CORNWALL IN SMUGGLING STORY—CRUEL COPPINGER—HAWKER’S SKETCH—THE FOWEY
SMUGGLERS—TOM POTTER, OF POLPERRO—THE DEVILS OF TALLAND—SMUGGLERS’
EPITAPHS—CAVE AT WENDRON—ST. IVES
CORNWALL is the region of romance: the last corner of England in which
legend and imagination had full play, while matter-of-fact already sat
enthroned over the rest of the land. At a time when newspapers almost
everywhere had already long been busily recording facts, legends were
still in the making throughout this westernmost part of the island. We
may, in our innocence, style Cornwall a part of England; but the Cornish
do not think of it as such, and when they cross the Tamar into Devonshire
will still often speak of “going into England.” They are historically
correct in doing so, for this is the unconquered land of the Cornu-Welsh,
never assimilated by the Saxon kingdoms. Historically and
ethnologically, the Cornish are a people apart.
The Coppinger legend is a case in point, illustrating the growth of wild
stories out of meagre facts. “Cruel Coppinger” is a half-satanic,
semi-viking character in the tales of North Cornwall and North Devon, of
whom no visitor is likely to remain ignorant, for not only was he a dread
figure of local folklore from about the first quarter of the nineteenth
century, but he was written up in 1866 by the Reverend R. S. Hawker,
Vicar of Morwenstow, who not only collated those floating stories, but
added very much of his own, for Hawker was a man—and a not very
scrupulous man—of imagination. Hawker’s presentment of “Cruel Coppinger”
was published in a popular magazine, and then the legend became
full-blown.
The advent of Coppinger upon the coast at Welcombe Mouth, near where
Devon and Cornwall join, was dramatic. The story tells how a strange
vessel went to pieces on the reefs and how only one person escaped with
his life, in the midst of a howling tempest. This was the skipper, a
Dane named Coppinger. On the beach, on foot and on horseback, was a
crowd, waiting, in the usual Cornish way, for any wreck of the sea that
might be thrown up. Into the midst of them, like some sea-monster,
dashed this sole survivor, and bounded suddenly upon the crupper of a
young damsel who had ridden to the shore to see the sight. He grasped
her bridle, and, shouting in a foreign tongue, urged the doubly-laden
animal to full speed, and the horse naturally took his usual way home.
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, and 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 succeeded to the management and control of the
house, which thenceforward became the refuge of every lawless character
along the coast. All kinds of wild uproar and reckless revelry appalled
the neighbourhood, night and day. It was discovered that an organised
band of smugglers, wreckers, and poachers made this house their
rendezvous, and that “Cruel Coppinger” was their captain. In those times
no revenue officer durst exercise vigilance west of the Tamar, and, to
put an end at once to all such surveillance, 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, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became
ominously conspicuous. She was for long the terror of those shores, and
her name was the _Black Prince_. Once, with Coppinger aboard, 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
aboard the _Black Prince_, and obliged to save his life by enrolling
himself as one of the crew.
Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to accrue to 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 lawyer objected, but Coppinger, with an oath, bade him
take that or none.
Long impunity increased Coppinger’s daring. Over certain bridle-paths
along the fields he exercised exclusive control, and issued orders that
no man was to pass over them by night. They were known as “Coppinger’s
Tracks,” and all converged at a cliff called “Steeple Brink.” Here the
precipice fell sheer to the sea, 300 feet, with overhanging eaves a
hundred feet from the summit. Under this part was a cave, only to be
reached by a rope-ladder from above. This was “Coppinger’s Cave.” Here
sheep were tethered to the rock and fed on stolen hay and corn until
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.
The terror linked with Coppinger’s name throughout the north coasts of
Cornwall and Devon was so extreme that the people themselves, wild and
lawless though they were, submitted to his sway as though he had been
lord of the soil, and they his vassals. Such a household as his was, of
course, far from happy or calm. Although, when his father-in-law died,
he had insensibly acquired possession of the stock and farm, there
remained in the hands of the widow a considerable amount of money. This
he obtained from the helpless woman by instalments, and by force. He
would fasten his wife to the pillar of her oak bedstead, and call her
mother into the room, and assure her he would flog Dinah with a
cat-o’-nine-tails till her mother had transferred to him what he wanted.
This act of brutal cruelty he repeated until he had utterly exhausted the
widow’s store.
