POLITICAL HISTORY 



that year, when the early successes of the Pretender's army alarmed the 

 country, it being found impracticable to embody the Sussex militia at 

 once, the gentry agreed to subscribe various sums, amounting to about 

 jr6,ooo, for the formation of a local force of volunteers, and a company 

 was accordingly raised in Lewes rape under Colonel Thomas Sergison.' 

 Thomas Hayley at the same time raised a company of foot known as the 

 Chichester Blues/ From 1758 to 1762 many of the county forces 

 were under arms, but the Sussex militia, who were at this time divided 

 into East and West regiments and numbered 800 men,^ were not 

 embodied until 1778/ 



Fear of a French invasion during 1778 and 1779 led to renewed 

 military activity. Plans were formed for isolating any troops that 

 might land, and depriving them of provisions by driving off all the cattle, 

 sheep and corn to certain inland depots, and thence still further inland 

 if necessary, and destroying everything that could not be removed. 

 Three regiments of dragoons were to be employed, with infantry, to 

 harass the enemy while this was being done, and certain places were to 

 be held as advance posts, such as HoUingbury and Cissbury Hills, Mount 

 Caburn, the windmills at Beeding, Beddingham and Highdown, the 

 castles of Arundel, Bramber and Pevensey, and Ore and Fairlight 

 churches." The gentry considered that the carrying out of these arrange- 

 ments should be left to the lord lieutenant and his county officers, and 

 protested strongly against its being put into the hands of General Peirson, 

 the commander of the district in which Sussex lay.* 



In 1779 the king sanctioned the raising of volunteers, and at a 

 meeting of the leading county men held at the White Hart, Lewes, in 

 November, it was agreed to raise 24 companies, each to contain at 

 least 70 rank and file.' Only Sussex men were to be enrolled ; the 

 officers were to be gentry, and the sergeants active young farmers or 

 their sons. Each company was to have three centres where the men 

 were to meet every Sunday after church, to be taught the use and care 

 of their firelocks. As no military punishments could be made use of, 

 any one misbehaving was to be expelled, and any appearing drunk to be 

 prosecuted for ' drunkenness on the Lord's day.' Prizes in kind to the 

 value of half-a-crown were to be given to each detachment every week 

 for shooting. Unfortunately no details of the troops then formed can 

 be discovered. 



The outbreak of the French Revolution was marked by a great 

 influx of refugees into Sussex, about 1,100 landing in 1792, and when 

 war broke out between England and France in 1793, and aliens were 

 compelled, as a military precaution, to leave the coast, many of these 

 settled at Lindrield and Cuckfield.^ In August 1793 a great camp was 

 formed at Brighton, and 7,000 men marched in from Ashdown Forest 



» Add. MSS. 33058, f. 4i;8. = Dallaway, Hist, of Western Sussex, i. l8l. 



» Add. MSS. 33058, f. 602. < Add. MSS. 33048, f. 307. 



B Pelham MSS. in library of Suss. Arch. Soc. ^ Ibid. ^ Ibid. 



8 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxv. 73. 



533 



