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Title: Cornish Characters and Strange Events

Author: S. Baring-Gould

Release date: January 4, 2013 [eBook #41775]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CORNISH
CHARACTERS AND STRANGE EVENTS ***

CORNISH CHARACTERS AND
STRANGE EVENTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS AND STRANGE EVENTS

With 55 Full-page Illustrations Reproduced from Old Prints, etc.

THOMAS PITT, LORD CAMELFORD

CORNISH CHARACTERS
AND STRANGE EVENTS BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.
WITH 62 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS REPRODUCED FROM OLD PRINTS, ETC.

"We all are men,
In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels."
Henry VIII (Act V, Sc. 2).

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX

PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS

PREFACE
Cornwall, peopled mainly by Celts, but with an infusion of English blood, stands
and always has stood apart from the rest of England, much, but in a less degree, as
has Wales. That which brought it into more intimate association with English
thought, interests, and progress was the loss of the old Cornish tongue.
The isolation in which Cornwall had stood has tended to develop in it much
originality of character; and the wildness of the coast has bred a hardy race of
seamen and smugglers; the mineral wealth, moreover, drew thousands of men
underground, and the underground life of the mines has a peculiar effect on mind
and character: it is cramping in many ways, but it tends to develop a good deal of
religious enthusiasm, that occasionally breaks forth in wild forms of fanaticism.
Cornwall has produced admirable sailors, men who have won deathless renown in
warfare at sea, as "Old Dreadnought" Boscawen, Pellew, Lord Exmouth, etc., and
daring and adventurous smugglers, like "The King of Prussia," who combined
great religious fervour with entire absence of scruple in the matter of defrauding
the king's revenue. It has produced men of science who have made for themselves
a world-fame, as Adams the astronomer, and Sir Humphry Davy the chemist; men
who have been benefactors to their race, as Henry Trengrouse, Sir Goldsworthy
Gurney, and Trevithick. It has sent forth at least one notable painter, the miner's
boy Opie, and a dramatist, Samuel Foote, and a great singer in his day, Incledon.
But it has not given to literature a great poet. Minor rhymes have been produced
in great quantities, but none of great worth. Philosophers have issued from the
mines, as Samuel Drew, eccentrics many, as Sir James Tillie, John Knill, and
Daniel Gumb. And Cornwall has contributed a certain number of rascals—but
fewer in number than almost any other county, if we exclude wreckers and
smugglers from the catalogue of rascality.
Strange superstitions have lingered on, and one very curious story of a girl fed for
years by fairies has been put on record.
It is somewhat remarkable that Cornwall has produced no musical genius of any
note; and yet the Cornishman is akin to the Welshman and the Irishman.
Cornwall has certainly sent up to London and Westminster very able politicians,
as Godolphin, Sir William Molesworth, and Sir John Eliot. It furnished Tyburn
with a victim—Hugh Peters, the chaplain of Oliver Cromwell, a strange mixture
of money-grasping, enthusiasm, and humour.

It has been the object of the author, not to retell the lives of the greatest of the sons
of Cornwall, for these lives may be read in the Dictionary of National Biography,
but to chronicle the stories of lesser luminaries concerning whom less is known
and little is easily accessible. In this way it serves as a companion volume to
Devonshire Characters; and Cornwall in no particular falls short of Devonshire in
the variety of characters it has sent forth, nor are their stories of less interest.
The author and publisher have to thank many for kind help: Mr. Percy Bate, Mr.
T. R. Bolitho, Rev. A. T. Boscawen, Mr. J. A. Bridger, Mr. T. Walter Brimacombe,
Mr. A. M. Broadley, Mr. R. P. Chope, Mr. Digby Collins, Mr. J. B. Cornish, Mrs.
Coryton of Pentillie Castle, Miss Loveday E. Drake, Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin, f.s.a.,
Mr. J. D. Enys of Enys, the Rev. Wm. Iago, Mrs. H. Forbes Julian, Mrs. de Lacy
Lacy, the Rev. A. H. Malan, Mr. Lewis Melville, Mr. A. H. Norway, Captain
Rogers of Penrose, Mr. Thomas Seccombe, Mr. Henry Trengrouse, Mr. W. H. K.
Wright, and Mr. Henry Young of Liverpool—and last, but not least, Miss
Windeatt Roberts for her admirable Index to the volume.
The publisher wishes me to say that he would much like to discover the
whereabouts of a full-length portrait of Sir John Call, with a view of Bodmin Gaol
in the background.
S. BARING-GOULD.

CONTENTS
page

WILLIAM PENGELLY, GEOLOGIST 1

SIR CHARLES WILLS, K.B. 12

LIEUTENANT GOLDSMITH AND THE LOGAN ROCK 18

HUGH PETERS, THE REGICIDE 26

JAMES POLKINGHORNE, THE WRESTLER 54

HENRY TRENGROUSE, INVENTOR 59

THE BOTATHAN GHOST 72

JOHN COUCH ADAMS, ASTRONOMER 83

DANIEL GUMB 91

LAURENCE BRADDON 96

THOMASINE BONAVENTURA 108

THE MURDER OF NEVILL NORWAY 117

SIR WILLIAM LOWER, KNT. 126

THE PIRATES AT PENZANCE 130

DAME KILLIGREW 133

TWO NATURALISTS IN CORNWALL 141
John Ralfs
George Carter Bignell

SIR JOHN CALL, BART. 154

JOHN KNILL 169

THOMAS TREGOSS 176

ANTHONY PAYNE 181

NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD 186

SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY, KNT., INVENTOR 192

THE JANES 206

THE PENNINGTONS 222

DOCTOR GLYNN-CLOBERY 228

THREE MEN OF MOUSEHOLE 232

DOLLY PENTREATH 238

ROBERT JEFFERY OF POLPERRO 247

ADMIRAL RICHARD DARTON THOMAS 258

COMMANDER JOHN POLLARD 269

THE CASE OF BOSAVERN PENLEZ 270

SAMUEL FOOTE 280

THE LAST LORD MOHUN 298

THE LAST LORD CAMELFORD 318

WILLIAM NOYE 329

WILLIAM LEMON 342

SAMUEL DREW 346

THE SIEGE OF SKEWIS 364

THE VOYAGE OF JOHN SANDS 370

CHARLES INCLEDON 375

THE MURDER OF RICHARD CORYTON 388

SIR JAMES TILLIE, KNT. 399

LIEUTENANT JOHN HAWKEY 408

DR. DANIEL LOMBARD 424

THE DREAM OF MR. WILLIAMS 427

SIR ROBERT TRESILIAN 432

PIRATE TRELAWNY 441

JAMES SILK BUCKINGHAM 455

MARY ANN DAVENPORT, ACTRESS 466

THE ROYAL FAMILY OF PRUSSIA 470

CAPTAIN RICHARD KEIGWIN 479

THE LOSS OF THE "KENT" 489

VICE-ADMIRAL SIR CHARLES V. PENROSE 500

SIR CHRISTOPHER HAWKINS, BART. 515

ANNE JEFFERIES 531

THOMAS KILLIGREW, THE KING'S JESTER 544

NICOLAS ROSCARROCK 554

LIEUTENANT PHILIP G. KING 559

HICKS OF BODMIN 569

CAPTAIN TOBIAS MARTIN 579

THE MAYOR OF BODMIN 586

JOHN NICHOLS TOM, ALIAS SIR WILLIAM
COURTENAY, K.M. 593

THE BOHELLAND TRAGEDY 614

MARY KELYNACK 620

CAPTAIN WILLIAM ROGERS 623

JOHN BURTON OF FALMOUTH 627

THE FATE OF SIR CLOUDESLEY SHOVEL 637

FRANCIS TREGIAN 652

ANN GLANVILLE 663

JONATHAN SIMPSON, HIGHWAYMAN 670

DAVIES GILBERT 675

JAMES HOSKIN, FARMER 682

JOHN HARRIS, THE MINER POET 692

EDWARD CHAPMAN 701

JOHN COKE OF TRERICE 704

THOMAS PELLOW OF PENRYN 707

THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBARTES FAMILY 718

THEODORE PALEOLOGUS 727

ILLUSTRATIONS
Thomas Pitt, Lord Camelford Frontispiece
to face page
William Pengelly 2

From a painting by A. S. Cope, reproduced by
permission of Mrs. H. Forbes Julian

Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Wills 12

From an engraving by Simon, after a picture by M.
Dahl

A View of the Celebrated Logan Rock, near Land's End in
Cornwall 18

Taken after the Rock was displaced on the 8th of April,
1824. From a lithograph by Vibert, after a drawing
by Tonkin

A View of the Southern Part of Castle Treryn, showing the
Machinery erected for the purpose of replacing the
Logan Rock 22

From a lithograph by Vibert, after a drawing by Tonkin

Hugh Peters 26

From an old engraving

James Polkinghorne, the Famous Cornish Wrestler 54

From a drawing as he appeared in the Ring at
Devonport on Monday, 23 October, 1826, when he
threw Ab ̱ͫ . Cann, the Champion of Devonshire, for a
stake of 200 sovereigns

Henry Trengrouse, the Inventor of the Rocket Apparatus
for Saving Life at Sea 60

From an oil painting by Opie the younger, reproduced
by permission of Mr. H. Trengrouse

The Wreck of the "Anson" 66

From a sketch by Mr. H. Trengrouse

"Parson Rudall" 72

From a painting in the possession of the Rev. S.
Baring-Gould

John Couch Adams 84

From a mezzotint by Samuel Cousins, a.r.a., after a
picture by Thomas Mogford. From the collection of
Mrs. Lewis Lane

John Couch Adams 88

The Cheese-wring 92

From an etching by Letitia Byrne, after a drawing by J.
Farington, r.a.

Nevill Norway 118

From a painting in the possession of Miss A. T.
Norway

Sir William Lower 126

The Killygrew Cup 134
"1633. from maior to maior to the towne of permarin,
where they received mee that was in great misery"
Jane
Killygrew

This cup has been recently valued at the sum of £4000. It
measures just two feet in height

George Carter Bignell 142

From a photograph

John Ralfs 146

Reproduced by permission of Miss Loveday E. Drake

Sir John Call, Bart. 154

From a portrait (by A. Hickle) in the possession of his
great-granddaughter, Mrs. de Lacy Lacy

Whiteford—the Residence of Sir John Call 164

From a drawing in the possession of Mrs. de Lacy Lacy

John Knill 170

After a picture by Opie in the possession of Captain
Rogers, of Penrose

Glass inscribed "Success to the Eagle Frigate, John Knill,
Commander" 172

From the collection of Percy Bate, Esq., of Glasgow

Anthony Payne 182

From a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller, purchased by
Sir Robert Harvey, High Sheriff of Cornwall, 1901,
and presented to the Institute of Cornwall

Nevil Northey Burnard 186

From a bas-relief by the sculptor himself, in the
possession of S. Pearn, Esq., Altarnon

Wesley's Head over the Old Meeting-house, Penpont,
Altarnon. Cut by Burnard when 16 years of age 188

Tombstones cut by Burnard 188

That on the right is upon the grave of his grandfather in
Altarnon Churchyard, and was cut when the sculptor
was only 14 years old; the one on the left is in
Bodmin Churchyard

Tombstones in Altarnon Churchyard. Cut by Burnard 190

Sir Goldsworthy Gurney 192

From a lithograph by W. Sharp, after a drawing by S.
C. Smith

Dorothy Pentreath of Mousehole in Cornwall. The last
Person who could Converse in the Cornish Language 232

From a drawing by R. Scadden

Monschole, in Mount's Bay, from the Island 238

From a drawing by Captain Tremenhere

Samuel Foote 280

The Last Lord Mohun 298

From a mezzotint by I. Faber, after a picture by Sir
Godfrey Kneller

The Duel between Lord Mohun and the Duke of Hamilton 312

From a contemporary mezzotint in the British Museum

Sir William Noye, Attorney-General to King Charles the
First 330

Sir William Lemon, Bart., M.P. for Cornwall 342

From an engraving by J. H. Meyer

Samuel Drew 346

From an engraving by R. Hicks, after a painting by F.
Moore

Henry Rogers, Pewterer 364

Charles Incledon, as Macheath 376

From an engraving by J. Thomson, after a painting by
Singleton

Sir James Tillie, Knt. 400

Sir James Tillie's Monument at Pentillie 406

Edward John Trelawny 442

From a drawing by D. Lucas

James Silk Buckingham 456

Mrs. Davenport, in the Character of Mrs. Grundy 466

From an engraving by Ridley, after a picture by De
Wilde

At Prussia Cove. "Bessy's" Cove from Battery Point 470

From a drawing in the possession of J. B. Cornish, Esq.

John Carter's House at Prussia Cove. (Demolished in 1906) 476

From a photograph by Gibson & Sons, Penzance

Vice-Admiral Sir Charles V. Penrose, k.c.b. 500

From a picture by Allingham

Thomas Killigrew, Groom of the Bedchamber to King
Charles the Second 544

From an engraving by I. Vander vaart, after a picture by
W. Wissens

Lieutenant Philip Gidley King 560

From an engraving by W. Skelton, after a drawing by J.
Wright

William R. Hicks 570

William R. Hicks of Bodmin 576

From a Caricature

John Thomas, otherwise Sir William Courtenay, who shot
Lieutenant Bennet in Basenden Wood, Boughton, near
Canterbury, and the Constable Mears, on Thursday,
May 31st, 1838. 594

Percy Honeywood Courtenay, Knight of Malta, etc. etc., as
he appeared at the Election in 1832 608

Mary Kelynack 620

Captain W. Rogers 624

From an engraving by Ridley and Blood, after a picture
by Drummond

John Burton of Falmouth 628

Sir Cloudesley Shovel 638

Ann Glanville 664

Davies Gilbert 676

From a mezzotint by Samuel Cousins, a.r.a., after a
picture by Henry Howard, r.a. From the collection
of Mrs. Lewis Lane

John Harris, the Miner Poet 692

The Right Hon. John Earl of Radnor: Baron Roberts of
Truro 718

After Sir Godfrey Kneller

Memorial Brass in the Church of Landulph 728

Reproduced by permission of E. H. W. Dunkin, Esq.,
f.s.a., from his book on Cornish Brasses

CORNISH CHARACTERS AND STRANGE
EVENTS

CORNISH CHARACTERS

AND STRANGE EVENTS

WILLIAM PENGELLY, GEOLOGIST
William Pengelly was born at East Looe on January 12th, 1812, and was the son
of the captain of a small coasting vessel and nephew of a notorious smuggler. The
Pengellys had, in fact, been connected with the sea for several generations. His
mother was a Prout of the same family as the famous water-colour artist.
As a child his career was almost cut short by fire. An aunt came to stay with the
Pengellys, arriving a day before she was expected. Early on the following
morning, when sitting in her bedroom window, wrapped in a thick woollen shawl,
she saw her little nephew William rush out of the house enveloped in flames. She
hurried after him, and managed to smother the fire with her woollen garment, and
thus saved the child's life, though she was herself so badly burnt that she carried
the scars to her dying day. The little boy had risen early, and had kindled a fire so
that he might go on with his lessons before any one else was astir in the house,
with the result that he set light to his clothes, and except for the premature arrival
of his aunt, must certainly have been burnt to death.
At the age of twelve he went to sea. He says:—
"Our voyages were short. I do not remember an instance of being at sea more than
three consecutive days; so that, except when windbound, we were almost always
taking in or taking out cargo. The work was hard, but the food was abundant, and
on the whole the life, though rough, was not unpleasant.
"To me—thinking nothing of the pecuniary aspects of the question—the most
enjoyable occasions were those which fierce contrary winds brought us, when we
had to seek some harbour of refuge. These were by no means necessarily
holidays, for, if the weather were dry, advantage was taken of the enforced leisure
to give our craft a thorough cleaning, or to repair her rigging, or to make up the
books. Moreover, the crew employed me to write letters to their wives from their
dictation. These epistles were generally of a remarkable character, and some of
them remain firmly fixed in my memory. The foregoing labours disposed of, and
foul winds still prevailing, we had a washing day, or, better than all, a bout of
tailoring, which did not generally get beyond repairing, though occasionally the
ambitious flight of making a pair of trousers was attempted. On tailoring days it
was understood that my clothes should be repaired for me, in order that I might
read aloud for the general benefit. We assembled in our little cabin, where the
stitching and smoking went on simultaneously, and with great vigour. My poor

library consisted of a Bible, the eighth volume of the Spectator, Johnson's English
Dictionary, a volume of the Weekly Miscellany, the History of John Gilpin, Baron
Munchausen's Travels, Walkinghame's Arithmetic, and a book of songs. My
hearers were not very fastidious, but allowed me to read pretty much what I
pleased, though, truth to tell, the Spectator was not a favourite; some portions of it
were held to be nonsensical, and others were considered to be so lacking in
truthfulness that it was generally termed the 'lying book.' This ill repute was
largely due to the story of Fadlallah (No. 578). Walkinghame was by no means
unpopular. I occasionally read some of the questions, and my shipmates
endeavoured to solve them mentally; and as the answers were all given by the
author, I had to declare who had made the nearest guess, for it was very often but
little more. Of all the questions, none excited so much interest as that which asks,
What will be the cost of shoeing a horse at a farthing for the first nail, two for the
second, and so on in geometrical progression for thirty-two nails, and which gives
for the answer a sum but little short of four and a half million pounds sterling.
This was so utterly unexpected that it went far to confer on Walkinghame the
same name that Fadlallah had given to the Spectator."

Reproduced by permission of Mrs. H. Forbes Julian

William Pengelly tells a curious story of his father, Richard Pengelly:—
"After completing his fifteenth year he was thinking of going to sea. When he was
sixteen, his father, who was a sailor, was drowned almost within sight of his
home. The effect on the boy was to make him pause, and on his friends, to urge
him to give up the idea. For some months these influences kept him quiet, but at
length his restlessness returned so strongly, that he would have gone to sea at
once, had he felt satisfied that his father would have approved the step. To
ascertain this point he prayed frequently and earnestly that his father's spirit might
be allowed to appear to him, with a pleasing or frowning aspect, according as he
might approve or disapprove. At length he believed his prayer to have been
answered, and that when in the field ploughing he saw his father, who passed by

looking intently and smilingly at him. This decided him. He became a sailor at
seventeen, and as such died at a good old age."
One bitterly cold night at sea, young Pengelly and some other of his shipmates
having closed the cabin door, lit a charcoal fire, and speedily fell asleep,
succumbing to the fumes of carbonic acid. Happily one of the crew who had been
on deck entered the cabin. He found the greatest difficulty in awakening his
comrades to sufficient consciousness to enable them to stumble up the ladder to
get a breath of fresh air, for their sleep had well-nigh become that of death. The
strong and hardy seamen soon recovered, but the boy was so seriously affected
that, long after he had been carried upon deck, he could not be roused, and was
only restored to consciousness by means of prolonged exertions on the part of his
shipmates. His earliest geological experience was made when a sailor-boy
weather-bound on the Dorsetshire coast, and he was wont to relate it thus:—
"I received my first lesson in geology at Lyme Regis, very soon after I had entered
my teens. A labourer, whom I was observing, accidentally broke a large stone of
blue lias and thus disclosed a fine ammonite —the first fossil of any kind that I
had ever seen or heard of.
"In reply to my exclamation, 'What's that?' the workman said, with a sneer, 'If you
had read your Bible you'd know what 'tis.' 'I have read my Bible. But what has
that to do with it?'
"'In the Bible we're told there was once a flood that covered all the world. At that
time all the rocks were mud, and the different things that were drowned were
buried in it, and there's a snake that was buried that way. There are lots of 'em, and
other things besides, in the rocks and stones hereabouts.'
"'A snake! But where's his head?'
"'You must read the Bible, I tell 'ee, and then you'll find out why 'tis that some of
the snakes in the rocks ain't got no heads. We're told there, that the seed of the
woman shall bruise the serpent's head, that's how 'tis.'"
When in his sixteenth year William Pengelly lost his younger brother, and after
that his mother would not suffer him to go to sea. Some years were spent at Looe
in self-education.
While still quite young he was induced by a relative of his mother to settle at
Torquay, at that time a small place, but rapidly growing and attracting residents to
it. Here he opened a small day-school on the Pestalozzian system, and was one of

the first to introduce the use of the blackboard and chalk. The school opened with
six scholars, but rapidly increased to about seventy.
It was now that scientific studies began to occupy Pengelly's attention, and above
all, geology.
In 1837 he married Mary Anne Mudge, whose health was always delicate.
Little by little his renown as a geologist spread, and he did not confine himself to
the deposits in Devonshire, but travelled to Scotland and elsewhere to examine the
rocks, and to meet and consult with eminent scientists.
In 1846 his private pupils had grown so numerous that he was able to give up his
school altogether and become a tutor of mathematics and the natural sciences. He
tells a very amusing story of a visit made during holiday time to an old friend.
"I one day learned that my road lay within a couple of miles of the rectory of my
old mathematical friend D——. We had been great friends when he was a curate
in a distant part of the country, but had not met for several years, during which he
had been advanced from a curacy of about £80 to a rectory of £200 per year, and a
residence, in a very secluded district. My time was very short, but for 'auld lang
syne' I decided to sacrifice a few hours. On reaching the house Mr. and Mrs. D
—— were fortunately at home, and received me with their wonted kindness.
"The salutations were barely over, when I said—
"'It is now six o'clock; I must reach Wellington tonight, and as it is said to be fully
eight miles off, and I am utterly unacquainted with the road, and with the town
when I reach it, I cannot remain with you one minute after eight o'clock.'
"'Oh, very well,' said D——, 'then we must improve the shining hour. Jane, my
dear, be so good as to order tea.'
"Having said this he left the room. In a few minutes he returned with a book under
his arm and his hands filled with writing materials, which he placed on the table.
Opening the book, he said—
"'This is Hind's Trigonometry, and here's a lot of examples for practice. Let us see
which can do the greatest number of them by eight o'clock. I did most of them
many years ago, but I have not looked at them since. Suppose we begin at this
one'—which he pointed out—'and take them as they come. We can drink our tea
as we work, so as to lose no time.'

"'All right,' said I; though it was certainly not the object for which I had come out
of my road.
"Accordingly we set to work. No words passed between us; the servant brought in
the tray, Mrs. D—— handed us our tea, which we drank now and then, and the
time flew on rapidly. At length, finding it to be a quarter to eight—
"'We must stop,' said I, 'for in a quarter of an hour I must be on my road.'
"'Very well. Let us see how our answers agree with those of the author.'
"It proved that he had correctly solved one more than I had. This point settled, I
said 'Good-bye.'
"'Good-bye. Do come again as soon as you can. The farmers know nothing
whatever about Trigonometry.'
"We parted at the rectory door, and have never met since; nor shall we ever do so
more, as his decease occurred several years ago. During my long walk to
Wellington my mind was chiefly occupied with the mental isolation of a rural
clergyman."
In 1851 he lost his wife, and some years after both his children by her.
In 1853 he married a Lydia Spriggs, a Quakeress.
William Pengelly's scientific explorations may be divided under three heads. The
first was his minute and accurate examination of the deposits that form Bovey
Heathfield, where there are layers of clay, sand, and lignite. He was able to extract
numerous fossil plants, and thereby to determine the approximate age of the beds.
Next he took up the exploration of ossiferous caves; and he began this work with
that of Brixham, in Windmill Hill.
The floor of this cavern was excavated in successive stages or layers, starting
from the entrance. Bones were found in the stalagmite and in the first, third, and
fourth beds, and worked flints in the third and fourth beds only; but where the
third bed filled the cavern up to the rock, its upper portion contained neither bones
nor flints. The bones were those of the mammoth, the rhinoceros, the urus, hyæna,
cave lion and cave bear, etc.
But by far the most laborious scientific undertaking of Pengelly's life was the
exploration of Kent's Cavern, near Torquay. This cave was known as far back as
1824, when a Mr. Northmore, of Cleve, near Exeter, made a superficial

examination of it to ascertain whether it had been a temple of Mithras, and quite
satisfied himself on this point. He was followed by Sir W. C. Trevelyan and by the
Rev. J. MacEnery. But it was not till 1865 that a complete, scientific, and
exhaustive exploration was undertaken by the British Association, which made a
grant of £100 for the purpose. Mr. Pengelly was appointed secretary and reporter
to the committee for the examination of the cave and its deposits.
It was found that the floor of the cave exhibited the following succession: (1)
Blocks of limestone sometimes large, clearly fallen from the roof. (2) A layer of
black mould ranging from a few inches to upwards of a foot in depth. (3) Beneath
this came a floor of granular stalagmite, about a foot in thickness, formed by the
drip of water from the roof. (4) A red loam containing a number of limestone
fragments. (5) A breccia of angular fragments of limestone and pebbles and
sandstone embedded in a reddish sandy calcareous paste.
On June 19th, 1880, the exploration of Kent's Hole was brought to an end. It was
the most complete and systematic investigation of a cavern that had ever been
undertaken, and on a much greater scale than that at Brixham. A task of this kind
is peculiarly exacting. It cannot be entrusted to workmen; it cannot be left to a
committee whose members pay but intermittent visits: it demands the constant
oversight of one man; and this superintendence was given to Pengelly. The total
amount spent on this exploration was £2000. Pengelly states in one of his papers
that in the fifteen and a quarter years during which the excavation was in progress
he visited Kent's Hole almost daily, and spent over the work, on an average, five
hours a day.
"Above the stalagmite, and principally in the black mould, have been found a
number of relics belonging to different periods, such as socketed celts, and a
socketed knife of bronze, and some small fragments of roughly smelted copper,
about four hundred flint flakes, cores, and chips, a polishing stone, a ring (made
of Kimmeridge clay), numerous spindle whorls, bone instruments terminating in
comb-like ends, pottery, marine shells, numerous mammalian bones of existing
species, and some human bones, on which it has been thought there are traces
indicative of cannibalism. Some of the pottery is distinctly Roman in character;
but many of the objects belong, no doubt, to pre-Roman times."
What was found beneath the stalagmite belonged to a long anterior period, where
it had lain sealed up for, at the very least, two thousand years. In this deposit of
the cave earth were found a large number of chips, flakes, and implements of flint
and chert, stones that had served as pounders, and some pins, needles, and
harpoons of bone.

