A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



and pitched their tents along the coast west of the town. For the sake 

 of effect they were spread out in a long Hne, with the result that the 

 North Devon and East Middlesex regiments had to encamp on a newly- 

 ploughed field, though there was excellent turf a little inland/ 



The number of the Sussex militia was fixed by the 42nd Geo. III. 

 cap. 90, at 803, each of the six rapes having its quota, and Brighton also. 

 Its actual strength (counting, probably, the officers) was 840 strong, and 

 the question of its transport was a serious one, as the tents were cumbersome 

 and no limits were set to the impedimenta of the militia if they chose 

 to pay for wagons ; as in the case of some of our more recent wars, it 

 was then said ' the Baggage waggon of a militia regiment resembles 

 more the Removal of the Household Furniture of a Family than that 

 of the Military Stores of an Army.' ^ Commissariat troubles also arose 

 occasionally, and in April 1795 the Oxford militia stationed at Blatch- 

 ington, resenting an insufficiency of food, mutinied, seized all the 

 bread, flour and meat they could find at Seaford and in Bishopstone 

 tide-mill, and then occupied Newhaven, where they were disarmed 

 by the Lancashire Fencibles from Brighton and the Horse Artillery from 

 Lewes. For this mutiny two men were shot at Goldstone Bottom near 

 Brighton.^ 



Besides the great camp at Brighton, which in the autumn of 1794 

 contained about 15,000 men, there were troops stationed at Chichester, 

 Arundel, Worthing, Seaford, Alfriston, Lewes, East Grinstead, East- 

 bourne, Hailsham, Pevensey, Bexhill (occupied for some time by 

 Hanoverian soldiers). Battle, Hastings and elsewhere. While the 

 danger of invasion was greatest, in 1803—4, and a descent was expected 

 upon the flat coast of Pevensey Bay, a large camp was formed at East- 

 bourne under General Sir James Pulteney, entrenchments were thrown 

 up along the coast for the emplacement of ninety-four 24-pounders, and 

 the famous Martello towers, still to be seen, were erected on the coast 

 from the Kentish border westward to Seaford. The Pevensey sluices 

 were arranged so that the levels could be inundated, and the ' military 

 canal ' cut to cover the marshes east of Hastings. Extra temporary 

 barracks were erected for 200 cavalry and 900 infantry at Hastings, and 

 for the same number at Eastbourne. At last in October 1804 the 

 Eastbourne camp broke up after a grand sham fight in which four 

 regiments of foot, two squadrons of dragoons and the Sussex, Dorset, 

 North Hants, Glamorgan and South Herts militia took part.* 



The Sussex militia marched from Beachy Head to Colchester, 

 and thence to South Shields, where in October 1806 the senior captain, 

 John Garthwaite,^ was court-martialled and dismissed for disrespectful 

 behaviour to Colonel Newbury, who had succeeded Lord Chichester in 

 the command. 



Of the auxiliary forces raised during this period the first tc be 



' Parry, Coast of Sussex, p. 67. = Pclham MSS. 



» Horsfield, Hist, of Lewes, i. 221. « Parry, Coast of Sussex, pp. 202-5. 



» He published an account of the court-martial and a defence of his own character. 



534 



