All this time Conyngham was planning to escape. Not an opportunity went by that he did not seize upon to extend his plans. After his being remanded on the high-treason charge, strange to say, his treatment improved and he was allowed the liberty of the jail-yard, and found opportunity on one or two occasions to converse with some of his fellow prisoners. Many of them were Frenchmen, who had been taken in the actions with the French fleet. On one occasion a battle was fought within hearing of Plymouth, and the soldiers and inhabitants, fearing that the French were going to attempt to land, began to throw up earthworks and entrenchments along the water front. Among the prisoners that were brought in was a Frenchman who had served in the capacity of surgeon on one of the captured vessels. He was a man of education, and his clothes were of a better character and texture than those of the other prisoners, who were mostly common seamen. He spoke no English, however, and Conyngham had to talk with him in French. Now it happened that the prison doctor, who made his round of visits every day, was a short, slight man, something of the young captain’s general build and appearance. The clothes he wore were black, and he usually carried a book under his arm in which he kept a record of his patients and their condition. It suggested itself to Conyngham that it might be easy for the Frenchman so to disguise himself that he might be taken for the doctor, and by walking out boldly past the sentries in the evening gain the outside of the prison walls and conceal himself in the town.
“All you need,” Conyngham observed, speaking in French, “is a pair of huge horn spectacles, pull your hat well down over your eyes, and walk out of the door. I’ve studied the doctor’s gait--he walks like this----”
Suiting the action to the word, Conyngham gave a very good imitation of the English doctor’s mincing step. The Frenchman laughed.
“My faith!” he exclaimed, “it is it to the life! I have observed him. But remember this, my friend; I speak no English and would be helpless; they would discover me at once.”
A day or so later the Frenchman and Conyngham met again in the jail-yard. The latter motioned his friend aside to where one of the stone buttresses hid them from the sight of the sentry who was watching the yard.