de a
receptive seed-bed for the writings of Paine also hampered the progress
of Brunswick towards the Argonne, crowded his hospitals with invalids,
and in part induced that inglorious retreat. As the storms lasted far
into the autumn, disaffection increased apace.

The results serve to enliven the dull tones of our Home Office archives.
There one reads of bread riots and meal riots so far back as May 1792,
in which stalls are overturned and despoiled; also of more persistent
agitation in the factory towns of the North. Liverpool leads off with a
dock-strike that is with difficulty ended. Then the colliers of Wigan
stop work and seek to persuade all their comrades to follow their
example. Most threatening of all is the situation at Manchester and
Sheffield. There, in addition to disorder among the townsfolk,
disaffection gains ground among the troops sent to keep order. This
again is traceable to the dearness of food, for which the scanty pay of
the trooper by no means suffices. Here, then, is the opportunity for the
apostle of discontent judiciously to offer a cheap edition of the
"Rights of Man," on which fare the troop becomes half-mutinous and sends
in a petition for higher pay. This the perplexed authorities do not
grant, but build barracks, a proceeding eyed askance by publicans and
patriots as the beginning of military rule.[93]

The South of England, too, is beset by fears of a novel kind. After the
overthrow of the French monarchy on 10th August fugitives from France
come fast to the coasts of Kent and Sussex. The flights become thicker
day by day up to the end of that fell month of September. Orthodox
priests, always in disguise, form the bulk of the new arrivals. As many
as 700 of them land at Eastbourne, and strain the hospitality of that
little town. About as many reach Portsmouth and Gosport, to the
perplexity of the authorities. When assured that they are staunch
royalists and not apostles of Revolution, the commander allots shelter
in the barracks at Forton, where for the present they exist on two pence
a day each. Plymouth, which receives fewer of them, frowns on the
newcomers as politically suspect and economically ruinous. The mayor
assures Dundas that, if more priests arrive, or are sent there, they
will be driven away by the townsfolk for fear of dearth of corn. In
Jersey the food question eclipses all others; for 2,000 priests (so it
is said) land there, until all ideas of hospitality are cast to t