island to island and from shore to shore they encountered numberless
mishaps. The natives were by no means friendly, and as they approached
their villages, brandished their weapons and drove them away. At other
times the Fuegians simulated friendship, so as to get at the stores and
plunder them. During a storm both of the dinghies were lost with all
their contents, on which they relied for support for six months. Next
they found that they had no gunpowder; it had been left inadvertently in
the _Ocean Queen_, so that they had no means of shooting birds or other
animals. Then their anchors and spare timber were carried away. As far
as we can judge, they seem to have been curiously helpless persons. With
clubs they might have killed the sea-elephants, whose flesh would have
sustained them and their skins clothed them.
Thus wore away the month of January, 1851, and not the first step had
been taken towards acquiring the confidence of the natives. All the
time had been spent in a struggle for the maintenance of their own
lives. On February 1st the _Pioneer_ was shattered in a storm, and now
they had only the _Speedwell_ to voyage in, a vessel whose name mocked
their misery.
They all saw now, even the enthusiast Gardiner, that they had embarked
on an impossible task, and without further thought of spreading a
knowledge of Christianity among the dirty, treacherous, flat-nosed and
stupid natives, their only consideration was how they might get away.
Arrangements had been made before starting for sending out to them
fresh supplies, but by various unfortunate mischances this had not
been done. They turned their eyes vainly eastward; not a sail was seen
to raise their hopes.
Some of the men became ill with scurvy, and the boats were used as
hospitals, the men that were sound retiring to caverns. A few fish and
fowl were caught, and eggs were procured. So March and April dragged
along; and then the Antarctic winter began, adding snow and ice to their
other troubles. What herbs to gather, how the natives protected
themselves against scurvy, does not seem to have occurred to these
unfortunates. They sat and shivered and lamented their fate and lost all
hope. From the middle of May they were all put on short allowance, owing
to the rapid disappearance of the supply of food they had brought
ashore. At the end of June, Badcock, one of the Mousehole men, died,
worn out with scurvy. There is an entry in Gardiner's diary, about the
end of June, enumerating the provisions still left, and among them were
"six mice," concerning which he wrote: "The mention of this last item in
our list of provisions may startle some of our friends should it ever
reach their ears; but circumstanced as we are, we partake of them with
a relish; they are very tender, and taste like rabbit." A solitary
penguin, a dead fox, a half-devoured fish thrown up on the shore--all
were welcomed by the half-starved men. When August came, the strength of
the entire party was well-nigh at an end. A few garden-seeds were made
into a soup, and mussel-broth was served out to the invalids. Captain
Gardiner himself lived on mussels for a fortnight, and then, as this
disagreed with him, was compelled to give up the diet. He would have
lain down and died of starvation had he not found a vegetable that he
could eat, and on this he rallied for a while.
On the 23rd, Erwin, a boatman, died, exhausted by hunger and disease.
On the 26th, Bryant, the second Mousehole man, expired. Pearce, the
remaining boatman, went nearly mad at the loss of his companions and
the hopelessness of the outlook. Mr. Maidment, the missionary, had
just strength sufficient to dig a grave in which to bury the two poor
fellows. He then made a pair of crutches with two sticks, on which
Captain Gardiner might lean when walking. He lived in the cavern, and
tried to hobble down to those who were in the _Speedwell_, but his
strength was not equal to the task, and he had to retire to his cave.
Maidment was the next to succumb, on September 2nd. Pearce, and
Williams the surgeon, were in the _Speedwell_, and it was as much as
they could do to obtain a few shell-fish for themselves; but they soon
lay down and died. When Gardiner also yielded up the ghost is not
known, but he had strength to make an entry in his diary on the 6th;
there is none on the 7th.
On the 21st January, 1852, H.M.S. _Dido_ arrived at Terra del Fuego
and found the remains of this unhappy party of religious enthusiasts.
The first thing seen was a direction scrawled on a rock; then a boat
lying on the beach of a small river; then the unburied bodies of
Captain Gardiner and the missionary Maidment; then a packet of papers
and books; then the scattered remains of another boat, with part of
her gear and various articles of clothing; then two more corpses; and
lastly the graves of the rest of the party.
"Their remains," wrote Captain Morshead, of the _Dido_, "were collected
together and buried close to the spot, and the funeral service read by
Lieutenant Underwood. A short inscription was placed on the rock near
his own text; the colours of the boats and ships were struck half-mast,
and three volleys of musketry were the only tribute of respect I could
pay to the lofty-minded man and his devoted companions."
