Merely escaping from the parole town did not become frequent until it was found necessary to abolish virtually the other method of returning to France which we allowed. By this, an officer on parole upon signing a declaration to the effect that unless he was exchanged for a British officer of similar rank by a certain date he would return to England on that date, was allowed to go to France, engaging, of course, not to serve against us. But when it became not a frequent but a universal rule among French officers to break their honour and actually to serve against us during their permitted absence, the Government was obliged to refuse all applications, with the result that to escape from the parole town became such a general practice as to call into existence that profession of escape-aiding which was dealt with in the last chapter. The case of Captain Jurien, now to be mentioned, is neither better nor worse than scores of others. On December 10, 1803, the Transport Office wrote to him in Paris: ‘As the time allowed for your absence from this Kingdom expired on November 22nd, and as Captain Brenton, R.N., now a prisoner of war in France, has not been released in exchange for you agreeably to our proposal, you are hereby required to return to this country according to the terms of your Parole Agreement.’ But on March 16, 1804, Jurien had not returned. One result was that when a Colonel Neraud applied to be sent to France upon his giving his word to have a British officer exchanged for him, the Transport Office reminded him that Jurien had been released on parole, August 22, 1803, on the promise that he would return in three months, if not exchanged for Captain Brenton, and that seven months had passed and he was still away. They added that the French Government had not released one British officer in return for 500 French, who had been sent on parole to France, some of whom, furthermore, in violation of their parole, were in arms against Britain. ‘Hence your detention is entirely owing to the action of your own Government.’ As time went on, and Jurien and the others did not return, the Transport Office, weary of replying to the frequent applications of French officers to go to France on parole, at last ceased to do so, with the result that attempted escapes from parole places became frequent. At the same time it must not be understood that laxity of honour as regards parole obligation of this kind was universal. When in 1809 the Transport Office, in reply to a request by General Lefebvre to be allowed to go to France on parole, said that they could not accede inasmuch as no French officer thus privileged had been _allowed_ to return, they italicized the word ‘allowed’, and cited the case of General Frescinet, ‘who made most earnest but ineffectual Intreaty to be allowed to fulfil the Parole d’Honneur’ he had entered into, by returning to this country.