Seven prisoners got away in April 1801. Three privateer officers were retaken at Boston, when they had already reached a port; three others stole a boat at Freiston, and were taken, off the Norfolk coast, by a Revenue cutter—one of them had a chart of the Lincolnshire coast in his hat. {157b} Maps of England showing the best lines of escape were said to be made in the prison and sold at twenty francs each. Attention was directed in an earlier chapter to the few words in Franco-English designating incorrectly in several instances, some of the buildings in the Washingley plan (Plan A), which makes it probable that this plan had fallen into the hands of a prisoner, who intended it to be an aid to his escape. Although the sympathy of the public with the French prisoners was not general, there were many outside Norman Cross who had been in the habit of making money out of them in the straw-plait traffic; these would be willing for a consideration to help them when once they were beyond the prison walls and the lines of sentries. An extraordinary recapture occurred in May 1804. Two of the French prisoners who had escaped, on clearing the precincts of the barracks pursued different routes. One of them was fortunate enough to get clear away; the other, quitting the public road, had pursued his course a few miles when he met with a most singular obstruction. In crossing a stile he was beset by a shepherd’s dog, “of the ordinary and true English breed,” which absolutely opposed the poor fellow’s progress. Neither enticement nor resistance availed, the dog repeatedly fastened on the legs and heels of the fugitive and held him at bay, until the continued noise of the quarrel brought some persons to the spot and ultimately led to the detection of the prisoner, and his reincarceration at the Depot. {158} Whether the dog got any share of the 10_s._ usually given for the recapture of a prisoner is not recorded. In the register of the Dutch prisoners confined at Norman Cross between 1797 and 1800, is the record of Jan Cramer, one of the sailors who were taken in the great victory of Admiral Duncan off Camperdown, 11th October 1797; he was received at Norman Cross 23rd December of that year, and the four words in the register which describe the method of his leaving the prison, “_escaped in a chest_,” are sufficient to enable an imaginative writer to compose an exciting narrative “founded on fact.” Mention has already been made of the escape of one prisoner in a “manure cart.” With the dread of the hulks before them, on 18th August 1809 twelve out of a party of thirty prisoners marching from Norman Cross to Chatham, having nearly reached the place of their punishment, were lodged for the night in a stable at Bow and managed to escape. A party of the Westminster Militia formed the escort.