Some mammoth bones were found in Kent's Cavern, and those of the cave lion,
the sabre-toothed tiger, the glutton, cave bear, woolly rhinoceros, horse, reindeer,
and beaver.
Mr. W. Pengelly died on March 17th, 1894.
A writer in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1894 says: "For
science he lived, and for science he laboured, even long after the age when the
average man seeks rest and quiet. Starting out in original lines of thought, and
untrammelled by traditions of years long ago, he met with many rebuffs, and the
conclusions which he derived from his investigations and minute and patient
inquiry were almost laughed to scorn. But he adhered to his work and clung to his
beliefs, with enthusiastic devotion, and in the end he lived to see even those who
had originally stoutly opposed his views convinced of their verity, and their
inestimable value to archæological and geological science."
Pengelly himself left this piece of advice to the student:—
"Be careful in scientific inquiries that you get a sufficient number of perfectly
trustworthy facts; that you interpret them with the aid of a rigorous logic; that on
suitable occasions you have courage enough to avow your convictions; and don't
be impatient, or annoyed, if your friends don't receive all your conclusions, or
even if they call you bad names."
It must be remembered that Pengelly and Sir Charles Lyell were those who
startled English minds with the revelation of the enormous period of time in
which man had lived on the earth, and of the slow progression of man through
vast ages in the development of civilization. How that he began with the rudest
flint implements, and progressed but very slowly to the perfection of these stone
tools; how that only in comparatively recent times did he discover the use of
metals and pottery; how of metals he first employed bronze, and not till long after
acquired the art of smelting iron and fashioning tools and weapons of iron. All this
startled the world, and men were very unwilling to accept the doctrine
propounded and to acknowledge the facts on which this doctrine was based.
The Life of William Pengelly was written by his daughter Hester Pengelly, and
published by Murray, 1897. Reference has been made as well to the obituary
notice in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association for 1894.

SIR CHARLES WILLS, K.B.
Sir Charles Wills belonged to a very ancient and widely ramified family in
Cornwall. The first, however, of whom anything authentic is known was Anthony
Wills, of Saltash, who died in 1576. They were settled at Landrake, at Morval,
Botusfleming, Wyvelscombe, Exeter, and Gorran.
Anthony Wills, of Gorran, youngest son of Digory Wills, of Botusfleming, had a
son, Anthony Wills, who was the father of the Right Hon. Sir Charles Wills, k.b.,
general of His Majesty's forces, baptized at Gorran 23rd October, 1666. Sir
Charles had two brothers, Richard, of Acombe, in the county of York, and
Anthony, of the Inner Temple, who died in Ireland 1689. The arms of the family
are, arg. three griffins passant, in pale, sa., within a bordure engrailed of the last
besantée.
Sir Charles was a subaltern in 1693, when serving in the Low Countries under
William III. The King went to Holland at the end of March in that year, and
returned on the last day of October, when the armies went into winter quarters.
Wills was in the battle of Landen and at the siege of Namur. On the 13th October,
1705, he was appointed colonel of the 30th Regiment, and sailed with it to Spain.
He acted as quartermaster-general to the troops in that country, was present at
Llenda, Almanza, and Saragossa, and was made prisoner in 1711 with the army
under General Stanhope, but was released at the end of the war.

Lieutenant General Wills Commander of his Maj.ties Forces in the Action against the Rebells at Preston in
Lancashire.

He had been appointed brigadier-general in 1707, major-general on 1st January,
1709, and lieutenant-general 16th November, 1710. After the peace of 1715, being
in command of the troops in the Midland district, he marched northwards to meet
the rebels from Scotland, and he and General Carpenter met them at Preston.
Preston was a town both Jacobite and Roman Catholic; and in it was the army of
the Pretender, composed of Scottish Highlanders and Lancashire gentry and their
retainers.
General Carpenter, who had been marching into Scotland, turned back into
Northumberland, and by forced marches had reached Durham, where he
combined with General Wills, who had been sent some time before into the north
to quell the many riots that preluded the insurrection.

Wills concentrated six regiments of cavalry, for the most part newly raised, but
commanded by experienced officers, at Manchester, whence he moved to Wigan.
There it was arranged that Wills should march straight upon Preston, while
Carpenter, advancing in another direction, should take the insurgents in flank. As
the Hanoverians approached, General Forster, who commanded the Jacobites,
gave satisfactory evidence that he was no soldier; he fell into a fright and
confusion, and betook himself to bed. But Lord Kenmure roused him, and in a
hurried council, where all the gentlemen had a voice, and where those spoke
loudest who knew least of war, a plan of defending Preston was adopted. But the
plan, at least as executed, consisted merely in throwing up some barricades in the
streets and in posting some men in defence of them. Brigadier Mackintosh either
knew not the ground or his better judgment was overruled; for Preston offered
many advantages as a defensive position which were altogether neglected. In front
of the town was a bridge over the Ribble, that might have been held by a handful
of men, and from the bridge to the town, for a distance of a mile, the road ran
through a hollow between steep banks for a mile. But river, bridge, and road were
all left undefended. When Wills rode up to the bridge and saw that it was
unprotected he could hardly believe his eyes; and then he concluded that the
insurgents must have abandoned Preston and begun their retreat into Scotland, so
that there would be no fighting that day.
But as he came to the outskirts of the town, he heard a tumultuous noise within,
and saw the barricades that Forster had thrown up, and was saluted by a shower of
bullets. He ordered his dragoons to dismount and attack two of the barricades.
This service was gallantly performed; but the regulars were sorely galled by a fire
from the houses as well as from the barricades.
As night was falling Wills withdrew his men, after they had suffered considerable
loss. Early on the following morning General Carpenter came up with a part of his
cavalry; and then Forster, who had scarcely lost a man, and whose force more
than doubled that of the regular troops, lost heart entirely, and without consulting
his friends, sent Colonel Oxburgh to propose a capitulation.
General Wills, irritated at the loss he had sustained on the preceding evening,
seemed at first disposed to reject the proposition altogether; but at last he agreed
"that, if the rebels would lay down their arms and surrender at discretion, he
would protect them from being cut to pieces by the soldiers, until further orders
from the Government."
When Oxburgh's mission was known in the town, and the result of it, the more
warlike portion of the insurgents were indignant and railed against the coward

Forster; and so incensed were they against him that, according to an eye-witness,
if he had ventured into the street, he would infallibly have been torn to pieces.
The brave Highlanders, seeing that nothing was to be expected from the
Lancastrian boors who had joined them, proposed rushing with sword in hand and
cutting their way through the King's troops. But their leaders thought this too
hazardous a proceeding and counselled surrender. They gave up Lord
Derwentwater and Colonel Mackintosh as hostages, and induced the clans to lay
down their arms and submit. Including English and Scotch, only seventeen men
had been killed in the defence of Preston.
The Lancastrian peasants got away out of the town, but fourteen hundred men
were made prisoners by a thousand, or at the outside twelve hundred English
horse. Among those captured were Lords Derwentwater, Widdrington, Nithsdale,
Winton, Carnwark, Kenmure, Nairn, and Charles Murray. There were others,
members of ancient and honourable families of the north, of Scotland, and of
Lancashire.
The invasion of England by the Jacobites had thus ended ingloriously. The
noblemen and gentlemen of rank and influence who were taken were sent to
London in charge of Brigadier Panter and a hundred men of Lumley's Horse.
On January 5th, 1716, Wills was appointed to the colonelcy of the 3rd Regiment
of the line, and on the death of Lord Cadogan was transferred in August, 1726, to
that of the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards.
It was customary at all times for the King's company of the 1st Guards to fly the
Royal Standard, which was carried by that company on all state occasions. It was
of crimson silk throughout, with the King's cypher and crown in the middle and
the arms of the three kingdoms quartered in the four corners. The staff of this
standard was also more ornamented than that of the other twenty-seven
companies. The lieutenant-colonel's colours were also of crimson silk throughout.
These colours were renewed every seven years.
In 1723 the King went to Hanover, when a camp was formed in Hyde Park under
the command of Lieut.-Colonel Wills. He had been elected M.P. for Totnes in
1714, and he represented that borough till 1741. In 1725 he was made Knight of
the Bath and Privy Councillor.
In 1733, in consequence of the increase of smuggling carried on even in London,
Strickland, Secretary for War, addressed a letter in the form of a warrant to the
Governor of the Tower and to the officers in command of the Guards, authorizing
them to furnish detachments of men to assist in securing contraband goods; and in

consequence of the increase of the duties to be performed by the men of the Foot
Guards, their establishment was raised in 1739 by ten men per company.
In 1740, as the political horizon on the Continent was threatening, Walpole had to
choose between declaring war with Spain and resigning. He disapproved of war,
but rather than resign declared it. The people of London were delighted and rang
the bells in the steeples. "Ah!" said Walpole; "they are ringing the bells now; they
soon will be wringing their hands." Camps, in anticipation of hostilities, were
ordered to be formed in various parts of England. In March orders were conveyed
to Sir Charles Wills and others to direct their officers to provide themselves with
tents and everything needful for encamping, and those troops under Sir Charles
were to occupy Hounslow. He superintended the formation of the camp where the
whole of the Horse and Foot Guards were to assemble, and previous to departing
they paraded in Hyde Park, on June 15th, under Sir Charles, who had a lieutenant-
general and a major-general on the staff with him. Thence he proceeded to the
encampment on the Heath marked out for the purpose.
The twenty-four companies of the 1st Guards under the command of Colonel
Richard Ingoldsby, second major of the regiment, remained encamped on
Hounslow from June 16th for several months—in fact, till the middle of October.
Sir Charles Wills was now filling the post of General Commander of the King's
forces, but had been failing in health and strength, and soon became quite unable
to take any active work; and he died on December 25th, Christmas Day, 1741, and
was buried in Westminster Abbey.
He had never been married. He had purchased land at Claxton, and this and all he
had he bequeathed to Field-Marshal Sir Robert Rich, Bart., of Roxhill, in Suffolk,
Governor of Chelsea Hospital.

LIEUTENANT GOLDSMITH AND THE LOGAN
ROCK
In the parish of S. Levan is a promontory running out into the sea, once cut off by
embankments on the land side, and converted into a cliff castle, that bears the
name of Trereen-Dinas. The headland presents a succession of natural piles of
granite tors, the first of which, rising perpendicularly, is crowned by the far-famed
Logan Rock, a mass weighing about ninety tons, and so exactly poised upon one
point that any one, by applying his shoulder to it, could make the whole mass rock
sensibly. Not only so, but in a high wind it could be seen rolling on its pivot.
Doctor Borlase, in his Antiquities of Cornwall, 1754, says: "In the parish of S.
Levan, Cornwall, there is a promontory called Castle Treryn. This cape consists of
three distinct groupes of rocks. On the western side of the middle groupe, near the
top, lies a very large stone, so evenly poised, that any hand may move it to and
fro; but the extremities of its base are at such a distance from each other, and so
well secured by their nearness to the stone which it stretches itself upon, that it is
morally impossible that any lever, or indeed force (however applied in a
mechanical way), can remove it from its present situation."
This overbold statement, added to the persistence of the people of the
neighbourhood, that no man could throw the Logan Rock from its balance, stirred
up a silly young lieutenant, Hugh Colvill Goldsmith, of H.M.S. cutter Nimble, on
the preventive service, lying off the Land's End on the look-out for smugglers, to
attempt to do what the popular voice declared to be impossible. Lieut. Goldsmith
was a nephew of the famous Oliver Goldsmith, and had consequently some
flighty Irish blood in his veins.

A VIEW OF THE CELEBRATED LOGAN ROCK, NEAR LAND'S END IN CORNWALL
Taken after the Rock was displaced on the 8th of April, 1824

"On April 8, 1824," says the Gentleman's Magazine, "a party of sailors belonging
to H.M. cutter Nimble, commanded by Lieut. Goldsmith, came on shore for the
purpose of removing from its situation that great curiosity the Logging (rocking)
Stone; and which object they were unfortunately enabled to accomplish. This
mass of granite, which is nearly 100 tons weight, was one of the three objects that
excited the curiosity of every visitor to the west part of Cornwall. It stood on the
summit of a mass of rocks at the Land's End, and was so poised on a natural pivot,
that the force which a man could exert was sufficient to cause it to vibrate. In this
situation it remained from a period anterior to our authentic records, as it is
noticed by our earliest writers, until the barbarian above mentioned, in sheer
wantonness, removed it from its place. This act of vandalism has excited the
greatest indignation at Penzance, as it will in every part of Cornwall, and
throughout the kingdom. It appears that Lieut. Goldsmith landed at the head of
fourteen of his men, and with the assistance of handspikes and a handscrew, called
by the sailors jack-in-the-box, with much labour and perseverance threw over the
stone. What renders the act most atrocious is, that two poor families, who derived
a subsistence from attending visitors to the stone, are now deprived of the means
of support."
It was found that the handspikes and jack were of no avail. Accordingly
Goldsmith made his fourteen men put their shoulders to the stone and bring it into

such violent oscillation that at last it toppled over.
The Logan Stone, thus displaced, would have rolled down from the tor on which
it had rested and have shot into the sea, had it not happily been arrested by a cleft
in the rock.
The indignation of the people was great, so that the life of Lieut. Goldsmith was
threatened by the sturdy fishermen, should he land. But the desire to land was
taken from him, for the whole county was roused, and a gathering of the
magistrates was summoned to consider what could be done, and to memorialize
the Admiralty against the perpetrator of this wanton act of mischief.
Happily Mr. Davies Gilbert was at the time in London, and he at once proceeded
to the Admiralty and complained of the vandalism perpetrated, and requested that
the lieutenant should be ordered to replace the block as found, and that the proper
apparatus, capstan, blocks, chains, etc., should be furnished by the dockyard at
Devonport.
This was undertaken, and orders were despatched to Lieut. Goldsmith that he
must either restore the Logan Rock to its old position, at his own cost, or forfeit
his commission. As the expense would be wholly beyond his means, Mr. Davies
Gilbert very liberally subscribed £150 for the purpose.
A writer, Lieut. L. Edye, in the Western Antiquary for 1887, says: "In his trouble
he appealed to my grandfather (Mr. William Edye) for advice and assistance,
stating that the Admiralty had called upon him either to replace the stone or forfeit
his commission. My grandfather, ever ready to render assistance to any one in
trouble, readily assisted, and having travelled into Cornwall (as a friend) and seen
the damage done, applied to the Admiralty for the loan of plant and men. Their
Lordships complied with the request, but stipulated that the cost must be entirely
defrayed by Lieut. Goldsmith."
We will now see what Goldsmith had to say for himself. The following is an
extract from a letter written by him to his mother, dated April 24th, 1824:—
"The facts in question, my dear mother, are these: On the 8th of this month we
were off the Land's End, near the spot where the Rock stood. Our boats were
creeping along shore beneath it for some goods which, we suspected, might be
sunk in the sands near it. I took the opportunity of landing to look at the Logan
Rock with my mate; and hearing that it was not in the power of men to remove it,
I took it into my head to try my skill, and, at this time (half-past four o'clock
p.m.), the boats having finished what they had to do, and it blowing too fresh for
them to creep any longer, I took them and their crew with me, and, having landed

at the foot of the rocks, we all scrambled up the precipice. We had with us, at first,
three handspikes, with which we tried to move the Rock, but could not do it." By
move the rock he really means—displace it. A child could move it on its pivot.
"The handspikes were then laid aside, and the nine men who were with me took
hold of the Rock by the edge, and with great difficulty set it in a rocking motion,
which became so great, that I was fearful of bidding them try to stop it lest it
should fall back upon us, and away it went unfortunately, clean over upon its side,
where it now rests. There was not an instrument of any kind or description near
the Rock when thrown over, except one handspike, and that I held in my hand, but
which was of no use in upsetting the Rock; and this is the truth, and nothing but
the truth, as I hope for salvation.
"For my part, I had no intention, or the most distant thought, of doing mischief,
even had I thrown the Rock into the sea. I was innocently, as my God knows,
employed, as far as any bad design about me. I knew not that the Rock was so
idolized in this neighbourhood, and you may imagine my astonishment when I
found all Penzance in an uproar. I was to be transported at least; the newspapers
have traduced me, and made me worse than a murderer, and the base falsehoods
in them are more than wicked. But here I am, my dear mother, still holding up my
head, boldly conscious of having only committed an act of inadvertency. Be not
uneasy—my character is yet safe; and you have nothing on that score to make you
uneasy. I have many friends in Penzance: among them the persons most interested
in the Rock, and many who were most violent now see the thing in its true light. I
intend putting the bauble in its place again, and hope to get as much credit as I
have anger for throwing it down."[1]

A VIEW OF THE SOUTHERN PART OF CASTLE TRERYN, SHEWING THE MACHINERY
ERECTED FOR THE PURPOSE OF REPLACING THE LOGAN ROCK

The letter is disingenuous, and is the composition of a man impudent and
conceited. He knew the estimation in which the Logan Rock was held, and it was
because Borlase had pronounced it impossible of displacement that he resolved to
displace it. He pretends that he tried to "move" it, whereas from the context it is
clear that he intended to throw it down, and for this purpose had brought the
handspikes. He boasts vaingloriously of his intention of replacing it and gaining
glory thereby, and never says a word about his having been given by the
Admiralty the alternative of doing that or losing his commission. Nor does he
mention the generous help he received from Mr. Gilbert and his kinsman Mr.
Edye.
On November 2nd, in the presence of vast crowds, ladies waving their
handkerchiefs, and men firing feux de joie, the block was raised, Mr. Goldsmith,
his natural conceit overcoming his sense of vexation, superintending the
operation. But, although replaced, it was no longer so perfectly balanced as
before. As one wrote who was present at the time, "it rocked differently, though
well enough to satisfy the people."
An account of the feat, written in the true style of the penny-a-liner, appeared in
the Royal Cornwall Gazette of the 6th November:—

"The Logan Rock is in its place, and logs again. Lieut. Goldsmith has nobly
repaired the error of a moment by a long trial of skill and energy and courage. I
say courage, for it was a work of great peril; and wherever danger was, there he
was always foremost—under the weight of the mass of machinery, and on the
edge of the precipice.... I shall content myself with barely observing, as a proof of
the skill of applying the complicated machinery employed, that many engineers
had their doubts whether it could be so applied, and even when erected, they
doubted whether it would be efficient.
"The moment, therefore (on Friday last), when the men took their stations at the
capstans was an anxious one, and when, after twenty minutes' toil, Lieut.
Goldsmith announced from the stage, 'It moves, thank God!' a shout of applause
burst from all who beheld it. Endeavour to conceive a group of rocks of the most
grand and romantic appearance, forming an amphitheatre, with multitudes seated
on the irregular masses, or clinging to its precipices: conceive a huge platform
carried across an abyss from rock to rock, and upon it three capstans manned by
British seamen. Imagine the lofty masts which are seen rearing their heads, from
which ropes are connected with chains in many a fold and of massive strength. A
flag waves over all: the huge stone is in the midst. Every eye is directed to the
monstrous bulk. Will it break its chains? Will it fall and spread ruin? Or will it
defy the power that attempts to stir it? Will all the skill and energy, and strength
and hardihood, have been exerted in vain? We shall soon know: expectation sits
breathless; and at last it moves.
"All's well. Such was the first half-hour. In two hours it was suspended in the air,
and vibrated; but art was triumphant, and held the huge leviathan fast.
"I will not detail the labour of two successive days; but come to the last moment.
At twenty minutes past four on Tuesday afternoon a signal was given that the rock
was in its place and that it logged again. This was announced by a spectator. But
where was Lieut. Goldsmith? Why does not he announce it? He has called his
men around him: his own and their hats are off: he is addressing them first, and
calling upon them to return thanks to God, through whose aid alone the work had
been done—a work of great peril and hazard—and by His blessing without loss of
life or limb.
"After this appropriate and solemn act, he called upon them to join in the British
sailors' testimony of joy, three cheers; and then turned with all his gallant men to
receive the re-echoing cheers of the assembled multitude. That Lieut. Goldsmith,
whose character—like the rock—is replaced on a firm basis, may have an

opportunity of exerting his great talents and brave spirit in the service of his
profession, is the sincere wish of all this neighbourhood."
Lieut. L. Edye, in his communication to the Western Antiquary above quoted,
says: "The result of this foolhardy act was that Lieut. Goldsmith was pecuniarily
ruined, whilst the natives of the locality reaped a rich harvest by pointing out the
fallen stone to visitors."
The Cornish are a forgiving people, and it was actually proposed after the re-
erection of the stone to give to Lieut. Goldsmith a dinner and a silver cup.
Lieut. Hugh Colvill Goldsmith had been born at St. Andrew's, New Brunswick,
2nd April, 1789, so that he was aged thirty-five when he performed this prank. He
died at sea off S. Thomas, in the West Indies, 8th October, 1841, without having
obtained advancement.

HUGH PETERS, THE REGICIDE
The life and character of this man present unusual difficulties. On one side he was
unduly lauded, he was represented, especially by himself, as a paragon of all
virtues; on the other he was decried with virulence, his past life raked over, and
every scandal brought to the surface and exposed to public view, and we cannot
be at all sure that all these scandals laid to his charge were true.
We do not know much about his origin, and why he was named Peters; he was the
son of a Thomas Dickwood, alias Peters, and Martha, daughter of John Treffry of
Treffry. This Dickwood, alias Peters, is said to have been a merchant of Fowey,
descended from Dutch ancestors who had escaped from Antwerp for their
adherence to the Reformed religion; and Hugh Peters was born in 1599. But
Dickwood is not a Flemish or Dutch name. Henry Peters, M.P. for Fowey, who
died in 1619, married Deborah, daughter of John Treffry of Place, in 1610, and
had one son, Thomas, who was thrown into prison by Cromwell for his loyalty to
King Charles. Neither Hugh Peters nor his father with the alias appears in the
well-authenticated pedigree of the family of Peters of Harlyn. It may be suspected
that the father of Hugh Peters was a bastard of one of the Peters family.
Be that as it may, Hugh Peters was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge, at the age
of fourteen—his elder brother at the time was a student at Oxford—and he took
his degree of B.A. in 1616. For a time he led a rather wild life and joined a party
of comedians. Dr. William Yonge says that "he joined a common society of
players: when, after venting his frothy inventions, he had a greater call to a higher
promotion, namely, to be a jester, or rather a fool, in Shakespeare's Company of
Players." Shakespeare died in 1616, so this must have been his company
continuing to bear his name. He, however, became converted by a sermon he
heard at S. Faith's, and "deserted his companions and employments, and returning
to his chamber near Fleet Conduit, continued between hope and despair a year or
more."

HUGH PETERS
From an old engraving

He was ordained deacon 23rd December, 1621, and priest 8th June, 1623, by
Mountain, Bishop of London, and took his M.A. degree in 1622. He was licensed
to preach at S. Sepulchre's. He says of himself:—
"To Sepulchre's I was brought by a very strange providence; for preaching before
at another place, and a young man receiving some good, would not be satisfied,
but I must preach at Sepulchre's, once monthly, for the good of his friends, in
which he got his end (if I might not show vanity), and he allowed thirty pounds
per ann. to that lecture, but his person unknown to me. He was a chandler, and
died a good man, and Member of Parliament. At this lecture the resort grew so
great, that it contracted envy and anger; though I believe above a hundred every

week were persuaded from sin to Christ; there were six or seven thousand hearers,
and the circumstances fit for such good work."
How six or seven thousand persons could be got into St. Sepulchre's Church
passes one's comprehension. According to his own account, he got into trouble
through Nonconformity. Ludlow, in his Memoirs, says that Peters "had been a
minister in England for many years, till he was forced to leave his native country
by the persecution set on foot, in the time of Archbishop Laud, against all those
who refused to comply with the innovations and superstitions which were then
introduced into the public worship."
There is, however, another and less creditable explanation. He is said to have
become entangled in an intrigue with a butcher's wife. But how far this is true, and
whether it be malicious scandal, we have no means of judging.
He had, however, married the widow of Edmund Read, of Wickford, Essex, and
mother of Colonel Thomas Read, afterwards Governor of Stirling, and a partisan
of Monk at the Restoration. Mrs. Edmund Read also had a daughter, Elizabeth,
who in 1635 married the younger Winthrop, Governor of Connecticut.
From London Peters went to Rotterdam, where, if Yonge may be trusted, he paid
such court to and attempted such familiarities with a Mrs. Franklyn, that she
complained to her husband, whereupon Mr. Franklyn "entertains Peters with crab-
tree sauce."
At Rotterdam he became preacher in the English chapel. What had become of his
wife, whether she remained in England or accompanied him to Holland, we are
not informed.
It will be well here to say a few words on the condition of religion in England at
the time.
The plan of Henry VIII had been to make the Church of England independent of
the Pope, but to remain Catholic. At his death the Protector and the Duke of
Northumberland, after the fall of Somerset, had encouraged the ultra-Protestants.
The churches had been plundered, chantries and colleges robbed, the Mass
interdicted, and the wildest fanaticism encouraged. As Froude says: "Three-
quarters of the English people were Catholics; that is, they were attached to the
hereditary and traditionary doctrines of the Church. They detested, as cordially as
the Protestants, the interference of a foreign power, whether secular or spiritual,
with English liberty."

