John Ashton

“ Shooting, like hunting, was a totally different thing, in the first ten years of the century, to what it is now. There were no battues, no hot, and elaborate, luncheons, no being posted in “warm corners,” no army of beaters, no breech-loaders, and two attendants to load for you, and, at the end of a day’s sport, no waggon-loads of slain to be sent off to market to help pay, in some part, the expenses of breeding, and keeping, such a head of game. ”

“ We, in our day, [183] have been spoilt, by, almost suddenly, having had a road traffic thrown open to us, which renders every village in our Isles, of comparatively easy access, so that we are apt to look with disfavour on the old times. Seated, or lying, in the luxurious ease of a Pullman car—going at sixty miles an hour—it is hard to realize a tedious journey by waggon, or even an outside journey by the swifter, yet slow, mail or stage coach, with its many stoppages, and its not altogether pleasant adventures. ”

“ Volunteering even made them moral, and religious—teste the Times, September 3, 1803: “Since the formation of Volunteer Corps, the very manners of many have taken a more moral turn: public-houses are deserted for the drill, our churches are better frequented, profane swearing is banished, every man looks to his character, respects the Corps in which he is enrolled, and is cautious in all he says or does, lest he should disgrace the name of a British Volunteer.” ”

“ The shops were all shut in Brentford, and the road leading to London was lined on each side with crowds of idle spectators. It is impossible for any but those who have witnessed a Middlesex election to conceive the picture it exhibits; it is one continual scene of riot, disorder, and tumult. ”

“ France and England, by abusing their strength, may, for a long time yet, to the misery of all other nations, defer the moment of their absolute exhaustion; but I will venture to say, that the fate of all civilized nations depends on the end of a war which envelopes the whole world. ”

“ Another mob met in Monmouth Street, the famous old-clothes repository in St. Giles’s, but the Westminster Volunteers, and cavalry, dispersed them; and, the shops shutting very early—much to the discomfiture of the respectable poor, as regarded their Saturday night’s marketings—peace once more reigned. London was once more quiet, and only the rioters who had been captured, were left to be dealt with by the law. But the people in the country were not so quickly satisfied; their wages were smaller than those of their London brethren, and they proportionately felt the pinch more acutely. ”

“ Bonaparte threatens to invade us; he promises to enrich his soldiers with our property, to glut their lust with our Wives and Daughters. To incite his Hell Hounds to execute his vengeance, he has sworn to permit everything. Shall we Merit by our Cowardice the titles of sordid Shopkeepers, Cowardly Scum, and Dastardly Wretches, which in every proclamation he gives us? No! we will loudly give him the lie: Let us make ourselves ready to shut our Shops, and march to give him the reception his malicious calumnies deserve. Let every brave young fellow instantly join the Army or Navy ”

“ Genius of England, represented as Fame, seated in the clouds, and triumphing over Mortality; she displayed a centenary circle, one half of which showed the duration of the King’s reign up to that time, whilst rays from heaven illuminate a throne.
Not content with this, it was suggested that there should be a special costume worn on the occasion, and that gentlemen should dress in the “Windsor uniform,” i.e., blue frock coats, with scarlet collars, and the ladies’ dresses were to be of garter blue velvet, or satin, with head-dresses containing devices emblematical of the occasion. ”

“ There were some men attached to the different police courts, and there were the parochial constables with their watchmen; but, according to our ideas, they were the merest apology for a police. Indeed, our grandfathers thought so themselves, and Dr. Colquhoun wrote a book upon the inefficiency of the police, which made a great stir. It was felt that some better protection was needed, as may be seen from two contemporary accounts: “Two things in London that fill the mind of the intelligent observer with the most delight, are the slight restraints of the police, and the general good order. ”

“ I have, I hope, sufficiently proved to the world that I fear none of the chances of war; it, besides, presents nothing that I need to fear: peace is the wish of my heart, but war has never been inconsistent with my glory. ”

“ I am a man of such independence that I would not, willingly, be indebted to you for a single meal, and here you have forced on me a bushel. If I had been your greatest enemy, you could do nothing more severe, than to pulverize me; and, as I have given you no intentional offence, I must beg of you, in future, not to dust my jacket.’ This sally had all the effect for which it was intended, and, instead of exchanging cards, the affair ended, like some senatorial speeches, in a laugh. ”

