¹ ‘To Robert Mongomery High Constable of Leeth Ward in the ye County of Cumberland & to all & every the Petty Constables in ye sd. County’, 23 May 1747, Carlisle Record Office (CRO), D Hud 18/9/1.

² For similar examples, see CRO, D Hud 18/9/2 and 3. The wording of the warrant referred to the Riot Act, which had been passed against the Jacobite insurrection of 1715, and provided the legal basis for the repression of the second rebellion of 1745: see Jarvis, Rupert C., The Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 (Carlisle, 1954)Google Scholar.

³ ‘Chien’, in Cronk, Nicholas and Mervaud, Christiane, eds., Œuvres complètes de Voltaire, iv: Questions sur l'Encyclopédie. César-Egalité (Oxford, 2009), p. 56Google Scholar. Unless otherwise stated, all translations from the French are mine. A similar discourse existed about popular Anglophobia in France: see for example Mercier, Louis-Sébastien, Tableau de Paris (6 vols., Amsterdam, 1782–3)Google Scholar, i, pp. 46–7.

⁴ Newman, Gerald, The rise of English nationalism: a cultural history, 1740–1830 (New York, NY, 1987), pp. 37Google Scholar, 75; Wilson, Kathleen, The sense of the people: politics, culture and imperialism in England, 1715–1785 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 186–91Google Scholar. For a study which supports Newman's stance, see Eagles, Robin, Francophilia in English society, 1748–1815 (New York, NY, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵ Colley, Linda, Britons: forging the nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, and London, 1992), p. 337Google Scholar.

⁶ Moreover, in order to gauge popular attitudes, they rely on sources which can provide, at best, a very indirect answer, such as pamphlets or the press, as Jeremy Black points out in Natural and necessary enemies: Anglo-French relations in the eighteenth century (London, 1986), pp. 181, 183.

⁷ Gulliver, P. H., Disputes and negotiations: a cross-cultural perspective (New York, NY, 1979)Google Scholar.

⁸ Lemieux, Cyril, ‘A quoi sert l'analyse des controverses?’, Mil neuf cent, 25 (2007), p. 193Google Scholar.

⁹ Latour, Bruno, Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network theory (Oxford, 2005), p. 32Google Scholar. On this approach, see ibid., pp. 28–42.

¹⁰ Brubaker, Rogers, ‘Ethnicity without groups’, European Journal of Sociology, 43 (2002), pp. 163–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 168.

¹¹ The concentration upon England and not Britain reflects the fact that the vast majority of the archival material uncovered for this article deals with the former. Further research on Scotland and also Ireland, where prisoners were also held, albeit in much fewer numbers, may give a different picture.

¹² Timothy Le Goff gives the following numbers of Frenchmen (which I rounded off) who had been imprisoned at least one time in Britain over the course of each war: War of the Austrian Succession: 31,000; Seven Years War: 61,000; War of the American Independence: 31,000. The last figure is surprisingly low because many prisoners were kept in colonial prisons. See Le Goff, T. J. A., ‘L'impact des prises effectuées par les Anglais sur la capacité en hommes de la marine française au XVIII^e siècle’, in Acerra, M. et al. , eds., Les marines de guerre européennes XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris, 1985), pp. 103–22Google Scholar. Prisoners taken on board privateers consistently accounted for more than half of the total during these wars, while prisoners coming from merchant ships varied between 30.7 per cent and 33.6 per cent. Finally, the officers and crews from the Royale accounted for only 15 per cent of the prisoners in 1744–8 and 1756–63, and 9.2 per cent in 1778–83: Le Goff, ibid., p. 115. During the Seven Years War, 66 per cent of the prisoners coming from ships-of-war were mariners (officers and common sailors), while the proportion was only of 46 per cent for merchant ships and 41 per cent for privateers: Le Goff, T. J. A., ‘Problèmes de recrutement de la marine française pendant la Guerre de Sept Ans’, Revue Historique, 283 (1990), pp. 205–32Google Scholar, at p. 232. On board French ships-of-war, the marine infantry was about 20 per cent of the crews: Acerra, Martine and Zysberg, André, L'essor des marines de guerres européennes (vers 1680 – vers 1790) (Paris, 1997), p. 183Google Scholar.

¹³ Seamen tended to remain in captivity for longer periods. In the Seven Years War, the British government resorted to war captivity as a strategic weapon against the French Marine Royale, which was suffering from an endemic shortage of seamen. The repatriation of French prisoners was selective, and privileged landsmen, soldiers, and passengers, while seafaring men and particularly common sailors were not exchanged for years: Anderson, Olive, ‘The establishment of British supremacy at sea and the exchange of naval prisoners of war, 1689–1783’, English Historical Review, 75 (1960), pp. 77–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Le Goff, ‘Problèmes’, pp. 219–22; Cabantous, Alain, Dix-mille marins face à l'Océan (Paris, 1991), pp. 196–7Google Scholar.

¹⁴ ‘A list shewing the several places in England whereat prisoners of war are confined, as also where such people are permitted to reside on parole’, 1 May 1758, National Maritime Museum (NMM), ADM F17. As war against Spain was only declared in January 1762, this list is really only about French prisoners.