A more disgraceful page of history has never been written than that regarding the
two protectorates during the minority of Edward VI. The currency was debased,
peculation was rife. "Amidst the wreck of ancient institutions," says Froude, "the
misery of the people, and the moral and social anarchy by which the nation was
disintegrated, thoughtful persons in England could not fail to be asking
themselves what they had gained by the Reformation.
"The movement commenced by Henry VIII, judged by its present results, had
brought the country at last into the hands of mere adventurers. The people had
exchanged a superstition which, in its grossest abuses, prescribed some shadow of
respect for obedience, for a superstition which merged obedience in speculative
belief; and under that baneful influence, not only the higher virtues of self-
sacrifice, but the commonest duties of probity and morality, were disappearing.
Private life was infected with impurity to which the licentiousness of the Catholic
clergy appeared like innocence. The Government was corrupt, the courts of law
were venal. The trading classes cared only to grow rich. The multitude were
mutineers from oppression.... The better order of commonplace men, who had a
conscience, but no special depth of insight—who had small sense of spiritual
things, but a strong perception of human rascality—looked on in a stern and
growing indignation, and, judging the tree by its fruits, waited their opportunity
for action."
When Mary came to the throne there was an immense outburst of enthusiasm, the
time of the Protestant protectorates was looked back on as a bad dream. In spite of
the fact that England was under an interdict, the Mass was restored, and no rector
or vicar cared a straw for the Papal bull, nor indeed did Mary, who heard Mass in
the chapel of the Tower, and afterwards in S. Paul's.
If Mary had only accepted the advice tendered to her by Charles V, she would
have reigned as a popular monarch, and have settled the condition of the Church
of England on lines that commended themselves to nobles, commons, and clergy
alike, Catholic but not Papal. But she had looked too long to the see of Peter as
her support, and she managed completely to alienate the affections of her people.
The fires of Smithfield brought the fanatics who had been discredited in the
former reign into favour once more; and when Elizabeth came to the throne, and
had been deposed by Pope Pius V, and her subjects released from allegiance to
her, and plots formed for her assassination, under favour of the Pope, the religious
sentiment in England was cleft as with a hatchet—some who loved the religion of
their fathers were constrained against their will and consciences to become
Papists, and others became wild and reckless fanatics in a Puritan direction.
Between these two parties sat the vast bulk of the English people, looking this

way, that way, and deeming all religion foolishness, and self-interest the only
thing to be sought after. All the foundations of the religious world were out of
course. The via media is all very well in theory and when well trodden, but when
it is experimental, and one road to the right leads to Rome and that to the left to
Geneva, the via media may be taken to lead nowhere, and those who tread it have
to do so uncertainly. A session between two stools is precarious, and the Church
of England had been forced by the folly of Mary to adopt this position. The
consequence was that in the reigns of Elizabeth and James and Charles I there was
no enthusiasm in the clergy of the Church. The bishops were grasping, self-
seeking worldlings. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the best
among an ignoble crew. When he died, says Froude, "he left behind him
enormous wealth, which had been accumulated, as is proved from a statement in
the handwriting of his successor, by the same unscrupulous practices which had
brought about the first revolt against the Church. No Catholic prelate in the old
easy times had so flagrantly abused the dispensation system. Every year he made
profits by admitting children to the cure of souls, for money. He used a graduated
scale in which the price for inducting an infant into a benefice varied with the age,
children under fourteen not being inadmissible, if the adequate fees were
forthcoming."[2]
The great majority of the nobility and gentry of England clung to the doctrine and
ceremonies of the ancient Church, and yet were united in determination to oppose
the Papal claims. Benefices in their presentation were held by priests who said the
Communion Service, which was but the Mass in English, with the ancient
vestments and ritual; and others, next door, were held by men who could hardly
be compelled to wear even the surplice, and who celebrated the Eucharist but
once in the year.
The Church was a hodgepodge of conflicting doctrines and ceremonial. As Froude
says:—
"So long as a single turn of the wheel, a violent revolution, or the Queen's death,
might place a Catholic (Papist) on the throne, the Established Church held a
merely conditional existence. It had no root in the nation, for every earnest man
who was not a Puritan was a Catholic; and its officers, for the most part, regarded
their tenures as an opportunity for enriching themselves, which would probably be
short, and should in prudence be made use of while it remained. Benefices were
appropriated to laymen, sold, or accumulated upon favourites. Churches in many
places were left unserved, and cobblers and tailors were voted by the
congregations into the pulpits. 'The bishops,' said Cecil, 'had no credit either for
learning, good living, or hospitality.' The Archbishop of York had scandalized his

province by being found in bed with the wife of an innkeeper at Doncaster. Other
prelates had bestowed ordination 'on men of lewd life and corrupt behaviour.' The
Bishop of Lichfield had made seventy 'lewd and unlearned ministers, for money,'
in one day."[3]
Bishop Barlow, of S. David's, had torn the lead roof off his palace and the castle at
Lawhadden to provide dowers for his daughters, and would have unroofed his
cathedral had he not been prevented by Elizabeth, because in it was the monument
of Edmund, Earl of Richmond, the father of Henry VII. When translated to Bath
and Wells he destroyed the lady chapel, the finest Perpendicular building in the
West of England, surpassing even Sherborne and Bath, and sold it—lead, roof,
stones, and all. Some of the clergy were mere temporizers, without convictions,
taking their colour from their patrons, and ready to believe or pretend to believe
this or that, as suited their pockets. The majority were indifferent—ignorant—not
knowing where they stood. Many had thrust their way into Holy Orders for the
sake of the loaves and fishes that might be obtained in the Established Church,
with no work to do, without education, without zeal, without convictions, and
consequently totally without the least enthusiasm, without any fixed principles.
Laud and the Star Chamber sought to produce conformity by cutting off ears and
slitting noses. But what Laud failed to see was that the only men in religious
England who knew their minds, who had any fixed principles in religion, were the
Papists and the Puritans. What they should have done, but what probably they
could not do, was to inspire the clergy of the Church with zeal and enthusiasm.
But the clergy could not catch the fire from off the altar; they had entered Orders
for the sake of a rectory, a glebe and tithe, and cared for nothing else. If one half
—nay, one quarter—of the charges brought against them by the Tryers be true,
they were a most unworthy set. In Elizabeth's reign there had been a difficulty in
filling the benefices, and any Jack and Tom who could gratify the bishop and
could read was ordained and appointed to a benefice. And these were the men to
maintain the doctrine of the Universal Church and Apostolic tradition against fiery
enthusiasts on one side who took their own reading of Scripture for divine
inspiration, and on the other against the Papists who set their back against the
Rock of Peter.
With churches picked bare, with sermons without fire, services performed without
dignity, often with indecorum, without religious instruction from teachers who did
not know what to teach, it is no wonder that the people turned away to hot-
gospellers and tub-thumpers who, if they could not kindle in them love and
charity, could set them on fire with self-righteousness and religious animosities.

At Rotterdam Peters threw over creed and liturgy of the Church of England, and
leaving the English chapel, became co-pastor with Dr. William Ames of an
Independent meeting-house at Rotterdam, and Ames died there in his arms. In
Holland Peters made the acquaintance of John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in the
University of Aberdeen, a great Hebraist. In a pamphlet published by Peters in
1646 he says: "I lived about six years near that famous Scotsman, Mr. John
Forbes, with whom I travelled into Germany, and enjoyed his society in much
love and sweetness constantly; from whom I received nothing but encouragement,
though we differed in the way of our 'churches.'"
After Peters had spent six years in the United Provinces, he suddenly threw up his
pastoral charge and departed for New England, with five hundred pounds in his
pocket, which his friends furnished, and a young waiting-maid, Mary Morell,
whom he shortly after married to one Peter Folger.
"In this year (1635)," says one account, "came over that famous servant of Christ,
Mr. Hugh Peters. He was called to office by the Church of Christ at Salem, their
former pastor, the Rev. Mr. Higginson, having ended his labours resting in the
Lord."
Salem had been planted but a few years before, the first colonists in
Massachusetts having settled there in 1628. Here he remained for over seven
years, combining his duties as a minister of religion and trading, so that he was
spoken of as "the father of our commerce and the founder of our trade."
He was also a militant Christian, and was present in the fighting against the
Pequot Indians. Concerning the prisoners taken, Hugh Peters wrote:—

"Sir,—Mr. Endicott and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc. [sic]. We
have heard of a divisioning of women and children in the Bay, and would be
glad of a share, viz. a young woman or girl, and a boy if you think good. I
wrote to you for some boys to Bermuda.
"Hugh Peters."

These prisoners were used as slaves, and sold just as were the negroes later.
Peters, we are informed, was not friendly to the notion of converting the Indians
to Christianity. He would entertain compunction about enslaving them should they
embrace the gospel. However, money was sent over from England for this
purpose, and—at the suggestion of Peters. In the Colonial State Papers
(Saintsbury, America and West Indies, 1661-8, p. 86), is this passage: "Through
the motion of Hugh Peters, England contributed nine hundred pounds per annum

to Christianize the Indians of New England; which money found its way into
private men's purses, and was a cheat of Hugh Peters."
In New England Peters married a second wife, in 1639, another widow, by name
Deliverance Sheffield.
In 1641 he left for England, deputed by the colony to act as ambassador at the
Court of Charles I, to endeavour to procure some mitigation of the excise and
customs duties, which weighed heavily on the colonists.
But on reaching England he found that the Crown and the Parliament were at
variance, and he did not care to return to America and to his wife whom he had
left there, but elected to be the stormy petrel of the rebellion, flying over the land,
and, as Ludlow says, advising the people everywhere to take arms in the cause of
the Parliament.
He was appointed chaplain to a brigade of troops sent into Ireland against the
rebels, and he had no hesitation in wielding the sword as well as the tongue, the
latter to animate the soldiers, the former to extirpate the Baal-worshippers.
Then he hastened to Holland, where he collected thirty thousand pounds for the
relief of the Protestants of Ireland,[4] who had been plundered and burnt out of
their homes by the rebels.
When Peters had effected his various purposes in Ireland, he returned to England,
and made his report of the condition of affairs there to Sir Thomas Fairfax and
Cromwell.
In 1643 he was appointed, or thrust himself forward, to minister to Chaloner on
the scaffold, as that man had been condemned to death for participation in
Waller's plot. So again in 1644 he was on the scaffold haranguing and praying for
and at Sir John Hotham, who probably would have preferred to die in quiet.
Peters was now engaged as chaplain to the Parliamentary forces, and especially as
a conveyer of despatches, for all which he received liberal payment. He was with
the Earl of Warwick at the taking of Lyme, and was despatched by that nobleman
to London to give an account of the affair in Parliament. On another occasion he
was entrusted with letters from Sir Thomas Fairfax relating to the capture of
Bridgwater, on which occasion he was voted a sum of £100. In the same year,
1645, he was commissioned by Sir Thomas to report the taking of Bristol. In
March of that year Hugh Peters was with the army in Cornwall, and harangued at
Bodmin against the Crown and the Church, and exhorted all good men and true to
adhere to the cause of the Parliament.

Peters had uniformly, since he had been in the Low Countries, postured as an
Independent hot and strong. Hitherto the Presbyterians had the prevailing party in
Parliament, and among the discontents in the country, but now the Independents
began to assert themselves and assume predominance. Their numbers were greatly
increased by the return of the more fiery spirits who had, like Peters, abandoned
England during the supremacy of Laud. Many of these, coming back from New
England, had carried the doctrines of Puritanism to the very verge of
extravagance, and not the least fiery and extravagant of these was Hugh Peters.
These men rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, would admit of no spiritual
authority in one man above another, and allowed of no interposition of the
magistrate in religious matters. Each congregation, voluntarily united, was an
integral and independent church, to exercise its own jurisdiction. The political
system of the Independents was one of pure republicanism. They aspired to a total
abolition of monarchy, even of the aristocracy, and projected a commonwealth in
which all men should be equal. Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel
Fiennes, and Oliver St. John, the Solicitor-General, were regarded as their leaders,
and Hugh Peters as their prophet.
Peters brought the news to Parliament of the capture of Winchester Castle, for
which service he was paid £50. When Dartmouth was taken, he hastened thence to
London, laden with crucifixes, vestments, papers, and sundry church ornaments,
of which he had despoiled the beautiful church of S. Saviour's; and received in
recompense from the Parliament an estate of which the House had deprived Lord
Craven.
When the city of Worcester was besieged in the year 1646 by the Parliamentary
forces, the governor consented to surrender on condition that passes were given to
the soldiers and to the principal inhabitants. Peters negotiated the surrender.
A Mr. Habingdon, who wrote an account of the siege at the time, and who died in
the ensuing year, relates that on the 23rd July, 1646, many gentlemen went to six
o'clock prayers at the cathedral to take the last sad farewell of the church services,
the organs having been removed three days before, and that at ten o'clock in the
morning the several regiments marched forth, and all the gentlemen with the
baggage; and that at one o'clock Peters brought them their passes, and importuned
every one individually to pass his word not again to bear arms against the
Parliament.
Hugh Peters was now such a favourite with the Parliament that they made an
order for £100 a year to himself and his heirs for ever; later an additional £200 per
annum was voted to him, and all this in addition to his pay as preacher, and to

sundry grants as bearer of news from the army. He was also accorded Archbishop
Laud's library. Nevertheless, as he lamented in his Legacy of a Dying Father, he
found it impossible to keep out of debt.
There is this in Peters' favour to be urged, that he opposed the execution of
Archbishop Laud, and urged that instead he should be sent to New England. So he
begged the life of Lord George Goring, Earl of Norwich, and of the Marquis of
Hamilton, and again of the Marquis of Worcester.
The Presbyterians were in force in the House of Commons, but the army was
composed mainly of Independents, worked up to enthusiasm by their preachers. It
had been six months in the field in the summer of 1648, engaged against the
Cavaliers and Scots. The soldiers were thoroughly incensed against the King, and
they had no respect for the Presbyterians. Their officers resolved on assuming the
sovereign power in their own hands, and bringing the King to justice, and
converting the Government into a commonwealth.
To accomplish this they presented a remonstrance to the Parliament by six of their
council on November 20th, demanding: (1) that the King be brought to trial for
high treason; (2) that a day be set for the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York to
surrender themselves, or to be declared incapable of government, and that in
future no king should be admitted but by the free election of the people.
The Commons were struck with dismay, and deferred debate on the remonstrance
for ten days. But the officers despatched Colonel Ewes to the Isle of Wight with a
party of horse to secure the King's person, and to bring him to Windsor, in order to
his trial. The officers then, on November 30th, sent a declaration to the House to
enforce their late remonstrance, and requiring the majority in the House to
exclude from their councils such as would obstruct the King's trial.
On December 2nd Fairfax arrived in London at the head of the army, and the
House of Commons found itself cornered by the armed force. Nevertheless, they
had the courage to vote that the seizure of the King, and the conveying him a
prisoner to Hurst Castle, had been done without their advice and consent.
The officers were resolved to carry their point. A regiment of horse and another of
foot were placed at the door of the Parliament House, and Colonel Pride entered
and took into custody about forty of the members who were disposed to obstruct
the cause the army sought to pursue, and denied entrance to about a hundred
more; others were ordered to leave; and the number of those present was thus
thinned down to a hundred and fifty or two hundred, most of them officers of the
army.

The secluded members published a protestation against all these proceedings as
null and void till they were restored to their places; but the Lords and Commons
who remained in the House voted their protestation false, scandalous, and
seditious.
The army, having vanquished all opposition, went on to change the whole form of
government; and to make way for it determined to impeach the King of high
treason, as having been the cause of all the blood that had been spilt in the late
war.
There was commotion in the House and in town and the country. In the House
some declared that there was no need to bring the King to trial; others said that
there existed no law by which he could be tried; but all this was overruled.
Meanwhile Hugh Peters was not idle. In a sermon addressed to the members of
the two Houses a few days before the King's trial he said: "My Lords, and you
noble Gentlemen,—It is you we chiefly look for justice from. Do you prefer the
great Barabbas, Murderer, Tyrant, and Traitor, before these poor hearts (pointing
to the red coats) and the army who are our saviour?"
In another sermon before Cromwell and Bradshaw he said: "There is a great
discourse and talk in the world, What, will ye cut off the head of a Protestant
Prince? Turn to your Bibles, and ye shall find it there, Whosoever sheds man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed. I see neither King Charles, Prince Charles,
Prince Rupert, nor Prince Maurice, nor any of that rabble excepted out of it."
Evelyn in his Diary, under date 17th January, 1648-9, says: "I heard the rebel
Peters invite the rebel powers met in the Painted Chamber to destroy his Majesty."
Bishop Burnet says: "That he (Peters) had been outrageous in pressing the King's
death with the cruelty and rudeness of an inquisitor."
Prynne, one of the secluded members, published "A brief memento to the present
unparliamentary junto, touching their present intentions and proceedings to
depose and execute Charles Stuart, their lawful King of England."
The officers now decided to gain the approval of the ministers—Presbyterian—in
London, or at least persuade them to remain neutral.
Hugh Peters was selected for the purpose, and he went among them, but all his
efforts were fruitless. They declared unanimously for the release of the King. He
then invited several of them, Calamy, Whitaker, Sedgwick, etc., to a conference
with some of the officers; but instead of attending, the ministers assembled in
Sion College and drew up "A serious and faithful representation of the judgment

of the ministers of the Gospel within the province of London," dated 18th January,
1648-9. In this they protested against the coercive measures adopted toward the
Parliament, and bade them beware of proceeding to extremities. "Examine your
consciences, if any number of persons of different principles from yourselves had
invaded the rights of Parliament, imprisoned the King, and carried him about from
place to place, and attempted the dissolution of the whole government, whether
you would not have charged them with the highest crimes."
This was subscribed by forty-seven ministers.
A second paper, "A vindication of the London ministers from the unjust
aspersions ... as if they had promoted the bringing of the King to capital
punishment," appeared shortly after, signed by fifty-seven ministers.
Even the Independent preachers shrank from approving the proceedings of the
council of officers in the trial of the King, with the exception of Hugh Peters and
John Goodwin. Some of the Independent ministers in the country joined the
Presbyterians in protesting against them.
But it was all in vain. The King was tried and sentenced to death, and executed on
30th January, 1649. Rumour had it that the masked executioner was none other
than Peters himself. This he denied, asserting that on the day of the King's death
he was ill in bed. He had certainly been about and preaching not many days
before.
Who the executioner was, was never discovered, and Peters was not charged as
such when tried for his life in 1660.
In Epulæ Thyestæ, printed in 1649, Peters is accused of having been the
executioner of King Charles:—

There's Peters, the Denyer, (nay 'tis sad)
He that, disguised, cut off his Master's head;
That godly pigeon of Apostacy
Does buz about his Ante-Monarchy,
His scaffold Doctrines.

But there was an element of kindness in Hugh Peters that induced him to do
gracious acts even to those whom he hated. Whitelocke assures us that "at a
conference between him (Peters) and the King, the King desired one of his own
chaplains might be permitted to come to him" on the occasion of his execution; he

had refused the ministrations of the Presbyterian divines, "and thereupon the
Bishop of London was ordered to go to his Majesty."
On a former occasion a message from the Queen was allowed to be transmitted to
the King through the instrumentality of Peters.
In his letter to his daughter Peters says: "I had access to the King—he used me
civilly, I, in requital, offered my poor thoughts three times for his safety." It was
an impertinence in the man to approach the King, when he had stirred up the army
to demand his death, and had raced about London endeavouring to get the
approval of the sentence from the ministers. Although we cannot believe that
Hugh Peters was the executioner of Charles, yet he cannot be acquitted of being a
regicide, on the same principle as the trumpeter in the fable was condemned to be
hanged. His plea that he had not drawn a sword in the battle was not held to
justify him—he had sounded the charge and summoned to the battle.
Peters was one of the Triers appointed by Cromwell to test the parochial clergy,
and to eject from their livings such as did not approve themselves to their
judgment as fitting pastors to the flock either by their morals or theological
opinions.
Every parishioner who bore a grudge against his pastor was invited to lay his
grievances before the Grand Committee. Lord Clarendon says: "Petitions
presented by many parishioners against their pastors, with articles of their
misdemeanours and behaviours ... were read with great delight and promptly
referred to the Committee about Religion." The matter of these accusations was
for the most part, as Clarendon informs us, "bowing at the name of Jesus, and
obliging the communicants to the altar, i.e. to the rails which enclosed the
Communion table, to receive the sacrament." What the Puritans desired was that
the minister should walk about the church distributing to the people in the pews.
The observance of all holy days except Sundays had already been forbidden. A
priest who said service on Christmas Day or Good Friday was certain of
deprivation. But the great question put to each rector or vicar was, "whether he
had any experience of a work of grace" in his heart, and the answer to this
determined whether he should be allowed to hold his cure or be thrust out, apart
from all question of moral fitness. That there were a host of lukewarm, indifferent
men in the ministry, caring little for religion and knowing little, without fixed
convictions, cannot be wondered at, after the swaying of the pendulum of belief
during the last reigns, and these would be precisely the men who would be able
volubly to assert their experience of divine grace, and abandon doctrines they

never sincerely held and ceremonies about which they cared nothing. There were
vicars of Bray everywhere.
Butler hits off the work of the Triers in Hudibras:—

Whose business is, by cunning sight,
To cast a figure for men's light;
To find in lines of Beard and Face
The Physiognomy of Grace;
And by the Sound and Twang of Nose,
If all the sound within disclose;
Free from a crack or flaw of sinning,
As men try pipkins by the ringing.

Peters was next appointed a commissioner for the amending of the laws, though
he had no knowledge of law. He said himself, in his Legacy: "When I was a trier
of others, I went to hear and gain experience, rather than to judge; when I was
called to mend laws, I rather was there to pray than to mend laws." Whitelocke
says: "I was often advised with by some of this committee, and none of them was
more active in this business than Mr. Hugh Peters, the minister, who understood
little of the law, but was very opinionative, and would frequently mention some
proceedings of law in Holland, wherein he was altogether mistaken."
Peters was chaplain to the Protector, and certainly in one way or another made a
good deal of money. Dr. Barwick in his Life says:[5] "The wild prophecies uttered
by his (Hugh Peters') impure mouth were still received by the people with the
same veneration as if they had been oracles; though he was known to be infamous
for more than one kind of wickedness. A fact which Milton himself did not dare to
deny when he purposely wrote his Apology, for this very end, to defend even by
name, as far as possible, the very blackest of the conspirators, and Hugh Peters
among the chief of them, who were by name accused of manifest impieties by
their adversaries." Bishop Burnet says as well: "He was a very vicious man."
Peters by his wife—his second wife, Deliverance, the widow of a Mr. Sheffield—
became the father of the Elizabeth Peters to whom he addressed his Dying
Father's Last Legacy.
The Dutch having been disconcerted by the defeats of their fleets by Admiral
Blake, and the messengers they had sent to England having failed to satisfy
Cromwell, in the beginning of the year 1653 they commissioned Colonel
Doleman and others to learn the sentiments of the leading men in Parliament, and
to gain over to the cause of peace Hugh Peters, as Cromwell's influential chaplain.

Peters had always entertained a tenderness for the Dutch, and he interceded on
their behalf, and the Dutch gave him £300,000 wherewith to bribe and purchase
the amity of Parliament and the Protector. That a good share of this gold adhered
to Peters' fingers we may be pretty confident; and indeed it was intended that it
should do so. The attempt, however, did not succeed, and when the negotiations
were broken off, the Dutch fitted out another fleet under Van Tromp, De Witt, and
De Ruyter, and appointed four other deputies to go upon another embassy to
England. These men arrived on July 2nd, 1658, and "all joined in one petition for
a common audience, praying thrice humbly that they should have a favourable
answer, and beseeching the God of Peace to co-operate."[6]
These ambassadors, like the foregoing, sought out Peters and engaged his
services. After several interviews, peace was at last concluded 2nd May, 1654. In
the Justification of the War, by Stubbe, is an engraving that represents the four
deputies presenting their humble petition to Peters.
In 1655 feeling in England was greatly stirred by the account that reached the
country of the persecution of the Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont. Cromwell
at once ordered a collection for the sufferers to be made throughout the kingdom,
and it amounted to upwards of £38,000. In this Peters took an active part. Ludlow
says: "He was a diligent and earnest solicitor for the distressed Protestants of the
valleys of Piedmont."
Soon after the affair of the persecuted Waldenses was concluded the Protector
formed an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the French, in which it was
agreed that Dunkirk should be delivered up to him. In consequence of this
agreement six thousand men were sent over to join the French army, and Peters
received a commission to attend them thither. The town of Dunkirk, in
consequence of this league, was taken from the Spaniards, and on the 26th of
June, 1658, was delivered to Colonel Lockart, Cromwell's ambassador at the
French Court.
Lockart wrote the following letter to Secretary Thurloe:—

"Dunkirk, July
8-18th, 1658.

"May it please your Lordship,
"I could not suffer my worthy friend, Mr. Peters, to come away from Dunkirk
without a testimony of the great benefits we have all received from him in
this place, where he hath laid himself forth in great charity and goodness in

sermons, prayers, and exhortations, in visiting and relieving the sick and
wounded; and, in all these, profitably applying the singular talent God hath
bestowed upon him to the chief ends, proper for an auditory. For he hath not
only showed the soldiers their duty to God, and pressed it home upon them, I
hope with good advantage, but hath likewise acquainted them with their
obligations of obedience to his Highness's government and affection to his
person. He hath laboured amongst us here with such goodwill, and seems to
enlarge his heart towards us, and care of us for many other things, the effects
whereof I design to leave upon that Providence which has brought us
hither.... Mr. Peters hath taken leave at least three or four times, but still
something falls out which hinders his return to England. He hath been twice
at Bergh, and hath spoke with the Cardinal (Mazarin) three or four times; I
kept myself by, and had a care that he did not importune him with too long
speeches. He returns, loaden with an account of all things here, and hath
undertaken every man's business. I must give him that testimony, that he
gave us three or four very honest sermons; and if it were possible to get him
to mind preaching, and to forbear the troubling himself with other things, he
would certainly prove a very fit minister for soldiers. I hope he cometh well
satisfied from this place. He hath often insinuated to me his desire to stay
here, if he had a call. Some of the officers also have been with me to that
purpose; but I have shifted him so handsomely as, I hope, he will not be
displeased. For I have told him that the greatest service he can do us is to go
to England and carry on his propositions, and to own us in all other interests,
which he hath undertaken with much zeal."

This letter lets us see what were some of Peters' weaknesses. He was vastly
loquacious, so that Colonel Lockart had to see to it that he did not "importune the
Cardinal with too long speeches," and he was conceited, self-opinionated, and
meddlesome, interfering in matters beyond his province, so that the Colonel was
heartily glad to be rid of him from Dunkirk.
That there was humour in Hugh Peters, not unfrequently running into profanity,
would appear from a work, "The Tales and Jests of Mr. Hugh Peters, collected
into one volume; published by one that hath formerly been conversant with the
Author in his lifetime; dedicated to Mr. John Goodwin and Mr. Philip Nye."
London, 1660.
These appeared in the same year under a different title—"Hugh Peters, his
figaries, or his merry tales and witty jests both in city, town, and country." It was
reprinted by James Caulfield in 1807.

A few of these will suffice.
Peters had preached for two hours; the sands in the hour-glass had run out. He
observed it, and turning it over, said to his hearers: "Come, let us have another
glass!"
Once he preached: "Beware, young men, of the three W's—Wine, Women, and
Tobacco. Now Tobacco, you will say, does not begin with a W. But what is
Tobacco but a weed?"
Another of his jests in the pulpit was, "England will never prosper till one
hundred and fifty are taken away." The explanation is L L L—Lords, Lawyers,
and Levites.
Preaching on the devils entering into the swine (S. Mark v. 23), he said that the
miracle illustrated three English proverbs:—
1. That the devil will rather play at small game than sit out.
2. That those must needs go forward whom the devil drives.
3. That at last he brought his hogs to a fair market.
It was a favourite saying of Peters that in Christendom there were neither scholars
enough, gentlemen enough, nor Jews enough; for, said he, if there were more
scholars there would not be so many pluralists in the Church; if there were more
gentry, so many born would not be reckoned among them; if there were more
Jews, so many Christians would not practise usury.
One rainy day Oliver Cromwell offered Peters his greatcoat. "No, thank you,"
replied his chaplain; "I would not be in your coat for a thousand pounds."
Discoursing one day on the advantage Christians had in having the Gospel
preached to them—"Verily," said he, "the Word hath a free passage amongst you,
for it goes in at one ear and out at the other."
Preaching on the subject of duties, he said:—
"Observe the three fools in the Gospel, who, being bid to the wedding supper,
every one had his excuse—
"1. He that had hired a farm and must go see it. Had he not been a fool, he would
have seen it before hiring it.