“ The times, compared with our own, were so very different; Arts, Manufactures, Science, Social Manners, Police, and all that goes to make up the sum of life, were [vi] then so widely divergent, as almost to make one disbelieve, whilst reading of them, that such a state of things could exist in this Nineteenth Century of ours. In the first decade, of which I write, Steam was in its very babyhood; locomotives, and steamships, were only just beginning to be heard of; Gas was a novelty, and regarded more as an experiment, than the useful agent we have since found it ”

“ Drinking water was mainly supplied from pumps, both public and private, and when we see the arrangement of pumps, in the country, nowadays, how, in order to be near the house, they are, generally, thoughtlessly placed in close approximation to the cesspool—we can imagine, in some degree, what the supply of drinking water must have been like in crowded London, with its defective drainage, and its festering graveyards. ”

“ At one time all gun barrels were not only bright, but burnished—the date of the abolition of which, is fixed by the following—Morning Post, October 3, 1808: “The system of cropping the hair of the soldiers is on the point of being followed up by the adoption of a plan which will, no doubt, give equal satisfaction to the whole army: we mean the abolition of that absurd practice of polishing the arms, which, in some regiments, has been carried to such an excess as materially to injure the piece, and render it totally unfit for use in half the time estimated for fair wear in usual service. ”

“ If there be one Person so lost to all Love for his Country, and the British Constitution, as to suppose that his Person or his Property, his Rights and his Freedom, would be respected under a Foreign Yoke, let him contemplate the following Picture—not Overcharged, but drawn from Scenes afforded by every Country: Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Hanover, which has been exposed to the Miseries of a French Invasion. ”

“ We cannot rate him as a man, when so many means of future excellence are as yet unripened and undisclosed. When we mention that his step is firm and manly—his gesticulation free and unembarrassed—and his delivery and emphasis in general most correct, we speak of things which might, possibly, through tuition be acquired. But the intelligence of manner—the eloquence of the eye when speech was denied—the rapid yet judicious transitions from prostrate affliction to dignified resentment—are qualities which a Garrick might display, but which he never could transfuse. ”

“ The markets of the world had not then been opened—and among the marvels of our times, is the large quantity of wheat we import from India, and Australia. So great was this scarcity, that the King, in his paternal wisdom, issued a proclamation (December 3rd) exhorting all persons who had the means of procuring other food than corn, to use the strictest economy in the use of every kind of grain, abstaining from pastry, reducing the consumption of bread in their respective families at least one-third, and upon no account to allow it “to exceed one quartern loaf for each person in each week;” ”

“ Domingo, where it has perished to a Man, either by Disease or the Sword—and who, finally, as it were to fill the Measure of his Arrogance, has Dared to attack what is most dear and useful to civilized Society, the Freedom of the Press and the Freedom of Speech, by proposing to restrict the British Press and the Deliberations of the British Senate. ”

“ Cooke, the publican of the Swan, in Vere Street, Clare Market, and five others of the eleven miscreants convicted of detestable practices, stood in the pillory in the Haymarket, opposite to Panton Street. Such was the degree of popular indignation excited against these wretches, and such the general eagerness to witness their punishment that by ten in the morning, all the windows and even the roofs of the houses were [442] crowded with persons of both sexes; and every coach, waggon, hay-cart, dray, and other vehicle which blocked up great part of the streets, were crowded with spectators. ”

“ A market was built for the buyers and sellers, in which to transact their business; but old habits proved too strong, they would not use it, and “nothing less than military force constantly exercised would prevail over the obstinacy of habit.” The “high” market was from twelve to three.
It was a curious custom then, of course not in good houses, but in those of poor men, such as might be on the outskirts, and in the suburbs of the Metropolis, to strew the floor, say of the kitchen, and sometimes of the parlour, with silver sand. ”

“ As is observed in the Morning Post of the 3rd October, 1884: “The sensation produced yesterday among the populace was nothing equal to what might have been expected. The capture of half a dozen men-of-war, or the conquest of a colony, would have been marked with a stronger demonstration of joy. The illumination, so far from being general, was principally confined to a few streets—the Strand, the Haymarket, Pall Mall, and Fleet Street. In the last the Globe Tavern was lighted up at an early hour, with the word Peace in coloured lamps. ”

