A story about a monkey that does NOT attack me!

I found out about this story which is, by far, one of the funniest things ever. It apparently happened somewhere in England:

During the time of the Napoleonic Wars. A French ship was
wrecked just of the coast of the headland of Old Hartlepool.
The only
survivor to be washed ashore was a small monkey dressed in a French sailors
uniform. The wretched creature had apparently been used for entertainment
by the crew of the unfortunate ship.

The people of Hartlepool at
the time were largely simple fishing folk and had (probably) never seen a monkey
and so they assumed it was a French spy, they promptly took it away for
questioning. Unfortunately (for itself) the monkey could neither speak nor
understand English and could only gibber agitatedly, which only served to
further persuade the locals to the identity of the prisoner as they took this
gibbering to be French! Finally the monkey was put on trial, found guilty
of spying and of course sentenced to death by hanging. The monkey was
finally hung on the fish sands a small stretch of beach below the ancient town
wall.

Wow. What can I possibly add? It makes me a happy panda to imagine people interrogating a monkey in a make-shift courtroom. I'd like to think that the monkey knew exactly what was going on, too, but was just unable to express itself.

Either that, or the monkey did speak, but, sadly, only in French.