Chapter XI: 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.