“ The “Invisible Girl” was exhibited in Leicester Square, and was “a globe of glass suspended by a ribbon, under which four tubes are adapted, but they do not communicate therewith, and are likewise insulated; by these, conversation is carried on with an invisible lady, who answers every question, breathes on you, and tells every visitor whatever they hold in their hands, in an instant. This exhibition is open from ten o’clock until six. Price of admittance, two shillings and sixpence.”
There were two famous out-door places of amusement, now no more, namely, Vauxhall, and Ranelagh. ”

“ And cards were still the staple entertainment both for men and women, at night. Naturally, the latter did not play for such high stakes as the men did; but they contrived to make, or lose, a sufficient sum, either to elate, or to depress them, and experience, as far as in them lay, all the fierce feelings of the gambler. Nay, some made a pitiful profit out of their friends—in the shape of “card money”—which meant that the players put so much, every game, into a pool (generally the snuffer tray) to pay for the cards, and something for the servants. ”

“ I conjure your Majesty not to deny yourself the happiness of giving peace to the world, nor to leave that sweet satisfaction to your children; for certainly there never was a more fortunate opportunity, nor a moment more favourable, to silence all the passions and listen only to the sentiments of humanity and reason. ”

“ Can you still suffer them to proceed in their extensive monopolies, while your children are crying for bread? No! let them exist not a day longer. We are the sovereignty; rise then from your lethargy. Be at the Corn Market on Monday.”
Small printed handbills to the same effect were stuck about poor neighbourhoods, and the chance of a cheap loaf, or the love of mischief, caused a mob of over a thousand to assemble in Mark Lane by nine in the morning. An hour later, and their number was doubled, and then they began hissing the mealmen, and cornfactors, who were going into the market. ”

“ If, however, the times were somewhat gross feeding, yet, early in the century, they also knew the pinch, if not of absolute hunger, yet of that which comes nigh akin to it—scarcity. As we have seen in the History of the decade, bread stuffs were, through bad harvests, very dear; and the strictest attention to economy in their use, even when mixed with inferior substitutes, practised. The unreasoning public laid the whole of the rise in price on the shoulders of the middle-men, or factors ”

“ The Morning Herald, July 14, 1802, thus speaks of the Middlesex election: “During the business of polling, the populace amused themselves in varieties of whimsicalities, one of which was the exhibition of a man on the shoulders [59] of another, handcuffed and heavily ironed, while a third was employed in flogging him with a tremendous cat-o’-nine-tails, and the man who received the punishment, by his contortions of countenance, seemed to experience all the misery which such a mode of punishment inflicts. ”

“ Take, for instance, the ox and sheep roasting at Windsor. Roasting beasts whole, is a relic of barbarism all but exploded in England, a type of that rude, and plentiful, hospitality which might be expected from a semi-civilized nation. As it is not probable that the custom will survive, and as the details may be useful for some antiquarian reproduction, I give the modus operandi in full, premising, that from all I have heard from those who have feasted upon an animal so treated, that it is very far from being a gastronomic treat, some parts being charred to a cinder, others being quite raw. ”

“ With hard taskmasters, badly constructed chimneys, and flues to sweep, and laborious work, climbing with back and knees; with a foul atmosphere, and lungs choked with soot, their young days must have been joyless. Of course we cannot blame the people then living, because they had not sufficient mechanical knowledge to abolish the climbing boy’s raison d’être. ”

“ It certainly has done us no harm, and if it kept up and nourished the flame of patriotism within their breasts, we are the gainers thereby, as there is no doubt but that the bold front shown by the English people, and the unwearying vigilance of our fleet, saved England from an attempted, if not successful, invasion. Upwards of 400,000 men voluntarily rising up in arms to defend their country, must have astonished not only Bonaparte, but all Europe ”

“ The Lords and Commons agreed to an address which they presented to the King on the 12th of May, and, on the 2nd of July, the King went in state to the House of Lords, and gave his Royal Assent to the Bill, which thus became law, and was to take effect on the 1st of January, 1801. The Royal Assent was a very commonplace affair—there were but about thirty Peers present, and it was shuffled in with two other Bills—the Pigott Diamond Bill and the Duke of Richmond Bill. There was no enthusiasm in England, at all events, over the Union, no rejoicings, no illuminations, hardly even a caricature. ”