the streets, a heavy cannon-ball chained to his leg. Lawrence while in captivity wrote a drama entitled The Englishman at Verdun, or the Prisoner of Peace, and after his escape he published it. He acknowledges that at Nimes the captives were well treated.[1]
Until 1810 the captives were posted up in home news by the Argus, the English newspaper in Paris started by Goldsmith and continued by Button. Its leading articles were virulently anti-British, but it reprinted military dispatches and parliamentary debates from the London journals, and it did not always satisfy Napoleon, who in 1807 sent orders to Fouché to have it better conducted. Its articles were attributed to Bodini, who in 1796 edited Bell's Messenger, was addicted to drink and extravagance, was expelled under the Alien Act, and going to France, was reader of English newspapers for Bonaparte. The Argus must have been a considerable expense to the French Government, and its original purpose of circulating in England had never been realised. Its disappearance must, however, have been felt as a privation by the captives, whose family correspondence underwent the scrutiny of a French official, Lenoir.[2] Visits to England, at least by ladies, were occasionally allowed. Mrs. Mary Bishop, a widow with four daughters, obtained
