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). 508
