And, mainly through his exertions, an able corps was formed, consisting of a company and a half at Much Wenlock, a company and a half at Broseley, and half a company at Little Wenlock; altogether forming a battalion of 280 men. For the county altogether there were raised 940 cavalry, 5,022 infantry; rank and file, 5,852. Mr. Harries, of Benthall; Mr. Turner, of Caughley; Mr. Pritchard and Mr. Onions, of Broseley; Messrs. W. and R. Anstice, of Madeley Wood and Coalport; Mr. Collins, Mr. Jeffries, and Mr. Hinton, of Wenlock; and others, were among the officers and leading members. The uniform was handsome, the coat being scarlet, turned up with yellow, the trousers and waistcoat white, and the hat a cube, with white and red feathers for the grenadiers, and green ones for the light company. The old hall once more resounded with martial music, the clang of arms, and patriotic songs; drums and fifes, clarionets and bugles, were piled up with guns and accoutrements in the form of trophies, above the massive chimney-piece, putting the deer-horns, the foxes’ heads, and the old cabinets of oak—black as ebony—out of countenance by their gaudy colouring. People became as familiar with the music of military bands as with the sound of church bells; both were heard together on Sundays, the days generally selected for drill, for heavy taxes were laid on, and people had to work hard to pay them, which they did willingly. The Squire had the women on his side, and he worked upon the men through the women. There was open house at Willey, and no baron of olden time dealt out hospitality more willingly or more liberally. The Squire was here, there, and everywhere, visiting neighbouring squires, giving or receiving information, stirring up the gentry, and frightening country people out of their wits. Boney became more terrible than bogy, both to children and grown-up persons; and the more vague the notion of invasion to Shropshire inlanders, the more horrible the evils to be dreaded. The clergy preached about Bonaparte out of the Revelations; conjurers and “wise-men,” greater authorities even then than the clergy, saw a connection between Bonaparte and the strange lights which every one had seen in the heavens! The popular notion was that “Boney” was an undefined, horrible monster, who had a sheep dressed every morning for breakfast, who required an ox for his dinner, and had six little English children cooked—when he could get them—for supper! At the name of “Boney” naughty children were frightened, and a false alarm of his coming and landing often made grown-up men turn pale.
“This way and that the anxious mind is torn.”
The impulse was in proportion to the alarm; the determination raised was spirited and praiseworthy. Stout hearts constituted an impromptu force, daily advancing in organization, with arms and accoutrements, ready to march with knapsacks to any point where numbers might be required. Once or twice, when a company received orders to march, as to Bridgnorth, for instance, an alarm was created among wives, daughters, and sweethearts, that they were about to join the battalion for active service, and stories are told of leave-takings and weepings on such occasions. Beacons were erected, and bonfires prepared on the highest points of the country round, as being the quickest means of transmitting news of the approach of an enemy. Of these watch-fire signals, Macaulay says:—
“On and on, without a horse untired, they hounded still
All night from tower to tower, they sprang from hill to hill,
Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o’er Derwent’s rocky dales,—
Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales,—
Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern’s lonely height,—
Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin’s crest of light—
Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Elsig’s stately fane,
And tower and hamlet rose in arms o’er all the boundless plain.”
Within a mile of Willey Hall a tenant of Squire Forester, and, as we have seen, an occasional guest—John Wilkinson, “the great ironmaster”—was urging his men day and night to push the manufacture of shot, shell, howitzers, and guns, which Mr. Forester believed were for the government of the country, but many of which were designed for its enemies. Night and day heavy hammers were thundering, day and night the “great blast” was blowing. He was well known to the French government and French engineers, having erected the first steam engine there in 1785, for which he was highly complimented by the Duke d’Angouleme, M. Bertrand, and others, and treated to a grand banquet, given to him on the 14th of January, 1786, at the Hôtel de Ville. Arthur Young, in his travels in France, tells us that until this well-known English manufacturer arrived the French knew nothing of the art of casting cannon from the solid, and then boring them. When Wilkinson returned to England, he continued to send guns after war had been declared. This clandestine proceeding came to the knowledge of Squire Forester, who swore, and roared like a caged lion. Here was the Squire, who boasted of his loyalty to good King George, having the minerals of his estate worked up into guns for those wretched French, whom he detested. He declared he would hunt Wilkinson out of the country; but the latter took care to keep out of his way.
The exposure ended in a seizure being made. But Wilkinson, a money-getting, unprincipled fellow, finding he could not send guns openly, sent best gun-iron in rude blocks, with a pretence that they were for ballast for shipping, but which, like some of his water-pipes, were used for making guns. His warehouse was at Willey Wharf, on the Severn, by which they were sent, when there was sufficient water, in barges, which took them out into the British Channel, and round the coast to French cruisers; and it was at this wharf he built his first famous iron barge. The proprietors of the Calcutts furnaces, at which young Cochrane, afterwards Earl Dundonald—one of the last of our old “Sea Lions”—spent some time, when a boy, with his father, Lord Dundonald, [171] were also casting and boring guns; but, in consequence of refusing to fee Government servants at Woolwich, the manufacturers had a number of them thrown upon their hands, which they sold to a firm at Rotherham, and which found their way to India, where they were recognised by old workmen in the army, who captured them during the Sikh war. At the same time cannon which burst, and did almost as much damage to the English as to their enemies, were palmed off upon the nation.
Mr. Forester wrote to the Duke of York, who came down, accompanied by the Prince of Orange, to examine the guns for himself; and a number of 18 and 32-pounders were fired in honour of the event. Others were subjected to various tests, to the entire satisfaction of the visitors.
At this period the Willey country presented a spectacle altogether unparalleled in Mr. Forester’s experience; his entire sympathy and that of his fox-hunting friends was enlisted in the warlike movements everywhere going forward, for the standards of the Wenlock and Morfe Volunteers now drew around them men of all classes. Farmers allowed their ploughs to stand still in the furrows, that the peasant might hurry with the artisan, musket on shoulder, to his rallying point in the fields near Wenlock, Broseley, or Bridgnorth. Whigs and Tories stood beside each other in the Volunteer ranks, heart-burnings and divisions as to principles and policy were for the time forgotten, and the Squire, although now unable to take the same active part he formerly did, contributed materially by his presence and advice to the zeal and alacrity which distinguished his neighbours.
CHAPTER XV.
THE WILLEY SQUIRE AMONG HIS NEIGHBOURS.
The Squire among his Neighbours—Roger de Coverley—Anecdotes—Gentlemen nearest the Fire in the Lower Regions—Food Riots—The Squire quells the Mob—His Virtues and his Failings—Influences of the Times—His Career draws to a Close—His wish for Old Friends and Servants to follow him to the Grave—That he may be buried in the Dusk of Evening—His Favourite Horse to be shot—His Estates to go to his Cousin, Cecil Weld, the First Lord Forester.