and his brother were to follow, and were crawling on hands and knees to avoid being seen. The first sentry, who was close by, did nothing, having probably been bribed; but the other two sentries, being alarmed by a fourth sentry, who was on the right hand of the first, ran up and challenged Artus, who cried: ‘Don’t fire! Surrender!’ But the sentry disregarded this, wounded him in two places on the arm, tearing his waistcoat, and then fired at him point blank, blowing off half his head. Artus’s brother, three yards behind, was secured by a drummer who was armed with nothing but a drumstick, thus proving the utterly unnecessary killing of Artus. Two other prisoners were captured later in the drain, ready to come out. In the _Annual Register_ we read that on Saturday, July 16, 1760, the alarm was given that a thousand prisoners had broken out of the Castle and were abroad in the country. ‘To arms’ was beaten immediately. ‘You would have been pleased to see with what readiness and alacrity the Surrey Militia here, universally, officers and men, advanced towards the place of danger’, says the correspondent, ‘I say, “towards,” because when they got as far as Milkhouse Street, the alarm was discovered to be a mistake. Many of the townspeople and countrymen joined them.’ On one Sunday morning in 1761 the good people of Cranbrook were sent flying out of church by the news that the Sissinghurst prisoners had broken out and were scouring the country fully armed, but this also was a false alarm. It was from the top of the still standing gatehouse-tower that the deed was perpetrated which caused the following entry in the Cranbrook Register: ‘1761. William Bassuck: killed by a French prisoner.’ Bassuck was on sentry-go below, and the Frenchman dropped a pail on him. In 1762 the misery of the prisoners at Sissinghurst culminated in a Petition to the Admiralty, signed by almost all of them, of so forcible and circumstantial a character, that in common justice it could not be overlooked, and so Dr. Maxwell was sent down to examine the charges against Cooke, the agent. The Complaints and their replies were as follows: (1) That the provisions were bad in quality, of short measure and badly served. Reply: Not proved. (2) That cheese had been stopped four ‘maigre’ days in succession to make good damage done by prisoners. Reply: Only upon two days.