DOLLY PENTREATH
Much has been written about Dolly Pentreath, but little is known of
her uneventful life. That little may be summed up in few words.
Her maiden name was Jeffery, and when she was a child her parents and
all about her spoke the Cornish language. Drew, in his _History of
Cornwall_, quoting Daines Barrington, says: "She does indeed talk
Cornish as readily as others do English, being bred up from a child to
know no other language; nor could she (if we may believe her) talk a
word of English before she was past twenty years of age."
In the year 1768 the Hon. Daines Barrington, brother of Captain,
afterwards Admiral, Barrington, went into Cornwall to ascertain whether
the Cornish language had entirely ceased to be spoken, or not, and in a
letter written to John Lloyd, F.S.A., a few years after, viz. on March
31, 1773, he gives the following as the result of his journey:--
"I set out from Penzance, with the landlord of the principal inn for
my guide, towards Sennen, or the most western point; and when I
approached the village I said that there must probably be some remains
of the language in those parts if anywhere, as the village was in the
road to no place whatever, and the only ale-house announced itself to
be the last in England.
"My guide, however, told me that I should be disappointed, but that if I
would ride about ten miles about on my return to Penzance he would
conduct me to a village called Mousehole, on the western side of Mount's
Bay, where there was an old woman, called Dolly Pentreath, who could
speak Cornish fluently. While we were travelling together towards
Mousehole I inquired how he knew that this woman spoke Cornish; when he
informed me that he frequently went from Penzance to Mousehole to buy
fish, which were sold by her; and that when he did not offer her a price
that was satisfactory, she grumbled to some other old women in an
unknown tongue, which he concluded, therefore, to be Cornish.
[Illustration: MONSCHOLE, IN MOUNT'S BAY, FROM THE ISLAND
_From a drawing by Captain Tremenhere_]
"When we reached Mousehole I desired to be introduced as a person who
had laid a wager that there was not one who could converse in Cornish;
upon which Dolly Pentreath spoke in an angry tone for two or three
minutes, and in a language which sounded very like Welsh. The hut in
which she lived was in a very narrow lane, opposite to two rather better
houses, at the doors of which two other women stood, who were advanced
in years, and who I observed were laughing at what Dolly said to me.
"Upon this I asked them whether she had not been abusing me; to which
they answered, 'Very heartily,' and because I had supposed she could
not speak Cornish.
"I then said that they must be able to talk the language; to which they
answered that they could not speak it readily, but that they understood
it, being only ten or twelve years younger than Dolly Pentreath.
"I continued nine or ten days in Cornwall after this, but found that
my friends whom I had left to the eastward continued as incredulous
almost as they were before about these last remains of the Cornish
language, because, among other reasons, Dr. Borlase had supposed, in
his _Natural History of the County_, that it had entirely ceased to be
spoken. It was also urged that, as he lived within four or five miles
of the old woman at Mousehole, he consequently must have heard of so
singular a thing as her continuing to use the vernacular tongue.
"I had scarcely said or thought anything more about this matter till
last summer (1772), having mentioned it to some Cornish people, I
found that they could not credit that any person had existed within
these few years who could speak their native language; and therefore,
though I imagined there was but a small chance of Dolly Pentreath
continuing to live, yet I wrote to the President, then in Devonshire,
to desire that he would make some inquiry with regard to her; and he
was so obliging as to procure me information from a gentleman whose
house was within three miles of Mousehole, a considerable part of
whose letter I subjoin.
"'Dolly Pentreath is short of stature, and bends very much with old
age, being in her eighty-seventh year, so lusty, however, as to walk
hither to Castle Horneck, about three miles, in bad weather, in the
morning and back again. She is somewhat deaf, but her intellect
seemingly not impaired; has a memory so good, that she remembers
perfectly well, that about four or five years ago at Mousehole, where
she lives, she was sent for by a gentleman, who, being a stranger, had
a curiosity to hear the Cornish language, which she was famed for
retaining and speaking fluently, and that the innkeeper where the
gentleman came from attended him.
("This gentleman," says Daines Barrington, "was myself; however, I did
not presume to send for her, but waited upon her.")