¹⁵ Originally, the prisoner gave his word of honour that he would pay his ransom if released: on this medieval system, see Rémy Ambühl, ‘Prisoners of war in the Hundred Years’ War: the golden age of private ransoms’ (Ph.D., St Andrews, 2009); Keen, Maurice H., The laws of war in the late middle ages (London, 1965), pp. 156–85Google Scholar. See also Howard, Michael, Andreopoulos, George J., and Shulman, Mark R., eds., The laws of war: constraints on warfare in the Western world (New Haven, CT, and London, 1994)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ See for example Becker, Annette, Oubliés de la Grande Guerre: humanitaire et culture de guerre (Paris, 1998)Google Scholar; Catherine, Jean-Claude, dir., La captivité des prisonniers de guerre, 1939–1945 (Rennes, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cochet, François, Soldats sans armes: la captivité de guerre: une approche culturelle (Brussels and Paris, 1998)Google Scholar; Rosas, Allan, The legal status of prisoners of war: a study in international humanitarian law applicable in armed conflicts (Helsinki, 1976)Google Scholar.

¹⁷ See for example Linda Colley, Captives: Britain, empire and the world, 1600–1850 (London, 2003); Kaiser, Wolfgang, dir., Le commerce des captifs: les intermédiaires dans l’échange et le rachat des captifs en Méditerranée, XV^e–XVIII^e siècles (Rome, 2008)Google Scholar; Voigt, Lisa, Writing captivity in the early modern Atlantic: circulations of knowledge and authority in the Iberian and English imperial worlds (Chapel Hill, NC, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Weiss, Gillian, Captives and corsairs: France and slavery in the early modern Mediterranean (Stanford, CA, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁸ See Anderson, ‘Establishment’. Besides the works cited in n. 12 above, most studies on this subject focus on the time of the French Revolution and empire. See for example Daly, Gavin, ‘Napoleon's lost legions: French prisoners of war in Britain, 1803–1814’, History, 89 (2004), pp. 361–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The oft-quoted book by Francis Abell covers a longer period, but is of limited use, since it does not indicate its sources: Prisoners of War in Britain 1756 to 1815: a record of their lives, their romance and their sufferings (London, 1914). On prisoners on parole, see Roy Bennett, ‘French prisoners of war on parole in Britain, 1803–1814’ (Ph.D., London, 1964); Crimmin, Patricia K., ‘French prisoners of war on parole, 1793–1815: the Welsh border towns’, in Guerres et paix, 1660–1815 (Vincennes, 1987), pp. 61–72Google Scholar; Towsey, Mark, ‘Imprisoned reading: French prisoners of war at the Selkirk subscription library, 1811–1814’, in Charters, Erica et al. , eds., Civilians and wars in Europe, 1618–1815 (Liverpool, 2012), pp. 241–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See however Erica Charters, ‘The administration of war and French prisoners of war in Britain, 1756–1763’, in ibid., pp. 87–99.

¹⁹ Conway, Stephen, Britain, Ireland, and continental Europe in the eighteenth century: similarities, connections, identities (Oxford, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Genet, Jean-Philippe and Ruggiu, François-Joseph, eds., Les idées passent-elles la Manche? Savoirs, représentations, pratiques (France-Angleterre, X^e–XX^e siècles) (Paris, 2007)Google Scholar.

²⁰ Morieux, Renaud, Une mer pour deux royaumes: la Manche, frontière franco-anglaise XVII^e–XVIII^e siècles (Rennes, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (English trans. The Channel: a border between England and France, 1650–1800 (Cambridge, forthcoming); idem, ‘Diplomacy from below and belonging: fishermen and cross-Channel relations in the eighteenth century’, Past and Present, 202 (2009), pp. 83–125.

²¹ Elias, Norbert, What is sociology?, trans. Stephen Mennel and Grace Morrissey (New York, NY, 1978), p. 131Google Scholar.

²² Thireau, Isabelle and Wang, Hansheng, eds., ‘Introduction’, in Disputes au village chinois: formes du juste et recompositions locales des espaces normatifs (Paris, 2001), p. 18Google Scholar. Simon Roberts also notes that disputes can be defined as ‘those confrontations which follow from an actor's perception that some harm he has suffered or anticipates flows from another's departure from accepted criteria of association’: ‘The study of dispute: anthropological perspectives’, in Bossy, John, ed., Disputes and settlements: law and human relations in the West (Cambridge, 1983), p. 7Google Scholar.

²³ This approach to disputes is influenced by the pragmatic sociology of Luc Boltanski: Boltanski, Luc, L'amour et la justice comme compétences: trois essais de sociologie de l'action (Paris, 1990)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem and Thévenot, Laurent, On justification: the economies of worth (Princeton, NJ, 2006)Google Scholar.

²⁴ The prisoners’ uncertainty about the exact status and responsibilities of their addressees is reflected in the fluctuating phrasing of their titles, varying from the ‘commissioners of the admiralty’ to the ‘commissaries for the French prisoners’. The commissioners for the sick and wounded seamen (hereafter sick and wounded), whose number varied between two and five, were also in charge of the care and exchange of naval prisoners of war, under the direction of the lords of the admiralty: the system is explained in Anderson, Olive, ‘The treatment of prisoners of war in Britain during the American War of Independence’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 28 (1955), pp. 63–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 64–6.

²⁵ The internal hierarchies between the different kinds of French naval officers have confused generations of historians. Officers of the ‘Grand Corps’ were all noblemen from 1683, and have been described as a naval caste, sharing a professional esprit de corps even more than aristocratic prejudices. Below them were the ‘officiers bleus’, the vast majority of common birth, who were volunteers and only served for the time of a campaign, such as merchant captains serving on board men-of-war and lower deck officers (Aman, Jacques, Les officiers bleus dans la marine française au XVIII^e siècle (Geneva, 1976), pp. 9Google Scholar, 21–5, 46). If sea officers were known for their ‘general hostility towards all outsiders’, officers of the ‘Grand Corps’ had the reputation of being insubordinate and ‘imbued with a sense of social superiority’, and would often quarrel with civilians or other officers, even when the latter were of noble extraction: Cormack, William S., Revolution and political conflict in the French navy, 1789–1794 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 36Google Scholar, 38. There were also internal ‘jealousies and factionalism’ within their ranks, due to the lax structure of authority in the French navy (ibid., p. 40).

