For instance, in 1809, the Office received a letter from one Brossage, an officer on parole at Launceston, asking that he might be removed to Reading, as he was suffering from lung disease. The reply was that as a rule people suffering from lung disease in England were only too glad to be able to go to Cornwall for alleviation or cure. The truth was that M. Brossage wanted to exchange the dullness of a Cornish town for the life and gaiety of Reading, which was a special parole town reserved for officers of distinction. Another trick which the authorities characterized as ‘an unjustifiable means of gaining liberty’, was to bribe an invalid on the roster for France to be allowed to personate him. Poor officers were as glad to sell their chance in this way, as were poor prisoners on hulks or in prisons. In 1811 some officers at Lichfield obtained their release because of ‘their humane conduct at the late fire at Mr. Lee’s house’. But so many applications for release on account of similar services at fires came in that the Transport Office was suspicious, and refused them, ‘especially as the French Government does not reward British officers for similar services.’ In the same year one Andoit got sent to Andover on parole in the name of another man, whom no doubt he impersonated, although he had no right to be paroled, and at once made use of the opportunity and escaped. Most touching were some of the letters from paroled officers praying to have their places of parole changed, but when the Transport Office found out that these changes were almost invariably made so that old comrades and friends could meet together to plan and arrange escapes, rejection became the invariable fate of them. For some time many French officers on parole had been permitted to add to their incomes by giving lessons in dancing, drawing, fencing, and singing in English families, and for these purposes had special permits to go beyond the usual one mile limit. But when in 1811, M. Faure applied to go some distance out of Redruth to teach French, and M. Ulliac asked to be allowed to exceed limits at Ashby-de-la-Zouch to teach drawing, the authorities refused, and this despite the backing up of these requests by local gentry, giving as their reason: ‘If complied with generally the prisoners would become dispersed over all parts of the country without any regular control over their conduct.’ Prisoners were not even allowed to give lessons away from their lodgings out of parole hours. Very rarely, except in the cases of officers of more than ordinarily distinguished position, were relaxations of parole rules permitted. General Pillet at Bishop’s Waltham in 1808, had leave to go two miles beyond the usual one mile limit two or three times a week, ‘to take the air.’ General Pageot at Ashbourne was given eight days’ leave to visit Wooton Lodge in 1804, with the result related elsewhere (p. 414).