No time was lost in completely disguising him, and he started. As he passed along the smuggler’s cliff path he heard the guns which proclaimed the escape of a prisoner. At 9 a.m. he passed Kingston, and got to Farlington on the Chichester road. Here he put up at a lodging house, replying to suspicious inquiries that he was from London, bound for an American ship coming from Dover. From here he took coach to Brighton, and in two days was at Dover. At Dover he waited two more days before he could find a neutral ship to take him across, and then quietly smuggled himself on to a Danish brig bound for Calais, and hid under a coil of rope on deck. Whilst here the Admiralty people came on board to search for fugitives, and one of them actually sat on the heap of rope under which he was. The brig sailed, and then, to the astonishment of the master and crew, Tom presented himself. At first the master was disposed to put back and give Tom up, for the penalties were heavy for harbouring escaped prisoners, but the promise of a handsome reward and Tom’s mention of influential friends overcame his scruples and Tom was safely landed. He went home, got the money, of which he gave 1,000 francs to the skipper, 500 francs to the crew, and 500 to the fisherman who landed him. Souville now started the privateering business which was to make him famous, and during the years 1806 and 1807 won for his _Glaneur_ a reputation on both sides of the Channel. At Dunkirk he distinguished himself on shore by saving two lives from a runaway carriage which had been upset into the port. He then changed to the _Général Paris_, and made a number of rich captures, but on November 30, 1808, was captured off Folkestone by two corvettes and a cutter, and found himself on the _Assistance_ prison ship at Portsmouth. On the _Assistance_ he made so many attempts to escape that he was changed to the _Crown_. Here he met an old shipmate, Captain Havas, of the _Furet_ privateer, but from policy they agreed not to let it be seen that they were friends, and they lost no time in setting to work with saws made of barrel-hoops, and bits of fencing foils for gimlets, to make a hole a square foot in size through the nine inches of the wooden ship’s side, and, to avoid the noise they made being heard, they worked while the English soldiers were scrubbing the decks.