"2. He that had bought a yoke of oxen and must go try them. He also was a fool,
because he did not try them before he bought them.
"3. He that married a wife, and without complement said he could not come. He
too was a fool, for he showed that one woman drew him away, more than a whole
yoke of oxen did the former."
Peters, invited to dinner at a friend's house, knowing him to be very wealthy and
his wife very fat, said at table to his host, "Truly, sir, you have the world and the
flesh, but pray God you get not the devil in the end."
The copy of the Tales and Jests of Hugh Peters in the British Museum has notes
to some of them, showing that the writer regarded a certain number as genuine
anecdotes of Peters. Most of the others are either older stories, or else have little
or no wit in them.
The above anecdotes are some of those thus noted.
That Hugh Peters was a wag Pepys lets us know, for he speaks of a Scottish
chaplain at Whitehall, after the Restoration, a Dr. Creighton, whose humour
reminded the diarist of Peters: "the most comical man that ever I heard; just such
a man as Hugh Peters."
At the Restoration he was executed as a regicide. He was not directly implicated
in the King's death, and all that he could be accused of was using words incentive
to regicide. That he had been the executioner was not charged against him. There
was no evidence. The accusations Hugh Peters had to meet were that he had
encouraged the soldiers to cry out for the blood of the King, whom he had likened
to Barabbas; that he had preached against him; that he had accused the Levites,
Lords, and Lawyers—the three L's, or the Hundred and Fifty, in allusion to the
numerical value of the numbers—as men who should be swept out of the
Commonwealth; that he had declared the King to be a tyrant, and that the office of
King was useless and dangerous.
Peters pleaded that he had been living fourteen years out of England, and that
when he came home he found that the Civil War had already begun; that he had
not been at Edgehill or Naseby; that he had looked after three things only—the
introduction into the country of what he considered to be sound religion, the
maintenance of learning, and the relief of the poor. He further stated that on
coming to England he had considered it his duty to side with the Parliament, and
that he had acted without malice, avarice, or ambition.

The jury, with very little consultation, returned a verdict of guilty, and he was
sentenced to death.
On the 16th October Coke, the solicitor for the people of England who had acted
against the King at his trial, and Hugh Peters, who had stood and preached that no
mercy should be shown him, were to die.
On the hurdle which carried Coke was placed the head of Harrison, who had been
executed the day before—a piece of needless brutality, which the people who
lined the streets indignantly resented. On the scaffold Coke declared that for the
part he had borne in the trial of Charles I he in no way repented of what he had
done. Hugh Peters was made to witness all the horrible details of Coke's
execution, the hanging, the disembowelling. He sat within the rails which
surrounded the scaffold. According to Ludlow: "When this victim (Coke) was cut
down and brought to be quartered, one Colonel Turner called to the sheriff's men
to bring Mr. Peters to see what was doing; which being done, the executioner
came to him, and rubbing his bloody hands together, asked him how he liked that
work. He told him he was not at all terrified, and that he might do his worst, and
when he was on the ladder he said to the sheriff, 'Sir, you have butchered one of
the servants of God before my eyes, and have forced me to see it, in order to
terrify and discourage me; but God has permitted it for my support and
encouragement.'"
A man upbraided Peters with the King's death. "Friend," said Peters, "you do not
well to trample upon a dying man: you are greatly mistaken; I had nothing to do
in the death of the King."
As he was going to the gallows, he looked about him and espied a man with
whom he was acquainted, and to him he gave a piece of money, having first bent
it; and he desired the man to carry that piece of gold to his daughter as a token,
and to assure her that his heart was full of comfort, and that before that piece
would reach her hand he would be with God in glory. Then the old preacher, who
had lived in storms and whirlwinds, died with a quiet smile on his countenance.
That a considerable portion of the community regarded the execution of the
regicides as a crime, and those who suffered as martyrs, would appear from the
pains taken to vilify their memory when dead, and attempts made to justify their
execution.
The authorities for the life of Hugh Peters are mainly: Memoirs of Edmund
Ludlow, 1771; B. Whitelocke's Memorials of English Affairs, 1732; Rushworth's
Collections, 1692; Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time, 1724; John

Thurloe's Collection of State Papers, 1742; J. B. Felt's Ecclesiastical History of
New England, 1855; Benjamin Brooke's Puritans, 1813, Vol. III; The Trial of
Charles I and of Some of the Regicides, in Murray's Family Library, 1832; the
Rev. Samuel Peters' A History of the Rev. Hugh Peters, New York, 1807; An
Historical and Critical Account of Hugh Peters (with portrait), London, 1751,
reprinted 1818; Felt (Joseph B.), Memoir, a Defence of Hugh Peters, Boston,
1857; Colomb (Colonel), The Prince of Army Chaplains, London, 1899; also
Gardiner's (S. R.) History of the Commonwealth, and the Dictionary of National
Biography, passim.

JAMES POLKINGHORNE, THE WRESTLER
James Polkinghorne, the noted champion wrestler of Cornwall, was the son of
James Polkinghorne, who died at Creed, 18th March, 1836. The wrestler James
was born at S. Keverne in 1788, but there is no entry of his baptism in the parish
register.
Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon—it was less brutal, as no
kicking was allowed. The Devon wrestlers wore boots soaked in bullock's blood
and indurated at the fire, and with these hacked the shins of their opponents, who
wore as a protection skillibegs, or bands of hay twisted and wrapped round their
legs below the knee.
I have so fully described the wrestling in my Devonshire Characters and Strange
Events, that it is unnecessary here to go over the same ground more than cannot
be helped.
There was a Cornish jingle that ran as follows:—

Chacewater boobies up in a tree,
Looking as whish'd as ever could be,
Truro men, strong as oak,
Knock 'em down at every stroke—

that had reference to the wrestling matches.
In 1816 Polkinghorne, who had become the innkeeper of the "Red Lion," S. Columb
Major, wrestled with Flower, a Devonshire man of gigantic stature, and threw him. Then
Jackman, another Devonian, challenged Polkinghorne, and he was cast over the head of
the Cornishman, describing the "flying mare." But the most notable contest in which
Polkinghorne was engaged was with Abraham Cann, the Devonshire champion. The
match was for £200 a side, for the best of three back-falls; and it took place on October
23rd, 1826, on Tamar Green, Morice Town, Plymouth, in the presence of seventeen
thousand spectators. I have quoted the account already in my Devonshire Characters,
but cannot omit it here.

JAMES POLKINHORN, THE FAMOUS CORNISH WRESTLER
From a drawing as he appeared in the Ring at Devonport on Monday, 23 October, 1826, when he threw Abm.
Cann, the Champion of Devonshire, for a stake of 200 sovereigns

"Tamar Green, Devonport, was chosen for the purpose, and the West was alive with
speculation when it was known that the backers meant business. On the evening before
the contest the town was inundated, and the resources of its hotels and inns were taxed
to the utmost. Truculent and redoubtable gladiators flocked to the scene—kickers from
Dartmoor, the recruiting-ground of the Devonshire system, and bearlike huggers from
the land of Tre, Pol, and Pen—a wonderful company of tried and stalwart experts. Ten
thousand persons bought tickets at a premium for seats, and the hills around swarmed
with spectators. The excitement was at the highest possible pitch, and overwhelming
volumes of cheering relieved the tension as the rivals entered the ring—Polkinghorne in
his stockings, and Cann with a monstrous pair of shoes whose toes had been baked into
flints. As the men peeled for action such a shout ascended as awed the nerves of all
present. Polkinghorne had been discounted as fat and unwieldy, but the Devonians were
dismayed to find that, great as was his girth, his arms were longer, and his shoulders
immensely powerful. Three stone lighter in weight, Cann displayed a more sinewy form,
and his figure was knit for strength, and as statuesquely proportioned. His grip, like
Polkinghorne's, was well known. No man had ever shaken it off when once he had
clinched; and each enjoyed a reputation for presence of mind and resource in extremity
beyond those of other masters of the art. The match was for the best of three back-falls,
the men to catch what hold they could; and two experts from each county were selected
as sticklers. The feeling was in favour of Cann at the outset, but it receded as the
Cornishman impressed the multitude with his muscular superiority. Repeatedly shifting
their positions, the combatants sought their favourite 'holds.' As soon as Cann caught his
adversary by the collar, after a contending display of shifty and evasive form,
Polkinghorne released himself by a feint; and, amid 'terrible shouts from the
Cornishmen,' he drove his foe to his knees.
"Nothing daunted, the Devonian accepted the Cornish hug, and the efforts of the rivals
were superb. Cann depended on his science to save him, but Polkinghorne gathered his
head under his arm, and lifting him from the ground, threw him clean over his shoulder,
and planted him on his back. The very earth groaned with the uproar that followed; the
Cornishmen jumped by hundreds into the ring; there they embraced their champion till
he begged to be released; and, amid cheers and execrations, the fall was announced to
have complied with the conditions. Bets to the amount of hundreds of pounds were
decided by this event.
"Polkinghorne now went to work with caution, and Cann was conscious that he had an
awkward customer to tackle. After heavy kicking and attempted hugging, the
Cornishman tried once more to lift his opponent; but Cann caught his opponent's leg in
his descent, and threw him to the ground first. In the ensuing rounds both men played
for wind. Polkinghorne was the more distressed, his knees quite raw with punishment,
and the betting veered in Cann's favour. Then the play changed, and Cann was

apparently at the mercy of his foe, when he upset Polkinghorne's balance by a
consummate effort, and threw him on his back by sheer strength—the first that the
sticklers allowed him. Cann next kicked tremendously; but although the Cornishman
suffered severely, he remained 'dead game,' and twice saved himself by falling on his
chest.
"Disputes now disturbed the umpires, and their number was reduced to two. In the
eighth round Polkinghorne's strength began to fail, and a dispute was improvised which
occasioned another hour's delay. With wind regained and strength revived, the tenth
round was contested with absolute fury; and, taking kicking with fine contempt,
Polkinghorne gripped Cann with leonine majesty, lifted him from the earth in his arms,
turned him over his head, and dashed him to the ground with stunning force. As the
Cornishman dropped on his knee the fall was disputed, and the turn was disallowed.
Polkinghorne then left the ring amid a mighty clamour, and by reason of his default the
stakes were awarded to Cann. The victor emerged from the terrific hug of his opponent
with a mass of bruises, which proved that kicking was only one degree more effective
than hugging.
"A more unsatisfactory issue could hardly have been conceived, and the rival backers
forthwith endeavoured to arrange another encounter. Polkinghorne refused to meet
Cann, however, unless he discarded his shoes."[7]
Various devices were attempted to bring them together again, but they failed. Each had a
wholesome dread of the other.
An account of the contest was written as a ballad and was entitled "A New Song on the
Wrestling Match between Cann and Polkinghorne," that was to be sung to the tune "The
Night I Married Susy," or else to "The Coronation."
Full accounts are to be found in The Sporting Magazine, London, LXVII, 165-6; LXIX,
55-6, 215, 314-16, 344. In the Annual Register, chronicle 1826, 157-8.
Polkinghorne died at S. Columb, on September 15th, 1854, at the age of seventy-six,
twenty-eight years after his match with Cann. He was buried on September 17th.

HENRY TRENGROUSE, INVENTOR
Helston is a quaint old town, once of far more importance than at present. It possessed
an old castle, that has now disappeared. It was one of the six stannary towns, and prior
to 1832 returned two members to Parliament. It still glories in its "Furry Day," when the
whole town goes mad, dancing, in spite of Methodism. It has on some of its old house-
gables pixy seats, and it had a grammar school that has had notable masters, as Derwent
Coleridge, and notable scholars, as Henry Trengrouse. It is the key and capital to that
wonderful district, rich in geological and botanic and antiquarian interest, the Lizard.
The great natural curiosity of Helston is Loe Pool, formed by the Comber, a small river,
penned back by Loe Bar, a pebble-and-sand ridge thrown up by the sea. The sheet of
water lying between wooded hills abounds in trout, and white swans float dreamily over
the still water. The banks are rich with fern, and yellow, white, and pink
mesembryanthemum. Formerly the pool rose till it overflowed the lower parts of the
town; now a culvert has been driven through the rocks to let off the water as soon as it
has attained a certain height.
Henry Trengrouse was born at Helston, 18th March, 1772, the son of Nicholas
Trengrouse (1739-1814), and of Mary, his wife, who was a Williams.
The family had been long among the freeholders of Helston, and possessed as well a
small estate, Priske, in the parish of Mullion; but the family name is taken from Tref-an-
grouse, the House by the Cross, in the same parish.
Henry was educated in Helston Grammar School, and became, by trade, a cabinet-
maker.
On 29th December, 1807, when he was aged thirty-five, a rumour spread through the
little town that a large frigate, H.M.S. Anson, had been driven ashore on Loe Bar, about
three miles distant. Mr. Trengrouse and many others hastened to the coast and reached
the bar.
The Anson, forty-four guns, under the command of Captain Lydiard, had left Falmouth
on Christmas Eve for her station off Brest as a look-out ship for the Channel Fleet.
A gale from the W.S.W. sprang up, and after being buffeted about till the 28th, with the
wind increasing, the captain determined to run to port. The first land they made was the
Land's End, which they mistook for the Lizard, and only discovered their mistake when
the cry of "Breakers ahead!" was heard from the man on the look-out. They were now
embayed, and in face of the terrible storm it was impossible to work off, so both cables
were let go. The Anson rode to these till the early morning of the 29th, when they parted,
and the captain, in order to save as many lives as possible, decided to beach her on the

sand off Loe Pool. A tremendous sea was running, and as she took the beach only sixty
yards from the bar, she was dashed broadside on, and happily for the poor fellows on
board, heeled landwards. Seas mountains high rolled over her, sweeping everything
before them. Then her masts went by the board, her main mast forming a floating raft
from the ship almost to the shore, and over this scrambled through the maddened waves
most of those who were saved.

HENRY TRENGROUSE, THE INVENTOR OF THE ROCKET APPARATUS FOR SAVING LIFE AT SEA
From an oil painting by Opie the younger, reproduced by permission of Mr. H. Trengrouse

It was a terrible sight to witness for the hundreds of spectators who had by this time
collected on the beach, but it was almost impossible for them to render any assistance.
At last, when all hands seemed to have left the ship, two stout-hearted Methodist local
preachers—Mr. Tobias Roberts, of Helston, and Mr. Foxwell, of Mullion—made an
attempt to reach her, so as to see if any one remained on board. They succeeded, and
were soon followed by others, who found several people, including two women and as
many children. The women and some of the men were safely conveyed ashore, but the

children were drowned. There were altogether upwards of a hundred drowned, including
the captain, who stood by the frigate to the last. The exact number was never known, as
many of the soldiers deserted on reaching the shore.
The survivors salved a good deal from the wreck, amongst which were watches,
jewellery, and many articles of considerable value. They were placed all together in a
bedroom of the old inn at Porthleven, with a soldier with drawn sword on guard. One of
the beams that bent under such an unusual weight may be seen bowed to this day. A
local militia sergeant was soon afterwards sent to Helston in charge of a wagon-load of
these valuable goods, and when half-way to his destination was accosted by a Jew, who
offered him £50 in exchange for his load. "Here is my answer," said the sergeant,
presenting a loaded pistol at his head, and the fellow hurriedly took his departure.
Much indignation was raised at the time by the way in which the victims of the disaster
were buried. They were bundled in heaps into large pits dug in the cliff above, without
any burial service being performed over them. It was customary everywhere at that time
for all bodies washed ashore to be interred by the finder at the nearest convenient spot.
But as a result of the indecent methods of burial of the Anson victims, an Act of
Parliament was framed by Mr. Davies Gilbert, and passed on 18th June, 1808, providing
"suitable interment in churchyards and parochial burying-grounds" for all bodies cast up
by the sea.
The Anson was a sixty-four gun frigate cut down to a forty-four, and had seen much
service. Among many fights, she figured in Lord Rodney's action on 12th April, 1782,
formed part of the fleet which repulsed the French squadron in an attempt to land in
Ireland in 1796, helped in the seizure of the French West Indies in 1803, and in 1807
took part in the capture of Curaçao from the Dutch. It was not long after her return from
this latter place that she left Falmouth for the cruise on which she met her fate.[8]
In 1902 the hull of the Anson, after having been submerged for ninety-five years, came
to light again. She was found by Captain Anderson of the West of England Salvage
Company, whose attention had been directed to the wreck by a Porthleven fisherman.
Unfortunately at the time the weather was so stormy that Captain Anderson could not
proceed with any efforts of salvage, and with the exception of one visit of inspection the
interesting relic was left untouched. But in April, 1903, with a bright sky and a light
breeze from the north-east, he proceeded to the spot and inspected the remains. The hull
of the vessel was not intact, and several guns were lying alongside. One of these, about
10 ft. 6 in. long, Captain Anderson secured and hoisted on to the deck of the Green
Castle by means of a winch, and afterwards conveyed it to Penzance. It was much
encrusted. Amongst the mass of débris also raised were several cannon-balls.
But to return to Henry Trengrouse, who had stood on the beach watching the wreck, the
rescue of some and the perishing of others.

Drenched with rain and spray, and sick at heart, Henry Trengrouse returned to his home,
and was confined to his bed for nearly a week, having contracted a severe cold. The
terrible scene had made an indelible impression on his mind, and he could not, even if
he had wished it, drive the thought away. Night and day he mused on the means
whereby some assistance could be given to the shipwrecked, some communication be
established between the vessel and the shore.
He was a great friend of Samuel Drew, whose life was devoted to metaphysics, and it
was perhaps the contrast in the two minds that made them friends—one an idealist, the
other practical.
Trengrouse had a small competence, besides his trade, and he devoted every penny that
he could spare to experiments, first in the construction of a lifeboat, but without
satisfactory results.
The King's birthday was celebrated at Helston with fireworks on the green; and as Henry
Trengrouse looked up at the streak of fire rushing into the darkness above and scattering
a shower of stars, it occurred to him, Why should not a rocket, instead of wasting itself
in an exhibition of fireworks, do service and become a means of carrying a rope to a
vessel among the breakers? When a communication has been established between the
wreck and the shore, above the waves, it may become an aerial passage along which
those in distress may pass to safety.
Something of the same idea had already occurred to Lieutenant John Bell in 1791, but
his proposal was that a shot with a chain attached to it should be discharged from a
mortar. Captain George William Manby had his attention drawn to this in February,
1807, and in August of the same year exhibited some experiments with his improved
life-preserving mortar to the members of the Suffolk House Humane Society. By the
discharge of the mortar a barbed shot was to be flung on to the wreck, with a line
attached to the shot. By means of this line a hawser could be drawn from the shore to the
ship, and along it would be run a cradle in which the shipwrecked persons could be
drawn to land.
Manby's mortar was soon abandoned as cumbrous and dangerous; men were killed
during tests; notwithstanding which he was awarded, £2000. The great merit of
Trengrouse's invention was that the rocket was much lighter than a shot from a mortar,
and was, moreover, more portable, and there was a special line manufactured for it that
would not kink, nor would it snap, because the velocity of the rocket increased
gradually, whereas that from a discharge of a mortar was sudden and so great that the
cord was frequently ruptured.
The distinctive feature of Trengrouse's apparatus consisted of "a section of a cylinder,
which is fitted to the barrel of a musket by a bayonet socket; a rocket with a line
attached to its stick is so placed on it that its priming receives fire immediately from the
barrel";[9] whereas a metal mortar could not be conveyed to the cliff or shore opposite

the scene of disaster without being drawn in a conveyance by horses, and where there
was no road with the utmost difficulty dragged over hedges and ploughed fields by men.
Not only so, but a shot discharged by Captain Manby's mortar was liable to endanger
life. Wrecks generally happened in the dark, and then the shot would not be visible to
those on the wreck. But Trengrouse's rocket would indicate its track by the trail of fire
by which it was impelled, and could be fired from either the ship or the shore.
Trengrouse expended £3000 on his experiments, and sacrificed to this one object—that
of saving life—his capital, his business, and his health. He cut off the entail on Priske,
which had belonged to the family for several generations, and sold it to enable him to
pursue his experiments. There was much that was pathetic in his life: there were the long
and frequent journeys to London from Helston, four days by coach, sometimes in mid-
winter and in snowstorms, with the object of inducing successive Governments to adopt
the rocket apparatus, meeting only with discouragement. Nor was this all. After all his
own means had been exhausted, he received a legacy of £500 under a brother's will, and
this sum he at once devoted to further endeavours with H.M. Government for the
general adoption of his rocket apparatus.
The Russian ambassador now stepped forward and invited Trengrouse to S. Petersburg,
where he assured him that, instead of rebuffs, he would experience only the
consideration due to him for his inventions. But Trengrouse's reply was, "My country
first"; and that country allowed him, after the signal services he had rendered to
humanity—to die penniless.
His original design was to supply every ship with a rocket apparatus; as vessels were
almost invariably wrecked before the wind, the line might the more easily be fired from
a ship than from the shore.
Trengrouse once met Sir William Congreve, who also claimed to be the inventor of the
war-rocket; and Trengrouse said to him in the course of their discussion, "As far as I can
see, Sir William, your rocket is designed to destroy life; mine is to save life; and I do
claim to be the first that ever thought of utilizing a rocket for the saving of human lives."
[10]

Trengrouse moreover invented the cork jacket or "life preserver." This was a success,
and has never been improved on. It has been the means of saving many hundreds of
lives. He also built a model of a lifeboat, that could not be sunk, and was equal to the
present lifeboats of the Royal Lifeboat Association in all respects except the "self-
righting" principle. It was not until February 28th, 1818, after many journeys to London,
and much ignorant and prejudiced objection that he had to contend against, such as is
found so usual among Government officials, that Trengrouse was able to exhibit his
apparatus before Admiral Sir Charles Rowley. A committee was appointed, and on
March 5th it reported favourably on the scheme.

In the same year the Committee of the Elder Brethren of Trinity House reported in high
terms on the invention, and recommended that "no vessel should be without it."
Thereupon Government began to move slowly; in the House the matter was discussed
and haggled over. One speaker exclaimed: "You are guilty of sinful negligence in this
matter, for while you are parleying over this invention and this important subject,
thousands of our fellow-men are losing their lives."

THE WRECK OF THE "ANSON"
From a sketch by H. Trengrouse

At last Government ordered twenty sets of the life-preserving rockets, but afterwards
resolved on making the apparatus itself, and paid Trengrouse the sum of £50, the
supposed amount of profit he would have made on the order. Fifty pounds was all his
ungrateful country could afford to give him. In 1821, however, the Society of Arts
pronounced favourably on his apparatus, and presented Trengrouse with their silver
medal and a grant of thirty guineas.
Through the Russian ambassador, the then Czar sent him a diamond ring, in
consideration of the great advantage his apparatus had proved in shipwrecks on the
Baltic and the Black Sea. Even this he was constrained to pledge, that he might devote
the money to his darling project.
With these acknowledgments of his services he had to rest contented; but ever the news
of lives having been saved through his invention was a solace to an even and contented
mind.
Henry Trengrouse died at Helston on February 19th, 1854.

As he lay on his death-bed with his face to the wall, he turned about, and with one of his
bright, hopeful smiles said to his son, "If you live to be as old as I am, you will find my
rocket apparatus all along our shores." They were his last words; in a few minutes he
had passed away.
The rocket apparatus is along the shores at 300 stations, but not, as he had hoped, on
board the vessels. He had despaired of obtaining that, yet that is what he aimed at
principally.
In April, 1905, owing to the loss of the Kyber on the Land's End coast, questions were
asked in the House of Commons relative to wireless telegraphy between the lighthouses
and the coast. On that occasion one of the most valuable suggestions was made by a
shipping expert, who considered that the Board of Trade should make it compulsory that
a light rocket apparatus should be carried by all vessels, so that, when in distress, if near
the coast, the crew could send a rocket ashore. This marine engineer said: "On shore the
rockets must be fired by practised men, such as coastguards, because they have to strike
a small object; but on a vessel they have only to hit the land, and if people are about, the
line will quickly be seized and made fast. At present, too, horses and wagons have to be
used, and sometimes it is difficult to find a road leading down to the spot from which
help must be rendered. Probably for twenty pounds an appliance could be kept on board
a vessel which would send a line ashore in less time and with more certainty than at
present. When a vessel is being blown ashore, I have seen rockets fired from the land
return like a boomerang to the cliff on account of the strength of the gale. In my
judgment, mariners should assist in their own salvation."
On this Mr. H. Trengrouse, grandson of the inventor, wrote to the Cornishman, 24th
April, 1905:—
"Your suggestion in the Cornishman of the 15th instant ... that all vessels should be
compelled by the Board of Trade to carry this apparatus, is very practical, and should,
and I trust may, be soon adopted.
"It may interest your readers to learn that the inventor, my grandfather, the late Mr.
Henry Trengrouse, of Helston, urged this upon successive Governments without any
encouragement whatever, and I on two occasions have also suggested it to the principals
of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade, who have informed me of a strong
opinion always entertained, that on the occasion of wreck, there would probably not be
any one on board possessing sufficient knowledge of the use of the apparatus to render it
of any value; which seems very strange indeed, and might be readily obviated by, at
least, the captain and officers of vessels being instructed in its use—surely simple
enough. My grandfather devoted much time to make it so; and the advantage of an
appliance for use on board is so palpable, and the loss of life during many years by its
absence so considerable, that it is extremely gratifying to observe a renewed and
increasing interest in the subject, which I hope, Sir, as you state, being so important,
may now be kept to the fore.

