Rapscallion

HISTORICAL NOTE

Over the course of the Napoleonic Wars, Britain incarcerated thousands of prisoners of war in both mainland gaols and hulks; former men-of-war of British and foreign origin that were considered too old and too unseaworthy for active service. By 1814, the population of the prison ships had reached its peak of 72,000 souls. The majority of these vessels were moored at Portsmouth, Plymouth and the Medway towns.

Of all the prisoners that lived on the hulks, the most feared were the Romans and the most despised were the Rafales. Duels were fought as described in the novel, and there are records confirming that bodies were indeed cut up and disposed of through the ships' heads.

The majority of the deaths on the Medway hulks were due to consumption and fever. The corpses of both civilian convicts and prisoners of war were buried along the foreshore. When Chatham Dockyard was extended in 1855-56, the remains of over 500 prisoners were discovered on St Mary's Island. These were disinterred and re-buried under a stone memorial that may still be seen in the grounds of the old naval barracks.

Accounts vary, but in the period between 1811 and 1814, it's thought that between 300 and 450 French officers made successful escapes. Most of them would not have made it home without the aid of the British smuggling fraternity, who charged escapers up to 300 guineas for the journey.

The favour was returned in the support that English free traders received from Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte is on record as declaring that "during the war, all the information I received from England came through the smugglers". He was so enamoured of the service they provided - including the delivery of newspapers which, upon arrival in France, were taken by courier to the Minister of Police in Paris - that he designated the port of Gravelines the exclusive entry point for British free traders. Thus the City of Smugglers was established.

"Free trading" has always been a very profitable enterprise. The audacity of the smugglers, particularly those who operated along the Kent and Sussex coastlines during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was nothing short of remarkable. The landing of contraband was not confined to a couple of jack-the-lads and the odd rowboat. The Trade was carefully controlled and financed, in many cases, by London merchants. Smuggling gangs operated with impunity, often in broad daylight. Hundreds of men and beasts of burden could be employed at any one time, forming caravans that delivered the goods from the coast to warehouses on the outskirts of London. Pitched battles between smugglers and Revenue men - who relied on troops for support and who were often outnumbered - were not uncommon, resulting in many casualties and deaths on both sides.

One of the most profitable aspects of the smuggling business, however, was the deployment of the guinea boats. The trade, most of it conducted under the guidance of the house of Rothschild, was carried out in the manner described. The sums involved beggared belief, with rowing galleys carrying up to 30,000 guineas at a time. In 1811, smugglers transported a total of almost 1,900,000 guineas or 49,000,000 francs. In today's money, that would equate to nearly £65,000,000.

Fanny Burney, the eighteenth-century diarist, referred to Deal as a "sad smuggling town". I doubt the townsfolk saw themselves in such a melancholy light. Deal's reputation for free trading was second to none; its ties with the Trade went back to the early 1740s, and the town remained a thorn in the side of the authorities well into the next century, with Deal boatmen playing a crucial role in both general smuggling and the guinea trade. As a result, in 1784, under the direct orders of Prime Minister William Pitt, a regiment of troops torched the entire Deal fleet as it sought sanctuary from a storm on the shingle beach. The galleys used by the guinea traders were so integral to the Trade that in 1812 the British Government banned their construction.

The character of Ezekiel Morgan is based loosely on the Kent smuggler, George Ransley, leader of the Blues, one of the county's most infamous gangs. Ransley, like Morgan, employed his own surgeon and a firm of lawyers. In 1826 Ransley and his cohorts were convicted of the murder of a quartermaster of the Coast Blockade (a forerunner of the Coast Guard); Ransley was transported to Tasmania, where he ended his days as a free settler in Launceston.

Many of the locations in the novel are real and were indeed used by smugglers. The Smack Aground pub and the church at Warden Point on the Isle of Sheppey, did exist but are now long gone, demolished due to severe coastal subsidence. But Warden Manor, home of Sir John Sawbridge and his pigeon loft, is still there.

The Admiral's residency at Deal was located on Queen Street; its strong room was the repository for both navy and army pay chests, with bullion regularly being landed in the town. In 1813, for example, HMS Bedford deposited 25 tons of gold and silver in bars, dust and coin. The building was demolished in 1936 to make way for a cinema. A night club now occupies the site.

The oyster platforms at Seasalter and Whitstable were frequently used to offload French prisoners of war so that they could be transferred ashore. I took the inspiration for Jess Flynn's smallholding from Pye Alley Farm near Seasalter, which was one of many houses that provided escapers with food and shelter. That farm still stands.

Should anyone wish to delve more deeply into the world of the smugglers, I would recommend the splendid website run by author Richard Piatt. The site's address is www.smuggling.co.uk.

Rochester Museum is an excellent source for anyone wishing to know more about prisoners of war and their life on the Medway hulks. The museum has under its roof a mock-up of a prison hulk, complete with a "black hole", and is well worth visiting. I'm indebted to the museum's curator, Steve Nye, who very generously took time off from his busy schedule to answer my questions and give me the guided tour.

I'm also grateful to Gavin Daly from the University of Tasmania, whose article "Napoleon and the City of Smugglers 1810-1814" set me on the right track.

Little has been written on the lives of prisoners in the hulks. Two books of note, however, are Louis Garneray's The Floating Prison, translated from the French by Richard Rose, and The English Prison Hulks by W. Branch Johnson.