"'She does, indeed, talk Cornish as readily as others do English,
being bred up from a child to know no other language; nor could she
(if we may believe her) talk a word of English before she was past
twenty years of age, as, her father being a fisherman, she was sent
with fish to Penzance at twelve years old, and sold them in the
Cornish language, which the inhabitants in general, even the gentry,
did then well understand. She is positive, however, that there is
neither in Mousehole, nor in any other part of the county, any other
person who knows anything of it, or, at least, can converse in it. She
is poor, and maintained partly by the parish, and partly by
fortune-telling and gabbling Cornish.'
"I have thus," continued Mr. Barrington, "thought it right to lay before
the Society (the Society of Antiquaries) this account of the last sparks
of the Cornish tongue, and cannot but think that a linguist who
understands Welsh might still pick up a more complete vocabulary of the
Cornish than we are yet possessed of, especially as the two neighbours
of this old woman (Dolly Pentreath), whom I had occasion to mention, are
not now above seventy-seven or seventy-eight years of age, and were
healthy when I saw them; so that the whole does not depend on the life
of this Cornish sybil, as she is willing to insinuate."
It is matter of profound regret that no Welshman did visit Dolly, who
lived for four years after Mr. Barrington's letter, which was written
in 1773, for she died December 26th, 1777.
Drew says: "She was buried in the churchyard of the parish of Paul, in
which parish, Mousehole, the place of her residence, is situated. Her
epitaph is both in Cornish and English."
Coth Doll Pentreath cans ha Deau;
Marow ha kledyz ed Paul plêa:--
Na ed an Egloz, gan pobel brâs,
Bes ed Egloz-hay coth Dolly es.
Old Doll Pentreath, one hundred aged and two,
Deceased, and buried in Paul parish too:--
Not in the Church, with people great and high,
But in the Churchyard doth old Dolly lie!
This epitaph, written by Mr. Tomson, of Truro, was never inscribed on
her tombstone, for no tombstone was set up to her memory at the time
of her death. The stone now erected, and standing in the churchyard
wall and not near her grave, was set up by Prince Louis Lucien
Bonaparte in 1860, and contains two errors. It runs: "Here lieth
interred Dorothy Pentreath, who died in 1778." In the first place she
does not lie where is the stone, and in the second place she died
1777, on December 26th, and was buried on the following day.
In 1776 Mr. Barrington presented a letter to the Royal Society of
Antiquaries written in Cornish and in English, by William Bodener, a
fisherman of Mousehole. This man asserted that at that date there were
still four or five persons in Mousehole who could talk Cornish.
In 1777, the year of Dolly's death, Mr. Barrington found another
Cornishman named John Nancarrow, of Marazion, aged forty-five years,
able to speak Cornish. John Nancarrow said that "in his youth he had
learned the language from the country people, and could thus hold a
conversation in it; and that another, a native of Truro, was at that
time also acquainted with the Cornish language, and like himself was
able to converse in it."
This last is supposed to be the Mr. Tomson who wrote the epitaph for
Dolly Pentreath which was never set up.
In Hitchens' and Drew's _History of Cornwall_, it is said: "The
Cornish language was current in a part of the South Hams in the time
of Edward I (1272-1307). Long after this it was common on the banks of
the Tamar, and in Cornwall it was universally spoken.
"But it was not till towards the conclusion of the reign of Henry VIII
(1509-47) that the English language had found its way into any of the
Cornish churches. Before this time the Cornish language was the
established vehicle of communication.
"Dr. Moreman, a native of Southill, but vicar of Menheniot, was the
first who taught the inhabitants of this parish the Lord's Prayer, the
Creed, and the Ten Commandments in the English tongue; and this was
not done till just about the time that Henry VIII closed his reign.
From this fact one inference is obvious, which is, that if the
inhabitants of Menheniot knew nothing more of the English than what
was thus learnt from the vicar of the parish, the Cornish must have
prevailed among them at that time ... and as the English language in
its progress travelled from east to west, we may reasonably conclude
that about this time it had not penetrated far into the county, as
Menheniot lies towards its eastern quarter.
"From the time the liturgy was established in the Cornish churches in
the English language, the Cornish tongue rapidly declined.
"Hence Mr. Carew, who published his _Survey of Cornwall_ in 1602,
notices the almost total extirpation of the language in his days. He
says, 'The principal love and knowledge of this language liveth in Dr.