"I am, Sir,
"Your
obedient servant,
"
H. Trengrouse."
That this admirable letter to the Cornishman should at the time produce no effect on the
Board of Trade is what every one who has had any dealings with that Board would
predicate.
At length, however, some goading has roused that obstructive, inert body into inquiring
into this matter. I read in the Daily Express of 27th January, 1908: "The question
whether the carrying of rockets for projecting lifelines should be made compulsory on
all British ships is being investigated by a special committee appointed by the Board of
Trade. One witness before the committee said that he had seen fifty men drowned within
sixty yards of the shore in a gale, and that all might have been saved had the vessel been
equipped with line-throwing guns."
So—after the lapse of eighty-six or seven years, and the loss of thousands of lives that
might have been saved had not the Board of Trade been too inert to move in the matter
—an inquiry has once more been instituted. Let us hope that after this inquiry the matter
may not be allowed to fall again into neglect.
That the rocket fired from the shore has been already the means of saving lives, the
following report on it made to the Board of Trade, for the year ending 30th June, 1907,
will testify:—
"During the year ended as above, 268 lives were saved by means of the life-saving
apparatus, that is to say, 127 more than the number saved by the same means during the
previous year, and 67 more than the average for the previous ten years. The total number
of lives saved by the life-saving apparatus since 1870 is 8924. This number does not
include the large number of lives saved by means of ropes and other assistance from the
shore."
After the loss of the Berlin, belonging to the Great Eastern Company, in 1907, the
attention of the Dutch Government was called to the advantage of having the rocket
apparatus on board ship, and legal instructions were drafted, making it obligatory upon
all vessels of over two hundred tons gross to carry rocket apparatus.
Henry Trengrouse's noble life was a failure in so far as that it brought him no pecuniary
results—covered him with disappointment, reduced him to poverty. He received, in all,
for his life's work, and the sacrifice of fortune and the landed estate of his ancestors, £50
from Government, £31 10s. from the Society of Arts, and a diamond ring that in his time
of need he was constrained to pawn, and which he was never able to redeem.

Russell Lowell puts these lines into the mouth of Cromwell, in his Glance behind the
Curtain:—

My God, when I read o'er the bitter lives
Of men whose eager hearts are quite too great
To beat beneath the cramp'd mode of the day,
And see them mocked at by the world they love,
Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths
Of that reform which this hard toil will make
The common birthright of the age to come—
When I see this, spite of my faith in God,
I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;
Nor could they, but for this same prophecy,
This inward feeling of the glorious end.

Henry Trengrouse married Mary, daughter of Samuel and Mary Jenken, 19th November,
1795. She was born at S. Erth, 9th September, 1772, and died at Helston, 27th March,
1863. By her he had one son only who reached manhood, Nicholas Trevenen
Trengrouse, who died at the age of seventy-four; and one daughter, Jane, who married
Thomas Rogers, solicitor, of Helston; Emma, who married a Mr. Matthews; and two,
Mary and Anne, who died unmarried, the first at the age of eighty, the latter at that of
ninety-four.
To Mr. Henry Trengrouse, the son of Mr. Nicholas T. Trengrouse, I am indebted for
much information relative to his grandfather, as also to a lecture, never published,
delivered in 1894 by the Rev. James Ninnis, who says in a letter to Mr. H. Trengrouse,
junior: "Most of the detail I have taken from notes of my father, dated 1878; he got them
from conversation with your respected father."
Mr. J. Ninnis' grandfather had stood on the beach by the side of Henry Trengrouse,
watching the wreck of the Anson.
A portrait of the inventor, by Opie the younger, is in the possession of the family at
Helston, as is also the picture of the wreck of the Anson sketched at the time by Mr.
Trengrouse. For permission to reproduce both I am indebted to the courtesy of the
grandson of the inventor.

THE BOTATHAN GHOST
IN April, 1720, Daniel Defoe published his History of the Life and Adventures of Mr.
Duncan Campbell. In August a second edition was called for, of which some copies
included a pamphlet that had been printed in June: "Mr. Campbell's Pacquet, for the
Entertainment of Gentlemen and Ladies," and this "Pacquet" contains "A Remarkable
Passage of an Apparition, related by the Rev. Dr. Ruddle, of Launceston, in Cornwall, in
the year 1665."
It has been assumed that this ghost story was a bit of invention of the lively imagination
of Defoe. Mrs. Bray in her Trelawny of Trelawne stated that the story could not be true,
as no such a name as Dingley, which was that of the ghost, was known in Launceston.
As it happened, James Dingley had been instituted to the vicarage of the very parish of
South Petherwin, in which the ghost appeared, in the same reign in which the apparition
occurred, and he assisted Ruddle in his ministrations in Launceston, and the name
occurs to this day in the town and neighbourhood. In fact, Dingley, Pethebridge, and
Dingley are bankers there.
In the same heedless fashion Cyrus Redding wrote in 1842 that the story was "told with
so much simplicity of truth that it is difficult to believe that the tale is not, as novel
writers say, 'founded on fact.'" And he goes on to state: "No clergyman of the name of
Ruddle had been incumbent in Launceston for two hundred years past, at least in S.
Mary's Church." Yet the monument of Parson Ruddle is in the church, and he occupied
the living from 1663 to his death in 1699.

"PARSON RUDALL"
From a painting in the possession of the Rev. S. Baring Gould

Again, Samuel Drew, in his History of Cornwall, blunders as to the locality, making the
apparition appear in the parish of Little Petherick, near Padstow.
Next Mr. Hawker, of Morwenstow, fabricated a "Diurnall" of Ruddle, which adopted
Drew's error, and by altering the date made the story as given by him disagree with the
facts as they stand upon record.
The "Remarkable Passage of an Apparition" was no invention of Defoe; it was a genuine
narrative written by the hand of John Ruddle himself. This has been conclusively
demonstrated by the late Mr. Alfred Robbins in the Cornish Magazine, 1898.
John Ruddle, M.A. of Caius College, Cambridge, was instituted to the vicarage of
Altarnon on May 24th, 1662; and the incumbency of S. Mary Magdalen, Launceston,
becoming vacant by the ejection of the Independent intrusive pastor, Ruddle was
appointed to it, and "began his ministry at Launceston on ye Feast of Our Saviour's

Nativity, 1663." At the same time he received the appointment to the Launceston Free
School as master.
Now it so fell out that he was invited on the 20th June, 1665, to preach a funeral sermon
on the occasion of the burial of John Eliot at South Petherwin. John was the son of
Edward Eliot, of Trebursey, who was the third son of Sir John Eliot, who died in the
Tower of London.
After the conclusion of the service, Parson Ruddle was leaving the church, when an
"ancient gentleman" addressed him, and, Ruddle says, "With an unusual importunity
almost forced against my humour to see his house that night; nor could I have rescued
myself from his kindness, had not Mr. Eliot interposed and pleaded title to me for the
whole of the day." However, Ruddle promised to call on the old gentleman, whose name
was Bligh, and whose house was Botathan.
The Blighs were an ancient family, well connected and owning a good estate, but
Botathan was not a house of any pretence, and it is now the dwelling of a farmer, and
has not the appearance of having been the residence of a county family.
On the following Monday John Ruddle went to Botathan, where he partook of an early
dinner, and a neighbouring parson had been invited to meet him.
"After dinner this brother of the coat undertook to show me the gardens, when, as I was
walking, he gave me the first discovery of what was mainly intended in all this treat and
compliment. First he began to tell the infortunity of the family in general, and then gave
an instance in the youngest son. He related what a hopeful, sprightly lad he lately was,
and how melancholic and sottish he was now grown. Then did he with much passion
lament that his ill-humour should so incredibly subdue his reason; for, says he, the poor
boy believes himself to be haunted with ghosts, and is confident that he meets with an
evil spirit in a certain field about half a mile from this place as often as he goes that way
to school.
"In the midst of our twaddle the old gentleman and his lady came up to us. Upon their
approach, and pointing me to the arbour, the parson renews the relation to me; and they
(the parents of the youth) confirmed what he said, and added many minute
circumstances. In fine, they all three desired my thoughts and advice in the affair."
Neither the parents nor the parson who made this communication believed that the boy
saw anything; they shrewdly suspected that he was lazy, and made the apparition an
excuse for not going to school.
Ruddle, however, saw the boy, and was convinced of his sincerity. "He told me with all
naked freedom, and a flood of tears, that his friends were unkind and unjust to him,
neither to believe nor pity him; and that if any man (making a bow to me) would but go
with him to the place, he might be convinced that the thing was real.

"'This woman which appears to me,' saith he, 'lived a neighbour here to my father, and
died about eight years since; her name, Dorothy Dingley. She never speaks to me, but
passeth by hastily, and always leaves the footpath to me, and she commonly meets me
twice or three times in the breadth of the field.
"'It was about two months before I took notice of it, and though the shape of the face
was in my memory, yet I did not recall the name of the person, but I did suppose it was
some woman who lived there about, and had frequent occasion that way. Nor did I
imagine anything to the contrary before she began to meet me constantly, morning and
evening, and always in the same field (the Higher Brown Quartils), and sometimes twice
or thrice in the breadth of it.
"'The first time I took notice of her was about a year since, and when I first began to
suspect it to be a ghost, I had courage enough not to be afraid, but kept it to myself a
good while, and only wondered very much about it. I did often speak to it, but never had
a word in answer. Then I changed my way, and went to school the under Horse Road,
and then she always met me in the narrow lane, between the Quarry Park and the
Nursery, which was worse. At length I began to be terrified at it, and prayed continually
that God would either free me from it or let me know the meaning of it. Night and day,
sleeping and waking, the shape was ever running in my mind, when, by degrees, I grew
pensive, inasmuch that it was taken notice of by all our family; whereupon, being urged
to it, I told my brother William of it, and he privately acquainted my father and mother,
and they kept it to themselves for some time.
"'The success of this discovery was only this: they did sometimes laugh at me,
sometimes chide me, but still commanded me to keep to my school, and put such
fopperies out of my head. I did accordingly go to school often, but always met the
woman by the way.'"
When Parson Ruddle had heard this story he promised the boy to go with him next
morning to the field, and went with the lad to the hall, whither the parents and the
parson, the Rev. Samuel Williams, came to meet them from the parlour. They began at
once to importune Ruddle about the interview and to pass remarks on the boy, who fled
from them to his own room. The vicar of Launceston begged them to restrain their
curiosity till he had made further investigation into the matter.
"The next morning, before five o'clock, the lad was in my chambers, and very brisk. I
arose and went with him. The field he led me to I guessed to be twenty acres, in an open
country, and about three furlongs from any house. We went into the field, and had not
gone above a third part before the spectrum, in the shape of a woman, with all the
circumstances he had described her to me the day before, met us and passed by. I was a
little surprised at it, and though I had taken up a firm resolution to speak to it, yet I had
not the power, nor indeed durst I look back; yet I took care not to show any fear to my
pupil and guide, and therefore telling him that I was satisfied in the truth of his

complaint, we walked to the end of the field and returned, nor did the ghost meet us that
time above once.
"At our return the gentlewoman watched to speak with me. I gave her a convenience,
and told her that my opinion was that her son's complaint was not to be slighted, yet that
my judgment in his case was not settled. I gave her caution that the thing might not take
wind, lest the whole country should ring with what we had yet no assurance of.
"In this juncture of time I had business which would admit no delay, wherefore I went to
Launceston that evening, but promised to see them again next week. Yet I was prevented
by an occasion which pleaded a sufficient excuse. However, my mind was upon the
adventure. I studied the case, and about three weeks after went again, resolving, by the
help of God, to see the utmost.
"The next morning, the 27th day of July, 1665, I went to the haunted field by myself,
and walked the breadth of the field without any encounter. I returned and took the other
walk, and then the spectrum appeared to me, much about the same place where I saw it
before, when the young gentleman was with me. In my thoughts it moved swifter than
the time before, and about ten feet distant from me on my right hand, insomuch that I
had not time to speak, as I had determined with myself beforehand.
"The evening of this day, the parents, the son, and myself being in the chamber where I
lay, I propounded to them our going all together to the place next morning, and after
some asseveration that there was no danger in it, we all resolved upon it. The morning
being come, lest we should alarm the servants, they went under the pretence of seeing a
field of wheat, and I took my horse and fetched a compass another way, and so met at
the stile we had appointed.
"Thence we all four walked leisurely into the Quartils, and had passed above half the
field before the ghost made appearance. It then came over the stile just before us, and
moved with that swiftness that by the time we had gone six or seven steps it passed by. I
immediately turned head and ran after it, with the young man by my side; we saw it pass
over the stile by which we entered, but no farther. I stepped upon the hedge at one place,
he at another, but could discern nothing; whereas I dare aver that the swiftest horse in
England could not have conveyed himself out of sight in that short space of time. Two
things I observed in this day's appearance. (1) That a spaniel dog, who followed the
company unregarded, did bark and run away as the spectrum passed by; whence it is
easy to conclude that it was not our fear or fancy which made the apparition. (2) That the
motion of the spectrum was not by steps and moving of the feet, but a kind of gliding, as
children upon ice or a boat down a swift river.
"But to proceed. This ocular evidence clearly convinced, but strangely frightened, the
old gentleman and his wife, who knew this Dorothy Dingley in her lifetime, were at her
burial, and now plainly saw her features in this present apparition.

"The next morning, being Thursday, I went out very early by myself, and walked for
about an hour's space in meditation and prayer in the field next adjoining the Quartils.
Soon after five I stepped over the stile into the disturbed field, and had not gone above
thirty or forty paces before the ghost appeared at the farther stile. I spake to it with a
loud voice, whereupon it approached, but slowly, and when I came near it moved not. I
spake again, and it answered, in a voice neither very audible nor intelligible. I was not in
the least terrified, and therefore persisted until it spake again and gave me satisfaction.
But the work could not be finished at this time; wherefore the same evening, an hour
after sunset, it met me again near the same place, and after a few words on each side it
quickly vanished, and neither doth appear since, nor ever will more to any man's
disturbance. The discourse in the morning lasted about a quarter of an hour.
"These things are true, and I know them to be so, with as much certainty as eyes and
ears can give me; and until I can be persuaded that my senses do deceive me about their
proper object, and by that persuasion deprive myself of the strongest inducement to
believe the Christian religion, I must and will assert that these things in this paper are
true."
It must be noted that Defoe in his printed account omits the names of the family of
Bligh, and that he changes Dorothy Dingley into Mrs. Veale. Parson Ruddle's original
MS. is not in existence; it was probably given to Defoe; but a copy is preserved made by
the son of the Rev. John Ruddle. Defoe was in Launceston acting as a spy for the
minister Harley in August, 1705, and at that time he must have got hold of the MS. After
the signature "John Ruddle" at the end of the narrative and the date is the sentence:
"This is a copy of wt I found written by my father and signed John Ruddle. Taken by me,
William Ruddle," who had become vicar of South Petherwin in 1695, and who became
subsequently incumbent also of S. Thomas-by-Launceston. This copy bears the
following attestation: "The readers may observe yt I borrowed the remarkable passage of
ye grandson of John Ruddle who had it from his Uncle William Ruddle. I think I'm exact
in its transcription. I well know the sd John Ruddle to have had (and I daresay deserved)
the character of a learned and eminent Divine, and I also knew his son ye sayd William
Ruddle, a Divine whose character was so bright yt I have no room to add to its lustre,
and I hereby certify yt I copyed this from ye very hand-writing of the sayd William
Ruddle. Quinto die Februarii Anno Dni, 1730. James Wakeman."
As Mr. Robbins says: "The completeness of the body of proof of the Ruddle authorship
leaves nothing therefore to be desired."
Parson John Ruddle eventually became prebend of Exeter, and held the vicarage of
Altarnon along with that of Launceston to his death.
Ruddle does not state that the boy Bligh was his pupil at Launceston Free School, but
one does not see to what other school he can have gone, and the readiness with which
the lad opened his heart to him leads to the notion that they had some previous

acquaintance. His way to Launceston would be over the common, on which stand three
barrows, to the road at Penfoot, where he would strike the road. When he endeavoured
to avoid the ghost he took the Under Horse Road between Quarry Park and the Nursery.
The Quarry is still visible with a pool in it, and a stream flowing into it that rises on the
moor where he saw the ghost, and Under Horse Road still bears its name. The lad
endeavoured to take a short cut, though not as short as across the Higher Brown
Quartils, to reach the Launceston road without having to go through South Petherwin
village.
Parson Ruddle does not give the Christian name of the boy who saw the ghost, and we
are thrown into perplexity at once.
The "ancient gentleman" may have been Thomas Bligh of Botathan, Esq., but he was
aged no more than fifty-three. Colonel Vivian's pedigree of the Blighs in his Visitation of
Cornwall is most unsatisfactory.
Thomas Bligh was buried at South Petherwin, April 10th, 1692. There is no entry in
Vivian's pedigree of Walter Bligh, gentleman, who was buried January 29th, 1667-8.
Besides, there are many entries of an Edmund Bligh and Katherine, his wife, and their
children. Thomas Bligh seems to have lived at one time at S. Martin's-by-Looe. Dr. Lee
in his Glimpses of the Supernatural calls Dorothy Dingley, Dorothy Durant; but on what
authority I do not know. There is an entry in the South Petherwin register of the burial of
Dorothy Durant, widow, 1st May, 1677, but according to the story of the boy, Dorothy
Dingley died in or about 1657. Unfortunately the South Petherwin registers do not go
back beyond August, 1656, but there is no entry in them in 1656 or 1657 of the burial of
Dorothy Dingley.
The Dingleys had been settled in Lezant and Linkinhorne from 1577, and owned the
place Hall in the latter parish; but they had connections in Worcestershire; and Dorothy
was the youngest daughter of Francis Dingley, baptized at Cropthorne, in the latter
county, in 1596. She married Richard, son of George Durant, of Blockly, Worcestershire.
As no further trace of her can be found in the register there, it is not unfair to suppose
that having kinsfolk in Cornwall she may have journeyed there, and both were buried at
South Petherwin, Dorothy Durant, as already stated, in 1677. She was then aged eighty-
seven. She cannot have been the ghost. But was the ghost that of her mother, a Dorothy,
who came to South Petherwin with her, and died there about the year 1655? We cannot
tell, as we do not know her mother's Christian name. Dr. Lee clearly confused the
Dorothy Durant with the Dorothy Dingley, the ghost.
The Rev. P. T. Pulman, vicar of South Petherwin, writes to me: "In December, 1896, a
labourer died here, aged seventy-two. For upwards of forty years he had worked at
Botathan. He told me that one of the fields was called the Higher Brown Park (he did
not know the name of Quartells) until the field was ploughed up. He told me there was a
little path in it which they called old Dorothy Dinglet's [sic] path, and that they used to
frighten the farm apprentices with stories about her, but he had never met her himself.

The farm has been sold of recent years. There is a part of the old house left used for a
cider cellar. They call it Dorothy Dingley's chamber."
The Rev. James Dingley was vicar of South Petherwin from 1682 until 1695. He was
born 1655, just ten years before the apparition was seen by young Bligh.
Authorities: A. Robbins, "A Cornish Ghost Story," in the Cornish Magazine, 1898; A.
Robbins, Launceston Past and Present, 1889. The portrait of the Rev. John Ruddle is in
my possession. The descendants of Parson Ruddle or Rudall are still on the land, but are
in a humble condition.

JOHN COUCH ADAMS, ASTRONOMER
Thomas Adams was a small tenant farmer in the parish of Laneast, at Lidcott, renting
under John King Lethbridge, Esq., of Tregeare, in Laneast. He married Tabitha Knill
Grylls, of Stoke Climsland, who inherited a very little land in this latter parish.
Laneast lies on the Inny River—that is to say, the village with its church occupies the
southern slope of Laneast Down that falls to this beautiful stream. But Lidcott lies on the
north side of the down, that rises to eight hundred feet above the sea, one long swelling
mass of moor brown with heather, save when in August it blushes like a modest girl, the
heather all a-rose with flower.
For three miles the highway from Camelford to Launceston crosses this moor, one white
strip drawn through a mass of umber. At night the sheep that grazed on the down would
lie on the warm road, and many a time have the coach-horses stumbled over them in the
night.
On this road, about the year 546, S. Samson was pursuing his way from Padstow, where
he had landed, to Southill. He had with him a wagon drawn by horses he had brought
with him from Ireland, and as he proceeded over the down he was aware of music and
dancing on the left-hand side of the road in the direction of Tregeare, and he found that
the heathen people were having a festival about a rude upright stone. He stopped,
harangued them, condemned their idolatrous practice, and with his own hand cut a cross
upon the stone.
It is possible that this is the very rude stone cross that still stands on the slope of the
moor above Lidcott.
John Couch, son of Thomas Adams and Tabitha, was born at Lidcott on 5th January,
1819, but no notice of his baptism occurs in the parish register at Laneast. Possibly he
may have been taken to Egloskerry.
He received his early education at a dame's school in his native parish; but was early
employed by his father to tend the sheep on Laneast Down. It was then and there, on that
great upland stretch of moor, with a vast horizon about him, that, lying in the heather
and looking up into the sky, the mystery of the heavenly firmament laid hold of him. He
soon learned to distinguish the planets from the fixed stars; he watched the rising and the
setting of the constellations, Charles's Wain revolving nightly about the extremest star in
what he called the tail of the Plough; Orion with his twinkling belt and curved sword,
"louting on one knee."
To the west and south stood up against the evening glow the ridge of the Bodmin Moors,
Brown Willy, Rough Tor, Kilmar, and Caradon. To the north nothing interrupted the

view, for there lay the vast Atlantic; and on stormy nights the boom of its waves might
be heard from that highway over the down. To the east and south-east the far-off range
of Dartmoor, blue as a vein in a girl's temple, on a summer day.
Many a chiding did John Couch get from his father for being out late at night upon the
moor; the old farmer was unable to understand what the attraction was which drew the
lad from home and from his supper, to be out, either lying on the road or leaning against
the old granite cross, star-gazing. Happily Mrs. Adams had a simple book on astronomy
that had belonged to her father, and this her son Jack devoured, and now he began to
understand something of the motions of the heavenly bodies. He established a sundial on
the window-sill of the parlour, and constructed out of cardboard an apparatus for taking
the altitude of the sun.

I C ADAMS A M
From the collection of Mrs. Lewis Lane

His father, finding that his inclinations were not for farm work, sent him to study with a
relative of his mother, the Rev. P. Couch Grylls, who had a school at Devonport, but

later moved to Saltash. All his spare time John Couch spent in reading astronomical
works, which he obtained from the library of the Mechanics' Institute; he drew maps of
constellations and computed celestial phenomena. A day long to be remembered by him
as one of the happiest in his life was that in which he obtained a look through a
telescope at the moon. "Why," he exclaimed, "they have Brown Willy and Rough Tor up
there!"
His account of a solar eclipse viewed at Devonport through a small spyglass got into
print in a London paper. After three weeks' watching he caught sight of Halley's Comet
on 16th October, 1839.
His father now with considerable effort arranged to send him to the University of
Cambridge, and he entered S. John's College as a poor sizar in October, 1839; he
graduated as Senior Wrangler in 1843, and was first Smith's prizeman, and soon elected
Fellow and appointed tutor of his college.
At the age of twenty-two he was struck with the disturbance in the course of the planet
Uranus, and he perceived that this must be due to the attraction possessed by some other
planet, as yet unseen and unsuspected, that produced these perturbations. How this led to
the discovery of the planet Neptune shall be told from the Reminiscences of Caroline
Fox:—
"1847, October 7th.—Dined at Carclew, and spent a very interesting evening. We met
Professor Adams, the Bullers, the Lord of the Isles, and others. Adams is a quiet-looking
man, with a broad forehead, a mild face, and an amiable and expressive mouth. I sat by
him at dinner, and by general and dainty approaches got at the subject on which one
most wished to hear him speak. He began very blushingly, but went on to talk in most
delightful fashion, with large and luminous simplicity, of some of the vast mathematical
facts with which he is so conversant. The idea of the reversed method of reasoning, from
an unknown to a known, with reference to astronomical problems dawned on him when
an undergraduate, with neither time nor mathematics to work it out. The opposite system
had always before been adopted. He, in common with many others, conceived that there
must be a planet to account for the disturbances of Uranus; and when he had time he set
to work at the process, in deep, quiet faith that the fact was there, and that his hitherto
untried mathematical path was the one which must reach it; that there were no anomalies
in the universe, but that, even here, and now, they could be explained and included in a
higher law. The delight of working it out was far more than any notoriety could give, for
his love of pure truth is evidently intense, an inward necessity, unaffected by all the
penny trumpets of the world. Well, at length he fixed his point in space, and sent his
mathematical evidence to Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who locked the papers up in his
desk, partly from carelessness, partly from incredulity, for it seemed to him impossible
that a man whose name was unknown to him should strike out a new path in
mathematical science with any success. Moreover, his theory was, that if there were a
planet, it would not be discovered for one hundred and sixty years; that is, until two
revolutions of Uranus had been accomplished. Then came Leverrier's equally original,

though many months younger, demonstration; Gull's immediate verification of it by
observation; and then the other astronomers were all astir. Professor Adams speaks of
those about whom the English scientific world is so indignant in a spirit of Christian
philosophy, exactly in keeping with the mind of a man who has discovered a planet. He
speaks with warmest admiration of Leverrier, specially of his exhaustive method of
making out the orbits of the comets, imagining and disproving all tracks but the right
one—a work of infinite labour. If the observer could make out distinctly but a very small
part of a comet's orbit, the mathematician would be able to prove what its course had
been through all time. They enjoyed being a good deal together at the British
Association Meeting at Oxford, though it was unfortunate for the intercourse of the
fellow-workers that one could not speak French nor the other English. He had met with
very little mathematical sympathy, except from Challis, of the Cambridge Observatory;
but when his result was announced there was noise enough and to spare. He was always
fond of star-gazing and speculation, and is already on the watch for another planet.
Burnard told us that when Professor Adams came from Cambridge to visit his relatives
in Cornwall he was employed to sell sheep for his father at a fair. He is a most good son
and neighbour, and watchful in the performance of small acts of thoughtful kindness."
"1863, July 2nd.—Have just returned from a visit to Professor Adams at Cambridge. He
is so delightful in the intervals of business, enjoying all things, large and small, with a
boyish zest. He showed and explained the calculating machine (French, not Babbage's),
which saves him much in time and brain, as it can multiply or divide ten figures
accurately. We came upon an admirable portrait of him at S. John's College, before he
accepted a Pembroke Fellowship and migrated thither."
The first mention of the name of Adams as the discoverer of Neptune was by Sir John
Herschel, in the Athenæum, on October 3rd, 1845. And a letter from Professor Challis to
that journal on 17th October described in detail the transactions between Adams, Airy,
and himself. Naturally enough the French were highly incensed at the notion that an
obscure Englishman had forestalled Leverrier in the discovery, and Airy himself was
annoyed at his own negligence in not looking into the memoir by Adams, and took up
the matter with some personal feeling. It was certainly startling to realize that the
Astronomer Royal had had in his possession data that would have enabled the planet to
be discovered nearly a year before Leverrier had, by a different course of argument and
calculation, arrived at the conclusion that there existed a planet which was the disturbing
element in the orbit of Uranus. As to Adams himself, he had not a particle of conceit and
pride in him; he did not care to have his name proclaimed as the discoverer. Forty years
later, he said simply and characteristically that all he had wished for was that English
astronomers to whom he had communicated the result of his calculations, pointing out
the precise spot in the sky where a planet was to be found, would have taken the trouble
to turn their telescopes upon that point and discover the planet, so that England might
have had the full credit of the discovery.