²⁶ For May 1758, we know exactly the numbers of prisoners in each parole town (see n. 14 above). Comparing this to the complaints written in that same month, it appears that in Goudhurst, a long collective memoir asking to punish the ‘reckless population’ was signed by seventy-two names, i.e. the total number of the prisoners on parole in that town: memoir to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], The National Archives (TNA), ADM 97/119. D'Helincourt, on parole in Tenterden, wrote at least five letters in 1757–8 (25 Aug. 1757, 4 Oct. 1757, 22, 30 Mar. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121; 17 Nov. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/122).

²⁷ The secretary to the admiralty was in charge of reading all incoming letters, and answered them usually without referring it to the lords of the admiralty: Rodger, N. A. M., The admiralty (Lavenham, 1979), p. 64Google Scholar.

²⁸ Brown, Gary D., ‘Prisoner of war parole: ancient concept, modern utility’, Military Law Review, 156 (1998), pp. 200–23Google Scholar.

²⁹ Best, Geoffrey, Humanity in warfare: the modern history of the international law of armed conflicts (New York, NY, 1980), p. 60Google Scholar.

³⁰ The system was not restricted to Europe nor to this period. See for example the case of French prisoners allowed to go to Mauritius on their parole: Lord Clive, governor at Fort St George, to the governor general in India, 6 Jan. 1801, British Library (BL), MS IOR/F/4/95/1921, fos. 235–8. The mechanics of oath-taking were not formalized at the beginning of the War of the Austrian Succession, and pragmatism remained the rule throughout the century: on 28 May 1744, the lords commissioners of the admiralty for instance asked to be informed ‘when officers taken prisoners, and suffered to return home upon their parole of honour, to whom they gave that parole of honour?’, NMM, ADM M387, item 52/1. Documents in this class are not folioed, but the first page of a letter is often numbered: whenever it is the case, I indicate this number.

³¹ NMM, ADM M398, item 157/1.

³² 17 July 1745, NMM, ADM M392, item 198.

³³ Langford, Paul, Public life and the propertied Englishman, 1689–1798 (Oxford, 1991), p. 105Google Scholar. The degree to which state oaths were to be taken seriously at all, and what were the spiritual and political consequences of false swearing, was debated in eighteenth-century England: ibid., pp. 98–114.

³⁴ Copy of a letter from marquis de Massiac, secrétaire d’État à la Marine, to Paris de Montmartel, member of the council of state, 10 July 1758, NMM, ADM F18. During the War of the American Independence, it seems that the custom of simply crediting the escapees to the balance of exchanges was established: Anderson, ‘The treatment’, n. 2, p. 74.

³⁵ It is often considered that, with the emergence of new egalitarian values, and because of the conscription which massively opened the ranks of officers to non-nobles, the very notion of an oath of honour lost its meaning. This would explain why escapes multiplied during the ‘French Wars’, whereas they were an epiphenomenon before. Compare Paul, Chamberlain, Hell upon water: prisoners of war in Britain, 1793–1815 (Stroud, 2008), pp. 114–37Google Scholar; Michael, Lewis, Napoleon and his British captives (London, 1962), pp. 44–5Google Scholar, 61–5. However, many escapes of paroled prisoners were reported during each war: in August 1748, thirty prisoners on parole escaped from Eltham (Kent) on board smuggling boats from Folkestone, four escaped on board a Lowestoft pilot boat, and nine from Helston (Cornwall), on board a fisherman's boat (lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 6, 17, and 23 Aug. 1748, NMM, ADM M 403, items 217, 225, 229–30); in 1759, the commissioners for the sick and wounded remarked that ‘desertions have lately been very frequent among the French prisoners of war, who are permitted to reside on parole in this Kingdom’ (26 Feb. 1759, NMM, ADM F19).

³⁶ This system was in vigour during the first two wars, and we have not yet found evidence of its continuation during the War of the American Independence: see lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 4 July 1744, NMM, ADM M 388, item 88; sick and wounded to lords of the admiralty, 26 Feb. 1759, NMM, ADM F19.

³⁷ At the very beginning of the war, ‘even more inferior officers’ obtained the same authorization: lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 17 Jan. 1744, NMM, ADM M390, item 21.

³⁸ Anderson, ‘The treatment’, pp. 74–5. The financial workings of the system have not been studied, and would be worth investigating further. The source of this allowance seems to have been twofold: one stream of funds came from the admiralty, which was accounted and would be settled at the end of each war; there was another, more substantial remittance, which was granted by the French monarchy. Depending on the state of diplomatic relations and of French finances, the French government sometimes defaulted on its payments, as happened during the Seven Years War. Thanks to Erica Charters for the discussion about this.

³⁹ Sick and wounded to lords of the admiralty, 4 July 1744, NMM, ADM M388, item 98. From Aug. 1744 onwards, London was forbidden, owing to fear of espionage: lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 10 Aug. 1744, NMM, ADM M388, item 153.