There was but one child of Coppinger’s marriage. It was a boy, and deaf
and dumb, but mischievous and ungovernable, delighting in cruelty to
other children, animals, or birds. When he was but six years of age, he
was found one day, hugging himself with delight, and pointing down from
the brink of a cliff to the beach, where the body of a neighbour’s child
was found and it was believed that little Coppinger had flung him over.
It was a saying in the district that, as a judgment on his father’s
cruelty, the child had been born without a human soul.
But the end arrived. Money became scarce, and more than one armed King’s
cutter was seen, day and night, hovering off the land. And at last
Coppinger, “who came with the water, went with the wind.” A wrecker,
watching 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 aboard. She spread canvas, and was seen no more.
That night was one of storm, and whether the vessel rode it out or not,
none ever knew.
It is hardly necessary to add that the Coppinger of these and other
rumbustious stories is a strictly unhistorical Coppinger; and that, in
short, they are mainly efforts of Hawker’s own imagination, built upon
very slight folklore traditions.
Who and what, however, was the real Coppinger? Very little exact
information is available, but what we have entirely demolishes the
legendary half-man, half-monster of those remarkable exploits.
Daniel Herbert Copinger, or Coppinger, was wrecked at Welcombe Mouth on
December 23rd, 1792, and was given shelter beneath the roof of Mr.
William Arthur, yeoman farmer, at Golden Park, Hartland, where for many
years afterwards his name might have been seen, scratched on a
window-pane:
D. H. Coppinger, shipwrecked December 23 1792, kindly received by Mr.
Wm. Arthur.
There is not the slightest authority for the story of his sensational
leap on to the saddle of Miss Dinah Hamlyn; but it is true enough that
the next year he married a Miss Hamlyn—her Christian name was Ann—elder
of the two daughters of Ackland Hamlyn, of Galsham, in Hartland, and in
the registers of Hartland church may be found this entry: “Daniel Herbert
Coppinger, of the King’s Royal Navy, and Ann Hamlyn mard. (by licence) 3
Aug.” The “damsel” of the story also turns out, by the cold, calm
evidence of this entry, to have been of the mature age of forty-two.
Mrs. Hamlyn, Coppinger’s mother-in-law, died in 1800, and was buried in
the chancel of Hartland church. It is, of course, quite possible that
his married life was stormy and that he, more or less by force, extracted
money from Mrs. Hamlyn, and he was certainly more or less involved in
smuggling. But that he, or any of his associates, chopped off the head
of an excise officer is not to be credited. Tales are told of revenue
officers searching at Galsham for contraband, and of Mrs. Coppinger
hurriedly hiding a quantity of valuable silks in the kitchen oven, while
her husband engaged their attention in permitting them to find a number
of spirit-kegs, which they presently found, much to their disgust, to be
empty; and, moreover, empty so long that scarce the ghost of even a smell
of the departed spirit could be traced. But the flurried Mrs. Coppinger
had in her haste done a disastrous thing, for the oven was in baking
trim, and the valuable silks were baked to a cinder.
Little else is known of Coppinger, and nothing whatever of his alleged
connection with the Navy. He became bankrupt in 1802, and was then a
prisoner in the King’s Bench Prison. With him was one Richard Copinger,
said to have been a merchant in Martinique. Nothing is known of him
after this date, but rumour told how he was living apart from his wife,
at Barnstaple, and subsisting on an allowance from her.
Mrs. Coppinger herself, in after years, resided at Barnstaple, and died
there on August 31st, 1833. She lies buried in the chancel of Hartland
church beside her mother.
According to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Coppinger was not really a Dane,
but an Irishman, and had a wife at Trewhiddle near St. Austell. He, on
the same authority, is said to have done extremely well as a smuggler,
and had not only a farm at Trewhiddle, but another at Roscoff, in
Brittany. A daughter, says Mr. Baring-Gould, married a Trefusis, son of
Lord Clinton, and Coppinger gave her £40,000 as a dowry. A son married
the daughter of Sir John Murray, Bart., of Stanhope. The source of this
interesting information is not stated. It appears wildly improbable.
Hawker very cleverly embodied the smuggling sentiment of Cornwall in a
sketch he wrote, styled “The Light of Other Days.”
“It was full six in the evening of an autumn day when a traveller arrived
where the road ran along by a sandy beach just above high-water mark.