His long-suppressed investigation was not laid before the Royal Astronomical Society
till November 13th, 1846.
The publication, of course, stirred up much controversy, and the scientific world was
divided into Adamite and anti-Adamite factions.
Adams refused knighthood in 1847, and declined the office of Astronomer Royal on
Airy's retirement in 1881.
John Couch had a brother, William Grylls, also a man of some eminence in the scientific
world. He was born at Lidcott 12th February, 1836, and became Professor of Natural
Philosophy and of Astronomy in King's College, London.
I was wont, when at Cambridge, to meet John Couch Adams at Professor Challis', and
also at the house of the Rev. Harvey Goodwin, afterwards Bishop of Carlisle. Professor
Adams took some notice of me, as coming from his neighbourhood, though not on the
Cornish side of the Tamar. He was a small man, as simple as a child in many things.
Indeed, he struck me forcibly by his great modesty and sweetness of manner. He loved a

joke, and would laugh heartily over the very smallest. He loved children, and would play
with them in their little games with infinite zest. Professor Glaisher, whom I also knew,
wrote of him: "Adams was a man of learning as well as a man of science. He was an
omnivorous reader, and his memory was exact and retentive. There were few subjects
upon which he was not possessed of accurate information. Botany, geology, history, and
divinity, all had their share of his care and attention."
He was always happy to return to his humble father's farm; and after he was a noted
man, on one of these occasions the old man sent him into Launceston with a drove of
sheep to sell them in the market. He complied cheerfully, but how he succeeded in
selling them I have not heard. This is the incident alluded to by Caroline Fox given
above.
"The honours showered upon him," wrote Dr. Donald MacAlister, "left him as they
found him—modest, gentle, and sincere." He was not a man who ever asserted himself.
He married in 1863 Eliza, daughter of Haliday Bruce, of Dublin. He died of a sudden
illness on January 21st, 1892, and was buried in S. Giles' Churchyard, Cambridge.
Portraits were taken of him by Mogford in 1851, and by Herkomer in 1888; both are in
the Combination-room of St. John's College, Cambridge.
A biographical notice of him was prefixed by Professor Glaisher to his scientific works,
edited by W. G. Adams, in 1896-8.
See also A. De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes, 1872, and the Mechanics' Magazine,
1846.

DANIEL GUMB
All that is really known of this eccentric character is found in a letter of J. B. to Richard
Polwhele, dated September, 1814. His correspondent says:—
"Daniel Gumb was born in the parish of Linkinhorne, in Cornwall, about the
commencement of the last century, and was bred a stone-cutter. In the early part of his
life he was remarkable for his love of reading and a degree of reserve even exceeding
what is observable in persons of studious habits. By close application Daniel acquired,
even in his youth, a considerable stock of mathematical knowledge, and, in
consequence, became celebrated throughout the adjoining parishes. Called by his
occupation to hew blocks of granite on the neighbouring commons, and especially in the
vicinity of that great natural curiosity called the Cheesewring, he discovered near this
spot an immense block, whose upper surface was an inclined plane. This, it struck him,
might be made the roof of a habitation such as he desired; sufficiently secluded from the
busy haunts of men to enable him to pursue his studies without interruption, whilst it
was contiguous to the scene of his daily labour. Immediately Daniel went to work, and
cautiously excavating the earth underneath, to nearly the extent of the stone above, he
obtained a habitation which he thought sufficiently commodious. The sides he lined with
stone, cemented with lime, whilst a chimney was made by perforating the earth at one
side of the roof. From the elevated spot on which stood this extraordinary dwelling
could be seen Dartmoor and Exmoor on the east, Hartland on the north, the sea and the
port of Plymouth on the south, and S. Austell and Bodmin Hills on the west, with all the
intermediate beautiful scenery. The top of the rock which roofed his house served Daniel
for an observatory, where at every favourable opportunity he watched the motions of the
heavenly bodies, and on the surface of which, with his chisel, he carved a variety of
diagrams, illustrative of the most difficult problems of Euclid, etc. These he left behind
him as evidences of the patience and ingenuity with which he surmounted the obstacles
that his station in life had placed in the way of his mental improvement.
"But the choice of his house and the mode in which he pursued his studies were not his
only eccentricities. His house became his chapel also; and he was never known to
descend from the craggy mountain on which it stood, to attend his parish church or any
other place of worship.
"Death, which alike seizes on the philosopher and the fool, at length found out the
retreat of Daniel Gumb, and lodged him in a house more narrow than that which he had
dug for himself."
Bond in his Topographical and Historical Sketches of the Boroughs of East and West
Looe, 1873, describes the habitation of Daniel Gumb as seen by him in 1802:—

"When we reached Cheesewring—our guide first led us to the house of Daniel Gumb (a
stone-cutter), cut by him out of a solid rock of granite. This artificial cavern may be
about twelve feet deep and not quite so broad; the roof consists of one flat stone of many
tons weight; supported by the natural rock on one side, and by pillars of small stones on
the other. How Gumb formed this last support is not easily conceived. We entered with
hesitation lest the covering should be our gravestone. On the right-hand side of the door
is 'D. Gumb,' with a date engraved 1735 (or 3). On the upper part of the covering stone,
channels are cut to carry off the rain, probably to cause it to fall into a bucket for his use;
there is also engraved on it some geometrical device formed by Gumb, as the guide told
us, who also said that Gumb was accounted a pretty sensible man. I have no hesitation in
saying he must have been a pretty eccentric character to have fixed on this place for his
habitation; but here he dwelt for several years with his wife and children, several of
whom were born and died here. His calling was that of a stone-cutter, and he fixed
himself on a spot where materials could be met with to employ a thousand men for a
thousand years."

THE CHEESE-WRING

The Rev. Robert S. Hawker wrote an account of Daniel Gumb for All the Year Round in
1866, and this has been reprinted in Footsteps of Former Men in Cornwall.
He pretends that when he visited the Cheesewring in 183-, there still existed fragments
of Daniel Gumb's "thoughts and studies still treasured up in the existing families of
himself and his wife." And he gives transcripts from these, and also from what must
have been a diary. But Mr. Hawker embroidered facts with so much detail drawn from
his own fancy, that his statements have to be taken with a very large pinch of salt.

It must be remembered, in his justification, that his stories of Cornish Characters were
intended as magazine articles to amuse, but without any purpose of having them
regarded as strictly biographical and historical. They were brief historical romances, and
were not intended to be taken seriously.
I will give but one quotation, and the reader can judge for himself therefrom whether it
does not look like an extract "made in Morwenstow." Mr. Hawker says:—
"On the fly-leaves of an old account book the following strange statement appears: 'June
23rd, 1764. To-day, at bright noon, I looked up and saw all at once a stranger standing
on the turf, just above my block. He was dressed like an old picture I remember in the
windows of S. Neot's Church, in a long brown garment, with a girdle; and his head was
uncovered and grizzled with long hair. He spoke to me, and he said in a low, clear voice,
"Daniel, that work is hard!" I wondered that he should know my name, and I answered,
"Yes, sir; but I am used to it and don't mind it, for the sake of the faces at home." Then
he said, sounding his words like a psalm, "Man goeth forth to his work and to his labour
until the evening. When will it be night with Daniel Gumb?" I began to feel queer; it
seemed to me that there was something awful about the unknown man. I even shook.
Then he said again, "Fear nothing. The happiest man in all the earth is he that wins his
daily bread by his daily sweat, if he will but fear God and do man no wrong." I bent
down my head like any one dumbfounded, and I greatly wondered who this strange
appearance could be. He was not like a preacher, for he looked me full in the face; nor a
bit like a parson, for he seemed very meek and kind. I began to think it was a spirit, only
such ones always come by night, and here was I at noonday and at work. So I made up
my mind to drop my hammer and step up and ask his name right out. But when I looked
up he was gone, and that clear out of my sight, on the bare, wide moor, suddenly.'"
Now, in the first place, no trace or tidings of these notes so treasured up by the family
are to be found in the parish of Linkinhorne, to which Gumb and his wife belonged.
In the second place, Mr. Hawker makes Daniel remark that his mysterious visitant was
not like a Dissenting preacher because he looked him straight in the face, and this is
significantly like a remark Hawker often made with regard to these gentry.
Another of these pretended notes refers to the finding of a fossil fish embedded in
granite. This alone suffices to wake suspicion that the extracts are not genuine. Fossils
never have been found in granite, and never will be. But Hawker himself did not know
this, as he was totally ignorant of the first principles of geology.

LAURENCE BRADDON
Laurence Braddon, second son of Captain William Braddon, of Treworgy, in S. Gennys,
was called to the bar of the Middle Temple, and worked at his profession diligently. He
entered Parliament in 1651, but did not attract special notice till the occasion of the
suicide of the Earl of Essex in the Tower, in 1683.
The people of England had been, and still were, greatly troubled about the succession to
the throne, in the event of the death of Charles II. They had no mind to have the throne
occupied by a Popish prince, and several plots were hatched to prevent such a
contingency. Monmouth, with Lord Essex, Shaftesbury, Lord Howard of Escrick,
Russell, Algernon Sidney, and John Hampden, held meetings to found an association to
agitate and compel the King to assemble Parliament, to take measures to secure a
Protestant succession and the exclusion of the Duke of York. On other points they
disagreed. Monmouth hoped to have his legitimacy established and to secure the crown
for his own brows. Sidney and Essex were for the establishment of a commonwealth.
Russell and Hampden intended only the exclusion of the Duke. As to Lord Howard, he
was a man of no principle, and his sole desire was to fish in troubled waters and get out
of them what he could.
More desperate spirits schemed plans of assassination, and a plot was formed for
murdering Charles and the Duke of York as they passed the Rye House on the road from
London to Newmarket, but there is no evidence that the noble schemers had any
knowledge of the Rye House Plot.
Both projects were betrayed, and though they were wholly distinct from one another, the
cruel ingenuity of the Crown lawyers blended them into one.
The Earl of Shaftesbury fled to the Continent; Monmouth absconded; Russell was
committed to the Tower; Howard, who had concealed himself in a chimney, was drawn
forth by the heels, and to secure his neck betrayed Essex, Sidney, and Hampden, who
were all committed to the Tower.
Several of the conspirators in the Rye House Plot were sentenced to death and at once
executed. From their confessions it appeared that the conspiracy had wide ramifications,
and that a scheme of insurrection throughout the country had been formed, and that steps
had been taken to organize it.
On the day upon which Lord Russell was brought to trial the Earl of Essex was found in
the closet of his chamber with his throat cut, and this but just after a visit to the Tower
by the King with the Duke of York.

An inquest was at once held, at which it was shown that Lord Essex was a man of a
despondent temper, that he had been lately in a lugubrious mood, and in the depths of
melancholy; and evidence was conclusive that he had cut his own throat with a razor.
The jury accordingly found a verdict of felo de se.
Now it so fell out that on the following Sunday Laurence Braddon went to visit a Mr.
Evans, of the Custom House, at his country house at Wanstead, in Essex, where was also
a Mr. Halstead, and Evans was telling Halstead that he had heard from a kinsman of his
named Edwards, also in the Customs, that his boy had been in the Tower yard on the
morning of the death of Lord Essex, and that he had seen a hand thrust out of that
nobleman's window, and a razor stained with blood thrown down on the pavement of the
yard. Next moment a maid-servant wearing a white hood had run out, secured the razor
and carried it within, and that he had heard cries from within of "Murder! Murder!"
Braddon listened, walking up and down the room, as Evans told this story. He was
greatly excited by it, and thought that it pointed to a murder having been committed, and
that probably at the instigation of the Duke of York.
Accordingly Braddon went next day to the quay and got Evans and Edwards to meet
him at the "Star" public-house and repeat the story. It seemed that Edwards had two boys
who were in Merchant Taylors' School, and that one of their sisters was married and
living in the Tower. On the morning of the death of Lord Essex the lads were on their
way to school, when, passing the Tower, they heard that the King and the Duke of York
were in it, whereupon the younger, an urchin of twelve or thirteen, gave his brother the
slip, and ran in to see the King and the Duke. After they had departed he remained in the
yard playing chuck-farthing with other boys, when he saw a hand thrust forth from a
window and throw a bloody razor into the court, and after that a maid or woman in a
white hood and stuff coat took it up and went in, and then he heard a noise as of
"Murder!" cried out. Braddon then went to the house of Edwards to question the boy,
who prevaricated. Braddon believed that the child's mother and sister had been at him,
telling him that he was likely to get them all into trouble if he persisted in his tale, and
urged by them, professed that he had told a lie.
The matter became common talk on the quay and the purlieus of the Tower.
Braddon had no great difficulty in finding a little girl named Jane Lodeman, aged
thirteen, who was in the same tale. This is what he took down:—
"Jane Lodeman was in the Tower on Friday morning, 13th July last, and standing almost
over against the late Earl of Essex's lodging window, she saw a hand cast a razor out of
my lord's window, and immediately upon this she heard shrieks, and that there was a
soldier by my lord's door, who cried out to those within the house that somebody should
come and take up a razor which was thrown out of the window, whereupon there came a
maid with a white hood out of the house, but who took up the razor she can't tell."
Dated 8th August, 1683.

On July 20th Braddon had gone to Whitehall before he had obtained this corroborative
evidence, and had laid information before the King and Council, and produced a written
deposition as to what the boy Edwards had said he had seen; but the boy's sister deposed
that Mr. Laurence Braddon had forced her brother to sign it. Soon after Braddon had
taken this step, he heard a rumour that the fact of the violent death of the Earl of Essex
had been known and discussed in Frome Selwood the same day, and he hurried off to
make inquiries into this. But on reaching Salisbury he was arrested, thrown into prison,
and brought back to London. Another gentleman, a Mr. Speeke, had also been spreading
the report that Lord Essex had been foully murdered, and it was hinted that the Duke of
York, if not the King, had ordered the assassination. Speeke also was arrested.
Narcissus Luttrell's account of the death of Essex is as follows:—
1683, 13th July.—"About nine in the morning, the Earl of Essex, prisoner in the Tower
of London, upon account of this new plott, did most barbarously cut his own throat from
one ear to the other with a razor. What occasioned it is doubtfull: some say, the sense of
his guilt; others, the shame for being accused of such a crime, when his father, the Lord
Capell, died for his loyalty to the late King; however, the coroner's jury have satt on his
body, and found him felo de se, tho' some stick not to say 'tis impossible he should
murther himself in so barbarous a manner; and his Majesty hath been pleased to give his
goods, which were forfeited by his killing himself, to his son."
On November 6th he says: "Mr. Speak was brought to the Court of King's Bench, and
charged with two informations: the 1st, for saying the King was as great a Papist as the
Duke of York; that the Duke durst not doe what he did but that the King did animate
him; that what Pilkington had formerly said of the Duke of York was true; with much
other such scandalous stuff; and 2nd was for sayeing that the Earl of Essex was killed
and murdered by those that attended on him in the Tower; to both these he pleaded Not
Guilty."
1683-4, February 7th.—"Mr. Lawrence Braddon and Mr. Hugh Speke were tried at the
Court of King's Bench, by a jury of Middlesex, upon an information reciting the
commitment of the late Earl of Essex to the Tower for treason in conspiring the death of
the King, etc., and that the 13th July last he cut his own throat, and was found felo de se
by the coroner's inquisition; the said Braddon and Speke did conspire by writing and
otherwise, to spread a false and scandalous report, that the said Earl was murdered by
some persons about him, and endeavoured to suborn witnesses to testifye the same. The
evidence for the King, was first, the warder of the Tower, who testified as to his
Lordship's commitment; then the coroner, and the inquisition taken before him, whereby
his Lordship was found felo de se, was read; then the particular evidence against Mr.
Braddon was, by severall persons, how busy and sollicitous he was to take persons'
informations, and to examine a little child about ten years old, about a discourse that ran
through the town that a bloody razor was thrown out of his Lordship's window; and that
the cry of Murder was heard; and that a servant maid came presently out of the house of
the Lord of Essex, and took up the razor, and carried it in; and that then it was said the

Lord of Essex had killed himself. Then the severall informations Braddon had taken in
writing relating to this matter were read, and some of the informants themselves
examined, whose testimony much differ'd from their informations, then severall testified
the confident and strange discourse this Braddon frequently us'd concerning the matter.
The evidence against Mr. Speke was only a letter writt by him to Sir Robert Atkins th'
elder, and carried by Mr. Braddon, but was seized about him when he was going thither,
which contained severall expressions in commendation of Mr. Braddon and his zeale,
with reflexions on this matter; then the evidence was given of his Lordship's cutting his
own throat with a razor, which was proved by his own servant, a Frenchman; by the
warder, by the centinell, and by Capt. Hawley. The defendants' proof was, first, Braddon
pretended he did nothing but out of zeale to have the truth come out: then he call'd some
witnesses to prove that there was a discourse of the Lord of Essex's being killed, and a
razor thrown out, before he concern'd himself in it. Speke had little to say against the
letter, but own'd it to be his hand; so that the jury, after a little while, agreed of their
verdict, and found the defendant Braddon guilty of all that was laid in the information,
and the defendant Speke guilty of all except the conspiring to suborn witnesses.
"'Twas strange any man should concern himself in an affair of this moment on the
information of a boy ten years old, who had denied all after he had confess'd it, and did
at his tryall, and make all this rent that was about it."
April 21st, 1684.—"Mr. Laurence Braddon and Mr. Hugh Speke, convicted last term
upon an endeavour to lay the murder of the late Earl of Essex upon the Government,
were brought to the Court of King's Bench to receive their judgments; which was, that
Braddon should pay a fine of £2000, and Speke £1000 to the King; that they find
sureties for their good behaviour during their lives, and be committed to the King's
Bench prison till they doe so."
Hugh Speke, who was tried along with Laurence Braddon, was an inveterate plotter.
Macaulay thus describes him: "Hugh Speke (was) a young man of good family, but of a
singularly base and depraved nature. His love of mischief and of dark and crooked ways
amounted almost to madness. To cause confusion without being found out was his
business and his pastime; and he had a rare skill in using honest enthusiasts as the
instruments of his cold-blooded malice."
Referring to the case of Braddon, Macaulay adds: "He had attempted, by means of one
of his puppets, to fasten on Charles and James the crime of murdering Essex in the
Tower. On this occasion the agency of Speke had been traced; and though he succeeded
in throwing the greater part of the blame on his dupe, he had not escaped with
impunity."
He was certainly a clever scoundrel, for he managed to cover up most of his traces in the
affair of the charge of the murder of Essex.

Braddon was sincere, while Speke was not. Braddon was convinced that a murder had
been committed, and he had not a well-balanced mind to weigh evidence. Speke cared
nothing whether crime had been committed or not so long as he could disturb men's
minds with a suspicion that one had been committed, and that by the King's brother and
heir presumptive to the Crown.
The evidence produced by Laurence Braddon was practically worthless. He had but the
word of two little children, and the boy had retracted and acknowledged that he had told
lies. As to the fact of the death of Lord Essex being known at Frome on the 13th,
showing that the murder had been premeditated and was part of a widely ramified
scheme of the Papists, it was shown that nothing was known there of it till many days
later.
The evidence for the King was Bomeny, the valet de chambre of Lord Essex. He stated
that the Earl had long nails, and that morning had asked for a penknife so as to pare
them. Bomeny had commissioned a footman, William Turner, to get one, and bring it
along with some provisions ordered for the Earl's breakfast. Turner brought the
provisions, but had forgotten about the penknife, whereupon Lord Essex began to cut his
nails with his razor, and the footman was again despatched for a penknife. Just then the
King and the Duke of York arrived at the Tower, and there was great bustle in the yard,
and Bomeny left the Earl's room. When he met the footman with the knife he returned,
but not finding Lord Essex in his chamber, he tried to open the closet door, when he
found that there was an obstruction. Somewhat alarmed, he ran to Russell, the warder,
whose door was almost opposite on the same staircase, and both went to the closet, and
found Lord Essex lying in it with his throat cut and his feet against the door.
Russell corroborated this evidence, and added that no one could possibly ascend the stair
and enter Lord Essex's chamber without his knowledge. The soldier, Lloyd, who acted
as sentinel at the entrance to the Earl's quarters, testified that there was no truth in the
children's tale about the razor, and that no maid had issued from the door to pick one up.
It was further established that the closet window did not look into the main yard, and
was so arranged that a hand could not be passed out of it.
Judge Jeffreys conducted the investigation, and that in a most unseemly manner.
Apparently he was drunk at the time, and was so confused that he was not able to follow
the evidence. He browbeat the witnesses in the most offensive way.
On November 6th, 1684, a French Protestant refugee, named Borleau, was indicted for
selling a scandalous book called L'Esprit de Monsieur Arnaud, in which he declared that
the Earl of Essex had not cut his own throat, but had been foully murdered. He pleaded
guilty, and the King graciously allowed him to be fined only 6s. 8d., and to be
discharged without paying his fees. There was most certainly fish made of one and fowl
of another.

Again, in December of the same year a book appeared entitled An Enquiry about the
Barbarous Murder of the Earl of Essex, that was vended surreptitiously, and a broadside
written by Colonel Danvers, giving the evidence that he was murdered, was thrown in at
open doors and distributed in the streets of London. A hundred pounds was offered for
the apprehension of Danvers. As to the book, it was from the pen of Laurence Braddon,
and was later, when it could be done safely, acknowledged by him. On January 23rd,
1684-5, a Mr. Henry Baker pleaded guilty to an information for using scandalous words
about the Duke of York, and at the same time a printer, Norden, did the same to an
indictment for publishing the "scandalous libell in vindication of the lord of Essex." And
on February 3rd one of the jury at the inquest, Launcelot Colston by name, was had up
before King's Bench on a charge of having said that he did not believe that the Earl had
cut his throat, for he could not have done so himself in the way in which he was found.
Norden was sentenced to pay 200 marks, and to stand in the pillory at Ratcliffe, and to
be bound to his good behaviour for seven years, and be committed to prison till this was
done.
In 1685, on the landing of the Duke of Monmouth, in the Proclamation he published, he
charged King James with the murder of Essex, with his own hand.
In January, 1689, a Captain Hawley, Major Whitley, and some two or three more were
imprisoned for maintaining that Essex had not committed suicide. But this was at the
moment when all power was slipping out of the hands of King James II; the Prince of
Orange came to the throne, and on February 23rd a Captain Holland was arrested and
thrown into prison on the charge of having been concerned in the murder of the Earl,
and this was followed by numerous other arrests. But the prison-doors were thrown open
for Laurence Braddon to issue forth and recommence his accusations of murder. He
republished the "Enquiry into and Detection of the Barbarous Murther of the late Earl of
Essex; or a Vindication of that Noble Person from the Guilt and Infamy of having
Destroyed himself."
Even before the throne, vacated by King James, had been filled by the Prince of Orange,
the Lords had appointed a committee to examine into the truth of the frightful stories
circulated relative to the death of Essex. The committee, which consisted wholly of
zealous Whigs, continued its inquiries till all reasonable men were convinced that he had
fallen by his own hand, and till Lady Essex, his brother, and his most intimate friends
requested that the investigation might be pursued no further. That under Judge Jeffreys
had been open to suspicion, this could not. But nothing would alter the persuasion of
Braddon that this was a case of murder.
Next year, 1690, he came out with a fresh pamphlet, "Essex's Innocency and Honour
Vindicated, or Murther, Subornation, Perjury, and Oppression, justly charged on the
Murtherers of that Noble and True Patriot Arthur (late) Earl of Essex," etc.
It had become a matter of party feeling, and it was held by all true Protestants to be their
duty to believe in the murder, so as to blacken the character of James II. The evidence,

however, was too poor to convince a cool-minded man like Bishop Burnet, and in his
History of His Own Times he spoke of Essex having cut his own throat. Thereupon
Laurence Braddon resumed his pen and published an attack on the Bishop: "Bishop
Burnet's History charged with great partiality and misrepresentations, to make the
present and future ages believe that Arthur, Earl of Essex, in 1683, murdered himselfe,
with observations upon the suppos'd poysoning of King Charles the Second," 1724.
In 1695 Braddon was appointed solicitor to the wine-licensing office, with a salary of
£100 per annum.
In one point Braddon showed great perspicuity and good feeling. In 1717 he published a
pamphlet entitled "The Miseries of the Poor, a National Sin and Shame"; and when his
scheme for the relief of the poor had been animadverted upon unfavourably, in 1722, he
answered these objections in another tractate: "Particular answers to the most material
objections made to the proposal humbly presented to His Majesty for relieving,
reforming, and employing all the poor of Great Britain," 1722.
Laurence Braddon died on Sunday, 29th November, 1724.
The Braddons must have been a family of some consequence in S. Gennys, although
their arms and pedigree are not recorded in the Heralds' Visitations. At the trial of
Laurence, it was stated that his father's income from his property was fully £800 per
annum. Laurence derived his fiery Protestantism from his father, who had been a
Parliamentarian officer of some distinction in the Civil War. His father is buried in the
chancel of S. Gennys, and some verses are inscribed on the ledgerstone, beginning:—

In war and peace I bore command,
Both gun and sword I wore.

The arms borne by the family are: Sable, a bend lozengy, arg.—arms that in their
beautiful simplicity proclaim their antiquity.
The old mansion of the Braddons in S. Gennys has been pulled down and a modern
farm-house erected on the site.