⁴⁰ As in Dec. 1745, when fear of a French invasion combined with the Jacobite rebellion: 6 Dec. 1745, NMM, ADM M393, item 342. The parole system was re-established a few weeks later: 28 Dec. 1745, NMM, ADM M393, item 369. The same cause produced the same effect during the following conflicts: see ‘Report on removing to Carlisle and Berwick the prisoners on parole in Devonshire Cornwall Hampshire & Kent’, 18 June 1759, NMM, ADM F19. On 15 Aug. 1779, prisoners on parole at Whitchurch (Shropshire) petitioned the sick and wounded to protest against the decision to transfer them to Pontefract (Yorkshire), TNA, ADM 97/124.

⁴¹ ‘A list shewing the several places in England’, 1 May 1758, NMM, ADM F17. In order to do these calculations, Jack Langton kindly allowed me to use his town estimates for the late seventeenth century and the 1801 census. In some towns, the population was stable throughout the period: it was the case of the Kentish towns of Wye (92 prisoners on parole for a population of about 690) and Sevenoaks (90/1,000, 9 per cent), of Petersfield (Hampshire, 156/1,049, 15 per cent), Crediton in Hampshire (57/2,250, 2 per cent), or the Cornwall towns of Callington (107/830, 13 per cent) and Launceston (103/1,503, 7 per cent). However, other towns, such as Alresford (Hampshire) (185/846, 22 per cent), Okehampton (112/867, 13 per cent), and Tavistock (Devonshire, 296/2,050, 14 per cent) doubled during this period: their population in 1758 is only an average, and the ratio a very rough estimate. Finally, towns such as Redruth (Cornwall) boomed so much between the late seventeenth century (480) and 1801 (2,634) that an average would not make sense at all.

⁴² Sick and wounded to the first secretary of the admiralty, 14 Aug. 1759, NMM, ADM, F20.

⁴³ Spurr, John, ‘A profane history of early modern oaths’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 11 (2001), pp. 37–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 38.

⁴⁴ Rodger, N. A. M., ‘Honour and duty at sea, 1660–1815’, Historical Research, 75 (2002), pp. 425–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴⁵ Letter from the officers of L'Auguste, taken on 20 Feb. 1746, NMM, ADM M394, item 86/3.

⁴⁶ 23 Feb. 1745, TNA, ADM 97/103, fo. 16. On the French commissioners’ demands, see for example letters from Guillot, 22 July, 28 Sept., 8 Nov. 1745, ibid., fos. 33, 47, 57–8. Guillot was in charge of the exchange of prisoners for the whole kingdom.

⁴⁷ Guillot, 22 Apr. 1746, TNA, ADM 97/103, fo. 83v.

⁴⁸ Lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 22 July 1778, NMM, ADM M/406. From Oct., the parole list was accordingly reduced: Anderson, ‘The treatment’, p. 74.

⁴⁹ Sick and wounded to lords of the admiralty, 23 Oct. 1759, TNA, ADM 98/8, fo. 40.

⁵⁰ Pitt-Rivers, Julian, ‘Honour and social status’, in Peristiany, Jean, ed., Honour and shame: the values of Mediterranean society (Chicago, IL, 1966), p. 24Google Scholar.

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⁵² Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honour’, pp. 21, 24, 72.

⁵³ Twenty-one prisoners to lords of the admiralty, 7 Jan. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/122.

⁵⁴ In times of celebrations of political or military victories, or while demonstrating support to a political champion such as Sacheverell in 1709 or Wilkes in 1768, it was common to march down the streets and break the unlit windows of political opponents: Holmes, Geoffrey, ‘The Sacheverell riots: the church and the crowd in early eighteenth-century London’, in Holmes, G., Politics, religion and society in England, 1679–1742 (London, 1986), pp. 217–48Google Scholar; Rudé, George, Hanoverian London, 1714–1808 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1971), pp. 225–6Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Belingant to ‘Messieurs’, Basingstoke, 12 July 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁵⁶ These officers were clearly idealizing the rigidity and deferential nature of the society they were coming from, because instances of anti-military riots were commonplace in France. Compare Nicolas, Jean, La rébellion française: mouvements populaires et conscience sociale, 1661–1789 (2nd edn, Paris, 2008), pp. 607–15Google Scholar. However, unlike the riots against the press-gangs in England, this has been less studied for the attitudes towards the French Marine Royale: see Rogers, Nicholas, The press gang: naval impressment and its opponents in Georgian Britain (London, 2008)Google Scholar.

⁵⁷ D'Helincourt to ‘Messieurs’, 4 Oct. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁵⁸ Corfield, Penelope J., ‘Walking the city streets: the urban odyssey in eighteenth-century England’, Journal of Urban History, 16 (1990), pp. 132–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shoemaker, Robert B., ‘The decline of public insult in London, 1660–1800’, Past and Present, 169 (2000), pp. 97–131CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 118.

⁵⁹ D'Helincourt to ‘Messieurs’, 22 Mar. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁶⁰ Belingant to ‘Messieurs’, Basingstoke, 12 July 1757, D'Helincourt to the sick and wounded, Tenterden, 22 Mar. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121; French officers at Crediton to ‘commissaries for exchanging prisoners of war’, 22 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/122; prisoners at Sodbury to ibid., 3 Jan. 1748, TNA, ADM 97/115; prisoners at Litchfield to lords of the admiralty, 15 Aug. 1747, NMM, ADM M 399; sixteen prisoners at Torrington to the ‘general commissary’, 24 Sept. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/122. A surgeon's certificate was attached to the letter addressed by a prisoner at Ashford to the sick and wounded, to serve as a proof of the veracity of his claims: 26 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119.

