“Gentlemen,” he said, “you know very well that I have retired from the representation of the borough. I did so in the belief that I had discharged, as long as need be, those public duties I owe to my neighbours; and in the hope that I should be permitted henceforth to enjoy the pleasures of retirement. I parted with my hounds, and gave up hunting; but here I am, continually on horseback, hunting up men all round the Wrekin! The movement is general, and differences of feeling are subsiding into one for the defence of the nation. Whigs and Tories stand together in the ranks; and as I told the Lord-Lieutenant the other day, we must have not less than four or five thousand men in uniform, equipped, every Jack-rag of ’em, without a farthing cost to the country. (Applause.) There are some dastardly devils who run with the hare, but hang with the hounds, damn ’em (laughter); whose patriotism, by G—d, hangs by such a small strand that I believe the first success of the enemies of the country would sever it. They are a lot of damnation Jacobins, all of ’em, whining black-hearted devils, with distorted intellects, who profess to perceive no danger. And, by G—d, the more plain it is, the less they see it. It is, as I say, put an owl into daylight, stick a candle on each side of him, and the more light the poor devil has the less he sees.” (Cries of “Bravo, hurrah for the Squire.”) In conclusion he called upon the lawyer, the ironmaster, the pot maker, the artisan, and the labourer to drill, and prepare for defending their hearths and homes; they had property to defend, shops that might be plundered, houses that might be burned, or children to save from being brained, and wives or daughters to protect from treatment which sometimes prevailed in time of war. As a result of his exertions, a strong and efficient company was formed, called “The Wenlock Loyal Volunteers.” The Squire was major, and he spared neither money nor trouble in rendering it efficient. He always gave the members a dinner on the 4th of June, the birthday of George III., who had won his admiration and devotion by his boldness as a fox-hunter, no less than by his daring proposal, during the riots of 1780, to ride at the head of his guards into the midst of the fires of the capital. On New Year’s Day, that being the birthday of Major Forester, the officers and men invariably dined together in honour of their commander. The corps were disbanded, we believe, in 1802, for we find in a cutting from a Shrewsbury paper of the 12th of January, 1803, that about that time a subscription was entered into for the purchase of a handsome punch-bowl. The newspaper states that