THOMASINE BONAVENTURA
Week S. Mary stands in a treeless wind-swept situation, 530 feet above the sea, near the
source of two small streams rising in the desolate downs to the south, which unite their
waters at Langford, and have sawn for themselves deep clefts that are well wooded. At a
remote period this district must have been the scene of contests, for it is studded with
earthworks. There was a castle at Week, but camps also crowning a height in Westwood
and in Swannacott Wood; and Week S. Mary with its castle stood aloft, defended by one
of these on each side. Formerly there was not so much enclosed land as there is at
present; but it was precisely the moorland that extended over so large a portion of the
parish that constituted its wealth, for on this waste pastured vast flocks of sheep, whose
fleeces were in request at a time when wool was the staple industry in the West of
England.
The ridge of bare, uplifted, carboniferous rock and clay, cold and bleak, was formerly
scantily provided with roads, and with homesteads few and far between; and to guide the
traveller through the waste, certain churches with lofty towers were erected on high
ground—Pancrasweek, Holsworthy, Bridgerule, Week S. Mary—to enable him to make
his way across country from one to the other. A farm or a manor-house nestled in a
combe, sheltered from the wind, from the sea, and the driving rain; but farmer and
squire drew their wealth from the sheep on the uplands, which were moreover strewn, as
they still are, with barrows, under which lie the dead of the Bronze and Stone ages.
Davies Gilbert absurdly derives the name of the place from the Cornish, and makes it
signify "sweet." No more unsuitable epithet could have been applied. It signifies vicus, a
village or hamlet, and is found also at Pancrasweek, Germansweek, and elsewhere.
In the village are still to be seen the remains of the old school and chantry founded by
Thomasine Bonaventura, a shepherd girl, native of the place, whose story is told by
Carew and by Hall; and from them we take it.
Thomasine was born about the year 1450, in the reign of Henry VI, and her father was a
small farmer who had his flock of sheep pasturing on the wild waste common-lands.
Thomasine watched it, and spun from her distaff. Above the desolate moors to the south-
west stood up blue against the sky the rugged height of Brown Willy, crowned by its
mighty cairns; to the west and south-west stretched the Atlantic, into which the evening
sun went down in a blaze of glory.
One day a London merchant, a dealer in wool, came riding over the moor; probably
from Tintagel or Forrabury, and making direct for Week S. Mary tower, when he passed
a barrow on which sat the shepherd girl spinning, the breeze from the sea blowing her
dark hair about, singing some old ballad, but ever keeping her eye on her father's sheep.

Behind him trailed a line of horses laden with the packs of wool that he had purchased,
led by his men. He halted to speak to the girl, probably to learn from her where he might
best ford the stream in the valley below. She answered, and he was pleased with her
intelligence, and not less with her beauty. He inquired who she was, what was her name,
and what the circumstances of her parents. To all these questions she gave prompt and
direct answers. Then, still more taken with her, he asked Thomasine whether she would
accompany him to London, to be servant to his wife, and he offered her good wages and
kind treatment. She replied, with caution, that she was under the guardianship of her
father and mother, and that she could not accept his proposal without their consent.
Thereupon the merchant rode on, and upon reaching Week S. Mary inquired for the
house of the parents of Thomasine and laid his offer before them. When they hesitated,
he referred them to his customers.
The parents, no doubt, were highly elated at being able to get their daughter into a
situation in London, where all the streets were paved with gold. But it may well be
doubted whether they dreamt of what was in store for her.
So she parted from her parents, certainly with many tears on her part, and earnest
injunctions from father and mother to conduct herself in a modest and obedient manner.
Now these wool merchants and clothiers were men of mighty repute and good substance
in the land. In Thomas Deloney's delightful Pleasant Historie of Thomas of Reading,
1600, we read: "Among all crafts this was the onely chiefe, for that it was the chiefest
merchandize, by the which our Country became famous throwout all Nations. And it
was verily thought that the one halfe of the people in the land lived in those dayes
thereby, and in such good sort, that in the Commonwealth there were few or no beggars
at all: poore people, whom God lightly blessed with most children, did by meanes of this
occupation so order them, that by the time that they were come to be sixe or seven
yeares of age, they were able to get their owne bread. Idlenesse was then banished our
coast, so that it was a rare thing to heare of a thiefe in those dayes. Therefore it was not
without cause that Clothiers were then both honoured and loved."
Doubtless so soon as the merchant reached Launceston he placed all the wool he
purchased on carts, to convey it to town through Exeter. Deloney tells an amusing story
of how King Henry was riding forth west with one of his sons and some of his nobility,
when "he met with a great number of waines loaden with cloth coming to London, and
seeing them still drive one after another so many together, demanded whose they were.
The wainemen answered in this sort: Coles of Reading, quoth they. Then, by and by, the
King asked another, saying: Whose cloth is all this? Old Coles, quoth he. And againe
anon after he asked the same questions to others, and still they answered, Old Coles.
And it is to be remembered that the King met them in such a place so narrow and
streight, that hee with the rest of his traine were faine to stand as close to the hedge,
whilest the carts passed by, the which at that time being in number above two hundred,
was neere hand an hour ere the King could get room to be gone; so that by his long stay,

he began to be displeased, although the admiration of that sight did much qualify his
furie; but breaking out in discontent, by reason of his stay, he said, I thought Old Cole
had got a commission for all the carts in the country to carry his cloth. And how if he
have (quoth one of the wainemen) doth that grieve you, good Sir? Yes, good Sir, said our
King. What say you to that? The fellow, seeing the King (in asking the question) to bend
his browes, though he knew not what he was, yet being abasht, he answered thus: Why,
Sir, if you be angry, nobody can hinder you; for possibly, Sir, you have anger at
commandment. The King, seeing him in uttering of his words to quiver and quake,
laughed heartily at him ... and by the time he came within a mile of Staines, he met
another company of waines, in like sort laden with cloth, whereby the King was driven
into a further admiration; and demanding whose they were, answere was made in this
sort: They bee goodman Sutton's of Salisbury, good Sir. And by that time a score of
them were past; he asked againe, saying, Whose are these? Sutton's of Salisbury, quoth
they, and so still, so often as the King asked that question, they answered, Sutton's of
Salisbury. God send me such more Suttons, said the King. And thus the further he
travelled westward, more waines and more he met continually: upon which occasion he
said to his nobles, that it would never grieve a King to die for the defence of a fertile
country and faithful subjects. I alwayes thought (quoth he) that England's valor was
more than her wealth, yet now I see her wealth sufficient to maintaine her valour, which
I will seek to cherish in all I may, and with my sword keepe myselfe in possession of
that I have."
Judging by what Deloney says, these clothiers were a merry set, and the journey to town
was one long picnic. They were—or some were—of good family. Grey, the clothier of
Gloucester, was of the noble race of Grey de Ruthyn, and FitzAllen, of Worcester, came
of the Fitzallens, "that famous family whose patrimony lay about the town of Oswestrie,
which towne his predecessors had inclosed with stately walls of stone."
The most famous wool merchant in the West was Tom Dove, of Exeter, concerning
whom this song was sung:—

Welcome to town, Tom Dove, Tom Dove,
The merriest man alive.
Thy company still we love, we love,
God grant thee well to thrive.
And never will we depart from thee,
For better, for worse, my joy!
For thou shalt still have our good will,
God's blessing on my sweet boy!

In London Thomasine comported herself well, was cheerful and obliging. How the
mercer's wife relished her introduction into the house we are not informed. But this good
lady shortly after sickened and died, and the widower offered Thomasine his hand and
his heart, which she accepted.

After three years Richard Bunsby, the mercer, died and left all he had to Thomasine, so
that she, who had gone up to town as a serving girl, was now a rich widow, and withal
young and pretty and attractive. She soon drew suitors about her, and her choice fell on
"that worshipful merchant adventurer, Master John Gall, of S. Lawrence, Milk Street."
He as well was wealthy and uxorious, and he allowed his wife to make donations for the
relief of the poor of her native village, for which she ever retained a lingering
attachment.
After the lapse of five years Thomasine was again a widow, and her second husband had
followed the example of the first in leaving to her all his possessions.
She had not to wait long before fresh suitors buzzed about her like flies around a treacle
barrel, and now, in the year 1497, she gave her hand to Sir John Percival, who in the
following year became Lord Mayor of London. In memory of this event, she is
traditionally held to have constructed a good road—as good roads went in those days—
from Week S. Mary down to the coast, probably that over Week ford and through
Poundstock, to either Wansum or Melhuc Mouth.
She long survived her third husband, and is supposed to have returned to end her days as
the Lady Bountiful in her native village. By her will, made in 1510, she left goodly sums
of money to Week S. Mary.
But both she and Sir John Percival had been already benefactors in London. Sir John
had founded a chantry in S. Mary Woolnoth, and in 1539 is found an entry in the
churchwardens' accounts of that parish recording that Dame Thomasine Percival had left
money for the maintenance of the "beme light" in the church, i.e. the lamp before the
rood. She had also left money to supply candles to burn about the sepulchre in the
church on Easter Day, and he had bequeathed moneys for the repair of the ornaments of
the church, for bell-ringing, for singers "for keeping the anthem," at his and her obits,
and last but not least, "for a potation to the neighbours at the said obit."
Carew says: "And to show that virtue as well bare a part in the desert, as fortune in the
means of her preferment, she employed the whole residue of her life and last
widowhood to works no less bountiful than charitable, namely, repairing of highways,
building of bridges, endowing of maidens, relieving of prisoners, feeding and
apparelling the poor, etc. Among the rest, at this S. Mary Wike she founded a chantry
and free-school, together with fair lodgings for the schoolmasters, scholars, and officers,
and added £20 of yearly revenue for supporting the incident charges: wherein, as the
bent of her desire was holy, so God blessed the same with all wished success; for divers
of the best gentlemen's sons of Devon and Cornwall were there virtuously trained up, in
both kinds of divine and human learning, under one Cholwel, an honest and religious
teacher, which caused the neighbours so much the rather and the more to rue, that a petty
smack only of Popery opened the gap to the oppression of the whole, by the statute
made in Edward VI's reign, touching the suppression of chantries."

This disaster befell it in 1550, when all colleges, chantries, free chapels, fraternities, and
guilds throughout the kingdom, with their lands and endowments, were alienated to the
King—not because there was a "petty smack of Popery" in them, but because of the
rapacity of the courtiers who desired to gather the lands and benefactions into their own
soiled hands.
Mr. W. H. Tregellas says: "There are still to be seen in the remote and quiet little village
of Week S. Mary, some five or six miles south of Bude, in the northern corner of
Cornwall, the substantial remains of the good Thomasine's college and chantry, which
she founded for the instruction of the youth of her native place.
"The buildings lie about a hundred yards east of the church (from the summit of whose
grotesquely ornamented tower six-and-twenty parish churches may be discerned), and
built into the modern wall of a cottage which stands inside the battlemented enclosure is
a large carved granite stone (evidently one of two which once formed the tympanum of a
doorway), on which the letter T stands out in bold relief. Probably it is the initial of the
Christian name of our Thomasine; at any rate, it is pleasant to think it may be such."
The church and its stately tower were probably built by Thomasine, or, at all events, she
would have largely contributed towards the building. That church is now, internally, a
ghastly sight. At its "restoration" it was gutted, and is as bare as a railway station—a
shell, and nothing more. But that it was not so in Dame Thomasine's time we may be
well assured. A gorgeous screen extended across its nave and aisles, richly sculptured
and coloured and gilt, the windows were filled with stained glass, and the bench ends
were of carved oak. All this has been swept away.
In the Stratton churchwardens' accounts for 1513 we find that on the day upon which
"My Lady Parcyvale's Meneday" came round—i.e. the day on which her death was
called to mind—prayer was to be made for the repose of her soul, and two shillings and
two pence paid to two priests, and for bread and ale.

THE MURDER OF NEVILL NORWAY
Mr. Nevill Norway was a timber and general merchant, residing at Wadebridge. He was
the second son of William Norway, of Court Place, Egloshayle, who died in 1819, and
Nevill was baptized at Egloshayle Church on November 5th, 1801.
In the course of his business he travelled about the country and especially attended
markets, and he went to one at Bodmin on the 8th of February, 1840, on horseback.
About four o'clock in the afternoon he was transacting some little affair in the market-
place, and had his purse in his hand, opened it and turned out some gold and silver, and
from the sum picked out what he wanted and paid the man with whom he was doing
business. Standing close by and watching him was a young man named William
Lightfoot, who lived at Burlorn, in Egloshayle, and whom he knew well enough by
sight.
Mr. Norway did not leave Bodmin till shortly before ten o'clock, and he had got about
nine miles to ride before he would reach his house. The road was lonely and led past the
Dunmeer Woods and that of Pencarrow.
He was riding a grey horse, and he had a companion, who proceeded with him along the
road for three miles and then took his leave and branched off in another direction.
A farmer returning from market somewhat later to Wadebridge saw a grey horse in the
road, saddled and bridled, but without a rider. He tried at first to overtake it, but the
horse struck into a gallop and he gave up the chase; his curiosity was, however, excited,
and upon meeting some men on the road, and making inquiry, they told him that they
thought that the grey horse that had just gone by them belonged to Mr. Norway. This
induced him to call at the house of that gentleman, and he found the grey steed standing
at the stable gate. The servants were called out, and spots of blood were found upon the
saddle. A surgeon was immediately summoned, and two of the domestics sallied forth on
the Bodmin road, in quest of their master. The search was not successful that night, but
later, one of the searchers perceiving something white in the little stream of water that
runs beside the highway and enters the river Allen at Pendavey Bridge, they examined it,
and found the body of their unfortunate master, lying on his back in the stream, with his
feet towards the road, and what they had seen glimmering in the uncertain light was his
shirt frill. He was quite dead.
The body was at once placed on the horse and conveyed home, where the surgeon,
named Tickell, proceeded to examine it. He found that the deceased had received
injuries about the face and head, produced by heavy and repeated blows from some
blunt instrument, which had undoubtedly been the cause of death. A wound was

discovered under the chin, into which it appeared as if some powder had been carried;
and the bones of the nose, the forehead, the left side of the head and the back of the skull
were frightfully fractured.
An immediate examination of the spot ensued when the body had been found, and on
the left-hand side of the road was seen a pool of blood, from which to the rivulet
opposite was a track produced by the drawing of a heavy body across the way, and
footsteps were observed as of more than one person in the mud, and it was further
noticed that the boots of those there impressed must have been heavy. There had
apparently been a desperate scuffle before Mr. Norway had been killed.

NEVILL NORWAY
From a painting in the possession of Miss A. T. Norway

There was further evidence. Two sets of footmarks could be traced of men pacing up and
down behind a hedge in an orchard attached to an uninhabited house hard by; apparently
men on the watch for their intended victim.

At a short distance from the pool of blood was found the hammer of a pistol that had
been but recently broken off.
Upon the pockets of the deceased being examined, it became obvious that robbery had
been the object of the attack made upon him, for his purse and a tablet and bunch of
keys had been carried off.
Every exertion was made to discover the perpetrators of the crime, and large rewards
were offered for evidence that should tend to point them out. Jackson, a constable from
London, was sent for, and mainly by his exertions the murderers were tracked down. A
man named Harris, a shoemaker, deposed that he had seen the two brothers, James and
William Lightfoot, of Burlorn, in Egloshayle, loitering about the deserted cottage late at
night after the Bodmin fair; and a man named Ayres, who lived next door to James
Lightfoot, stated that he had heard his neighbour enter his cottage at a very late hour on
the night in question, and say something to his wife and child, upon which they began to
weep. What he had said he could not hear, though the partition between the cottages was
thin.
This led to an examination of the house of James Lightfoot on February 14th, when a
pistol was found, without a lock, concealed in a hole in a beam that ran across the
ceiling. As the manner of Lightfoot was suspicious, he was taken into custody.
On the 17th his brother William was arrested in consequence of a remark to a man
named Vercoe that he was in it as well as James. He was examined before a magistrate,
and made the following confession:—
"I went to Bodmin last Saturday week, the 8th instant, and on returning I met my brother
James just at the head of Dunmeer Hill. It was just come dim-like. My brother had been
to Burlorn, Egloshayle, to buy potatoes. Something had been said about meeting; but I
was not certain about that. My brother was not in Bodmin on that day. Mr. Vercoe
overtook us between Mount Charles Turnpike Gate at the top of Dunmeer Hill and a
place called Lane End. We came on the turnpike road all the way till we came to the
house near the spot where the murder was committed. We did not go into the house, but
hid ourselves in a field. My brother knocked Mr. Norway down; he snapped a pistol at
him twice, and it did not go off. Then he knocked him down with the pistol. He was
struck whilst on horseback. It was on the turnpike road between Pencarrow Mill and the
directing-post towards Wadebridge. I cannot say at what time of the night it was. We left
the body in the water on the left side of the road coming to Wadebridge. We took money
in a purse, but I do not know how much it was. It was a brownish purse. There were
some papers, which my brother took and pitched away in a field on the left-hand side of
the road, into some browse or furze. The purse was hid by me in my garden, and
afterwards I threw it over Pendavey Bridge. My brother drew the body across the road to
the water. We did not know whom we stopped till when my brother snapped the pistol at
him. Mr. Norway said, 'I know what you are about. I see you.' We went home across the
fields. We were not disturbed by any one. The pistol belonged to my brother. I don't

know whether it was broken; I never saw it afterwards; and I do not know what became
of it. I don't know whether it was soiled with blood. I did not see any blood on my
brother's clothes. We returned together, crossing the river at Pendavey Bridge and the
Treraren fields to Burlorn village. My brother then went to his house and I to mine. I
think it was handy about eleven o'clock. I saw my brother again on the Sunday morning.
He came to my house. There was nobody there but my own family. He said, 'Dear me,
Mr. Norway is killed.' I did not make any reply."
The prisoner upon this was remanded to Bodmin gaol, where his brother was already
confined, and on the way he pointed out the furze bush in which the tablet and the keys
of the deceased were to be found. James Lightfoot, in the meantime, had also made a
confession, in which he threw the guilt of the murder upon his brother William.
This latter, when in prison, admitted that his confession had not been altogether true. He
and his brother had met by appointment, with full purpose to rob the Rev. W.
Molesworth, of S. Breock, returning from Bodmin market, and when James had snapped
his pistol twice at Mr. Norway, he, William, had struck him with a stick on the back of
his head and felled him from his horse, whereupon James had battered his head and face
with the pistol.
The two wretched men were tried at Bodmin on March 30th, 1840, before Mr. Justice
Coltman, and the jury returned a verdict of "Guilty"; they were accordingly both
sentenced to death, and received the sentence with great stolidity.
Up to this time the brothers had been allowed no opportunity for communication, and
the discrepancy in their stories distinctly enough showed that the object of each was to
screen himself and to secure the conviction of the other.
After the passing of the sentence on them, they were conveyed to the same cell, and
were now, for the first time, allowed to approach each other. They had scarcely met
before, in the most hardened manner, they broke out into mutual recrimination, using the
most horrible and abusive language of each other, and, not content with this, they flew at
each other's throat, so that the gaolers were obliged to interfere and separate them and
confine them in separate apartments.
On April 7th their families were admitted to bid them farewell, and the scene was most
distressing. On Monday morning, April 13th, they were both executed, and it was said
that upwards of ten thousand persons had assembled to witness their end.
As Mr. Norway's family was left in most straitened circumstances, a collection was
made for them in Cornwall, and the sum of £3500 was raised on their behalf.
William Lightfoot was aged thirty-six and James thirty-three when hanged at Bodmin.
There is a monument to the memory of Mr. Norway in Egloshayle Church.

In the Cornwall Gazette, 17th April, 1840, the portraits of the murderers were given.
Mention is made of the tragedy in C. Carlyon's Early Years, 1843. He gives the
following story. At the time of the murder, Edmund Norway, the brother of Nevill, was
in command of a merchant vessel, the Orient, on his voyage from Manilla to Cadiz. He
wrote on the same day as the murder:—

"Ship Orient, from Manilla to Cadiz,

"Feb. 8th, 1840.
"About 7.30 p.m. the island of S. Helena, N.N.W., distant about seven miles,
shortened sail and rounded to, with the ship's head to the eastward; at eight, set the
watch and went below—wrote a letter to my brother, Nevell Norway. About twenty
minutes or a quarter before ten o'clock went to bed—fell asleep, and dreamt I saw
two men attack my brother and murder him. One caught the horse by the bridle and
snapped a pistol twice, but I heard no report; he then struck him a blow, and he fell
off the horse. They struck him several blows, and dragged him by the shoulders
across the road and left him. In my dream there was a house on the left-hand side of
the road. At five o'clock I was called, and went on deck to take charge of the ship. I
told the second officer, Mr. Henry Wren, that I had had a dreadful dream, and
dreamt that my brother Nevell was murdered by two men on the road from S.
Columb to Wadebridge; but I was sure it could not be there, as the house there
would have been on the right-hand side of the road, but it must have been
somewhere else. He replied, 'Don't think anything about it; you West-country
people are superstitious; you will make yourself miserable the remainder of the
passage. He then left the general orders and went below. It was one continued
dream from the time I fell asleep until I was called, at five o'clock in the morning.
"Edmund Norway,
"Chief Officer, Ship Orient."

There are some difficulties about this account. It is dated, as may be seen, February 8th,
but it must have been written on February 9th, after Mr. Norway had had the dream, and
the date must refer to the letter written to his brother and to the dream, and not to the
time when the account was penned.
From the Cape of Good Hope to S. Helena the course would be about N.N.W., and with
a fair wind the ship would cover about eighty or ninety miles in eight hours. So that at
noon of the day February 8th she would be about one hundred miles S.S.E. of S. Helena,
i.e. in about 5° W. longitude, as nearly as possible. The ship's clock would then be set,
and they would keep that time for letter-writing purposes, meals, ship routine, etc.
Ship, long. 5° 0' 0" W.
Bodmin " 4° 40' 0" W.
————

Difference 20' 0"
The difference would be twenty minutes of longitude, and the difference in time
between the two places one degree apart is four minutes. Reduce this to seconds:—
4 × 60 × 20
————— = 80 sec., i.e. 1 min. 20 sec.
60

Therefore, if the murder was committed, say, at 10h. 30m. p.m. Bodmin time, the time
on the ship's clock would be 10h. 28m. 40s. p.m. An inconsiderable difference.
The log-book of Edmund Norway is said to be still in existence.
One very remarkable point deserves notice. In his dream Mr. Edmund Norway saw the
house on the right hand of the road, and as he remembered, on waking, that the cottage
was on the left hand, he consoled himself with the thought that if the dream was
incorrect in one point it might be in the whole. But he was unaware that during his
absence from England the road from Bodmin to Wadebridge had been altered, and that it
had been carried so that the position of the house was precisely as he saw it in his dream,
and the reverse of what he had remembered it to be.
Another point to be mentioned is that one of the murderers wore on that occasion a coat
which Mr. Norway had given him a few weeks before, out of charity.
Both brothers protested that they had not purposed the murder of Mr. Norway but of the
Rev. Mr. Molesworth, parson of S. Breock, who they supposed was returning with tithe
in his pocket. This, however, did not agree with the evidence that William Lightfoot had
watched him counting his money at Bodmin, and then had made off.
On the occasion of the discovery of the murder, Sir William Molesworth sent his
bloodhounds to track the murderers, but because they ran in a direction opposed to that
which the constables supposed was the right one they were recalled. The hounds were
right, the constables wrong.

SIR WILLIAM LOWER, KNT.
Sir William Lower was the only son of John Lower, and was born at Tremere, in S.
Tudy, about the year 1600.
The Lowers were a very ancient family in Cornwall, seated in S. Winnow parish, and at
Clifton, in Landulph, at which latter place lived Sir Nicholas Lower, the brother of John,
whilst the eldest brother, Sir William, settled at Treventy, in Carmarthen, having married
the daughter and co-heiress of Sir Thomas Pescott, of that place. John had two other
brothers knights, Sir Francis and Sir Thomas.
William was not educated at Oxford, but, as Wood says, "spent some time in Oxon, in
the condition of hospes, for the sake of the public library and scholastical company." He
exhibited a "gay fancy," and a mighty aversion from the dry and crabbed studies of logic
and philosophy.
Leaving Oxford, he spent some time in France, where he became a master of the French
tongue, and acquired a great admiration for the dramatic compositions of Corneille,
Quirault, and Ceriziers, and in after years amused himself with translating some of their
plays.
When the troubles broke out in England he took the King's side, and in 1640 was a
lieutenant in Sir Jacob Ashley's regiment in Northumberland's army against the Scotch
Covenanters, and was then appointed captain, but lost his company, that proved
mutinous and deserted. "It was a marvellous thing," says a writer of the time, "to
observe the averseness of the common soldiers to this war. Though commanders and
gentlemen of great quality, in pure obedience to the King, seemed not at all to dispute
the cause or consequence of this war, the common soldiers would not be satisfied,
questioning, in a mutinous manner, whether their captains were papists or not, and in
many places were not appeased till they saw them receive the sacrament; laying violent
hands on divers of their commanders, and killing some, uttering in bold speeches their
distaste of the cause, to the astonishment of many, that common people should be
sensible of public interest and religion, when lords and gentlemen seemed not to be."

Sr Wm Lower—
Pub May 21 1800 by W Richardson No 31 Strond

In June, 1644, being a lieutenant-colonel in Thomas Blague's regiment and lieutenant-
governor of Wallingford, Lower received orders from the King to raise £50 a week from
the town of Reading. Lower at once laid hands on the mayor and carried him to
Wallingford as a hostage; he then plied the corporation with demands for the money,
without which their head would not be restored to them. The corporation, however, did
not value their mayor so highly that they were disposed to pay £50 per week for the
privilege of having him restored to them. Lower was taken prisoner by the garrison of
Abingdon on 19th January, 1645-6, and Charles rewarded him for his zeal by conferring
on him knighthood.
He remained in England for nearly ten more years and saw the ruin of the Royal cause,
which he did care for, and of the Church, for which he cared not a rush. In 1655 he
quitted England and went to Cologne, which was full of refugees, and there he was
cheered with the tidings that Oliver Cromwell was failing in health and had not long to

live. Leaving Cologne, after a brief residence there, he "took sanctuary in Holland,
where in peace and privacy he enjoyed the society of the Muses," says Langhorn.
His The Phœnix in Her Flames, a tragedy in four acts, had been published in 1639. The
Innocent Lady, or the Illustrious Innocence, translated from the French of R. de
Ceriziers, was published in 1654. Now in Holland he worked hard at other translations,
and he was the more able to do this at ease, as the Princess Royal Mary of Orange seems
to have taken him into her retinue at the Hague. If the Court was anything like what it
was when James Howell was there, it must have been vastly dull for the lively and
dissolute Sir William Lower. But his stay was enlivened by the arrival of Charles and the
intrigues there carried on with the well-affected in England.
At the Hague he issued a thin royal folio, with many plates, entitled "A relation in form
of Journal of the voiage and residence which the most excellent and most mighty Prince,
Charles the II, King of Great Britain, etc., hath made in Holland, from the 25th of May
to the 2nd of June, 1660, rendered into English from the original French. By Sir W.
Lower, Knt. Printed by Adrian Ulack." This was published in Dutch, French, and
English, and at the end of the volume Sir W. Lower inserted his poems, and an apology
for the "tardive appearance (of the book) due to those men who grave the plates."
Such "poems" as he has given as his own show conclusively enough that he was not a
poet, but a mere hammerer together of rhymes.
In June, 1660, calculating on his services rendered to Charles I and to the sumptuous
book on the residence in Holland of Charles II that he had brought out, Lower appealed
to Secretary Nicholas from The Hague to obtain for him some place in the King's
service. But the death of his cousin Thomas, only son of Sir William Lower, of Treventy,
who died on 5th February, 1661, by which he became sole heir, executor, and chief
representative of the family, recalled him to England. He did not, however, enjoy ease
long, for he died in the ensuing year, 1662, leaving an only child, Elizabeth, who
probably died early, for nothing further is known of her than that she was in existence
when her father died. Who the wife of Sir William Lower was is not known.
His cousin, Dr. Richard Lower, of S. Paul's, Covent Garden, who gave Wood
information relative to his kinsman, described him as "an ill poet and a worse man."
His long residence abroad, his dissociation from Cornwall for all his life save his early
boyhood, his separation from his kinsmen, had broken all the ties that linked him to his
family and county; and when he inherited the estates and was in a position to assist his
kinsmen who had been greatly reduced by the civil wars, "he did not, but followed the
vices of poets."

