‘September 21st, 1807. Between 9 and 10 o’clock on the evening of last Sunday three weeks, two men engaged Thomas Hart, a ferryman, to take them from Gosport beach to Spithead, to go on board a ship there, as they said. When the boat reached Spithead they pretended the ship had gone to St. Helens, and requested the waterman to go out after her. Having reached that place, one of them, who could speak English, took a dagger from under his coat, and swore he would take the life of the waterman if he did not land them in France. ‘Under this threat the man consented to follow their directions, and landed them at Fécamp. The men appeared to be in the uniform of officers of the British Navy. The waterman was lodged in prison at Havre de Grâce, and kept there for ten days. He was then released on representing himself to be a fisherman, his boat was returned to him, and the Frenchmen gave him six or seven pounds of bread, some cyder, and a pocket compass, and a pass to prevent his being interrupted by any French vessel he might meet with. In this state they set him adrift; he brought several letters from English prisoners in France, and from French persons to their friends in prison in this country.’ CHAPTER VII TOM SOUVILLE A FAMOUS PRISON-SHIP ESCAPER In old Calais there is or was a _Rue Tom Souville_. No foreigners and not many Calaisiens know who Tom Souville was, or what he had done to deserve to have a street named after him. The answer to these questions is so interesting that I do not hesitate to allow it a chapter. About the year 1785, Tom Souville, aged nine, was, in accordance with a frequent custom of that day, sent to England for the purpose of learning English in exchange for a little English boy who came over to France. He was quartered in the house of the Rev. Mr. Wood, of Dover, whose sailor brother took a great fancy to the little stranger, and made him his constant companion on cruises up and down the Channel, with the result that Tom Souville got to know the Channel coasts thoroughly, a stock of learning which he afterwards made use of in a fashion little dreamed of by the old salt, his mentor. At Christmas 1786, after eighteen months’ happiness at Dover, he returned to Calais, and in obedience to his irresistible bent, joined the navy. In 1795, the _Formidable_, with Tom Souville on board, was taken by H.M.S. _Queen Charlotte_, off Isle-Croix, after a fight in which she lost 320 killed and wounded out of her complement of 717, and Tom with his Captain, Linois, of whom mention will be made later in this work, were taken to Portsmouth. Tom Souville refused to sign a parole form, so was put into the _cachot_ of the _Diamond_ hulk; but only for a short time, as he was soon exchanged. However, in 1797 he was again captured, this time on the _Actif_, and was confined on the _Crown_ hulk.