A HISTORY OF CORNWALL 



1722 a Dutch ship, stranded near Penzance, was first stripped and then burnt, so as to destroy all 

 evidence of the crime. 1 Two years later Defoe published his Tour through Great Britain, and 

 writes that when at the Scillies the sands were covered with people, after a blowing night, ' going 

 a shoring' in local phrase. This was comparatively harmless, but the Scillonians, he says, 'are 

 charged with strange, bloody, and cruel dealings even sometimes with one another, but especially 

 with poor distressed seamen when . . . they seek help for their lives and when they find the rocks 

 themselves not more merciless than the people who range about them for their prey.' Defoe's truth- 

 fulness may be challenged, but thirty years later a Cornishman of position, whose veracity cannot be 

 impugned, wrote still more trenchantly. 2 The wreckers, he noticed, were mostly tinners, who, 

 as soon as a ship was seen to be sailing near the coast, left their work, equipped themselves with 

 axes, and followed the vessel, often to the number of 2,000 men, in the hope that she would come 

 ashore. Sometimes the ship disappointed them, but if she did strike ' they'll cut a large trading 

 vessel to pieces in one tide and cut down everybody that offers to oppose them.' Borlase had seen 

 half-dead men stripped by them, and not long before they had killed a man near Helston who had 

 helped the king's officers. The chain of irrefutable testimony can be carried on to within living 

 memory. A Parliamentary Committee of 1839 reported that ' whilst on other parts of the English 

 coast persons assemble by hundreds for plunder on the occurrence of a wreck, on the Cornish coast 

 they assemble on such occasions in thousands.' They quote an instance of a wreck in Sennen Cove, 

 in 1838, at which 4,000 or 5,000 people assembled, and where the coastguard, unable to save the 

 cargo, were compelled to fire to save their lives. 3 Sometimes the crown had to redress an inter- 

 national wrong when justice could not be obtained in the county. In 1764 a French ship went 

 aground at Perranzabuloe, when not only was the whole cargo taken away, but the crew were 

 stripped to their shirts. Unable to obtain a hearing in Cornwall, the captain petitioned the crown 

 through the French ambassador, and was eventually awarded compensation. 4 France could protect 

 her subjects, but Holland had fallen too low. In 1760 a Dutch vessel stranded in Mount's Bay, 

 but could have been got off had not the people there forcibly prevented it, and after ' barbarously 

 using ' the crew, plundered and broke her up. 5 The officials could expect no assistance even from 

 the middle classes. When a ship was wrecked at Looe in 1751 the customs surveyor endeavoured 

 to form a guard of the townspeople, but instead of helping him they got out their carts and filled 

 them with cargo. 6 Rarely did a wrecker come before a court of justice, and then every effort 

 was made on his behalf. One man was so far unlucky in 1767, and Mr. Justice Yates, in 

 sentencing him to death, improved the occasion by addressing, not the prisoner, but those present in 

 court ' against so savage a crime.' Great exertions were made to save the condemned man through 

 the member for Launceston, who brought pressure to bear on Lord Shelburne, the Secretary of 

 State, urging that feeling was strong in the wrecker's favour, and that the situation was delicate 

 ' with voters of boroughs just before a general election.' To Lord Shelburne's honour a respite 

 was refused. 



As Plymouth grew in importance Cornwall ran still less risk of serious invasion, for a fortified 

 arsenal acts as a conductor in drawing towards itself the enemy's stroke. Moreover an invader 

 requiring a port as a base for the siege of Plymouth would be likely to prefer Dartmouth to Fowey. 

 The American War brought apparent danger, and in 1779 a combined French and Spanish fleet 

 was actually in command of the Channel, with orders to seize Portsmouth, the Isle of Wight, or 

 Plymouth. Sir Charles Hardy, with an inferior British force, was in the western channel, but, in 

 the words of Admiral Colomb, ' was always where he should not have been ' ; and the way was 

 thus left open for D'Orvilliers, who, on 16 August, was in sight of Plymouth. The panic and 

 preparations there belong to the history of Devon, but Cornwall so far shared in them as to send 

 her miners in hundreds down to the coast. The enemies of England never had a fairer chance, but 

 disease, incompetence, and maladministration rapidly destroyed the fighting value of the allied fleet, 

 and, after standing off and on along the Cornish shore, it returned without bringing Hardy to action 

 or carrying out anything but an aimless cruise. In another way Cornwall became closely interested 

 in the war by reason of the large number of American prisoners confined at Falmouth, Pendennis, 

 Penryn, and Bodmin ; a barn at Kergullack, between Penryn and Falmouth, had been hired for 

 the same purpose in I745, 7 and this continued in use until 1797, when Falmouth, as being too far 



1 Treas. Papers, ccxxxix, 6. 



' Lanisley Letters ; Geo. Borlase to Lieut.-General Onslow (Journ. of Roy. last, of Cornw. vi, 376). 



3 First Ref. of the Constabulary Force Com. 1839. A local association for the preservation of lives and 

 property from shipwreck had been formed, but had ceased to exist for want of support. 



1 Ho. Off. Papers, 24 Sept., 21 Nov. 1764 ; 15 Jan. 1766. 



' Annual Register. 6 Gent. Mag. 



7 In 1 747 ^ere were many French prisoners at Helston, who were ' mobbed and insulted,' and whom 

 the magistrates would not protect (Admir. Sec. Min. Iviii, 21 Dec. 1747). In 1778 Bowyer's Cellar at 

 Penryn was taken at 120 a year (Ibid. Ixxxvi). 



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