⁶¹ Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, The spirit of laws (1748), trans. Thomas Nugent (2 vols., London, 1752), ii, book xxvii.

⁶² Beche Reneaux to ‘Messieurs’, 28 May 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119; P. Boutté to ‘Messeigneurs’, Sissinghurst, 11 June 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119. Saubat Contis complained from Tavistock, in 1748, that a constable had hit the face of a French captain with a stick: 16 Sept. 1748, TNA, ADM 97/125.

⁶³ See Goffman, Erving, Interaction ritual: essays on face-to-face behaviour (London, 1972)Google Scholar.

⁶⁴ D'Helincourt to the sick and wounded, 30 Mar. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁶⁵ In Goudhurst, a dispute unfolded between an English servant and the captain of a French privateer, both drunk, in a tavern. A French witness commented: ‘How could they understand each other, the one speaking French and the other English, things heated up and soon shouts of “murder” were heard in the neighbouring houses’: Beche Reneaux to ‘Messieurs’, 28 May 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119. Using these letters to know what were the exact words actually spoken by the assailants is problematic because of this language issue; moreover, petitioners may have had an interest in distorting what happened, as a rhetorical strategy to convince their addressees. The main significance of these insults lies in the fact that complainants care to mention it: Shoemaker, ‘Decline of public insult’, p. 98.

⁶⁶ Sixteen prisoners at Torrington to the ‘general commissary in London’, 21 Oct. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/122.

⁶⁷ Forty-seven prisoners to the ‘commissioners of the admiralty in London’, Apr. 1747, TNA, ADM 97/115.

⁶⁸ Garrioch, David, ‘Verbal insults in eighteenth-century Paris’, in Burke, Peter and Porter, Roy, eds., The social history of language (Cambridge, 1987), p. 110Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ Foyster, Elisabeth A., Manhood in early modern England: honour, sex and marriage (London, 1999), pp. 177–8Google Scholar, 198; Cohen, Michele, ‘“Manners” make the man: politeness, chivalry, and the construction of masculinity, 1750–1830’, Journal of British Studies, 44 (2005), pp. 312–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honour’, pp. 42–53.

⁷⁰ This has been particularly studied for the Seven Years War: Wilson, The sense, pp. 185–9; McCormack, Matthew, ‘The new militia: war, politics and gender in 1750s Britain’, Gender and History, 19 (2007), pp. 483–500CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷¹ TNA, ADM 97/121, Belingant to ‘Messieurs’, 12 July 1757.

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⁷⁴ Conway, Stephen, War, state and society in mid-eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 2006), p. 120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁷⁵ Louis Ducung to lords of the admiralty, 5 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119.

⁷⁶ Contemporaries also assumed that prostitution, illegitimate pregnancies and births were a common feature of the areas where large bodies of British soldiers or militiamen were stationed.

⁷⁷ Godineau, Dominique and Capdevilla, Luc, ‘Femmes et armées’, Clio, 20 (2004), p. 5Google Scholar.

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⁷⁹ Gilbert, ‘Law and honour’, pp. 77, 80. See also Rodger, N. A. M., The wooden world: an anatomy of the Georgian navy (London, 1986), pp. 244–9Google Scholar; Rodger, ‘Honour and duty’, pp. 435–6.

⁸⁰ Shoemaker, Robert, ‘Male honour and the decline of public violence in eighteenth-century London’, Social History, 26 (2001), pp. 190–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 193–5.

⁸¹ Maupin to the sick and wounded, 21 Jan. 1759, NMM, F19.

⁸² Gilbert, ‘Law and honour’, p. 81.

⁸³ As anthropological studies of honour have shown: see Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘The sentiment of honour in Kabyle society’, in , Peristiany, ed., Honour and shame, p. 200Google Scholar.

⁸⁴ By the same token, from the attackers’ point of view, challenging the officers, and daring them to retaliate, was a way to deny that there was any hierarchy in their status. On duelling, see Andrew, Donna, ‘The code of honour and its critics: the opposition to duelling in England, 1700–1850’, Social History, 5 (1980), pp. 409–34Google Scholar; Peltonen, Markku, The duel in early modern England: civility, politeness and honour (Cambridge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Shoemaker, Robert, ‘The taming of the duel: masculinity, honour and ritual violence in England, 1660–1800’, Historical Journal, 45 (2002), pp. 525–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brioist, Pascal, Hervé Drévillon, and Pierre Serna, Croiser le fer: violence et culture de l’épée dans la France moderne, XVI^e–XVIII^e siècles (Seyssel, 2002)Google Scholar; Billacois, François, The duel: its rise and fall in early modern France (New Haven, CT, 1990)Google Scholar.

⁸⁵ Boltanski, L'amour, pp. 428ff.

⁸⁶ Hindle, Steve, ‘The keeping of the public peace’, in Griffiths, P., Fox, A., and Hindle, S., eds., The experience of authority in early modern England (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 213–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Direct action, such as physical fights or economic boycott, was also an option: Keith Wrightson, ‘The politics of the parish in early modern England’, in ibid., p. 12.

⁸⁷ According to the wordings of the parole certificates. See for example NMM, ADM M398, 157/1, undated and left blank; Thireau and Hansheng, ‘Introduction’, in Disputes, p. 33.

⁸⁸ Prisoners at Goudhurst to the lords of the admiralty, [9 Nov. 1757], TNA, ADM 97/119.

⁸⁹ The chaplain of count of Gramont to ‘Monsieur’, Ashburton, 29 Nov. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/122.

⁹⁰ 9 Apr. 1779, received in Mr Stephen's letter of 20 Apr. 1779, NMM, ADM M407.

