Will you hear of Cruel Coppinger?
He came from a foreign land:
He was brought to us by the salt water,
He was carried away by the wind!"
His arrival on the north coast of Cornwall was signalized by a terrific
hurricane. The storm came up Channel from the south-west. A strange
vessel of foreign rig went on the reefs of Harty Race, and was broken to
pieces by the waves. The only man who came ashore was the skipper. A
crowd was gathered on the sand, on horseback and on foot, women as well
as men, drawn together by the tidings of a probable wreck. Into their
midst rushed the dripping stranger, and bounded suddenly upon the
crupper of a young damsel who had ridden to the beach to see the sight.
He grasped her bridle, and shouting in some foreign tongue, urged the
double-laden animal into full speed, and the horse naturally took his
homeward way. The damsel was Miss Dinah Hamlyn. The stranger descended
at her father's door, and lifted her off her saddle. He then announced
himself as a Dane, named Coppinger. He took his place at the family
board, and there remained until he had secured the affections and hand
of Dinah. The father died, and Coppinger at once succeeded to the
management and control of the house, which thenceforth became a den and
refuge of every lawless character along the coast. All kinds of wild
uproar and reckless revelry appalled the neighborhood day and night. It
was discovered that an organized band of smugglers, wreckers, and
poachers made this house their rendezvous, and that "Cruel Coppinger"
was their captain. In those days, and in that far-away region, the
peaceable inhabitants were unprotected. There was not a single resident
gentleman of property and weight in the entire district. No revenue
officer durst exercise vigilance west of the Tamar; and to put an end to
all such surveillance at once, the head of a gauger was chopped off by
one of Coppinger's gang on the gunwale of a boat.
Strange vessels began to appear at regular intervals on the coast, and
signals were flashed from the headlands to lead them into the safest
creek or cove. Amongst these vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon
became ominously conspicuous. She was for long the chief terror of the
Cornish Channel. Her name was The Black Prince. Once, with Coppinger on
board, she led a revenue-cutter into an intricate channel near the Bull
Rock, where, from knowledge of the bearings, The Black Prince escaped
scathless, while the king's vessel perished with all on board. In those
times, if any landsman became obnoxious to Coppinger's men, he was
seized and carried on board The Black Prince, and obliged to save his
life by enrolling himself in the crew. In 1835, an old man of the age of
ninety-seven related to Mr. Hawker that he had been so abducted, and
after two years' service had been ransomed by his friends with a large
sum. "And all," said the old man very simply, "because I happened to see
one man kill another, and they thought I would mention it."
Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to flow and ebb in the hands
of Coppinger. At one time he had enough money to purchase a freehold
farm bordering on the sea. When the day of transfer came, he and one of
his followers appeared before the lawyer and paid the money in dollars,
ducats, doubloons, and pistoles. The man of law demurred, but Coppinger
with an oath bade him take this or none. The document bearing
Coppinger's name is still extant. His signature is traced in stern bold
characters, and under his autograph is the word "Thuro" (thorough) also
in his own handwriting.
Long impunity increased Coppinger's daring. There were certain bridle
roads along the fields over which he exercised exclusive control. He
issued orders that no man was to pass over them by night, and
accordingly from that hour none ever did. They were called "Coppinger's
Tracks." They all converged at a headland which had the name of Steeple
Brink. Here the cliff sheered off, and stood three hundred feet of
perpendicular height, a precipice of smooth rock towards the beach, with
an overhanging face one hundred feet down from the brow. Under this was
a cave, only reached by a cable ladder lowered from above, and made fast
below on a projecting crag. It received the name of "Coppinger's Cave."
Here sheep were tethered to the rock, and fed on stolen hay and corn
till slaughtered; kegs of brandy and hollands were piled around; chests
of tea; and iron-bound sea-chests contained the chattels and revenues of
the Coppinger royalty of the sea....
But the end arrived. Money became scarce, and more than one armed king's
cutter was seen day and night hovering off the land. So he "who came
with the water went with the wind." His disappearance, like his arrival,
was commemorated by a storm.
A wrecker who had gone to watch the shore, saw, as the sun went down, a
full-rigged vessel standing off and on. Coppinger came to the beach, put
off in a boat to the vessel, and jumped on board. She spread canvas,
stood off shore, and with Coppinger in her was seen no more. That night
was one of storm. Whether the vessel rode it out, or was lost,
none knew.
* * * * *
In 1864 a large ship was seen in distress off the coast. The Rev. A.
Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton, at once drove to Morwenstow. The vessel
was riding at anchor a mile off shore, west of Hartland Race. He found
Mr. Hawker in the greatest excitement, pacing his room and shouting for
some things he wanted to put in his greatcoat-pockets, and intensely
impatient because his carriage was not round. With him was the Rev. W.
Valentine, rector of Whixley in Yorkshire, then resident at Chapel in
the parish of Morwenstow.
"What are you going to do?" asked the rector of Kilkhampton: "I shall
drive at once to Bude for the lifeboat."
"No good!" thundered the vicar, "no good comes out of the west. You must
go east. I shall go to Clovelly, and then, if that fails, to Appledore.
I shall not stop till I have got a lifeboat to take those poor fellows
off the wreck."
"Then," said the rector of Kilkhampton, "I shall go to Bude, and see to
the lifeboat there being brought out."
"Do as you like; but mark my words, no good comes of turning to the
west. Why," said he, "in the primitive church they turned to the west to
renounce the Devil."
His carriage came to the door, and he drove off with Mr. Valentine as
fast as his horses could spin him along the hilly, wretched roads.
Before he reached Clovelly, a boat had put off with the mate from the
ship, which was the Margaret Quail, laden with salt. The captain would
not leave the vessel; for, till deserted by him, no salvage could be
claimed. The mate was picked up on the way, and the three
reached Clovelly.
Down the street proceeded the following procession--the street of
Clovelly being a flight of stairs:--
_First_, the vicar of Morwenstow in a claret-colored coat, with long
tails flying in the gale, blue knitted jersey, and pilot-boots, his long
silver locks fluttering about his head. He was appealing to the
fishermen and sailors of Clovelly to put out in their lifeboat to rescue
the crew of the Margaret Quail. The men stood sulky, lounging about with
folded arms, or hands in their pockets, and sou'-westers slouched over
their brows. The women were screaming at the tops of their voices that
they would not have their husbands and sons and sweethearts enticed away
to risk their lives to save wrecked men. Above the clamor of their
shrill tongues and the sough of the wind rose the roar of the vicar's
voice: he was convulsed with indignation, and poured forth the most
sacred appeals to their compassion for drowning sailors.
_Second_ in the procession moved the Rev. W. Valentine, with purse full
of gold in his hand, offering any amount of money to the Clovelly men,
if they would only go forth in the lifeboat to the wreck.
_Third_ came the mate of the Margaret Quail, restrained by no
consideration of cloth, swearing and damning right and left, in a
towering rage at the cowardice of the Clovelly men.
_Fourth_ came John, the servant of Mr. Hawker, with bottles of whisky
under his arm, another inducement to the men to relent and be merciful
to their imperiled brethren.
The first appeal was to their love of heaven and to their humanity; the
second was to their pockets, their love of gold; the third to their
terrors, their fear of Satan, to whom they were consigned; and the
fourth to their stomachs, their love of grog.
But all appeals were in vain. Then Mr. Hawker returned to his carriage,
and drove away farther east to Appledore, where he secured the lifeboat.
It was mounted on a wagon; ten horses were harnessed to it; and as fast
as possible it was conveyed to the scene of distress.
But in the mean while the captain of the Margaret Quail, despairing of
help and thinking that his vessel would break up under him, came off in
his boat with the rest of the crew, trusting rather to a rotten boat,
patched with canvas which they had tarred over, than to the tender
mercies of the covetous Clovellites, in whose veins ran the too recent
blood of wreckers. The only living being left on board was a poor dog.
No sooner was the captain seen to leave the ship than the Clovelly men
lost their repugnance to go to sea. They manned boats at once, gained
the Margaret Quail, and claimed three thousand pounds for salvage.
There was an action in court, as the owners refused to pay such a sum;
and it was lost by the Clovelly men, who however got an award of twelve
hundred pounds. The case turned somewhat on the presence of the dog on
the wreck; and it was argued that the vessel was not deserted, because a
dog had been left on board to keep guard for its masters. The owner of
the cargo failed; and the amount actually paid to the salvors was six
hundred pounds to two steam-tugs (three hundred pounds each), and three
hundred pounds to the Clovelly skiff and sixteen men.
Mr. Hawker went round the country indignantly denouncing the sailors of
Clovelly, and with justice. It roused all the righteous wrath in his
breast. And as may well be believed, no love was borne him by the
inhabitants of that little fishing village. They would probably have
made a wreck of him had he ventured among them.