During the second period of the war negotiations for exchange completely failed. In April 1810, when there were about 10,000 British prisoners in France, and 50,000 French in Britain, Mr. Mackenzie was sent by the British Ministry to treat for a general exchange, the main condition in the British proposal being that for every French prisoner returned to France, a British prisoner of equal rank should be returned to Britain; that this should go on until the whole of the British prisoners were restored; and after that was accomplished, the British Government would continue the restoration of the French, on the understanding that France on her part returned to his native country, man for man, one of the prisoners of Britain’s allies—_i.e._ a Spanish or Portuguese of equal rank with the French prisoner handed over by Britain. To this the French Emperor would not agree; he insisted that the British and their allies should be reckoned as one army, and that for four Frenchmen released from the British prisons and returned to France, only one British subject should be returned to England, and three other prisoners of various nationalities restored to their respective Governments. On this plan, if the negotiations fell through while the exchange was going on, say, when it was half way through, France would have got back from Britain 20,000 of her veterans, England would have received only 5,000 Britons, the balance, 15,000, being a rabble of Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian levies of practically no value, and this contention Buonaparte held to, although it was his opinion expressed a few years later “that while as a fighting unit, you might set against _one_ Frenchman _one_ Englishman, you would require _two_ Prussian, Dutch, or soldiers of the Confederation.” Buonaparte, referring to the failure of these negotiations, accounted for his firmness by his want of faith in the British, and his conviction that when they got their 10,000 countrymen back, they would find some excuse to stop the further exchange. Could we, on our part, after the unfair conduct of the exchanges, in the early part of the war, instances of which with the Norman Cross prisoners have been given, rely on the French Government carrying out in good faith even its own scheme, which on the face of it showed a disregard of British rights. {222} The negotiations fell through, and the great bulk of the prisoners at Norman Cross had to drag out their weary life until the abdication of Buonaparte and his retirement to Elba in 1814. CHAPTER XI BRITISH PRISONERS IN FRANCE—VERDUN—NARRATIVE OF THE REV. J. HOPKINSON Oh, to be in England, Now that April’s there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf, Round the Elm tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the Chaffinch sings in the orchard bough, In England—now. BROWNING.