From what Mr. Vawdrey, the Vicar of St. Budock, Falmouth, has written to me, it is certain that French officers were on parole in different places of this neighbourhood. Tradition says that those who died were buried beneath a large tree on the right hand of the north entrance of the church. There are entries in the registers of the deaths of French prisoners, and, if there is no evidence of marriages, there is that ‘some St. Budock girls appear to have made captivity more blessed for some of them’. Some people at Meudon in Mawnan, named Courage, farmers, trace their descent from a French lieutenant of that name. Mawnan registers show French names. Pendennis Castle was used as a war-prison, both for French from the Peninsula, and for Americans during the war of 1812. SHREWSBURY I am indebted to Mr. J. E. Anden, M.A., F.R. Hist. S., of Tong, Shifnal, for the following extracts from the diary of John Tarbuck, a shoemaker, of Shrewsbury: ‘September, 1783. Six hundred hammocks were slung in the Orphan Hospital, from which all the windows were removed, to convert it into a Dutch prison, and as many captive sailors marched in. Many of the townspeople go out to meet them, and amongst the rest Mr. Roger Yeomans, the most corpulent man in the country, to the no small mirth of the prisoners, who, on seeing him, gave a great shout: “Huzza les Anglais! Roast beef for ever!” This exclamation was soon verified to their satisfaction, as the Salop gentry made a subscription to buy them some in addition to that allowed by their victors, together with shoes, jackets, and other necessaries. ’Twas pleasing to see the poor creatures’ gratitude, for they’d sing you their songs, tho’ in a foreign land, and some companies of their youth would dance with amazing dexterity in figures totally unlike the English dances with a kind of regular confusion, yet with grace, ease, and truth to the music. I remember there was one black boy of such surprising agility that, had the person seen him, who, speaking against the Abolition of the slave-trade, said there was only a link between the human and the brute creation, it would have strengthened his favourite hypothesis, for he leaped about with more of the swiftness of the monkey than the man. ‘I went one Sunday to Church with them, and I came away much more edified than from some sermons where I could tell all that was spoken. The venerable appearance and the devotion evident in every look and gesture of the preacher, joined to the grave and decent deportment of his hearers ... had a wonderful effect on my feelings and tended very much to solemnize my affections. ‘May, 1785. Four of the Dutch prisoners escape by means of the privy and were never retaken. Many others enlist in the English service, and are hissed and shouted at by their fellows, and deservedly so. The Swedes and Norwegians among them are marched away (being of neutral nations) to be exchanged.’