A French officer on parole at Montgomery, named Dumont, was imprisoned for refusing to support an illegitimate child, so that it came upon the rates. He wrote, however, to Lady Pechell, declaring that he was the victim ‘of a sworn lie of an abandoned creature’, complaining that he was shut up with the local riff-raff, half starved, and penniless, and imploring her to influence the Transport Board to give him the subsistence money which had been taken from him since his committal to prison to pay for the child. What the Transport Board replied does not appear, but from the frequency of these complaints on the part of prisoners, there seems no doubt that, although local records show that illicit amours were largely indulged in by French and other officers on parole, in our country towns, much advantage of the sinning of a few was taken by unprincipled people to blackmail others. In the _Cambrian_ of May 2, 1806, is the following: ‘At the last Quarter Sessions for Montgomeryshire, a farmer of the neighbourhood of Montgomery was prosecuted by order of the Transport Office for assaulting one of the French prisoners on parole, and, pleading guilty to the indictment, was fined £10, and ordered to find sureties for keeping the peace for twelve months. This is the second prosecution which the Board has ordered, it being determined that the prisoners shall be protected by Government from insult while they remain in their unfortunate position as Prisoners of War.’ _Bishop’s Castle_ At Bishop’s Castle there were many prisoners, and in _Bygones_ Thomas Caswell records chats with an old man named Meredith, in the workhouse, who had been servant at the _Six Bells_, where nine officers were quartered. ‘They cooked their own food, and I waited upon them. They were very talkative ... they were not short of money, and behaved very well to me for waiting upon them.’ The attempted escape of two Bishop’s Castle prisoners is described on page 391. _Newtown_