The prosperity of the town received a check about the middle of the fourteenth century, from the ambitious projects of Edward III. against France, which exposed this and other fishing towns of the southern coast to the occasional retaliation of that kingdom. The inhabitants’ boats were taken, and their fishery frequently interrupted. In 1377 the French burnt and plundered most of the towns from Portsmouth to Hastings; but no particular injury to the town is recorded of Brighton, at that period. When, however, there was the least appearance of danger, the coast Watch and Ward, called in the king’s mandate _Vigiliæ minutæ_, were called into service. Their duties were nocturnal, and seldom exacted, unless an immediate descent was apprehended. The watch consisted of men at arms, and _hobilers_ or _hoblers_, who were a sort of light cavalry that were bound to perform the service by the nature of their tenure. They were dressed in jackets called hobils, and were mounted on swift horses. The bold stand made against the French, in 1377, when they landed at Rottingdean, was principally by the watch and ward-keepers of the coast, which had been divided into districts, entrusted to the care of some baron, or religious house, by certain commissioners, called Rectores Commitatus. In the annals of the Prior of Lewes, and the Abbot of Battle, we find that those personages were several times placed at the head of an armed power, to oppose actual or threatened invasion. Certain borough hundreds were also obliged, under pain of forfeiture or other penalty, to keep the beacons in proper condition, and to fire them at the approach of an enemy, in order to alarm and assemble the inhabitants in the Weald.