Welsh Journals

THE FRENCH INVASION OF PEMBROKESHIRE IN 1797: A BICENTENNIAL ASSESSMENT THE FRENCH invasion of Pembrokeshire in February 1797 was a very short-lived and relatively pacific affair, but it caused a considerable stir at the time and it later acquired fame as 'the last invasion of Britain'. In 1997 the bicentenary of the invasion was enthusiastically com- memorated by the people of Pembrokeshire, with many special events and the creation of an embroidered tapestry of the invasion. In recent years there has been a growth of public interest in the invasion and several new studies have been published.2 Nevertheless, most modern accounts of the invasion, or references to it, have belittled its importance. Sir John Clapham, for example, referred to 'a handful of men' who landed from a French frigate-a gross underestimate of the invading force which was repeated verbatim in a 1997 bicentenary article.3 The landing has often been presented as almost a comic episode, a mixture of French farce and Welsh flannel. One modern study was entitled Fishguard Fiasco; another called the invasion 'the greatest fiasco in the entire history of projected invasions against the British Isles'; while a third described the landing as 'foolhardy, not to say farcical'. Even a distinguished historian from Pembrokeshire, I An earlier draft of this paper was delivered to a meeting of the Fishguard Historical Society in 1997. I wish to thank the chairman, Ken Williams, and the vice-chairman, W J. Fowler, for their invitation on that occasion. I also wish to thank Dr David W Howell for his comments on that paper. 2 See, for example, Pamela Horn, The Last Invasion of Britain, Fishguard 1797 (Fishguard, 1980); W. H. Fowler, The French Invasion of Fishguard (Dyfed Education Department, n.d.); Phil Carradice, The Last Invasion: The Story of the French Landing in Wales (Pontypool, 1992). 3 Sir John Clapham, The Bank of England: A History, Vol. I (1694-1797) (Cambridge, 1944), p. 272; Kevin Barry, 'Paper money and English Romanticism: literary side-effects of the last invasion of Britain', Times Literary Supplement, 21 February 1997.