⁹¹ Muldrew, Craig, The economy of obligation: the culture of credit and social relations in early modern England (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 121–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brewer, John, ‘Commercialization and politics’, in McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John, and Plumb, J. H., The birth of a consumer society: the commercialization of eighteenth-century England (London, 1982), pp. 197–262Google Scholar, at p. 214.

⁹² Muldrew, Craig, ‘Interpreting the market: the ethics of credit and community relations in early modern England’, Social History, 18 (1993), pp. 163–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 177–8.

⁹³ This is why these sixty-five men signed a reference letter to the sick and wounded, requiring that ‘a person with weight and credit would be named as their agent’: 22 July 1758, ADM 97/122.

⁹⁴ The prisoners in Chippenham, Wiltshire, did not want to respect the limits of their parole, and were supported by ‘the gentlemen of the neighbourhood’: sick and wounded to John Clevland Esq., 9 Jan. 1759, NMM, ADM, F19.

⁹⁵ D'Helincourt to ‘Messieurs’, Tenterden, 4 Oct. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁹⁶ Copy of two complaints addressed to the Sodbury justice of the peace, in lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 25 June 1748, NMM, ADM M 402, item 183/1. Such rituals of political defiance were common in the eighteenth century: see Thompson, E. P., ‘The crime of anonymity’, in Hay, Douglas, Linebaugh, Peter, and Thomspon, E. P., Albion's fatal tree: crime and society in eighteenth-century England (New York, NY, 1975), p. 278Google Scholar; Brewer, John, Party ideology and popular politics at the accession of George III (Cambridge, 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 9.

⁹⁷ Belingant to the lords of the admiralty, 12 July 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121.

⁹⁸ Some writers tried to make use of the impossible equivalence in French of the English notions of ‘gentry’ and ‘nobility’. The captain of a privateer complained of being imprisoned with the rest of his crew: ‘in France like everywhere else, gentlemen have the right to turn to the nobility when help is needed, you are one of the most eminent members of the nobility of your kingdom’ (chevalier de Seissan to ‘Monsieur’, Foston, 21 Apr. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/124).

⁹⁹ Boltanski, L'amour, pp. 299–455; Fassin, Didier, ‘La supplique : stratégies rhétoriques et constructions identitaires dans les demandes d'aides d'urgence’, Annales HSS, 5 (2001), pp. 955–81Google Scholar.

¹⁰⁰ Boltanski, L'amour, p. 301.

¹⁰¹ I am borrowing the notion from Lauren Benton, who uses it to describe the legal practices and creativity of local imperial administrators: A search for sovereignty: law and geography in European empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge, 2009), p. 25. A prisoner at Sodbury mentioned ‘the trial that I currently have again this fellow before their honours the judges of Clochester [sic]’: Marc Banquet to ‘the honorary commissaries for prisoners of war’, 8 Feb. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119; prisoners at Chippenham mentioned that they had ‘several times complained to the justice of the place’: 14 Aug. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/124.

¹⁰² Boltanski, L'amour, pp. 378–91.

¹⁰³ Edelstein, Dan, ‘War and terror: the law of nations from Grotius to the French Revolution’, French Historical Studies, 31 (2008), pp. 229–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁰⁴ Emerich de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle (2 vols., London, 1758), ii, p. 117. See Michel Senellart, ‘La qualification de l'ennemi chez Emer de Vattel’, Astérion, 2 (2004), <http://asterion.revues.org/document82.html > .

¹⁰⁵ Best, Humanity, p. 38; Bell, David, The first total war: Napoleon's Europe and the birth of modern warfare (London, 2008), pp. 44–51Google Scholar; Anderson, M. S., War and society in Europe and the Old Regime 1618–1789 (London, 1988), pp. 190–4Google Scholar; Edelstein, ‘War and terror’, pp. 236–7.

¹⁰⁶ Forty-nine prisoners to ‘Messieurs les commissaires de l'amirauté a londre’, Apr. 1747, TNA, ADM 97/115.

¹⁰⁷ Saubat Contis to the lords of the admiralty, 16 Sept. 1748, TNA, ADM 97/125. A petition from Whitchurch declared that ‘enemies without weapons are human beings, the character of a prisoner is respectable and sacred, we are under your safeguarding’: sixty prisoners to the sick and wounded, 15 Aug. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/124. This petition shows the blending of the language of the just war, the law of nations in its ‘Enlightened’ version, and references to specific wartime codes of conduct (the safe-guard).

¹⁰⁸ Memoir to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119.

¹⁰⁹ These themes reworked a larger set of narratives which circulated in France at the time of the Seven Years War about French honour and British barbarism: Bell, David, The cult of the nation in France: inventing nationalism, 1680–1800 (Cambridge, MA, and London, 2001), pp. 83–95Google Scholar. The same rhetoric was used during the following conflict: see the petition of the prisoners at Chippenham to the ‘commissaries for the French prisoners’, 14 Aug. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/124.

¹¹⁰ Fassin, Didier and Bourdelais, Patrice, dir., Les constructions de l'intolérable: études d'anthropologie et d'histoire sur les frontières de l'espace moral (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar.

¹¹¹ Morieux, Renaud, ‘Patriotisme humanitaire et prisonniers de guerre en France et en Angleterre pendant la Révolution française et l'Empire’, in Bourquin, Laurent et al. , eds., Conflits internationaux et politisation, XVIIe–XIXe siècles (Rennes, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

¹¹² Duke of Bedford to earl of Albermarle, Whitehall, 7 Dec. 1749, BL, MS 32819, fos. 211v–212.

