“SIR,—I have had the honour to lay before the Queen the memorial of the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates of the Castle Martin Yeomanry Cavalry (which you transmitted to me), and I have the satisfaction to inform you that Her Majesty is graciously pleased to approve of the corps bearing the word ‘Fishguard’ on their standard and appointments. “I have the honour to be, sir, “Your obedient servant, “PALMERSTON. “Sir John Owen, Bart., M.P.” It is satisfactory to state that the Castle Martin Yeomanry Cavalry still maintains its reputation for efficiency and smartness, its team of ten men having won the inter-regimental challenge cup, and proved themselves the best shots among the forty competing yeomanry regiments in 1890, Corporal Williams, of St. Florence, having made the highest score of any yeoman in the kingdom. Thus giving us—the inhabitants of Pembrokeshire—the satisfactory assurance that, should invaders land on our coast now, they would meet with at least as warm a reception as they did a hundred years ago. And this suggests the idea that, in this age of centenaries, this strange occurrence should not be forgotten, but that in 1897 the landing of the French at Fishguard should be duly celebrated. WEDNESDAY. _THE FIRST DAY_. CHAPTER I. THREE FRIGATES. In the year of our Lord, 1797, there was a right fair day in February. The day was a Wednesday, the twenty-second of the month, and it was indeed the most pleasant day for that harsh season of the year that I can call to mind on looking back through the course of a long life. But it was not only the unusual beauty of it that made that Wednesday in February a day of mark, or I might scarcely have kept it stored in a corner of my mind for seventy years well-nigh—remarkable as fine days are in this climate that is chiefly renowned for fine rain; but for the reason that this particular Wednesday was a day of utmost astonishment to all the dwellers on this North Pembrokeshire coast, and (I may venture to add) a day of much consternation to most of them. [Picture: The French Frigates] A day still remembered by old Welsh fishwives, and still used by them as a means of terror wherewith to hush to sleep unquiet grandbabes, or to stir to patriotism stout but supine grandsons.