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He made the most frantic appeals to the citizens for assistance to be rendered in every way: by sending reinforcements, by destroying supplies on the line of march of the invaders, by destroying the bridges over which they would have to cross, and by, in every way, obstructing the roads to their front.
Yet he was conscious that this was to be no easy triumph, no opportunity must be neglected, and his busy brain was full of schemes for bending circumstances to further his desires. A little later, as he slowly crossed one of the stone bridges towards the woods, he saw Barbara sitting on the terrace, and Sydney Fellowes standing before her reading from sheets of paper in his hand.
Not only were duties exacted on the highways, bridges, and at the fords, but those barons who were so fortunate as to have castles on a navigable river blocked the stream in such a way that the merchant could not bring his vessel through without a payment for the privilege.
Day and night the men worked at the breastworks and bridges. One-third of the army was employed constantly at these works, and the immense lines of intrenchments were marvels of achievements in engineering. These were all constructed under the fire of the enemy; no day passing without its skirmish. Soldiers were daily brought to the hospitals with wounds, even in the most quiet times.
Gorges were blocked with vast masses of rock rolled down from the mountain side at spots where the road wound along on the face of precipices; and where it had only been made by blasting, it was by similar means entirely destroyed. Bridges were broken down, every castle and town on the lines of retreat placed in a state of defense, and the cattle and provisions driven off to places of safety.
Opposite each officer, on the other side of the table, sat a woman he could not see. She might be young and beautiful, as many of them were. She might be white-haired and a great lady bearing an ancient title, from the faubourg across the bridges, but he heard only a voice.
Bridges were down, and the roads were mere quagmires, but these were small difficulties to nineteen seasoned men, riding for their lives. We bivouacked that night, and for four other nights, in those rocky and almost impassable woods with which that country abounds, and which seem devised for the security of the hunted.
In the spring of 1795, after a long continued fall of snow, a sudden thaw raised a heavy flood in the Severn, which carried away many bridges amongst others one at Bewdley, in Worcestershire, when Telford was called upon to supply a design for a new structure.
In return for good roads and bridges and the protection afforded by the Government, the natives were induced to give a certain amount of their time to the cultivation of coffee, sugar, indigo, and other crops. In this way they were taxed not in coin but in labour; and this system, known as the 'Culture System, has produced very good results, especially in Java and Madura.
But the average day of the farmer was solitary, and, except where politics meant bridges, roads, and material gifts, his outlook was limited by the physical strain of his daily life, and work and sleep followed too closely on each other's track to leave time for other things. M'Taggart has a quaint picture of a squatter, which must have been typical of much within the colony in 1839.
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