Thame seems to have been a particularly turbulent parole town, and one from which escapes were more than usually numerous. One case was peculiar. Four prisoners who had been recaptured after getting away justified their attempt by accusing Smith, the Agent, of ill-behaviour towards them. Whereupon the other prisoners at Thame, among them Villaret-Joyeuse, testified against them, and in favour of Smith. The experiences of Baron Le Jeune are among the most interesting, and his case is peculiar inasmuch as although he was nominally a prisoner on parole, he was not so in fact, so that his escape involved no breach. In 1811 he was taken prisoner by Spanish brigands, who delivered him to the English garrison at Merida. Here he was treated as a guest by Major-General Sir William Lumley and the officers, and when he sailed for England on H.M.S. _Thetis_ he had a state-cabin, and was regarded as a distinguished passenger. On arriving at Portsmouth his anxiety was as to whether the hulks were to be his fate. ‘And our uneasiness increased’, he writes in the _Memoirs_, whence the following story is taken, ‘when we passed some twenty old vessels full of French prisoners, most of them wearing only yellow vests, whilst others were perfectly naked. At this distressing sight I asked the captain if he was taking us to the hulks. To which he replied with a frown: “Yes, just as a matter of course.” At the same moment our boat drew up alongside the _San Antonio_, an old 80–gun ship. We ascended the side, and there, to our horror, we saw some five to six hundred French prisoners, who were but one-third of those on board, climbing on to each other’s shoulders, in the narrow space in which they were penned, to have a look at the newcomers, of whose arrival they seemed to have been told. Their silence, their attitude, and the looks of compassion they bestowed on me as I greeted them _en passant_ seemed to me omens of a terrible future for me.’ The captain of the hulk apologized to the baron for having no better accommodation. Le Jeune, incredulous, made him repeat it, and flew into a rage. He snatched a sword from an Irishman and swore he would kill any one who would keep him on a hulk. The French prisoners shouted: ‘Bravo! If every one behaved as you do, the English would not dare treat us so!’ The captain of the hulk was alarmed at the possible result of this with 1,500 desperate prisoners, and hurried the baron into his boat. Thus Baron Le Jeune escaped the hulks!