¹¹³ Wrightson, ‘Politics of the parish, p. 34.

¹¹⁴ ‘Humble folk’, ‘non-respectable people’: prisoners at Goudhurst to the lords of the admiralty, [9 Nov. 1757], TNA, ADM 97/119; ‘dreadful insults from a people without rules nor education’: chaplain of count of Gramont to ‘Monsieur’, 29 Nov. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/122; ‘uncivilised rabble’: ten prisoners to the sick and wounded, Redruth, 26 July 1779, ADM 97/124; ‘rogues and wretches’: fourty-nine prisoners to the ‘commissioners of the admiralty’, Tavistock, Apr. 1747, TNA, ADM 97/115. The secretary of the admiralty translated this to his own language, talking about ‘the mob’: 21 Dec. 1747, Helston, NMM, ADM M400, item 434; 25 June 1748, Sodbury, NMM, ADM M402, item 183. When prisoners mentioned precise names and occupations, they singled out butchers, innkeepers, a navy drummer, a shoemaker, servants, millers, barbers, cartwrights, brick-makers, blacksmiths, customs officers, and bell ringers: prisoners at Sodbury to the sick and wounded, 3 Jan. 1748, TNA, ADM 97/115; D'Helincourt to the sick and wounded, Tenterden, 22 Mar. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121; prisoners of Goudhurst to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119; Beaufort to ‘Messieurs’, Harwich, 10 Sept. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/118.

¹¹⁵ Boltanski, L'amour, p. 363.

¹¹⁶ Letter signed by thirteen prisoners, [July 1757], TNA, ADM 97/121.

¹¹⁷ ‘The information of Alexander Tonssins de Kerger ensign in the naval service of His Majesty the King of France taken before us the Hon.^ble John Luttrell and Harry Harmood Esq.^rs Two of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace in and for the County of Southampton’, 4 Aug. 1778, NMM, M406.

¹¹⁸ The trespassing of the geographical boundaries fixed in the parole agreement was the starting point of many quarrels: see for example the case of Helincourt in Tenterden, 17 Nov. 1757: TNA, ADM 97/122. Other disputes involved attackers who collared prisoners who had exceeded the time of the curfew in order to get money, as in Helston: letter from Hugh Rogers, mayor, to Mr Kingston, 1 Aug. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121.

¹¹⁹ John Luttrell to the lords of the admiralty, 6 Aug. 1778, NMM, M406.

¹²⁰ Wrightson, K., ‘Two concepts of order: justices, constables and jurymen in seventeenth-century England’, in Brewer, John and Styles, John, eds., An ungovernable people: the English and their law in the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries (London, 1980), pp. 23–4Google Scholar.

¹²¹ Hindle, ‘Keeping’, p. 214.

¹²² TNA, ADM 97/122, 21 Oct. 1757, item 16.

¹²³ Briquet, Jean-Louis, ‘Des amitiés paradoxales: échanges intéressés et morale du désintéressement dans les relations de clientèle’, Politix, 12 (1999), pp. 7–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²⁴ Taxation (particularly excises and land taxes) always increased in time of war. Between 1740 and 1741, prices per capita went up 25 per cent, and another 20 per cent between 1742 and 1743; but they remained stable between 1743 and 1746, before taking another rise of 15 per cent in 1747–8. For detailed figures, see Mitchell, B. R., British historical statistics (Cambridge, 1988)Google Scholar.

¹²⁵ Prisoners at Gourhurst to lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119. On the food riots of 1756–7, see Charlesworth, Andrew, ed., An atlas of rural protest in Britain, 1548–1900 (London, 1983), pp. 86–8Google Scholar; Rogers, Nicholas, Crowds, culture and politics in Georgian Britain (Oxford, 1998), pp. 58–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Prisoners also complained of the high cost of food and rent: four captains and officers on parole at Wye to the sick and wounded, 20 May 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121. The abundance of letters in some years probably also had to do with the mechanics of exchanges, which would sometimes seize up, making the prospect of a liberation less likely: this happened in 1747–8 and again from August 1757 to the autumn of 1758. On the contrary, from 1744 until the end of 1746, officers were almost always granted their freedom to return to France on parole: see for example the numerous letters for 1746 in NMM, ADM M392. This may account for the sparse number of complaints in those years.

¹²⁶ Wilson, The sense, pp. 190–6; McCormack, ‘New militia’.

¹²⁷ Pitt-Rivers, J., ‘Social class in a French village’, Anthropological Quarterly, 33 (1960), pp. 1–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹²⁸ Voizard to ‘messieurs les commissaires generaux de la Cour de Londres Nos Seigneurs’, Okehampton, 1758, TNA, ADM 97/120. He was certainly referring to ‘Esquire’ Luxmoore, a member of a wealthy family of notables: Lewis Namier, ‘Okehampton’, in idem, The history of parliament: the house of commons, 1754–1790 (London, 1964).

¹²⁹ Thirty-eight prisoners on parole at Goudhurst to the sick and wounded, n.d., TNA, ADM 97/119.

¹³⁰ Pitt-Rivers, ‘Honour’, pp. 36, 52–3.

¹³¹ Beche Reneaux to ‘Messieurs’, Goudhurst, 28 May 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119; prisoners’ petition to the sick and wounded, Petersfield, Hampshire, 22 Dec. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/121; prisoners to commissioners for the sick and wounded, Sodbury, 3 Jan. 1748, TNA, ADM 97/115.

