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In 1809, a young Royal Navy midshipman, Charles Hare, made a daring escape from a Napoleonic prison – with a French uniform as his disguise and a dog in tow.
Now, two centuries later, Hare’s uniform, along with a fascinating handwritten account of his ordeal, has gone on display at a London museum.
Hare, who joined the Navy aged 11 in 1801, was taken prisoner two years later when his ship, La Minerve, was captured off the French coast. He languished for six years, first in a Verdun prison, and later at Saarlouis military fortress in modern-day Germany, from which he made his escape.
Persuading a French customs officer to provide him with forged papers and a uniform, Hare walked out of the prison on a day pass – in a daring breakout fraught with risk.
‘As soon as I reached the end of the town, I fully felt the imprudence of my conduct,’ he wrote in his account of the escape. ‘If taken in a military habit, bearing arms or false papers, instant death awaits me by the decrees of Bonaparte; the violation of which I fully knew.’
But Hare survived, travelling by coach, boat, and on foot to Rotterdam, where he persuaded a group of Dutch fishermen to take him out to sea to meet the British fleet.
Although Hare finally succeeded in making it back to his home in Lincolnshire, his journey was by no means easy. According to his account, his unnamed pet dog provided a useful distraction should any French officers he met along the way ask too many questions.
Along with the manuscript of his account, the elaborate uniform and feathered hat with which Hare disguised himself were preserved for decades by his descendants in Canada. The French customs officer’s uniform that he wore during his escape is thought to be the only surviving example from the period, when France and Britain were locked in a bitter naval and land war.
The collection is now on display in the ‘Nelson, Navy, Nation’ gallery at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