The stranger, who was a native of some inland town, and utterly
unacquainted with Cornwall and its ways, had reached the brink of the
tide just as a ‘landing’ was coming off. It was a scene not only to
instruct a townsman, but to dazzle and surprise. At sea, just beyond the
billows, lay the vessel, well moored with anchors at stem and stern.
Between the ship and the shore, boats, laden to the gunwale, passed to
and fro. Crowds assembled on the beach to help the cargo ashore. On one
hand a boisterous group surrounded a keg with the head knocked in, for
simplicity of access to the good cognac, into which they dipped
whatsoever vessel came first to hand; one man had filled his shoe. On
the other side they fought and wrestled, cursed and swore. Horrified at
what he saw, the stranger lost all self-command, and, oblivious of
personal danger, he began to shout, ‘What a horrible sight! Have you no
shame? Is there no magistrate at hand? Cannot any justice of the peace
be found in this fearful country?’
“‘No; thanks be to God,’ answered a gruff, hoarse voice. ‘None within
eight miles.’
“‘Well, then,’ screamed the stranger, ‘is there no clergyman hereabout?
Does no minister of the parish live among you on this coast?’
“‘Aye, to be sure there is,’ said the same deep voice.
“‘Well, how far off does he live? Where is he?’
“‘That’s he, yonder, sir, with the lantern.’
“And, sure enough, there he stood on a rock, and poured, with pastoral
diligence, ‘the light of other days’ on a busy congregation.”
[Picture: “The Light of other Days”]
The complete, true story of smuggling along the Cornish coast will never
be told. Those who could have contributed illuminating chapters to it,
and would not, are dead, and those who now would are reduced to seeking
details and finding only scraps. But some of these scraps are not
unpalatable.
Thus we have the story of that Vicar of Maker whose church was used as a
smugglers’ store. The Vicar was not a party to these proceedings, as may
well be judged by his inviting his rural dean to ascend to the roof of
the church-tower with him, for sake of the view: the view disclosing not
only a lovely expanse of sea and wooded foreshore, but also a heap of
twenty-three spirit-kegs, reposing in the gutters between the roofs of
nave and aisle.
The “Fowey Gallants,” as the townsfolk of that little seaport delighted
to call themselves,—the title having descended from Elizabethan and even
earlier times, when the “Gallants” in question were, in plain speech,
nothing less than turbulent seafaring rowdies and pirates—were not behind
other Cornish folk in their smuggling enterprises. That prime authority
on this part of the Cornish coast, Jonathan Couch, historian of Polperro,
tells us of an exciting incident at Fowey, in the smuggling way. On one
occasion, the custom-house officers heard of an important run that had
taken place overnight, and accordingly sent out scouts in every direction
to locate the stuff, if possible. At Landaviddy one of these parties met
a farm-labourer whom they suspected of having taken part in the run.
They taxed him with it, and tried him all ways; without effect, until
they threatened to impress him for service in the Navy unless he revealed
the hiding-place of the cognac. His resolution broke down at that, and
he told how the kegs had been hidden in a large cave at Yellow Rock,
which the officers then instructed him to mark with a chalk cross.
The revenue men then went off for reinforcements, and, returning, met an
armed band of smugglers, who had taken up a strong position at New Quay
Head. They were armed with sticks, cutlasses, and muskets, and had
brought a loaded gun upon the scene, which they trained upon the cave;
while a man with flaring portfire stood by and dared the officers to
remove the goods. Official prudence counselled the revenue men to retire
for further support; but when they had again returned the smugglers had
disappeared, and the kegs with them.
Fowey’s trade in “moonshine,” _i.e._ contraband spirits, was, like that
of the Cornish coast in general, with Roscoff, in Brittany; and a regular
service was maintained for years. As late as 1832 the luggers _Eagle_,
thirty-five tons; _Rose_, eleven tons; and _Dove_, of the same burthen,
were well known in the trade. Among the smuggling craft belonging to
Polperro, the _Unity_ was said to have made upwards of five hundred
entirely successful trips.
The story of Tom Potter is even yet told by oldsters at Polperro, who,
not themselves old enough to recollect the circumstances, have it from
their parents and grandparents. Jonathan Couch tells the story, but he
forgot the exact year.
It seems, then, that one morning a lugger was observed by a revenue
cutter lying becalmed in Whitesand Bay. Through their glasses the
revenue men made it out to be the _Lottery_, of Polperro, well known for
her fast-sailing qualities, as well as for the hardihood of her crew.
