Catalogue description Orders, letters and returns relating to Prisoners of War. Colonel Cunynghame 3rd Regt...

Orders, letters and returns relating to Prisoners of War.

• "Colonel Cunynghame 3rd Regt Guards. Orders etc. 1798. Prisoners of War. Citadel of Lisle." Cunynghame commanded the British prisoners of war held by the French at Lille.
• The front of this book contains General Orders issued at Lille between the 31st of March and the 6th of November 1798. The orders relate to standard administrative topics. There is also a list of officers and soldiers on parole in England dated the 8th of November 1798.
• The back of the book has three sections. The first contains mainly letters. The authors and recipients were: William Wyndham, Major General [Harry] Burrard, Colonel John Calcraft [2nd Foot Guards], Captain James Cotes [69th Regiment], W Perregraine (banker) and Colonel [David] Cunynghame.
• The remainder of this part contains instructions, victualling tables, allowances, returns and cartels of exchange of prisoners.
• The second part is almost entirely statistical returns, by regiment, covering the period 19th of May 1798 to 2nd of February 1799. It also includes a list of officers who were killed, wounded, missing or drowned on the 19th-20th of May 1798 and those who surrendered on the 20th. A later list (18th October 1798) gives the names of some officer prisoners.
• The third part comprises six tables giving details of officers in receipt of Gratification and Ration Money during the period 1st November 1798 to the 31st January 1799.
• There is an index to all three parts.
• Inserted into the book are 8 sheets of paper. These contain copies of 3 letters written by Captain James Cotes in Paris to Colonel Cunynghame between the 16th of December 1798 and the 22nd of January 1799 and a letter from Cunyghame to Cotes dated the 19th of December 1798. There are also a list of the regiments having prisoners at Lille, a paper headed"Conspiracy against all officers and non-commissioned officers of the 49th Regiment" dated the 27th of January 1799 and signed by Lieutenants George Pearson and John Williams and Assistant Surgeon R C [Richard] Cobbe of that regiment, and two notes.