‘I beg you to receive my congratulations upon having been sent into a country so rich in pretty girls: you say they are unapproachable, but it must be consoling to you to know that you possess the trick of winning the most unresponsive hearts, and that one of your ordinary looks attracts the fair; and this assures me of your success in your secret affairs: it is much more difficult to conquer the middle-class sex.... Your pale beauty has been very ill for some weeks, the reason being that she has overheated herself dancing at a ball with all the Frenchmen with whom she has been friendly for a certain time, which has got her into trouble with her mother.... Roussel has been sent to the “Castle” (Sissinghurst) nine days ago, it is said for having loved too well the Sevenoaks girls, and had two in hand which cost him five guineas, which he had to pay before going. Will you let me know if the country is suitable for you, how many French there are, and if food and lodgings are dear? ‘To Mr. Guerdon. A French surgeon on parole at Tenterden.’ The next is from a former prisoner, then living at Dunkirk, to Mrs. Miller at the Post Office, Leicester, dated 1757. Note the spelling and punctuation: ‘MADAME,— Vous ne scaurié croire quell plaisire j’ai de m’entretenir avec vous mon cœur ne peut s’acoutumer à vivre sans vous voire. Je nait pas encore rencontré notre chère compagnon de voyage. Ne m’oublié point, ma chère Elizabeth vous pouvé estre persuadé du plaisire que j’auré en recevant de vos nouvelles. Le gros Loys se porte bien il doit vous écrire aussi qu’à Madame Covagne. Si vous voye Mrs. Nancy donne luy un baisé pour moy’. A prisoner writes from Alresford to a friend in France: ‘I go often to the good Mrs. Smith’s. Miss Anna is at present here. She sent me a valentine yesterday. I go there sometimes to take tea where Henrietta and Betsi Wynne are. We played at cards, and spent the pleasantest evening I have ever passed in England.’ A Captain Quinquet, also at Alresford, thus writes to his sister at Avranches: ‘We pass the days gaily with the Johnsons, daughters and brother, and I am sure you are glad to hear that we are so happy. Come next Friday! Ah! If that were possible, what a surprise! On that day we give a grand ball to celebrate the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary of papa and mamma. There will be quite twenty people, and I flatter myself we shall enjoy ourselves thoroughly, and if by chance on that day a packet of letters should arrive from you—Mon Dieu! What joy!’ He adds, quite in the style of a settled local gossip, scraps of news, such as that Mrs. Jarvis has a daughter born; that poor Mr. Jack Smith is dead; that Colonel Lewis’s wife, a most amiable woman, will be at the ball; that Miss Kimber is going to be married; that dear little Emma learns to speak French astonishingly well; that Henrietta Davis is quite cured from her illness, and so forth.