With the springing up of the breeze, there was little doubt but that she
would put to sea, and thus add yet another opportunity to the many
already existing for sneering at the stupidity of the local preventive
force.
Accordingly, the chief officer, with all despatch, manned two or three
boats and put off, before a breeze could spring up, making sure of an
easy capture. The smugglers, however, observed these movements of their
watchful enemies, and commenced to make preparations for resistance,
whereupon the revenue boats opened fire; but it was not until they had
approached closely that the smugglers returned their volleys, and then
the firing grew very heavy, and when within a few yards of the expected
prize, Ambrose Bowden, who pulled bow-oar in one of the attacking boats,
fell mortally wounded.
It was plain that the Polperro men had come to a determination not to
surrender their fine craft, or the valuable cargo it carried; and the
commander of the revenue men thought it, under the circumstances, the
wisest thing to withdraw and to allow the _Lottery_ to proceed to sea,
which she did, at the earliest opportunity. But the names of those who
formed the crew were sufficiently well known to the authorities, and the
smugglers accordingly found themselves in a very difficult position; not
indeed on account of smuggling, but for the resistance they had offered
to authority, resulting in what was technically murder. They all
scattered and went into hiding, and, secreted by friends, relatives, and
sympathisers in out-of-the-way places, long baffled the efforts of the
revenue officers, aided by searching parties of dragoons, to find them.
The authorities no sooner had learnt, on reliable information, where they
lay hidden, than they were found to have been spirited away elsewhere.
But all this skulking about, with its enforced idleness and waste of
time, grew wearisome to the skulkers, and at length one of the crew of
the _Lottery_, Roger Toms by name, more weary than his fellows of hiding,
and perhaps also thinking that his services would be handsomely rewarded,
offered himself as King’s evidence.
According to his showing, it was a man named Tom Potter who fired the
shot that killed Bowden. The search then concentrated upon Potter. The
fury of Toms’s fellow-smugglers, and the entire population of Polperro,
against the informer, Toms, may readily be imagined. To in any way aid
these natural enemies of the people was of itself the unforgiveable sin,
and to further go and offer evidence that would result in the forfeit of
the life of one of his own comrades disclosed an even deeper depth of
infamy.
Toms was therefore obliged to go into hiding again, and, this time, from
his old associates. It was some considerable time before they captured
him, and they did it, even then, only by stratagem. His wife, and
others, knowing the intense feeling aroused, not unnaturally supposed his
life to be in danger; but the smugglers assured her that they only wanted
to secure him and hold him prisoner until after the trial of Bowden, and
would not otherwise harm him. They added, mysteriously, that things
might go worse with Toms if he continued to hide away; for they would be
certain sooner or later to find him. The greatly alarmed woman at last
arranged that they should capture him when accompanying her across the
moors in the direction of Polruan, and they accordingly seized the
informer when in her company, on Lantock Downs. They hid him for awhile
close by, and then smuggled him, a close prisoner, over to that then
noted smugglers’ Alsatia, Guernsey, with the idea of eventually shipping
him to America. But while at Guernsey he escaped and made his way to
London.
The evidence he gave was to the effect that, during the firing, he went
down into the cabin of the _Lottery_, and there saw Potter with a gun.
Potter said “Damn them! I have just done for one of them.”
Potter was convicted and hanged. Toms, of course, never dared to again
return to Polperro, and was given a small post as under-turnkey at
Newgate, where he lived the remainder of his life.
Talland, midway between Polperro and Looe, was a favourite spot with
these daring Polperro fellows. It offered better opportunities than
those given by Polperro itself for unobserved landings; for it was—and it
still is—a weird, lonely place, overhanging the sea, with a solitary
ancient church well within sound of the waves that beat heavily upon the
little sands. It was an easy matter to store kegs in the churchyard
itself, and to take them inland, or into Polperro by the country roads,
when opportunity offered, hidden in carts taking seaweed for manure to
the fields.
At one time Talland owned a shuddery reputation in all this country-side,
and people in the farmhouses told, with many a fearful glance over their
shoulders, of the uncanny creatures that nightly haunted the churchyard.
