The Fishguard Invasion by the French in 1797

-off sound; it came nearer and nearer rapi

growl from hundreds of guttural t

n growl from the othe

most of my neighbours. Enoch Lale's dream was the thought that stirred us; there was something of second-sight about it that awed one even in the morning air and

observed to Mr. Mortimer, near whom I had placed myself. "He heard t

Mortimer. "Oh, Enoch's somewhere about

he brass drums went on, broken only by the thud of the sea breaking upon the sand. Every head was turned towards the west (even Nancy's and Davy's for I looked to s

Frenchmen appeared in sight. On they came, a moving mass of dark blue, carrying no colours, neither gay tricolor nor

blame them; there seemed every probability that they would be massacred. The Welsh had jumped to their feet as with one bound, and they were making up for their long silence now, the men all brandishing every conceivable kind of we

e other war-like women of her stamp-some of them armed with straightened scythes. I got out of their way quickly.

female, to come at once to close quarters with the enemy. Then rushed a sudden thunder of hoofs along the shore, as Lord Cawdor and hi

the Fishguard Fencibles. At last, seeing these precautions against popular fury and that no sudden violence was now likely to occur, the French once more took heart and resumed their downward march and drums. They were accompanied b

he passed the spot where I was, I heard him say, "Let us al

lised and had no fight in them. They marched on to the sands in columns, halted before Lord Cawdor and his staff backed by a handful o

overed that the scarlet flash which had so scared them was produced-not by the red coats of a body of regulars-but by the whittles worn by a parcel of women! These individuals now allowed the fallen foe to have a near view of their tall hats and scarlet mantles, for dashing down the hills on to the sands in spi

w at him like a fury. She, too, had discovered the paucity of our numbers, and that Lord Cawdor's "ten thousand men" were-in Spain perhaps-and that the English regulars were-well, very irregular forces attired in

u want to have it out with somebody, here's a

Jemima, who returned the shower of epithets. The General, giving me

heir various destinations-chiefly gaols; our bands now taking up the strain and making the welki

apitulation of the Fr