The House of Correction stood at the back of the present Fever Hospital, the entrance being in Mount Pleasant. It was in Mr. Howard’s time a most miserably managed place. In 1790 it was a vile hole of iniquity. There was a whipping-post, for instance, in the yard, at which females
were weekly in the receipt of punishment. There was also “a cuckstool,” or ducking tub, where refractory prisoners were brought to their senses, and in which persons on their first admission into the gaol were ducked, if they refused or could not pay “a garnish.” This barbarous mode of punishment was common in Lancashire, and Cheshire. This prison was in the course of the following years much improved, as it was found by Mr. Neild very clean and orderly through the exertions of Mrs. Widdows, the keeper. Mrs. Widdow’s salary was £63 per annum. She had resolutely put down the cuckstool, and the whipping-post was becoming in a complete state of desuetude. A pump in the men’s yard was used as a place of occasional punishment for the stubborn and refractory. The prisoners were without any instruction, secular or religious. No chaplain attended. The allowance to each prisoner was a two-penny loaf, two pounds of potatoes, and salt daily. I believe, from all I could learn, that the Liverpool prisons, bad as they undoubtedly were at the close of the last and the beginning of the present century, were in better condition than others elsewhere.
CHAPTER III.
One of my great-grandsons—a fine young fellow, has joined the Volunteers: and seems determined to work his way to a commission. I cannot help smiling when I see him in his uniform, for he reminds me of my young days, when I was a full private in Pudsey Dawson’s Liverpool Volunteers. I don’t think the volunteers of this day are so smart-looking as they were of olden time, when they wore blue coats, white breeches, gaiters and pig-tails, and used pipe-clay in abundance. When we were reviewed on Moss-Lake Fields we made a gallant show. There are fine young fellows now, but somehow the dark rifle-dress looks sombre and dull. Pudsey Dawson’s regiment consisted of eight companies of infantry, and mustered 1200 strong.
The mettle of the Liverpool men was shown in 1797, for some time about the end of February or
the beginning of March, in that year the whole town was put into the utmost fright, confusion and excitement. Two French frigates having landed in Cardigan Bay upwards of 2,000 men, it was reported in Liverpool (the report being traced to the master of a little Welsh coasting smack, who had come from Cardigan) that the French were marching on to Liverpool to burn, sack and plunder it, in revenge for the frigates which had been launched from her yards, and the immense losses sustained by the French mercantile marine through the privateers that hailed from this port. Owing to the low state of education then prevalent amongst the lower—and, indeed, in the middle classes—very few knew where Cardigan Bay was situated and I very much question whether, if a map of Europe, or of England and Wales, had been shown, nine people out of ten could, without much difficulty, have pointed out the place. But that the French had landed in Cardigan Bay was a known fact; and it was firmly believed that they were on their way to Liverpool, destroying every thing on their march. It was fully believed also that the privateers which swarmed out of our docks were the cause of this exhibition of ill-feeling towards us. It may be fairly stated that the enormous sums obtained by captures from the enemy by Liverpool privateers proved the main foundation-stone of the present great
prosperity of the port. I must say I was and am proud of my fellow townsmen’s spirit in ’97, and their show of pluck. No sooner was the report current that the French might be expected, than meetings took place at which his Worship the Mayor and the authorities generally, exhibited the most lively feeling towards supporting their fellow citizens in their intention of defending the port, their homes, and hearths, from the ruthless invaders. Men, money, and arms, came forth freely, and even boys—mere lads—urgently begged to be allowed to join the ranks of England’s bold defenders. But I must not conceal the fact that, in many cases, great cowardice was exhibited; as, when the report got current and the cry was rife that “the French were coming”—a cry that used to frighten naughty children to the verge of terror—numbers of the inhabitants became panic-struck, and actually packed up their furniture and valuables, and commenced a hasty exodus believing that they would be safer inland than by the seaboard. I saw cartload after cartload of goods, toiling up Prescot-road, Brownlow-hill, Mount Pleasant, Oldhall-street, and Preston-road, accompanied by weeping and terrified women and children, with the deepest anxiety exhibited on their countenances. The outskirt roads were like a fair. It will scarcely be believed that the price of cartage rose so high while the panic lasted,
that fabulous sums were asked and obtained for transporting goods out of town. It at length became impossible to obtain a vehicle of any description. Hundreds of persons might be seen camping along the high roads at some distance from the town, anxiously awaiting the expected sound of cannon, the clash of arms, and the cry of contending men. I laugh at this now—but it was no laughing matter then. I recollect one day passing down Dale-street (then a narrow, inconvenient thoroughfare) to muster, when the Warrington and Manchester coach was about to start: numbers of frightened people besieged it and attempted to turn out and off those who had obtained possession of its lumbering inside and its miserable basket behind. In it I remember was seated a tremendous man, a town councillor, who fairly roared and cried like a child because the driver would not hasten his departure—the cry of “the French” annihilated him, and I had half a mind to let off my fire-lock and see what the result would have been. We were not much addicted to punctuality in those good old times; so that half an hour’s delay in the starting of a coach was held as nothing very important—the delay however seemed a year to the worthy magnate.
In the town the utmost excitement prevailed. At the Pier Heads, at the Fort, and in St.
Nicholas’s churchyard (in the lower part of which there was a battery of six guns) might have been seen hundreds of stalwart fellows strengthening the fortifications; men in and out of uniform were marching through the town with drum and fife, some armed and some unarmed, coming and going from or to the rendezvous. The jolly sailors in the port mustered strong, and hearty were their demonstrations of enthusiasm. The shops were shut in many of the streets, while barricades were prepared at the street ends leading out of town, ready to be put up at any moment. Information was then so slow in its journeyings that falsehood became as strong-looking as truth, and it was easy to keep up a ferment for some time. Any atom of news became a mountain, until the fresh air of truth melted it away. We were therefore kept for days in a state of great excitement, and it certainly was some time before our warlike spirit subsided, and I must say that although we were somewhat laughed at for our extraordinary haste in coming to the conclusions we did, we had nothing to be ashamed of. We Liverpool men showed our pluck on that and many other occasions during the French war. I fear we were a little too much alive. We had too much pugnacity about us if anything. I recollect some poor simple looking French fishermen in that year put into Liverpool, in order to sell some