Devils, wraiths, and fearful apparitions made the spot a kind of satanic
parliament; and we may be amply sure that these horrid stories lost no
accent or detail of terror by constant repetition in those inglenooks on
winter evenings. This is not to say that other places round about were
innocent of things supernatural; for those were times when every Cornish
glen, moor, stream, and hill had their bukkadhus, their piskies, and
gnomes of sorts, good and evil; but the infernal company that consorted
together in Talland churchyard was entirely beside these old-established
creatures. They were _hors concours_, as the French would say: they
formed a class by themselves; and, in the expressive slang of to-day,
they were “the Limit,” the _ne plus ultra_ of militant ghostdom. People
rash enough to take the church-path through Talland after night had
fallen were sure to hear and see strange semi-luminous figures; and they
bethought them then of the at once evil and beneficent reputation owned
and really enjoyed by Parson Dodge, the eccentric clergyman of Talland,
who was reputed an exorcist of the first quality. He it was who, doughty
wrestler with the most obstinate spectres, found himself greatly in
demand in a wide geographical area for the banishing of troublesome
ghosts for a long term of years to the Red Sea; but it was whispered, on
the other hand, that he kept a numerous band of diabolic familiars
believed by the simple folk of that age to resort nightly to the vicarage
for their orders, and then to do his bidding. These were the spiteful
creatures, thought the country people, who, to revenge themselves for
this servitude, lurked in the churchyard, and got even with mankind by
pinching and smacking and playing all manner of scurvy tricks upon those
who dared pass this way under cover of night. Uncle Zack Chowne even got
a black eye by favour of these inimical agencies, one exceptionally dark
night when, coming home-along this way, under the influence of spirits
not of supernatural origin, he met a posse of fiends, and, in the amiable
manner of the completely intoxicated, insisted upon their adjourning with
him to the nearest inn, “jush for shake of ole timesh.” In fact, he made
the sad mistake of taking the fiends in question for friends, and
addressed them by name: with the result that he got a sledge-hammer blow
in what the prize-fighting brotherhood used to call “the peeper.”
[Picture: The Devils of Talland]
If he had adopted the proper method to be observed when meeting spirits,
_i.e._ if he had stood up and “said his Nummy Dummy,” all would doubtless
have been well; this form of exorcism being in Cornwall of great repute
and never known to fail: being nothing less, indeed, than the Latin _In
Nomine Domine_ in disguise.
But the real truth of the matter, as the readers of these lines who can
see further through a brick wall than others may readily perceive, was
that those savage spooks and mischievous, Puck-like shapes, were really
youthful local smugglers in disguise, engaged at one and the same time in
a highly profitable nocturnal business, and in taking the welcome
opportunity thus offered in an otherwise dull circle of establishing a
glorious “rag.”
Parson Dodge himself was something more than suspected of being “ower
sib” to these at once commercial and rollicking dogs, and Talland was in
fact the scene of many a successful run that could scarce have been
successful had not this easy-going cleric amiably permitted.
It is thus peculiarly appropriate that we find to-day in this lonely
churchyard an epitaph upon a smuggler of those times. It is a tragical
enough epitaph, its tragedy perhaps disguised at the first glance by the
grotesquely comic little cherubs carved upon the tombstone, and
representing the local high-water mark of mortuary sculpture a hundred
years or so ago. They are pursy cherubs, of oleaginous appearance and of
this-worldly, rather than of other-worldly paunch and deportment. In
general, Talland churchyard is rich in such carvings; death’s-heads of
appalling ugliness to be seen in company with middle-aged, double-chinned
angels wearing what look suspiciously like chest-protectors and pyjamas,
and they decorate, with weirdly humorous aspect, the monuments and ledger
stones, and grin familiarly from the pavement with the half-obliterated
grins of many generations back. One of them points with a claw, intended
for a hand, to an object somewhat resembling a crumpled dress-tie set up
on end, probably designed to represent an hour-glass.
Such is the mortuary art of these lonesome parishes in far Cornwall:
naïve, uninstructed, home-made. It sufficed the simple folk for whom it
was wrought; and now that more conventional and pretentious memorials
have taken its place, to serve the turn of folk less simple, there are
those who would abolish its uncouth manifestations. But that way—with
the urbanities of the world—goes old Cornwall, never to be replaced.
