Life must be filled up

In These Times is exactly what the title suggests, the story of what it was like to live through the French wars. By drawing extensively on private diaries and letters as well as works published at the time, Jenny Uglow has brought a wonderful sense of immediacy to the reaction to great events taking place overseas. In 1793, as in 1914 or 1939, the writers didn’t know what the outcome of the war would be and they express their fears freely. We learn how the war was affecting bankers, manufacturers, farmers, families. One word is constantly repeated: trade. When trade was good, the well-to-do prospered and the poor were fed. When it was bad, banks and businesses failed and ‘Soup kitchens were back in the streets.’ In bad times, people were quick to blame the government and to demand peace. ‘Cobbett and others were now attacking the aristocracy and landed classes as parasites living off the nation, profiting from the war, showing how they influenced elections and made vast sums out of posts, sinecures and fees, patronage, colonies and customs.’ There was a surprising amount of support for Napoleon; Hazlitt, for instance, never ceased to admire him.

I found it pleasing to read how very bloody minded the British were, then as now, at any infringement of what they then termed their ‘liberties’. The press gang, new taxes, the ‘Defence of the Realm Act, passed on 5 April 1798, (which) required county and parish officials to ask every man between fifteen and sixty about his willingness to fight in an invasion, and if he would do so outside his own area.’ were all vigorously attacked, on paper and in physical actions. These were turbulent times: mobs, riots, arson and general disturbances, all savagely put down. We may complain of constant surveillance, but we don’t have soldiers on street corners. Yet.
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