Kennall the civilian, and with him lyeth buried; for the English speech
doth still encroach upon it and hath driven the same into the uttermost
skirts of the shire. Most of the inhabitants can speak no word of
Cornish; but few are ignorant of the English; and yet some so affect
their airs, as to a stranger they will not speak it; for if meeting them
by chance you inquire the way, or any such matter, your answer shall be,
"_Meea naurdua cowzasourzneck?_" (I can speak no Saxonage).'
"Carew's _Survey_ was soon followed by that of Norden, by whom we are
informed that the Cornish language was chiefly confined to the western
hundreds of the county, particularly to Penwith and Kirrier, and yet
(which is to be marveyled) though the husband and wife, parents and
children, masters and servants, etc., naturally communicate in their
native language, yet there is none of them in a manner but is able to
converse with a stranger in the English tongue, unless it be some
obscure people who seldom confer with the better sort. But it seemeth,
however, that in a few years the Cornish will be by little and little
abandoned."
The Cornish was, however, so well spoken in the parish of Feock by the
old inhabitants till about the year 1640, "that Mr. William Jackman,
the then vicar, and chaplain also of Pendennis Castle, at the siege
thereof by the Parliament army, was forced for divers years to
administer the sacrament to the communicants in the Cornish tongue,
because the aged people did not well understand the English, as he
himself often told me," says Hals.
So late as 1650 the Cornish language was currently spoken in the
parishes of Paul and S. Just; the fisherwomen and market-women in the
former, and the tinner in the latter, for the most part conversing in
their old vernacular tongue; and Mr. Scawen says that in 1678 the Rev.
F. Robinson, rector of Landewednack, "preached a sermon to his
parishioners in the Cornish language only."
Had the Bible been translated, had even the English Prayer-book been
rendered into Cornish, the language would have lived on. It is due to
a large extent to this--the translation into Welsh--that in Wales
their ancient language has maintained itself.
The editors of the _Bibliotheca Cornubiensis_ state that Dorothy
Jeffery, daughter of Nicolas Pentreath, was baptized at Paul 17th May,
1714; and they conclude that she was the Dolly Pentreath who died in
1777, and that her age accordingly was sixty-three and not one hundred
and two.
But this is a mistake. Dolly was a Jeffery by birth and married a
Pentreath.
A story is told of Dolly in Mr. J. Henry Harris's _Cornish Saints and
Sinners_, "as current in Mousehole, but whether true or well conceived
it is not possible for me to say."
It is to this effect: that on one occasion a deserter from a man-of-war
fled to her house for refuge, and as there was a cavity in her chimney
large enough to contain a man, she thrust him into it, and threw a
bundle of dry furze on the fire, and filled the crock with water. Into
the middle of the kitchen she drew a "keeve," which she used for
washing, and when the naval officer and his men in pursuit burst into
her house, Dolly was sitting on a stool, her legs bare and her feet
ready to be immersed in the keeve. She screamed out on their entry that
she was about to wash her feet, and only waiting for the water to get
hot enough. The officer persisted in searching, and she gave tongue in
strong and forcible Cornish. She rushed to the door and screamed to the
good people of Mousehole, that the lieutenant and his men had invaded
her house without leave, and were impudent and audacious enough to
ransack every other cottage in the place. The officer and his men
withdrew without having seen and secured their man; and that night a
fishing lugger stole out of Mousehole with the deserter on board and
made for Guernsey, which in those days was a sort of dumping-ground for
all kinds of rascals who were "wanted" at home.
ROBERT JEFFERY OF POLPERRO
Mrs. Bray, in her novel _Trelawny of Trelawne_, written in 1834, thus
describes Polperro as it was at that time. It has lost much but not
all of its picturesqueness. Many of the old fishermen's cottages have
been pulled down, and their places taken by ugly modern houses.
"Looe," says she, "beautiful as it is, is not to be compared to
Polperro, two miles distant from Trelawne. The descent to it is so
steep, that I, who was not accustomed to the path, could only get down
by clinging to Mr. Bray's arm for support; it was slippery, and so
rocky that in some places there were steps cut in the road for the
convenience of the passenger. The view of the little port, the old
town in the bottom (if town it can be called), the cliffs, and the
spiked rocks that start up in the wildest and most abrupt manner,
breaking the direct sweep of the waves towards the harbour, altogether
produced such a combination of magnificent coast scenery as may truly
be called sublime."