¹³² Eighteen prisoners to ‘Monsieur’, Sodbury, 14 June 1758, TNA, ADM 97/117. Similarly, the servant of an innkeeper carried a message, on behalf of her master, to warn the French to remain in their rooms: prisoners at Goudhurst to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119.

¹³³ 9 Nov. 1757, TNA, ADM 97/119. Likewise, ‘the nobility of the vicinity and most of the habitants of Alresford’ committed to punishing the offenders Chevalier Goupillon de Bélisal to ‘Messieurs’, Alresford, 6 July 1779, TNA, ADM 97/123/9.

¹³⁴ The steward of the duke of Bedford, marquess of Tavistock, criticized their ‘impudent and audacious’ behaviour, calling them ‘the very dreggs of the people, of desperate fortunes’: copy of a letter of J. Wynne, 23 Oct. 1747, in lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 30 Oct. 1747, NMM, ADM M399, item 339. Likewise, one Ch. Vyvyan expressed his reluctance to see the parole extended to ‘the lower orders of the French prisoners’: copy of a letter to the lords of the admiralty, Fremeal near Launceston, Cornwall, 31 July 1779, NMM, ADM M408.

¹³⁵ This interpretation is inferred from Wrightson, ‘Two concepts’.

¹³⁶ Wrightson defines neighbourliness ‘as a relationship based on residential propinquity and involving both mutual recognition of reciprocal obligations of a practical nature between effective if not actual equals, and a degree of normative consensus as to the nature of proper behaviour amongst neighbours’: ‘Politics of the parish’, p. 18. See also Wrightson, K., ‘The decline of neighbourliness revisited’, in Jones, Norman Leslie and Woolf, Daniel R., eds., Local identities in late medieval and early modern England (Basingstoke, 2007), 19–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹³⁷ Forty-nine prisoners in Tavistock to the ‘commissioners of the admiralty’, Apr. 1747, TNA, ADM 97/115.

¹³⁸ Prisoners at Goudhurst to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119.

¹³⁹ Cerutti, Simona, Etrangers: étude d'une condition d'incertitude dans une société d'Ancien Régime (Paris, 2012), p. 11Google Scholar.

¹⁴⁰ Wrightson, ‘Politics of the parish’, pp. 11–12.

¹⁴¹ Snell, K. D. M., Parish and belonging: community, identity and welfare in England and Wales, 1700–1950 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁴² Although Snell points out the similarity of attacks against local outsiders and more distant foreigners, such as Irishmen, he does not elaborate: ibid., p. 54.

¹⁴³ ‘Explaining in precise terms that they wanted to kill the French’: twenty-one prisoners to the ‘commissioners of the admiralty in London’, Sodbury, 7 Jan. 1758, TNA, ADM 97/122, item 30; ‘we think they wanted to attack some Frenchman which they did’: petition of fourteen prisoners, 26 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119; ‘the man named Rartly, … who could not control his bad intentions, openly declared that he would knock out the first Frenchman he would meet’: memoir to the lords of the admiralty, [9 May 1758], TNA, ADM 97/119; Wilson, The sense, p. 190.

¹⁴⁴ Mirabert to ‘Monsieur’, Crediton, 22 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/122.

¹⁴⁵ This letter from Alresford only bore the signature of the chevalier Goupillon de Bélisal, 6 July 1779, TNA, ADM 97/123/9; fifty-five prisoners at Seven Oaks to the lords of the admiralty, n.d., ADM 97/120; ‘The French officers at Pontefract’ to ‘Messieurs’, 16 Oct. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/124.

¹⁴⁶ Secretary of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 16 Dec. 1746, NMM, ADM M396, item 292.

¹⁴⁷ Louis François Faure to the lords of the admiralty, 17 July 1748, NMM, ADM, M402, item 196/1.

¹⁴⁸ Lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 4 July 1744, NMM, ADM M388, item 598.

¹⁴⁹ Request from the sick and wounded to the secretary of the admiralty, 3 Mar. 1760, NMM, ADM F20.

¹⁵⁰ The sick and wounded to the secretary of the admiralty, 24 May 1758, NMM, ADM F17; same to same, 5 July 1758, NMM, ADM F18; chevalier de Rohan to the agent for prisoners of war, Rumsey, 4 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/119. The spatial boundaries of the parole were always greater for higher officers: they were extended to five miles in 1744 (lords of the admiralty to the sick and wounded, 4 July 1744, NMM, ADM M388, item 98), and reached eight miles in 1778 for the ranks above volunteers ‘if gentlemen of family’ (sick and wounded to lords of the admiralty, 5 Sept. 1778, NMM, ADM M406).

¹⁵¹ Prisoners at Tenterden to the lords of the admiralty, 4 Feb. 1779, TNA, ADM 97/123/6.

¹⁵² Same to same, Tenterden, 6 Feb. 1779, ADM 97/123/6.

¹⁵³ Baly Jeune to the agent for prisoners, Callaington, 26 July 1758, TNA, ADM 97/121.

¹⁵⁴ Letter to ‘Monsieur’, [1757], TNA, ADM 97/119.

¹⁵⁵ See n. 24 above.

¹⁵⁶ Ransanne to the secretary of the admiralty, 12 Aug. 1779, NMM, ADM M407.

¹⁵⁷ Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Social space and symbolic power’, Sociological Theory, 7 (1989), pp. 22–3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁵⁸ Newman, The rise; Wilson, The sense.

¹⁵⁹ Scott, James, Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts (New Haven, CT, 1990)Google Scholar.

¹⁶⁰ Eastwood, David, Government and community in the English provinces, 1700–1870 (London, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.