i6 
LAND & WATER 
March 30, 1916 
The Old Western Seaports 
By Arthur L. Salmon 
CENTURIES sinoc, when tho call of the country 
came, the old western ports heard it and replied 
manfully. It was usually a different foe then to 
be faced— it was "that sweet enemy, France," a? 
Sir I'liilip Sidney styled her, or it was the pride and power 
of Spain in her Rnatness. I'rom the creeks of Devon 
and Cornwall the boats sailed forth Kallantlv, y)artly 
for sheer love of lighting, but still more emphatically to 
strike a blow for the motherland. The old ports might 
quarrel among themselves as neighbours and rivals will - - 
there might be feud between West-countrymen and the 
stout seamen of the Cinque Ports — Cornishnun and 
Devonians might nurse their endless grievances and 
jealousies ; but all were one when there was an enemy 
to be faced and dauntless deeds to be done. 
At times these proud and high-stomached townships 
wouUl even dare to wage war on their own accounts, 
independent of national claims. "I am not at war 
with my brother of France," said one of the Edwards to 
the men of Fowey, on an occasion when the Cornish 
folk ignored a treaty of peace ; but " tvc are at war with 
F'rance " rephed tlic daring Fowey men. That was the 
spirit that fostered the British Navy, which has once again 
saved our land from the most imminent of perils ; a 
Navy born in pirac /, it may be, born without sensitive 
conscience or imp.?ding scruples, but born in great 
hardihood, high resolve, fearlessness of wind and wave, 
hungry for action and adventure. They are like it now, 
the men of these nestling sea-towns and almost land- 
locked riverways ; they give their grit and backbone to 
the navy, or they fight heroically in the trenches side by 
side with the landlubber who is equally heroic. 
Dreaming of the Past 
But the ships that now keep the Seven Seas come no 
longer from these old western seaports ; in a naval sense 
it is only Plymouth, in this corner of England, that 
counts for miich. The little ports that were once rela- 
tively so great, can now only lie and dream ; their sons 
have" heard the call, but they themselves are in a back- 
water. The elder men go fishing, the wives and mothers 
stay with a burden of fear at their hearts ; the children 
laugh and play on the old quaysides or in the precipitous 
narrow streets, not realising that, far off, the world's 
history is being shaped by their fathers and brothers. 
Very different from this was it in days when the 
island's history was shaped by the wooden vessels that 
shook their wings like seabirds in flight from these 
sheltering nests. They flew in flocks to the siege of 
Calais, as they flew later to confront the Armada ; and 
, if at times their exploits were simply in the nature of 
privateering, there were other times when all the spirit 
of national enterprise lay beneath their doings. It was 
not often that governments sought to interfere with their 
exploits ; rulers knew too well the value of these gallant 
seamen and their sturdy ever-ready ships, that would 
seem scarcely better than Ashing boats to-day. 
In the early days of Elizabeth, when the country 
was nominally at peace with both France and Spain, we 
read that it suited the government that the fangs of 
British sea-craft should be felt. FVoude tells us that 
" hints were given through the western counties that 
privateers who would adventure at their own cost would 
not be closely enquired after ; and thirty piratical vessels, 
heavily manned, were swiftly hovering about the Channel." 
There was a belief in those days, he adds, that the sea and 
all that was on it was English patrimony. In such tone 
and temper was the naval genius of Britain fostered ; 
a rough school, but it produced the world's finest sailors, 
and it lead to such heroism as that which thrills us when 
we read the story of the " Revenge," or of that Topsham 
' man who, with "a single boy to help him, delivered his 
vessel from a French prize-crew of seven men, bringing 
her back safely to the little port, now so somnolescent, on 
the eastern bank of the Exe. 
The records of these quiet ports, now chiefly given 
over to the tourist, are full of such tales— tales that rouse 
us as the old ballad roused Sidney; they are full, of 
roughness, sometimes brutality, yet, thank (iod, not often 
stained with treachery or wanton cruelty, and scarcely 
ever with cowardice. It may seem that the poetry of 
sea-lighting has gone, now that steam and iron have stolen 
its romance as they have certainly marred its picturesque 
beauty; yet we know that the same spirit is there, 
sobered and softened by a fuller conception of right, a 
more cultivated ideal, a higher, purer morality. The 
men are the same, loyal, bra\e, fearless ;.and so long as 
the men are right there can be little ultimate danger for 
the nation. And to all who love England, to all who 
re\'ere the Navy which secures our homes, our bread, and 
our national honour, these old seaports must be holy 
places, the cradles of our liberty and our well-being. 
As we linger about them we see more than the old 
stone quays, we hear more than the cry of gulls. We 
would fain keep them as they are, rugged, simple, un- 
pretentious, speaking of old Elizabethan days and earlier ; 
telling us of a past from which this present has sprung — 
a past that has given us power to-day to do something 
more than mere talking for the ideals we cherish so 
dearly. Other ports may he bearing the burden now — 
there is no room here for the building or launching of 
huge Dreadnoughts or swift cruisers ; but these little 
towns did their part well in the day of smaller things, 
when hearts were as big though ships were tiny. 
We do not now claim all that is on the water as our 
patrimony, but we do claim that all upon the high se: s 
should go in safety, that the ocean highroads shall be 
kept free from the outrages of human wrong-doing, and 
that the days of the pirate shall cease for ever. 
Three Good Novels 
One must be in the right mood to appreciate ^fy Lady 
of the Moor, Mr. John Oxenham's latest novel. (Metlnicn and 
Co. 6s.). It is the story of an attempted murderer, a convict, 
who was also a great man, since he gained the strength to 
give the man whom he hated most to the woman who, for 
him, was next to divinity, i t is the story of the great sacrifice, 
with no chorus of minor characters to divert the mind from 
the main issue, no accompaniment to the melody but the sense 
of Dartmoor and its strong influence. The book is clean and 
fresh as the moorland itself, and its utter sincerity, redeeming 
it from any suspicion of sentimentality, is impressive. It is 
work well in keeping with the times, and given the mood — 
one of the best humanity knows— it is good to read. 
Twos and Threes, by G. B. Stern, (Nisbet and Co. 6s.), 
is the story of Stuart "Heron, an extremely modern young 
man with a theory to the effect that renunciation is the highest 
good, and of Pepita — commonly called Peter — Kyndersley, 
whom, by reason of his theory. Heron made suffer. It is, 
incidentally, the story of several other people, including 
Sebastian Levi, who bungled Heron's theory through lack 
of the' fineness with which Heron, for all his selfishness, 
retains the reader's sympathy. The book is brilliantly 
epigrammatic, and is a fine and forceful piece of work, in spite of 
the sense of unreality that characterises its earlier chapters. 
Here are no cant phrases, no liackneyed scenes, but so much 
of new tliought and creation that the work is challenging 
and alive, while tlie author's detachment is of a quality that 
rouses interest. Both Stuart Heron and Peter arc thoroughlv 
original characters, and this book should place its authoi 
among the novelists who count. 
The .\merican reading public gave a very high place tc 
Sanpriel, by Alvilde Prydz (George Allen and Unwin, 6s.), but 
as far as the English public is concerned the book is not likely 
to fire tlie Thames. It is a delicately-told story of a woman's 
uniiappiness, and in the end her happiness ; it is an open-air 
book, and its chief characters are dominated by Flyen, a 
mountain-bounded moor that is characteristic of Norway 
at its best. Certainly the descriptions of the moorland and 
its influence, are sympathetically given, but, perhaps by 
. reason of the inadequacy of tlie translation, the book suffers 
from an excess of sentimentality. It is a simple, pretty 
little story, not lacking in quaintly humorous passages. 
