262 French Prisoners. 



ones being those of De Jaunon, Billot, and Deslandre. Many 

 of the officers owed debts, and money was due to them for 

 pay arrears. A letter to the new French Government from 

 the Commissioners, of date 24th May, 1814, said : — " Many 

 officers send us accounts of what is due to them, and ask for 

 pretty large sums, and others draw on us to the profit of 

 their creditors." (Beaucoup d'officiers nous envoyent des 

 comptes de ce qui leur est du et demandent des sommes assez 

 fortes, et d'autres tirent sur nous au profit de leurs 

 creanciers.) This is supposed to be the key to their Royalist 

 fervour, because the Army was intensely Bonapartist at heart 

 as after events showed. 



The page or message boy of the Old Buck Inn told of 

 the great crowd that gathered to see the prisoners depart. 



A Dumfriesian — W. J. Walter — did not fail to celebrate 

 the exit of the prisoners in mock-heroic verse, with which we 

 may appropriately close our narrative. 



THE FROGS' JUBILEE. 



Written on the departure of the French Prisoners from Dumfries, 

 at the conclusion of the peace in 1814. 



'Twas night; the peerless queen of heaven on high, 

 Rode, in unclouded majesty, the sky; 

 Queensbro's bold crest, and Criffel's towering height. 

 Lay bathed in floods of soft and silvery light. 

 Calm was the scene, and all was silence, save 

 The gentle dash of Cluden's distant wave. 

 Musing,. I wandered to the spot, where wide 

 The College Loch extends its ample tide : 

 Sudden the sedgy sides began to quake, 

 And unknown tremours shook the wondering lake ; 

 And lo ! emerging from the depth profound, 

 Myriads of frogs grin horrible around ; 

 Their eyes, all goggling to the conscious moon. 

 Thick as when gowans gem the meads in June. 

 Wondering, I gazed — when towering o'er the rest, 

 A patriot frog his brethren thus addressed : — 



" Ye dear companions of my sorrows past, 

 Joyed, I announce deliverance at last. 

 Thrice blessed change ! that we, who morn and night. 

 Were forced, for safety, to inglorious flight, 

 Doomed in the muddy caverns of the bog, 



