FALMOUTH AND TRURO 91 Admiralty, with the idea that a stricter discipline was needed. The greatest days of the packets were before this transference, and their diminish- ing splendour terminated entirely in 1850, when the port ceased to be a packet station, the mails having been taken in charge by ocean liners. Plymouth has succeeded to the position that once was Falmouth's. It is no exaggeration to say that some of the actions of the packets and their dauntless crews recall the palmy days of Elizabethan naval prowess and exploits such as that of the immortal Revenge. The very name of the hero of that great adventure was perpetuated by one of the packets, which accomplished some- thing worthy of his fine tradition. It is told by Gilbert how " in the year of 1777 Captain William Kempthorne was opposed off the island of Bar- badoes in H.M. Packet Ch^anville to three American privateers, two of whom were each of equal force to the Granville, and lay alongside her in a raking position. After a desperate action, in which the captain received a severe wound in the head and lost the roof of his mouth, the enemy was com- pelled to sheer off, and the Granville with her brave commander returned safe to England." This is only one example among many. It is said that within the three years, 1812-14, " thirty-two actions were fought between Falmouth packets and privateers, which resulted in seventeen vic- tories for the Cornish against superior numbers of men and guns, while the remaining contests, in which also great numbers lost their lives, were in respect to valour, as glorious." One of these grand struggles may be best told in Mr. Norway's words : — " On November 22, 1812, the Townshend packet,
