On the other hand, Smith, the Agent at Thame, was blamed for having shown excessive zeal in his office by hiring people to hide and lie in wait to catch prisoners committing breaches of parole. Perhaps the Transport Office did not so much disapprove of his methods as un-English and mean, but they knew very well that the consequent fines and stoppages meant his emolument. That parole agents found it as impossible to give satisfaction to everybody as do most people in authority is very clear from the following episodes in the official life of Mr. Crapper, the Parole Agent at Wantage in 1809, who was a chemist by trade, and who seems to have been in ill odour all round. The episodes also illustrate the keen sympathy with which in some districts the French officers on parole were regarded. On behalf of the prisoners at Wantage, one Price, J.P., wrote of Crapper, that ‘being a low man himself, he assumes a power which I am sure is not to your wish, and which he is too ignorant to exercise’. It appears that two French officers, the generals Maurin and Lefebvre, had gone ten miles from Wantage—that is, nine miles beyond the parole limit—to dine with Sir John Throckmorton. Crapper did his duty and arrested the generals; they were leniently punished, as, instead of being sent to a prison or a hulk, they were simply marched off to Wincanton. The magistrates refused to support Crapper, but, despite another letter in favour of the generals by another J.P., Goodlake, who had driven them in his carriage to Throckmorton’s house, and who declared that Crapper had a hatred for him on account of some disagreement on the bench, the Transport Office defended their agent, and confirmed his action. From J. E. Lutwyche, Surveyor of Taxes, in whose house the French generals lodged, the Transport Office received the following: ‘GENTLEMEN, ‘I beg leave to offer a few remarks respecting the French generals lately removed from Wantage. Generals Lefebvre and Maurin both lodged at my house. The latter always conducted himself with the greatest Politeness and Propriety, nor ever exceeded the limits or time prescribed by his parole until the arrival of General Lefebvre. Indeed he was not noticed or invited anywhere till then, nor did he at all seem to wish it, his time being occupied in endeavouring to perfect himself in the English language. When General Lefebvre arrived, he, being an object of curiosity and a man of considerable rank, was invited out, and of course General Maurin (who paid him great attention) with him, which certainly otherwise would never have been the case. General Lefebvre has certainly expressed himself as greatly dissatisfied with the way in which he had been taken, making use of the childish phrase of his being entrapped, and by his sullen manner and general conduct appeared as if he was not much inclined to observe the terms of his parole.’ Another anti-Crapperist writes: ‘GENTLEMEN,