War broke out and Napoleon formed a great camp at Boulogne for invading England. This aroused a remarkable outburst of patriotism, and led to the enrolment of an army of three hundred thousand Volunteers. We, who sometimes discuss, merely as a theory, the possibility of an invasion of England, can form a very inadequate idea of how terribly real was the Napoleonic bogie to our great-grandfathers! They knew that "Boney" was a character who would stop at nothing in carrying out his designs, and so it came about that the shadow of that collossal stride of the Corsican adventurer, darkened the homes in every town, village, and hamlet in this land, and you cannot even to this day turn over the pages of old parish records, or stir the placid waters of old men's memories, without finding traces of this old ghost which Wellington wrestled with so terribly on the fields of Waterloo! There was, in Napoleon's work, an over-mastering will to accomplish, at whatever cost, the purpose he set himself, and our great-grand-fathers, with all their contempt for the French, had the sense to recognise something of what Wellington afterwards so well expressed of the man, Napoleon Buonaparte,--"I used to say of him that his presence on the field made a difference of forty thousand men." Of more interest even than the enrolment of the Volunteers were the measurers taken for local defence and for the protection of the civil population and property--the women and children and livestock. This was taken up as a complete organization, county by county, hundred by hundred, town by town, and village by village. In the month of July, 1803, we find the Deputy-Lieutenants of Cambridgeshire, thirty-four in number, meeting at Cambridge, and adopting an address to the King, expressing determination to support him in the war with France. Sir Edward Nightingale, Bart., of Kneesworth House, presided. It was resolved to adopt the measures indicated for establishing a system of communications throughout each county, and also for rendering the body of the people instrumental for the general defence in case of an invasion. Also that the several hundreds in the county be formed into divisions with a lieutenant over each, to report to, and act in concert with the County Lieutenancy, that the lieutenant for each division {64} appoint an inspector for each hundred, and that the inspector for each hundred appoint a superintendent for each parish. For the division of the county formed by the union of the hundreds of Armingford (Royston district), Longstowe, Wetherby and Thriplow, Hale Wortham, Esq., was the responsible lieutenant. [Illustration: NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.]