THE OLD FEAR OF INVASION.
[To THE EDITOR OP TOR " SPIIICDATOR."1 SIR,—The following extract from a journal kept by my grandfather, Mr. John Lewis Mallet, who had in 1800 been appointed to a post in the Audit Office by Mr. Pitt in recog- nition of the services of his father, Mallet du Pan, as a writer against the Revolutionary Government of France, may amuse Your readers. He is describing the general enthusiasm at the fresh outbreak of the war in 1803—
The public cause came home to every man's heart, and in
these times of lukewarmness, radicalism, and discontent [1830J we can hardly understand the degree of personal feeling with which the people then entered into the war. Every arm and every purse were at the service of the country. So far as I am concerned, I may say with truth that I never made a greater sacrifice to public opinion and right feeling than in submitting for two or three years to the drudgery, fatigue, and almost intolerable tediousness of drill- ing, marching, mounting guard, and attending reviews and field days as a • Somerset House light infantry Volunteer.' I look back upon these patriotic exertions (for which no man was ever less fitted by nature and inclination than myself) with a sort of indescribable horror not that my blood was incapable of being stimulated to the right point, but from the weariness, formality, and companionship inseparable from such military exercises. It was sufficiently tedious to have to accoutre myself in a sort of masquerade dress, to carry a heavy gun, to trudge through the streets in all weathers exposed to the gaze and scorn of the town boys, to bear with the ignorance and conceit of our officers, to have one's cheek and whiskers singed every other day by one's next man, but what was truly grievous was the standing for hours together under arms, without any apparently, or at least immediately, useful object, to mount guard in the night on the terrace at Somerset House, pacing up and down in a sort of mock heroic mood, or to partake in the Navy Office hall of the festivities and vulgar jokes of such people as were to be found there drinking porter and lying on benches. I remember calling out, Who's there ?' one dark night between two and three o'clock, according to the sapient orders I had received, and with an authoritative voice, to a bargeman whose boat came in contact with the building; upon which old Oruffy replied, 'You silly fellow, what are you making such a clatter about this time of night ? ' The next step would have been to have shot the fellow, but shooting was not yet much in my line, besides that the good sense of the thing was all on his side. I therefore pocketed the affront !"
Truly on the eve of Trafalgar the advantages of "sea power" were not very apparent !—I am, Sir, &c., BERNARD MILLET.
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