On the whole, and making allowance for the character of the age and the numberless temptations to which they were exposed, the agents of the parole towns seem to have done their hard and delicate work very fairly. No doubt in the process of gathering in their ‘pickings’ there was some sharp practice by them, and a few instances are recorded of criminal transactions, but a comparison between the treatment of French prisoners on parole in England and the English _détenus_ in France certainly is not to our discredit. The Transport Office seems to have been unremitting in its watchfulness on its agents, if we are to judge by the mass of correspondence which passed between the one and the others, and which deals so largely with minutiae and details that its consideration must have been by no means the least heavy of the duties expected from these gentlemen. Mr. Tribe, Parole Agent at Hambledon, seems to have irritated his superiors much by the character of his letters, for in 1804 he is told: ‘As the person who writes your letters does not seem to know how to write English you must therefore in future write your own letters or employ another to write them who can write intelligibly.’ And again: ‘If you cannot really write more intelligibly you must employ a person to manage your correspondence in future, but you are not to suppose that he will be paid by us for his trouble.’ Spettigue, Parole Agent at Launceston, got into serious trouble in 1807 for having charged commissions to prisoners upon moneys paid to them, and was ordered to refund them. He was the only parole agent who was proved to have so offended. Smith, Parole Agent at Thame, was rebuked in February, 1809, for having described aloud a prisoner about to be conveyed from Thame to Portsmouth under escort as a man of good character and a gentleman, the result being that the escort were put off their guard, and the prisoner escaped, Smith knowing all the time that the prisoner was the very reverse of his description, and that it was in consequence of his having obtained his parole by a ‘gross deception’, that he was being conveyed to the hulks at Portsmouth. However, Kermel, the prisoner, was recaptured. Enchmarsh, Parole Agent at Tiverton, was reprimanded in July 1809 for having been concerned in the sale, by a prisoner, of a contraband article, and was reminded that it was against rules for an agent to have any mercantile transactions with prisoners. Lewis, Parole Agent at Reading, was removed in June 1812, because when the dépôt doctor made his periodical round in order to select invalids to be sent to France, he tried to bribe Dr. Weir to pass General Joyeux, a perfectly sound man, as an invalid and so procure his liberation. Powis, Parole Agent at Leek in Staffordshire, son of a neighbouring parson, was removed in the same year, having been accused of withholding moneys due to prisoners, and continually failing to send in his accounts.