Let me state, in conclusion, that the young pair—a few incidents in whose history I have been doing my poor best to put on paper—were married within a month of the events I have recorded. Furthermore, that the union was a most felicitous one. And, lastly, that I, who have the honour and happiness to be numbered amongst their friends, have again and again enjoyed a hearty laugh with Mr. Albright and his admirable wife over the details of the great and terrible “wigging” administered by him to the petticoated denizens of Hippopotamus Street on the afternoon of the ever-memorable third of May, eighteen hundred and fifty-one.
“ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY.”
The watching for invasion must have been a blind and stumbling process in Queen Elizabeth’s days, when news was slower in travelling than even the great clumsy ships of the Armada were in sailing. To keep horses saddled, and men ready to ride in an instant, on the arrival of news, was the only resource for communicating between the coast and London. Fifty-six years ago, our fathers congratulated themselves on the advance of civilisation, which rendered it so much more easy for them to encounter an invasion. Like Queen Elizabeth’s scouts, those of George III. kept watch on the cliffs, and gave notice of every sail to people below by signals: but there was the telegraph besides, that great invention which men pointed out to their children as the last possible achievement of human faculty, in the way of sending messages. Some people, yet living, remember the sensation of awe with which as children they looked out towards the coast-stations in the early morning, to see whether the telegraph was at work; and how mysterious seemed the rising and falling, and stretching out of its arms against the yellow evening sky. Then there was the looking-out at night—every night, the last thing before going to bed—towards the beacon, which was to be fired to give the alarm of the approach of the enemy. However many there might be who dreaded the kindling of that blaze, there were not a few who longed for it. In the summer of 1803, the first chill of dread at the image of brutal foreign soldiers rushing upon our as yet unviolated soil, was pretty well over, and the high spirit of the nation was fairly roused. The desire to arm, if not the arming, was as universal as in Queen Elizabeth’s time; and drill was going on everywhere. The universities were sending forth companies of student volunteers in a state of fine discipline. The lawyers of the Inns were not quite so flexible in body and ideas; but they did their best, and did not mind being quizzed when one ran a bayonet through another’s coat, or three or four tripped one another up, and fell in a heap. One gentleman, probably of an absent habit of mind, attempted to discharge a musket which had six cartridges in it. He was lost to the defence of his country; for his piece blew him up, and knocked down everybody near. Some who were not gainly enough for this kind of volunteering did their part in another fashion. Do any of my readers remember the “Declaration of the Merchants and Bankers of London,” issued at that time, and now known to have been written by Sir James Mackintosh? Those who have read it will never forget it: those who are too young to have heard much about those times had better turn to the “Annual Register,” and study it. If our fathers were a nation of shopkeepers, these representatives of trade showed that the shop had not spoiled them for citizens, any more than it had spoiled the train-bands of London in Cromwell’s time, when apprentices and small tradesmen fought for law and liberty of conscience, as well as any gallant cavalier could fight for King and High Church. The merchants and bankers did more than utter noble sentiments. The Common Council of London raised and equipped eight hundred men; and every citizen spared his clerks and shopmen twice a day for drill. The subscribers to Lloyd’s instituted a fund for the care of the wounded, and the reward of acts of special bravery. The King, and his sons, and his ministers, and a great attendance of peers held reviews in the parks; and the Queen and princesses looked on. New taxes were zealously paid; and all sorts of funds raised for all conceivable modes of defending the country. The citizens felt themselves as great and devoted as their fathers ever were when looking out for the prodigious Armada; and in the make of their weapons, and all the useful arts concerned, they considered themselves immeasurably superior.
Yet there were circumstances hidden under this show of national gallantry which make us pity the condition of our fathers, as much as we admire their spirit. It was actually a daily practice for police spies to haunt the public-houses throughout the country, to ascertain whether “the people” were in favour of the invaders, or merely indisposed to defend their country, or worthy to be relied upon. We may hope the government was duly ashamed when the report was that “the spirit of the country was good.” Again; when the enlightened metropolis was thinking and acting as one man, it took a long time to dissolve the jealousies and absurd suspicions which infested society in the provinces. There could hardly have been more distrust of the Catholics on the approach of the Armada, than there was of dissenters and liberals in the towns along the coast when the French were expected in 1803. In the manufacturing towns, where Flemings and French Huguenots once settled with their industry, the insolence and absurdity of their purely English fellow-citizens were immortalised in many a joke, and many a caricature of the time. The member of the Dutch or French church would come home to dinner, laughing or irritated, as it might be, at the treatment he had met with during the morning. If his children are alive now they will remember his account of the behaviour of mayor, or alderman, or clerical magistrate to him; the significant hint that it would be rash to attempt to burn the cathedral; the refusal to let him bear arms as a volunteer; the permission to prepare the waggons for carrying the women and children away into the interior, as an office in which he