Here is the epitaph to the smuggler, one—
ROBERT MARK;
late of Polperro, who Unfortunately
was _shot at Sea_ the 24th day of Jany.
in the year of our Lord GOD
1802, in the 40th Year of His AGE
* * * * *
In prime of Life most suddenly,
Sad tidings to relate;
Here view My utter destiny,
And pity, My sad state:
I by a shot, which Rapid flew,
Was instantly struck dead;
LORD pardon the Offender who
My precious blood did shed.
Grant Him to rest, and forgive Me,
All I have done amiss;
And that I may Rewarded be
With Everlasting Bliss.
Robert Mark was at the helm of a boat which had been obliged to run
before a revenue cutter. It was at the point of escaping when the
cutter’s crew opened fire upon the fugitive, killing the helmsman on the
spot. Let us trust he has duly won to that everlasting bliss that not
even smugglers are denied. The mild and forgiving terms of the epitaph
are to be noted with astonishment; the usual run of sentiment to be
observed on the very considerable number of these memorials to smugglers
cut off suddenly in the plenitude of their youth and beauty, being
particularly revengeful and bloodthirsty, or at the best, bitterly
reproachful.
Among these many epitaphs on smugglers to be met with in the churchyards
of seaboard parishes is the following, to be found in the waterside
parish of Mylor, near Falmouth. Details of the incident in which this
“Cus-toms house officer” (spelled here exactly as the old lettering on
the tombstone has it) shot and mortally wounded Thomas James appear to
have been altogether lost:
We have not a moment we can call our own.
* * * * *
In Memory of Thomas James, aged 35 years, who
on the evening of the 7th Dec. 1814, on his returning
to Flushing from St. Mawes in a boat was shot by a
Cus-toms house officer and expired a few days after.
* * * * *
Officious zeal in luckless hour laid wait
And wilful sent the murderous ball of fate:
James to his home, which late in health he left,
Wounded returned—of life is soon bereft.
This is quite a mild and academic example, and obviously the work of some
passionless hireling, paid for his verses. He would have written not
less affectingly for poor dog Tray.
Prussia Cove, the most famous smuggling centre in Cornwall, finds mention
in another chapter. Little else remains to be said, authentically at any
rate. Invention, however, could readily people every cove with desperate
men and hair-raising encounters, and there could nowadays be none who
should be able to deny the truth of them. But we will leave all that to
the novelists, merely pointing out that facts continually prove
themselves at least as strange as fiction. Thus at Wendron, five miles
inland from Helston, two caves, or underground chambers, were discovered
in 1905 during some alterations and rebuildings, close to the churchyard.
Local opinion declared them to be smugglers’ hiding-holes.
There stands in St. Ives town a ruined old mansion in one of the narrow
alley-ways. It is known as Hicks’ Court, and must have been a
considerable place, in its day. Also the owners of it must have been
uncommonly fond of good liquors, for it has a “secret” cellar, so called
no doubt because, like the “secret” drawers of bureaus, its existence was
perfectly obvious. Locally it is known as a “smugglers’ store.”
In such a place as St. Ives, on a coast of old so notorious for
smuggling, we naturally look for much history in this sort, but research
fails to reward even the most diligent; and we have to be content with
the meagre suspicions (for they were nothing more) of the honesty of John
Knill, a famous native and resident of the town in the second half of the
eighteenth century, who was Collector of Customs in that port, and in
1767 was chosen Mayor. His action in equipping some small craft to serve
as privateers against smugglers was wilfully misconstrued; and, at any
rate, it does not seem at all fitting that he, as an official of the
customs service, should have been concerned in such private ventures.
These “privateers,” it was said locally, were themselves actively
employed in smuggling.
He was also, according to rumour, responsible, together with one Praed,
of Trevetho, for a ship which was driven ashore in St. Ives Bay, and,
when boarded by Roger Wearne, customs officer, was found to be deserted
by captain and crew, who had been careful to remove all the ship’s
papers, so that her owners remained unknown. The vessel was found to be
full of contraband goods, including a great quantity of china, some of it
of excellent quality. Wearne conceived the brilliant idea of taking some
samples of the best for his own personal use, and filled out the baggy
breeches he was wearing with them, before he made to rejoin the boat that
had put him aboard. This uncovenanted cargo made his movements, as he
came over the side, so slow that one of his impatient boatmen smartly
whacked him with the flat of his oar, calling, “Look sharp, Wearne,” and
was dismayed when, in place of the thud that might have been expected,
there came a crash like the falling of a trayful of crockery, followed by
a cry of dismay and anguish.