Long before this, in the reign of Henry VIII, Leland, who visited it,
wrote: "By est, the haven of Fowey upon a iiii miles of--ys a smawle
creke cawled Paul _Pier_, and a symple and poore village upon the est
side of the same, of fisharmen, and the boetes ther fishing by [be]
saved by a _Peere_ or key."
Robert Jeffery was the son of John Jeffery, bargeman at Fowey,
afterwards a publican at Polperro. John Jeffery died in 1802, and his
widow remarried Benjamin Coad, blacksmith.
Robert was baptized at Fowey, 22nd January, 1790. He was impressed for
the Royal Navy, and was placed on board H.M. brig _Recruit_, under
Captain the Hon. Warwick Lake, in 1807.
Warwick Lake was the third son of Gerard, first Viscount Lake, so
created in 1807, and he eventually succeeded as third Viscount in
1836. His career in the Navy had not been particularly creditable. In
November, 1803, he had been lieutenant on board the frigate _Blanche_,
Captain Zachariah Mudge, lying at anchor off the entrance of
Mancenille Bay, Isle of S. Domingo. In the harbour lay the French
cutter _Albion_, armed with two 4-pounders, six swivels, and twenty
muskets, and manned by forty-three officers and men, lying under the
guns of the fort of Monte Christo. A night attack was determined upon,
and Lieutenant Edward Nicolls, of the Marines, volunteered, with one
boat, to attempt cutting out the vessel. His offer was accepted; and
on the evening of the 4th November, the red cutter, with thirteen men,
including himself, pushed off from the frigate. Shortly after Captain
Mudge despatched the barge, with twenty-two men, under the Hon.
Warwick Lake, to follow the red cutter and supersede Nicolls in the
command. As the barge approached the cutter, Nicolls hailed her and
demanded a united attack. But Lake feared that the hazards were too
great, and instead of following he moved away to the north-west side
of the bay, leaving Lieutenant Nicolls to attack unassisted. The red
cutter, thus deserted, proceeded dauntlessly on her way, and as soon
as she arrived within pistol-shot was hailed. Replying with three
hearty cheers the boat proceeded, and received in quick succession two
volleys of musketry. The first passed over the heads of the British;
but the second severely wounded the coxswain, the man at the bow-oar,
and a marine. Before the French cutter could fire a third time,
Nicolls, at the head of his little party, sprang on board of her. The
French captain fired at the lieutenant, and the ball passed round his
body in the flesh, and lodged in his right arm. At the same moment the
French captain was shot. After this, little resistance was offered.
The French officers and crew were driven below, with the loss, beside
the captain, of five men wounded.
So far the battery had not fired, and Nicolls ordered that the
_Albion_ should be got under sail, and the cable was cut.
At this moment up came the barge, commanded by Lieutenant the Hon.
Warwick Lake. He took command of the prize captured by Nicolls, and with
two boats towing her soon ran her out of gunshot of the battery, which
had now at last opened fire, and joined the frigate in the offing.
Captain Mudge, in his report to the Admiralty, wrote: "Having gained
intelligence that there was a large coppered cutter full of bullocks
for the Cape laying close under the guns of Monte Christi (four
24-pounders and three field-pieces), notwithstanding her situation, I
was convinced we could bring her off; and at two this morning _she was
masterly and gallantly attacked by Lieutenant Lake in the cutter_, and
Lieutenant Nicolls, of the Marines, in the barge, who cut her out. She
is ninety-two tons burden, etc. This affair lost me two men killed,
and two wounded."
As will be seen, this was a gross misstatement of facts. The Hon.
Warwick Lake was in the barge, and did nothing till the _Albion_ had
been captured by Lieutenant Nicolls in the cutter. Nor was this all.
Among the two wounded, Lieutenant Nicolls, the hero of the action, was
not named. His wound was not a scratch, but a hole on each side of his
body and a ball in his arm, that sent him bleeding to the cock-pit of
the _Blanche_.
The Patriotic Fund presented to Lieutenant Lake "for his gallantry" a
sword valued at £50, and he did not blush to receive it, whereas
Lieutenant Nicolls received one valued at £30. Not till much later was
it discovered who had been the hero of the action, and who the sneak
who flourished the plumes due to another.
In 1807 Lake was captain of the _Recruit_, an 18-gun brig-sloop.