MARITIME HISTORY 



Hitherto France and Spain have been the only two powers that have threatened an invasion of 

 England from the south ; and Cornwall, being the nearest to Spain and opposite the great military ports 

 of Brittany and the Bay of Biscay, was thought to be peculiarly exposed to danger. As a fact, it has never 

 experienced anything more serious than inconsiderable raids, and that portion the Scilly Islands which 

 for two centuries Cornish men were constantly representing to the Government as especially subject to 

 assault and especially attractive to an enemy, has never been attacked at all since the Viking era. These 

 islands, although extremely dangerous of approach, often shrouded in sea fog, with an anchorage 

 exposed to the full force of the frequent westerly gales, and, at least in former days, unable to supply 

 a fleet with water or provisions, might possibly have served as a temporary base for an enemy who 

 had obtained the command of the Channel and was bent on destroying commerce. But, of old, an 

 enemy having obtained such command would have used it for a purpose more important than 

 commerce destruction, and the Scillies are useless for invasion. The tactical value of the islands has 

 never been tested, because no modern enemy has ever held the command of the Channel long enough 

 to make use of them ; but it is obvious that their safety, like that of the Channel Islands, depends not 

 on the forts and garrisons for which successive governors pleaded, but on sea power, and that their 

 possession stands or falls with the supremacy of the British Navy. 



No part of the mainland of Cornwall can be described as offering particular facilities for 

 invasion, but nature has marked out sharply between the north and south coasts the divergence from 

 mere peril to infinite risk. From the sea mark on St. Martin's Island, Scilly, to the north-west 

 extremity of Cornwall is a stretch of some 85 miles of reefs, sands, and foul and rocky cliff : grim and 

 forbidding under the most favourable conditions ; almost certain destruction when, as frequently 

 happens, it is a lee shore in gales from west round to north-east. In this length of coast there are 

 only two harbours : St. Ives, dangerous in winds from north to east, and Padstow, difficult or even 

 hazardous of entrance, while neither affords shelter for any craft much bigger than a coaster. 1 It is 

 therefore not surprising that we do not hear of the appearance of an enemy on this coast except in 

 the shape of an occasional privateer. The southern seaboard has proved sufficiently fatal to mariners, 

 but compared with that of the north it offers spacious bays, sheltered anchorages, and safe harbours, of 

 which the best Falmouth seemed at one moment likely to become the chief military and commercial 

 port of the west. There are no statistics available, but it is not unlikely that half the wrecks that occurred 

 in early times on the southern shores of Cornwall were due directly or indirectly to the Lizard, and 

 the reputation of the promontory has affected the whole coast ; but the Lizard itself has been the 

 salvation of vessels caught under certain conditions of wind and situation. On the whole, however, 

 we have a county rock-bound and studded with reefs, projecting into the English Channel in such a 

 direction as to form a trap for vessels driving down before easterly gales, or entering, whether from 

 the south or north, before westerly ones, and with the jagged mass of the Lizard jutting out as the 

 tongue of the trap to ensure destruction. In the middle ages such a coast, uncharted and unlighted, 

 was safe enough from attack for eight months out of the year, for it requires little imagination to 

 picture the reflections of the foreign seaman who found himself off it on a black winter night or 

 approaching it during the short and dark winter day. 



From the point of view of the invader the ports that would tempt him afford compensating 

 advantages to the defender. Falmouth could shelter an invader's fleet, but many thousands of men 

 and many batteries in outlying positions would be necessary to protect the Carrack Roads from the 

 defender's attack. Fowey could have received the fleet of a mediaeval invader, but there also the same 

 network of outlying positions would be required, though on a smaller scale. But the great disadvantage 

 of the county from the invader's standpoint is the distance from any vital centre to -which he must 

 force his way before commencing decisive operations ; while the rugged character of the interior, 

 offering the defender excellent military positions, would make his advance slow and costly. More- 

 over, the invader of Cornwall would have had great difficulties of transport to reckon with, for the 

 county was probably one of the most backward in England in the construction of roads for wheeled 

 carriages. 



1 In the twenty-four years 1823-46 there were 131 vessels lost between the Land's End and Trevose 

 Head, a distance of little more than 40 miles (Par!. Papers, 1859, x, pt. i, 331). Of course steam has largely 

 diminished these risks. 



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