THE GENERAL THANKSGIVING.
As I have already mentioned, some of the prisoners were sent to
Haverfordwest Gaol—which, being situated in the old castle, was a
commodious and roomy resort; others were placed, temporarily, in the
churches of St. Mary, St. Thomas, and St. Martin: others again were sent
to Carmarthen, under the escort of the Romney Fencible Cavalry, the
officers being conveyed on horseback and allowed their parole; but the
greater part of the French force finally found themselves confined in the
Golden Prison at Pembroke. They were taken there and also to Milford by
water; and not a few died on board the vessels, being closely shut up
under deck. Finally, five hundred of them were safely landed and
incarcerated in the Golden Prison, the state of which, with all this
overcrowding, could hardly have been so delightful as its name might lead
the imaginative to suppose.
Here we will leave them for awhile, returning once more to myself and my
own belongings. My kind mother would not let me return at once to my
master at St. David’s, she looked upon me as “her miraculously preserved
boy,” and must keep me for a bit to gloat her eyes upon. My father,
being a man who loved a quiet life, consented. And so I was still in
Fishguard when the Royal Proclamation came down, which commanded us to
set aside a day of general thanksgiving for our preservation from the
dangers which threatened our beloved country. This command reached us
about a fortnight after the danger had passed, posts being rather slow in
those days. Indeed, had we had to wait so long for more substantial
help, we had been in parlous straights long since. However, “All’s well
that ends well”—and we had fared through, by the aid of Providence, our
own exertions, and the brandy-laden wrecks.
So we all repaired to our several parish churches; my mother hanging
proudly on my arm, and regarding me as one to be specially thanked for.
Indeed, I was not ill-pleased myself to perceive some nods of heads and
pointings of fingers among the old crones and young maids as we passed
along. This feeling seemed also to actuate Davy Jones, who limped along
arm in arm with Nancy; she, even then not assuming the dependent
position, but giving him her arm, as it were, in order to help him along.
She even explained to us that, it being her “Sunday out” she had come all
the way from Trehowel for this purpose. I may own that I distrusted that
limp of Davy’s; it struck me he liked to play the maimed hero.
“Why, Davy,” I remarked, very audibly. “I saw you at market on Friday,
and you weren’t limping a bit. Do you want to have the old women to look
at you or Nancy—.”
“To arm me?” said Davy, with a wink. “That’s it, my boy. What’s the old
women to me? But Nancy—.”
Here Nancy stopped the dialogue by dragging her admirer forward in a most
hasty manner, with but slight regard for his wounded limb. The service
proceeded as usual. The hymns occasionally tailed off into one voice
which quivered and sank, dying out into silence; for as it was well known
that the parson’s daughter received a shilling from her sire for pitching
up the tune again every time it died a natural death, no one liked to be
so crooked as not to assist nature when the melody became weak and low.
Then the clear young voice came forth and we started afresh. I need
hardly say there was no instrumental music.
We proceeded, then, in spite of the special occasion in much our usual
manner, leaving most of the thanksgiving to parson and clerk, and lolling
about at our ease thinking of nothing, when attention! we heard galloping
hoofs along the street, which ran outside the church. At the gate, the
horse was suddenly reined up on his haunches—a man flung himself off
heavily, and quick feet came tearing up the path to the porch. In an
instant every man, woman, and child in the church stood upright, ready
for fight or flight.
The door burst open, and the express messenger rushed in, booted,
spurred, and breathless.
“The French! the French!” was all that he could gasp. He was surrounded
in an instant by eager questioners, his voice was drowned in a very Babel
of noise.
Our worthy divine then assumed command of his congregation. He
despatched the clerk to the vestry for a drop of brandy, and then
standing square and upright in the pulpit he commanded the people to be
quiet, and to allow the man to come unhindered into the pulpit, from
where he would himself announce the news. These orders were obeyed, and
John Jones having returned with the spirit, the parson administered it,
and then desired the man to deliver his message.
It was briefly this; sundry large ships of war, filled with French
troops, were making their way up St. George’s Channel straight for the
port of Fishguard.
In an instant the cry rang through the church—“To arms! to arms!”
Then what a scene of confusion arose, fury, dismay, oaths and shrieks all
mingled together, some women fainting, some in tears, the men roused and
excited to the uttermost.
“Don’t go, don’t go, my son,” sobbed my mother; but curiosity overcame
prudence.
“I’m not going to fight, mother, never fear, but I must go and look on,”
was my answer.
“Oh Dio, not again, not again!” urged Nancy, thinking of the single
combats.
“I’m not going to walk across the sea to tackle a frigate, I promise
you,” said Davy, with a laugh. But Nancy was not to be put off so.
“All right, come. I’m coming too,” she said, and in another instant they
were without the church door, where, indeed, we all found ourselves
shortly. We tore down to the cliffs as the possessed swine might have
raced; many of us ran to man the fort, but I remained on the higher
ground where I could have a better view and see further out to sea.
And soon there was indeed a fair sight to see. Coming round the headland
to the west of us, their sails filled with the brisk March breeze,
appeared a stately squadron moving proudly under British colours; but
having seen something like this before, some of us still doubted. The
fort saluted, and this compliment was returned by the men-of-war without
any changing of colours. We began to feel reassured, and soon our hopes
were verified. A boat put off from the nearest ship and was rowed to
shore in a style that swore to “British tar.” The officer landed and
explained that the squadron was part of the Channel Fleet, sent to our
assistance, and that it was under the command of the brave Sir Edward
Pellew. We were very proud of the help rendered us by England, even
though it had come a little late, but that was the fault of our roads not
their goodwill; and though it had occasioned a worse scare than the real
thing, but that was only our disordered nerves which acted up to the old
proverb—“A burnt child dreads fire.”
The officer inquired very particularly as to the probable whereabouts of
the French ships—the three frigates and the lugger. About this we could
give him no information whatever. All we could say was, that the French
left their anchorage at Carreg Gwastad on Thursday, the 23rd of February,
at noon, and took a course directly across the channel towards the coast
of Ireland. Our little sloops did not care to venture too near since one
of them, the _Britannia_, had been taken by the enemy, the cargo
appropriated, and the sloop scuttled and sunk. They were, on the whole,
persons to whom it was pleasanter to give a wide berth.
We heard afterwards that one of the ships struck on the Arklow Banks, she
was much injured and lost her rudder; one of her companions took her in
tow and made for France. They got as far as just off Brest, and then, in
sight of home, cruel fate overtook them in the shape of two English
ships, respectively under the commands of Sir H. B. Neale and of Captain
Cooke. These two made short work of the Frenchmen, both ships were taken
and brought over to Portsmouth, where they were repaired, commissioned in
the British service, and sent to fight our battles, one of them—oh glory
for our little town—bearing henceforth the name of “_The Fishguard_.”
The remaining frigate, accompanied by the lugger, got safely into Brest,
where no doubt they were exceedingly relieved to find themselves after
their disastrous expedition.
The scare that our squadron had caused extended from St. David’s to
Fishguard, all along the coast, in fact, from which the big vessels could
be seen approaching the land. There were one or two other scares besides
this, for our nerves had been shaken, and our imaginations set going; and
truly for many a long year after the little phrase “Look out for the
French!” was enough to set women and children off at speed, and perhaps
even to give an uncomfortable qualm in the hearts of the nobler sex.