Turning once more from documentary evidence, to the recollections handed down from parents to children, I am reminded that the inhabitants of Bassingbourn and other villages were farmers first and soldiers afterwards; for, having settled the momentous issue of providing for the safety of their families and herds, these village yeomen joined with others in seeking means for thwarting the too ready advance of "Boney's" legions. It is said that as a last resort it was intended to cut down the trees standing by the sides of the North Road, felling them across the road, so as to impede the march of Napoleon's artillery! For how long these efforts could have withstood the march of the legions who crossed Alpine heights, or for how long that great caravan of non-combatants and live-stock could have out-distanced the invaders, could not have been very re-assuring questions, nor have I been able to find out what was to be the destination of the live-stock.
It is true that if the worst fears were realized our great-grandfathers in this district would have had some little warning, for did not the old coach road to the North pass through our town and district? and did not the old semaphore stand there on the summit above Royston Heath, waiting to lift its clumsy wooden arms to spell out the signal of the coming woe by day? By night was the pile for the beacon fire, towards which, before going to bed, the inhabitants of every village and hamlet in the valley turned their eyes, expecting to see the beacon-light flash forth the dread intelligence to answering hills in the distance! Only the simple act of striking a flint and steel by night, or lifting of the arm of the newly invented semaphore telegraph by day, seemed to separate the issues of peaceful rural life and the ruthless invasion of War! The dread was a real and oppressive one, such as we cannot possibly realize to-day!
But, amidst the fearful presages of War and Invasion, the affair had its lighter side, and provoked not a little of comedy and burlesque. In the Library of the British Museum there is an extremely interesting collection of squibs! satirical ballads, mock play-bills, &c., upon the expected appearance of Buonaparte, with caricatures by Gillray and others. In searching through such a collection, it is difficult to stay the hand in making extracts, but a few must suffice. In one the First Consul is styled "the new Moses," and there is a list of his Ten Commandments; in another there is a Catechism as to who is Buonaparte, with not very flattering answers. In others there are sketches of the imaginary entry of Napoleon with graphic scenes of pillage, &c., and again adaptations of theatrical language, such as—
"In rehearsal, Theatre Royal of the United Kingdom. Some dark, foggy night, about November next, will be attempted by a Strolling Company of French Vagrants, an Old Pantomimic Farce, called Harlequin's Invasion, or the Disappointed Banditti."
In others, M. Buonaparte was announced as Principal Buffo, "being his first (and most likely his last) appearance on the Stage!" Perhaps the best of this ephemeral literature were lines which found their way in lighter moments into the songs on our village greens; and, sung to the fine old air of the "Blue Bells of Scotland," helped for the moment to banish anxiety over some alehouse bench!
When, and O when, does this little Boney come?
Perhaps he'll come in August! Perhaps he'll stay at home;
But it's O in my heart, how I'll hide him should he come!
and so on through a number of stanzas.
But though there was a light side, out of which the humorists of the period made a market, the Napoleonic scare was no laughing matter for the poor people, who had nothing to gain and everything to lose, by even the possibility of the thing. We, who, in these peaceful times, are apt to swagger about Britannia ruling the waves, cannot perhaps realize what it meant to have this great military genius sitting down with his legions of three hundred thousand opposite our shores, keenly watching for and calculating our weakest point of defence! What should we think if, in every cottage home in this district, it was necessary, on going to bed at night, to be prepared for a sudden alarm and departure from all that was dear to us in old associations; if our little children, before retiring to rest at night, took a last look in fear and trembling to the hills above Royston Heath, where the beacon was ready to flash out the portentious news to all the country round, and asked "is it alight?"—if each little one had to be taught as regularly as, if not more regularly than, saying its prayers, to pack up its little bundle of clothes in readiness for the dread news that Boney had indeed come! Yet all this is only what really happened to our great-grandfathers in that terrible time of 1803!
It may be of interest to glance at the means taken for repelling the invader should he make his appearance. This was no mere machinery of conscription, such as under other circumstances might have been necessary, for a spirit of intense patriotism was suddenly aroused, fanned into flame by stirring ballads, such as the following, to the tune of "Hearts of Oak"——