

MARITIME HISTORY 



the shore who were not liable to impressment. The order applied to the whole of Great Britain 

 and Ireland, but had especial reference to that stretch of coast, extending from Norfolk to Hampshire, 

 which fronts the continental centre, and is always particularly exposed to attack. The men were to 

 be volunteers and the principal inducement offered was that, while enrolled, the seafaring members 

 were free from the liability to be impressed ; they were under the command of naval officers and 

 were paid a shilling a day when on service. In 1798 there were two districts for Suffolk, but one 

 included part of Norfolk, as it extended from Cromer to Southwold ; it was served by one captain, 

 four lieutenants and 322 men. The other district reached from Southwold to Shotley with seven 

 officers and 346 men. 1 If, which is doubtful, it was worth anything it was a cheap defensive force, 

 the cost for Suffolk for the year ending 17 March, 1801 being only jf 2,694 12s. ^d? By that year 

 the total number enrolled in Suffolk had risen to 1,142 men, of which Gorleston supplied 250, 

 Lowestoft 234, Pakefield 44, Woodbridge 120, Aldeburgh 89, Southwold 203, and Walton 99.' 



When Napoleon collected his army and flotilla in Boulogne and the neighbourhood in 1801 

 the tension became acute and on 24 July St. Vincent wrote that the French preparations were 

 ' beginning to wear a very serious appearance.' On the same day Nelson, just returned from the Baltic, 

 was commissioned as commander-in-chief between Orfordness and Beachy Head. Besides a 

 squadron of men-of-war the Sea Fencibles were placed under his authority. A sixty-four gun ship 

 and smaller vessels were held ready in Hollesley Bay, and armed Thames barges placed at the mouths 

 of the Orford and Woodbridge rivers. It was now proposed to use the Sea Fencibles to man the 

 stationary ships and the flotilla at sea, but as early as 30 July Nelson found that ' they were always 

 afraid of some trick,' in other words, of being impressed for foreign service instead of being allowed 

 to go ashore when the immediate need was past. 4 Moreover, although they all expressed their readiness 

 to fight when the enemy appeared, they said that to leave their work indefinitely would mean the ruin 

 of their families. 5 Of the Gorleston men only twenty volunteered logo to sea, forty-eight offered them- 

 selves from Lowestoft and Pakefield, forty from Southwold, eight from Aldeburgh, but twenty-eight 

 out of thirty from Orford. 6 The district captain thought that the men would come forward on 

 occasion, but there seems to have been an implicit condition in their minds that they should be judges of 

 the occasion, for when the Orford volunteers were sent for they refused to serve except practically 

 within sight of their homes. Sir Edward Berry, who was commanding in Hollesley Bay, wrote 

 that the Sea Fencibles were ' a set of drunken good for nothing fellows, and I beg that none of them 

 may be sent to the Ruby.' 7 By 13 August the district captain reported that scarcely any volunteers 

 had appeared except fourteen from Woodbridge, and his remedy was to discharge the others from 

 the Sea Fencibles and press them in the usual way. Bad as is this record it is better for Suffolk 

 and Essex than for Kent and Sussex, from which no volunteers at all could be obtained. On the 

 same 13 August Nelson gave his opinion that if the French put to sea they would be destroyed 

 before they got ten miles out and that all danger of invasion was over. The reluctance of the 

 Sea Fencibles was, therefore, of little importance. When the war was renewed in 1803 the force 

 was reconstituted in deference to popular fears, but among professional men it was regarded with 

 contempt as a refuge for skulkers in the lower grades, and for officers who were paid better for doing 

 nothing on shore than their comrades were for working at sea. The outer ring of fleets, with a 

 great volunteer army at home, were relied upon for security until Trafalgar extinguished the 

 possibility of invasion. 



Hollesley Bay was much used as a man-of-war anchorage during the wars which began in 

 1793, but it had its risks and from 1807 Yarmouth and Lowestoft Roads were the head quarters for 

 the squadron on the station. The River Aide has some deep water pits inside, and in 1813 it was 

 proposed to form a new harbour, by a cutting at Orfordness, capable of receiving seventy-four gun 

 ships. The project was abandoned because the formation of a bar was considered certain. 8 The 

 operations in the North Sea rendered the speedy conveyance of intelligence of importance, therefore 

 from 1798 signal stations were established round the coast. The places selected were, Further 

 Warren near Bawdsey; Orford Castle ; Felixstowe ; Eastern Point, Orford Haven; Red House Warren 

 near Aldeburgh ; Beacon Hill, Dunwich ; Yoxford ; Easton Cliff; Gunton near Lowestoft ; and Kes- 

 singland. Later, all these stations, except Yoxford and Orford Castle, were links in a semaphore 

 telegraph system between Yarmouth and London. 9 



In 1796 it was proposed to defend the exposed portions of the coast, where a hostile landing 

 was comparatively easy, by the erection of martello towers, adapted from a type of fortification 



1 Par!. Papers (1857-8), xxxix, 337. ' Acct. Genl. Reg. xxi. 3 Add. MSS. 34918, fol. 223. 



1 Nicolas, Letters and Despatches, iv, 432 (Nelson to St. Vincent). 



6 ' They are no more willing to give up their work than their superiors.' Nelson to St. Vincent, 

 9 August. 



6 Add. MSS. 34918, fol. 122. ' Ibid. fol. 142. 



8 Suckling, Hilt. ofSufoik, i, v ; B.M. Suffolk, 10351, c. 24. 



9 Admir. Sec. Misc. dxci ; Admir. Acct. Gen. Misc. Var. 109, 



2 241 31 



