198 KINGSBRIDGE 



disabled towards their shores, was openly rejoiced over by 

 the half-seafaring, half-agricultural population of the more 

 secluded cliffs and beaches of these two counties. The 

 rifling of the cargo was the first object, and it is even 

 said that sailors whom the waves had spared sometimes 

 encountered a worse fate than mere neglect."* 



"About the year 1772, a vessel returning from the West 

 Indies, called the Chantiloupe, was wrecked in Bigbury 

 Bay; all on board perished, with the exception of one man, 

 who was rescued by the humanity of a farmer, who lived 

 in the neighbourhood, of the name of Hannaford. Amongst 

 the other passengers there was a lady, who it is supposed, 

 seeing the desperate state of the vessel, put on her richest 

 gems and apparel, with the hope that if she were washed 

 towards the shore, those who found her might be induced 

 to save her. She was thrown by the sea on to the beach, 

 and they say that life was not extinct when she reached 

 it, but the savage people (from the adjacent villages) who 

 were anxiously waiting for the wreck, seized and stripped 

 her of her clothes ; they even cut off some of her fingers, 

 and mangled her ears in their impatience to secure her 

 jewels, and then left her miserably to perish ! A lady in 

 the neighbourhood, hearing the frightful tale, sent and had 

 the body removed from the sands where it was left, and 

 decently buried. It was supposed that the unfortunate lady 

 was married, and that she had attendants on board the 

 wrecked vessel, but her name was never known. The men 

 who were principally concerned in plundering, and most 

 likely murdering her, seemed from that time marked men, 

 even in the rude neighbourhood in which they lived, and 

 what is singular, they all three came to awful and untimely 

 deaths," 



* Dymoncl's "Early Records." 



