MARITIME HISTORY 



Scilly being reduced to thirty and Pendennis to twenty pieces. 1 Subsequent papers show that this 

 order cannot have been carried out absolutely, but it may denote the date when the many earthen 

 batteries defending St. Mary's were disarmed. In 1729 Pendennis was in a dilapidated state, there 

 was no accommodation for a garrison, and it was noticed that the powder magazine was on the 

 roof, 'a most dangerous place.' 2 During the wars of 1739-63 guns were issued to most of the 

 ports for defence against privateer attacks, on condition that they constructed the batteries and 

 provided ammunition themselves. In Cornwall Looe had fourteen, Fowey twenty-one, St. Ives 

 sixteen, Helston (? Helford) ten, and Penzance twenty. 3 In 1765 Captain Henry Graeme wrote to 

 the Secretary of War that Star Castle ' in its present condition is not only open to every insult from 

 the enemy but equally exposed to the wanton sallies of the drunken and idle.' A considerable 

 quantity of stores was protected by only ' the shadow of a garrison.' The Scillies mounted sixty- 

 five, Pendennis forty-six, and St. Mawes twelve guns, and the last two were in as bad circumstances 

 as the first, nothing having been done to them since I732. 4 It has been noticed that the county 

 did but little in the way of building men-of-war for the government, but a return of private 

 shipbuilding yards in 1804 shows that there was a sufficient number of them to satisfy local 

 requirements. The builders named are Thomas Shepherd (and another unnamed) of Fowey ; 6 

 Thomas Johns of Cadgwith, William Brilham of Coverack, Richard Symons, and J. and R. Symons 

 and Co. of Falmouth, Kempthorne of Helford, Mynerd of Looe, J. Melhuish, Dunn and Henna, 

 and T. Shepherd of Mevagissey, James Matthews of Newlyn, Richard Dingle of Penryn, Rundle 

 and Bone of Polperro, T. Bullock and J. Matthews of Penzance, M. Withell, John Williams, 

 John Brabyn, Thomas Pearce, G. Sloggett, G. Rame, and John Tredwyn of Padstow, Barnet and 

 Alexander Banfield of St. Mary's, Scilly, one unnamed at St. Agnes, one unnamed at St. Ives, John 

 Lane, Richard Hawkins, Richard Roberts, and N. Jennings of St. Mawes, John Matthews and 

 John Stevens of St. Michael's Mount. Many of these builders employed only two or three 

 shipwrights and as many apprentices, with no doubt some subsidiary workmen. The largest firms 

 were the Symons family of Falmouth, employing respectively fifty-six and twenty-nine shipwrights 

 and apprentices. 



Beyond the permanent mining industry the prosperity of Cornwall in general, and of Falmouth 

 in particular, during the eighteenth century, was largely based on the packet service and on the 

 practice of smuggling which grew up with it and was carried on to an extraordinary extent. All 

 early smuggling was confined to the illicit export of wool and prohibited wares, and the modern 

 form was consequent on the heavy duties necessitated by the wars that followed the Revolution. 

 By opportunity and position Cornwall was exceptionally well favoured for the enjoyment of the 

 trade. Its boats could meet East Indiamen making the Channel and obtain rich wares in small 

 compass ; a run to the Channel Islands, St. Malo, or Roscoff was a pleasant excursion ; the influence 

 of the interests connected with the Falmouth packets was stronger in the county than that of the 

 government, so that not only Cornishmen engaged in the traffic, but it attracted boats from the 

 eastern Channel. The trade was not organized in the same way as that worked by the big 

 companies exporting from Dunkirk, Flushing, and Ostend, whose vessels sailed as regularly and 

 systematically as an ordinary cargo line of to-day ; but undoubtedly large cargoes were run, and 

 very often, and, from the point of view of economics, it is puzzling that the supply never seemed to 

 overtake the demand. Cornwall was not a wealthy county, and the requirements can only have 

 been local ; with the exception of certain articles obtained from Indiamen, of high value in small 

 bulk, the cost of transport for any distance would have been prohibitive ; therefore tea and spirits, 

 always the principal commodities, must have been sold and used within a short distance from the 

 coast. The law offered little hindrance ; very often, when the revenue officers were not terrorized, 

 they' wore fog spectacles with bank-paper shades,' of which the dismissal in 1693 of Captain Griffith 

 Bowen, the collector at Padstow, for taking bribes, offers an early example. 6 The trade developed so 

 quickly that in 1696 it was necessary to establish a revenue station at the Scillies. Two years later 

 revenue vessels were placed round the coast, but there were only two from Plymouth to the Land's 

 End, and one from the Land's End to Bideford. 7 This measure proved so useless that in 1717 it 

 was proposed to withdraw them and to trust to riding officers ashore, 8 but the potency of the riding 

 officers may be judged by an instance in 1733 when seven of them met a gang near Falmouth, and 

 were attacked and routed by the smugglers. Both sloops and riding officers were continued, but to 

 little purpose. In 1735 some rum was seized in a barn near Fowey, and on its way to the custom 

 house was carried off by an armed party ; ' if the officers attempt to make any seizure they go in 



1 W. O. Ord. Estab. i. * Ibid. Estimates, xix. 



s Ho. Off. Ord. v, 29. The battery at Penzance cost the corporation 214 is. and was armed in 1741 

 (Boase, Coll. Cornubiejisis, 1542). 4 Ho. Off. War Off. v, 5^, 47^. 



6 In 1761 the harbour rates at Fowey were leased by the Lostwithiel Corporation to Thos. Nicholls, 

 shipwright, for 6 a year (Lostwithiel Corp. MS. 331). 



6 Treas. Papers, xii, 59. ' Treas. Bd. Papers, Iv, 75 ; Ivi, 12. 8 Treas. Papers, ccx, 5. 



I 505 64 