THE PIRATES AT PENZANCE
An event occurred at Penzance in the year 1760 that deserves to be remembered. Great
Britain had been engaged in the Seven Years War; and notwithstanding the successes of
1759, when Rodney bombarded Havre, Boscawen had routed and dispersed the Toulon
fleet off Lagos, and Hawke had defeated the fleet of De Conflans near Quiberon, there
was still a certain amount of alarm in the country, a dread of predatory incursions, and if
this fear existed inland, it was most acute upon the coast.
On the night of the 29-30th September Penzance was alarmed by the firing of guns, and
soon after by the intelligence that a large ship of a strange appearance had run ashore
near Newlyn. Half Penzance poured out in that direction in the grey of early morning.
But on reaching the strand they were panic-stricken to see on the ship, and drawn up on
the beach, a number of ferocious-looking individuals with baggy trousers, and red fezes
on their heads, and each armed with a scimitar, and with brass-mounted pistols stuck in
their girdles. Thereupon the half of Penzance that had turned out now turned tail and
made the best of their way back to the town, crying out that the Turks had landed and
were intent on massacring the inhabitants of Penzance, plundering their houses, and
carrying away their wives and children into captivity to become galley-slaves or to fill
the harems of these Moslem monsters.
A volunteer company was called out, the drum beat to arms, and marched to the beach,
where they found 172 men, who were surrounded, deprived of their weapons, and
marched to a spacious building called "The Folly," that stood on the Western Green. As
there were some of the captives who could speak the lingua franca, and there was here
and there to be found a magistrate or an officer who had a limited knowledge of French,
it was at last elicited from these men that they were the crew of an Algerine corsair,
carrying twenty-four guns, from nine to six pounders. The captain, believing himself to
be in the Atlantic, somewhere about the latitude of Cadiz, had cheerily in the dark run
his vessel into Mount's Bay, and was vastly surprised when she struck, and still more so
when he found himself surrounded by Cornishmen and not by Spaniards. He had lost
eight men, drowned.
No sooner was this bruited about than a second panic set in, and the good citizens of
Penzance went into hysterics of fear lest these Algerine pirates should have brought with
them an invasion of the plague.
A cordon of volunteers was accordingly drawn up round "The Folly" to prevent all
intercourse, intelligence was conveyed to the Government, and orders were issued for
troops to march from Plymouth so as to surround the whole district. However, the local
authorities recovered from their terror or apprehension in time to send off information
that there was no cause for such a measure, and the orders were countermanded.

After some days, when no case of plague had revealed itself among the captives, the
people of the town and neighbourhood were suffered to approach and contemplate the
strangers. Their Oriental dress, their long beards and moustaches, the dark complexion
and glittering eyes of the piratical band, made them objects of curiosity. But they still
inspired so much fear that few ventured to approach near to them.
Upon the whole, they were kindly treated, and finally, as their vessel was a complete
wreck, a man-of-war was despatched to take all the men on board and convey them back
to Algiers.

DAME KILLIGREW
The Killigrew family is one of the most ancient in Cornwall. It takes its name from
Killigrew in the parish of S. Erme. Here stands the old nest of the family beside the high
road from Truro that falls into that from Redruth to Bodmin at Casland. It is now
represented by a couple of insignificant cottages, without old trees surrounding it, and
the only hint that it was once the seat of a distinguished family is found in the remains of
the deerpark.
The genuine pedigree of the family goes back to Ralph Killigrew of Killigrew, in the
reign of Henry III. In that of Richard II, Simon Killigrew married Jane, daughter and
heiress of Robert of Arwenack, near Penryn, and he quitted the ancestral mansion to
move to his wife's house that was planted in a less bleak situation and was on the estuary
of the Fal.
In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir John Killigrew of Arwenack, was Captain in
Command of Pendennis Castle. He married Mary, daughter of Philip Wolverston and
widow of Henry Knyvett of an Eastern counties family, but her son by Henry Knyvett
settled in Cornwall, at Rosemorryn in S. Budoc. Sir John pulled down the greater
portion of the ancient house and built himself another, very stately in the style of the
times—but, alas! this also has disappeared, for when Sir William Waller approached
Pendennis, to besiege it on behalf of the Parliament, the Governor of the Castle set fire
to Arwenack lest it should give harbour to the enemy.
Sir John had a son, also called John, who married Dorothy, daughter of the impecunious
Sir Thomas Monck, Knt., of Potheridge, which Sir Thomas died in the debtors' gaol at S.
Thomas', by Exeter. John and Dorothy had a son, Sir John Killigrew, aged twenty-two
on his father's death in 1605.
Now it fell out that Sir Walter Raleigh on his homeward voyage from Guiana put into
Falmouth harbour, and found there, where the town now stands, only a fisherman's
cottage. Killigrew, however, hospitably entertained Sir Walter, who expressed his
surprise that so fine a harbour should have no accommodation for sailors sheltering
there, and when he went to town memorialized King James on the subject. He had fired
the imagination of his host, Sir John, and he also petitioned the King to grant him a royal
licence to build four houses, where now stands Falmouth, for the convenience of sailors.
This roused the wrath of the people of Penryn further up the river, who saw that four
houses would bring in their wake many more, and would draw away the trade, and cut
off the prosperity of Penryn. Accordingly they used every possible endeavour to obstruct
the project. Sir John made several journeys to London, but it was only by spending a
great deal of money in fees and bribery of officials that he was able to obtain the licence;
and by so doing he incurred the implacable resentment of the inhabitants of Penryn.

We will now let Martin Killigrew continue the story. He wrote a history of the family in
1737 or 1738. We will somewhat simplify the reading by giving "the" for "ye."
"The last Sir John Killigrew was hardly got over this difficulty, when he fell under a
much greater affliction, the prostitution of his wife, who caused herself to be called, or
unaccountably was known by the name of Lady Jane." He has already stated, "Sir John
Killigrew, a sober, good man, to his utter undoing, married the daughter of an ancient
and honourable family, new in the peerage, in respect to whom I forbear the name;
making herself infamous, and first debauched by the Governor of Pendennis Castle."
This lady was Jane, daughter of Sir George Fermon, of Northampton. Sir William, his
brother, was created Baron Leominster in 1622, whose son was given the earldom of
Pomfret in 1721.

THE KILLYGREW CUP
"1633. FROM MAIOR TO MAIOR TO THE TOWNE OF PERMARIN, WHERE THEY
RECEIVED MEE THAT WAS IN GREAT MISERY"
JANE KILLYGREW
This Cup has been recently valued at the sum of £4,000. It measures just two feet in height

"Arrived to that shameful degree, Sir John, in point of honour and for
quietness of mind, found himself under a necessity to prosecute a divorce
from her in the Archbishop's Court, which lasted so many years and [was]
so very expensive, as quite ruined his estate, to the degree of his being often
put to very hard shifts to get home from London upon the frequent recesses
in the process, but at length obtained the divorce in all its formal extent.

This woman in such long contest was in no degree protected by her family,
but supported and cherished by the town of Penryn, from their jealousy and
hatred of Arwenack, as specially appears to this day, by plate by her given
to the Mayor and Corporation of Penryn, when she came into her jointure,
as an acknowledgment for such protection.[11] Sir John did not long outlive
such his divorce, dying in 1632."
Hals says: "Jane Killigrew, widow of Sir John Killigrew, Knt., in the
Spanish wars in the latter end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, went on
board two Dutch ships of the Hans Towns (always free traders in times of
war) driven into Falmouth harbour by cross winds, laden with merchandise,
on account (as was said) of Spaniards, and with a numerous party of
ruffians, murdered the two Spanish merchants or factors on board these
ships, and took from them two barrels or hogsheads of Spanish pieces of
eight, and converted them to her own use."
"Now, though Fleta (lib. i. c. iii., temp. Edward II) tells us that it is no
murder except it be proved that the party slain was English, and no stranger,
yet afterwards by the statute 4 Edward III, the killing any foreigner under
the King's protection, out of evil design or malice, is murder; upon which
statute these offenders were tried and found guilty at Launceston of wilful
murder, both by the grand and petty juries, and had sentence of death passed
accordingly upon them, and were all executed, except the said Lady
Killigrew, the principal agent and contriver of the barbarous fact, who, by
the interest and favour of Sir John Arundell, of Tolverne, Knt., and his son-
in-law, Sir Nicholas Hals, of Pengersick, Knt., obtained of Queen Elizabeth
a pardon or reprieve for the said lady, which was seasonably put into the
Sheriff of Cornwall's hands.
"At the news whereof the other condemned wretches aforesaid at the
gallows lamented nothing more than that they had not the company of that
old Jezebel Killigrew at that place as in justice they ought to be (to use their
own words), and begged Almighty God that some remarkable judgment
might befall her and her posterity, nay, and all those that were instrumental
in procuring her freedom, and observed hereupon it was, that her grandson
Sir William Killigrew spent the whole paternal estate of his ancestors, as
did Sir Thomas Arundell, Knt., son of Sir John Arundell, aforesaid, and
John Hals, Esq., son of Sir Nicolas Hals, Knt., in their own times, but alas,

several and public revolutions of this kind; and all other in worldly affairs
are carried on by the judgment and providence of God, not the
determination of men, especially such barbarous ruffians as these criminals,
though these things happened according to the malefactors' direful
imprecations in some sense."
Hals in the above account makes several blunders. The affair to which he
alludes took place in January, 1583, and the Dame Killigrew who was
involved in it was Mary, wife of Sir John, the grandfather of the Sir John
who divorced his wife Jane. Another mistake is that the ship was not one of
the Hanseatic town merchant vessels, but was Spanish. Moreover, Hals is
wrong in saying that the two Spanish merchants were murdered. On the
contrary, Lady Killigrew's ruffians threw overboard and drowned the whole
ship's crew, with the exception of the two merchants, who were on shore
and so escaped.
The facts are as follows:—
The Mary of S. Sebastian, a Spanish ship of 144 tons burden, owned by two
merchants, John de Chavis and Philip de Oryo, the latter being as well the
captain, arrived in Falmouth harbour on January 1st, 1582-3, and cast
anchor within the bar, just under Sir John Killigrew's house of Arwenack.
Here for lack of wind it remained, and the owners went on shore and took
up their quarters in an inn at Penryn, awaiting a favourable breeze. At this
time there was no open breach of peace between England and Spain. It was
not till 1585 that Elizabeth sent over an army into the Netherlands to oppose
the forces of Philip II, and despatched a fleet under Sir Francis Drake into
the West Indies to molest the Spanish galleons and colonies there.
Lady Killigrew seems to have formed a scheme for robbing the merchant
vessel and massacring the crew and the owners, and several efforts were
made to induce the two merchants to quit their inn at Penryn and return on
board, so that the whole of those on the vessel and the merchants might be
got rid of, and not a witness left. However, this failed; Chavis and Oryo did
not return to their ship.
About midnight on 7th January a boatload of men boarded the Spanish
vessel and overpowered the sailors, raised the anchors, and set sail. The
Spaniards were all either butchered or thrown into the sea. The ship was

then taken to Ireland, where she was plundered and the spoil divided. But
before this was done, two of Lady Killigrew's servants, named Kendal and
Hawkins, were sent back to Arwenack with sundry bolts of Hollands and
leather, as the share of Lady Killigrew, her kinswoman, Mrs. Killigrew, and
the maids and servants in the house.
Lady Killigrew was highly incensed at being put off with so little, but fume
as she might she could do nothing, for the ship was on its way to Ireland.
What she did accordingly was to keep all that was sent on shore for herself,
and distribute none of it among her household.
The two merchants now stirred, and laid formal complaint before the
Commissioners for Piracy in Cornwall. Among these was Sir John
Killigrew, the husband of the lady who had contrived or abetted the act. A
meeting was held at Penryn, and sufficient evidence was produced to
implicate Hawkins and Kendal; but this they were able to rebut by the
testimony of Elizabeth Bowden, who kept a small tavern at Penryn, and
who swore that up to the time that the act of piracy was committed the two
men Hawkins and Kendal were drinking in her inn. The jury returned an
open verdict that the ship had certainly been stolen, but by whom there was
no evidence to show.
Chavis and De Oryo were not men disposed to let the matter rest thus, and
having procured a safe conduct to London from the Commissioners, they
proceeded thither, and laid their complaint before the higher authorities,
with the result that the Earl of Bedford instructed Sir Richard Grenville and
Mr. Edmund Tremayne to make a searching investigation into the affair.
As might be anticipated, this inquiry was more thorough-going and real
than the other, and the truth was at last elicited from witnesses very
reluctant to speak what they knew. The result arrived at was this:—
The whole plot had been contrived by Dame Killigrew, who on the Sunday
in question ordered Hawkins and Kendal to board the Spaniard, along with
a party of sailors and fishermen got together for the purpose. Moreover, she
sent a messenger by boat to the Governor of St. Mawes Castle, to inform
him that the Spanish merchants proposed to sail that night, and to request
him not to hinder them from so doing. The other castle, that of Pendennis,
commanding the entrance to the haven, had Sir John Killigrew as Governor,

and in it all day were harboured the boarding-party destined to carry off the
merchantman.
Hawkins, who was the ringleader, had been sworn to strict secrecy by Lady
Killigrew, who desired to keep the whole transaction from the knowledge of
her husband. The leather that fell to her share was placed in a cask and
buried in the garden at Arwenack. Hawkins and Kendal were hanged at
Launceston, but Lady Killigrew escaped as Hals relates. Sir John died next
year; when Lady Killigrew died is not known.
On the death of the later Sir John in 1633, Arwenack passed to his nephew,
as he left no issue, and that nephew, Sir Peter Killigrew, married Frances,
daughter and co-heiress of Sir Roger Twysden. He had two daughters, and a
son George who came to an untimely end.
He was killed in a drunken brawl in a tavern at Penryn by Walter Vincent,
barrister-at-law, "who," says Hals, "was tried for his life at Launceston for
the fact, and acquitted by the petty jury, through bribery and indiscreet acts
and practices, as was generally said; yet this Mr. Vincent, through anguish
and horror at this accident (as it was said), within two years after wasted of
an extreme atrophy of his flesh and spirits, that at length at the table
whereby he was sitting, in the Bishop of Exeter's palace, in the presence of
divers gentlemen, he instantly fell back against the wall and died."
Frances, the eldest daughter of Sir Peter Killigrew, married Richard Erisey,
and had a daughter who became the wife of John West, of Bury S.
Edmunds, and by him had a daughter Frances, who married the Hon.
Charles Berkeley, and through their descent the estates, or such as remained
of the old family of Killigrew, passed to the Earl of Kimberley.
The history of the Killigrew family, by Martin Killigrew, was published in
part by Mr. R. N. Worth in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall,
Vol. III (1868-70), and the story of the seizure of the Spanish vessel by
Dame Killigrew was investigated by Mr. H. M. Whitley, in the Journal, Vol.
VII (1881-3).

TWO NATURALISTS IN CORNWALL
The two men of science of whom a sketch is about to be given here were
neither of them Cornishmen by birth and parentage, but, inasmuch as a long
stretch of the life of each was spent in the delectable duchy, and as both
were well known in it and made it the principal field of their labours, they
deserve a place in this collection. These two men are John Ralfs, the
botanist, and George Carter Bignell, the entomologist.
John Ralfs was born September 13, 1807, at Millbrook, near Southampton.
His father, Samuel Ralfs, died when he was a year old, and to his mother
was entrusted his early training. From an early age he manifested a
passionate love of flowers, and as he grew older an interest in chemistry.
Probably on this latter account he decided on the medical profession, and
whilst studying medicine he prosecuted botanical research, so that on
passing his final examination the President of the Royal College of
Surgeons complimented him on his botanical knowledge, and predicted that
the world would one day hear a good deal of this then "beardless boy."
He married a Miss Newman, and by her had a son, but they were in every
way an ill-suited pair, and after a while they agreed to part, and she went to
reside in France, taking her son with her.
Fortunately for science, Ralfs' health would not stand the arduous and
anxious life of a village doctor, and he threw up his profession and
wandered about in the south of England, a friendless, reserved, and taciturn
man, devoting all his time and attention to botany. He settled finally in
Penzance, in the year 1837, and became a familiar personality in the west of
Cornwall, rambling over the moors, creeping into bogs, often on hands and
knees, searching for rare plants; "a terror to timid ladies, who would scuttle
away like frightened rabbits at the sight of this dark, strange man hanging
over some deep pool, peering with his short-sighted eyes into what was to
him a paradise, and perhaps calling out aloud, forgetful that he and nature
were not alone, 'I see him! I've got him!' And often he would be seen resting
on a stile, weary with his wanderings, his hat and coat almost as green as

the grass on one of his favourite bogs, the marks of his last fray fresh upon
them, his collar disappearing, apparently, in vain search of his cravat;
gazing absently into the distance, where he saw, doubtless, beautiful and
rare specimens of his Algæ and Diatomaceæ."
Mr. Ralfs was never so happy as when alone; he did not care for society,
least of all that of women, and grievous deafness made it difficult for him to
engage in conversation. Even with men of science like himself he did not
care to associate, except through written correspondence. At Penzance he
was generally regarded as "a bit total," a little, perhaps not a little, off his
head; but no one could have other than a kind word to say of him, for he
never injured any one. Occasionally his son came from France to pay his
father a visit; but such visits were brief; their tastes were not the same, and
their outlook into life was different.
Mr. Ralfs wrote a good deal. He contributed to the proceedings of many
learned societies, but especially the Edinburgh Botanical Society. He was
the author of the botanical chapter in the Guide to Ilfracombe, and of the
"Sketch of the Botany of West Penwith" in Mr. J. S. Courtney's Guide to
Penzance. Mr. J. T. Blight also was assisted by him in his Week at the
Land's End. He helped as well in English Botany, by Sir James E. Smith,
the figures by James Sowerby. He composed, moreover, a Flora of West
Cornwall that remains in MS. in the Penzance Public Library.

GEORGE CARTER BIGNELL.
From a photograph

Late in life he formed a tender attachment for a little child, who had
somehow hitched herself on to him as a companion in his rambles. "The
first overtures were entirely on her own side, and it was some time before
this acquaintance ripened into friendship. She was a delicate child, and her
playfellow—for such he became—prescribed Fresh Air and no Lessons;
and so off they would go for long country walks, much to the benefit of her
health, but to the detriment of her clothes. Of the mustard poultice that
sometimes these excursions rendered necessary, and which could not be
endured unless he submitted to a similar infliction; of the delightful dolls'
tea parties; of the fairy tales, translated solely for her amusement from the
French and German; of his selections from Thackeray and Dickens, whose
characters were thus made living people to her; of the wonders that awaited
her on S. Valentine's Day, when, through his skilful management, twenty or
thirty valentines were to arrive for her from different parts of the country; of
the choice variety of sweets he purchased for her stocking at Christmas; of
all this, I wish I could discourse at greater length. It is sufficient to say that

this friendship, thus begun, lasted to the end of his life, and was the means
of relieving to a large extent that solitude which had before surrounded him.
"On Midsummer Day, when the custom is to wear wreaths of flowers, he
would give free permission to the children to pick all the flowers in his
garden, on condition that they would come to him flower-crowned in the
evening, when he would entertain them royally with fruit and sweetmeats.
On Corpus Christi Pleasure Fair (a red-letter day for little Cornish children)
he would be seen with a small crowd of boys and girls around him, whom
he would treat to all the various shows, waiting patiently, until their
curiosity was satisfied, outside."
One great delight of Mr. Ralfs was the naturalizing of strange plants in the
neighbourhood of Penzance, amongst others the large-flowered butterwort,
and very much amused was he when some local paper with a flourish of
trumpets announced the discovery of the Pinguicula by a botanical tourist,
and a claim put forward that it was indigenous to Cornwall.
John Ralfs died 14 July, 1890, and was buried at Penzance.

The second naturalist, Mr. George Carter Bignell, is happily still alive and
in full intellectual vigour, and resides in Saltash. He is a native of Exeter,
having been born in that city in 1826. He was educated at S. John's Hospital
in his native town, but had to leave it at the age of twelve, when he was
placed in a booking-office for receiving parcels and booking passengers for
the carriers who made the "Black Lion" their head-quarters when in Exeter.
These carriers came from many small towns from twenty to fifty miles
away. The yard and stabling were connected with the "Black Lion" and the
Commercial Inn, South Street, and opposite was the office. Mr. Bignell
says: "Often have I seen these lumbering wagons with twenty magnificent
horses attached to them start from the office, the driver riding a cob by the
side. Very often such a wagon would be conveying gold from the ships in
Falmouth to the Bank of England, and in that case the wagon was attended
by a guard carrying a blunderbuss."

In this office Mr. Bignell remained till he was sixteen, and in 1842 he joined
the Royal Marines at Stonehouse. He saw some foreign service, and was on
board the Superb during the civil war in Spain in 1847, and was employed
on the coasts of Spain and Portugal. He was in the squadron which
succeeded in capturing a division of the rebel army of Count Das Anton,
consisting of about three thousand men. Boats' crews put off from the ships
of the squadron, and under a heavy fire from the forts boarded and captured
every vessel. The prisoners were conveyed up the river Tagus to Fort S.
Julian, where, after being deprived of arms and ammunition, they were
safely lodged.
A guard, consisting of half the complement of marines from each ship, was
placed over them, the whole body under the command of Major Stransham.
A few days after the capture it was discovered that ammunition was being
surreptitiously conveyed into the fort by friends of the rebels, and
investigation disclosed that a plot had been hatched to blow up the fort.
Count Das Anton pretended to be wholly ignorant of the conspiracy. The
rebels were paraded, each man searched, and every nook and cranny in the
fort thoroughly overhauled. A large quantity of gunpowder was found, and
this was promptly wheeled to the parapets in barrows and thrown into the
Tagus.
The guard placed over this large body of prisoners was small, and to
overawe the prisoners all the marines from the ships were landed every
evening at sunset and marched with fixed bayonets to the fort, with orders
to make as much noise and clatter as they could; and then at night, when all
was still, they stole silently away from the fort and returned on board. So
well was the ruse practised every day that the prisoners were under the
impression that they were guarded by a large body, and never suspected the
truth. The time at the fort was not very pleasant to the marines on guard, as
the place was filthy and literally swarmed with fleas, and their white drill
suits were so covered with these detestable insects that the marines
appeared to be dressed in brown instead of white clothing.
This was Mr. Bignell's only taste of active service. When the Superb was
paid off he was employed in several offices in the barracks, first as
commanding officer's clerk, and afterwards he was appointed to the

barracks at Millbay as barrack sergeant, and he held this appointment for
seven years. By the end of this time he had served twenty-two years.
Throughout all this time he had been a keen and close observer of nature.
From his boyhood up natural history had exercised a great attraction for
him, and as he grew up, and studied, the subject became more and more
interesting. During his last seven years of service he made considerable
progress, for as a barrack sergeant he had little work to do, and so had
plenty of time to devote to his hobby.
After being discharged he became a member of the Plymouth Institution,
with the object of finding out the names of some of the insects he had
captured, and was surprised to find that it had nothing like them in its
collection, nor could anybody tell him what they were.

JOHN RALFS
Reproduced by permission of Miss Loveday E. Drake

Mr. Bignell had barely retired from the service ere he was appointed
Registrar of Births and Deaths for the Stonehouse district and also Poor
Law Officer to the Stonehouse Board of Guardians; but his residence is in
Saltash. All his spare time has for many years been given up to scientific
pursuits, the branch of science to which he is most partial being
entomology; but since his residence in Saltash he has been a profound
student in marine flora. It is not only in the study of the known and hitherto
unregistered insects that Mr. Bignell has acquired a world-wide fame; he

has specially taken up the subject, hitherto almost untouched, of the
parasites that live on insects.
To grasp what has been done by him an examination must be made of the
entomological journals for the last forty years, for there he is generally in
evidence. In the proceedings of the Entomological Society of London Mr.
Bignell's name is quoted as being the discoverer of fifty-one parasites,
nineteen being new to science and thirty-two new to Britain. In recognition
of this work, one of the new species has been named after him Mesoleius
Bignellii. The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society have awarded him three
of their medals, a bronze one for "land and fresh water shells," a silver one
for a "collection of British moths," and a second silver medal for
"butterflies and moths."
In the publications of the Ray Society on the Larvæ of British Butterflies
and Moths, at the end of each volume we find a list of parasites preying on
these beautiful insects, "kindly prepared by Mr. G. C. Bignell, f.e.s."
One of the most extraordinary features of Mr. Bignell's work is the infinite
delicacy wherewith even now at an advanced age he is able to draw and
colour his specimens. The miniature painter of a beautiful girl's face a
century ago did not take more pains to delineate the object of his admiring
study than does Mr. Bignell to obtain a "counterfeit presentment" of some
disgusting caterpillar or parasitic insect.
The hunting for specimens would be an exhausting toil were it not a labour
of love. On one occasion Mr. Bignell obtained one hundred and forty-one
caterpillars of a certain moth in Whitsand Bay, under Fort Tregantle. They
were feeding on henbane, and as he did not know where else to get the right
sort of food for them, he had to go out two or three times a week for the
food, walking in all a hundred miles. But, alas for the ingratitude of the
caterpillars, not a single moth rewarded all this devotion! Yet even this was
outdone by a hundred and thirty-five mile walk in the dark to attempt to
capture one sort of moth, which perhaps deserves to be mentioned for its
elusive ways. It is called the Dasycampa rubiginea, and has to live up to its
name. Plym Bridge was supposed to be its haunt, and its time of taking its
walks or flutter abroad, night, and that also in midwinter. So night after
night in November and December it was stalked, till one night, between the

6th and 7th December, the moth was spotted leisurely sipping honey from
the flowers of the ivy growing on one of the pillars of the old gateway
leading into Cann Wood between Plym Bridge and Plympton, just as the
clock at Morley House was striking twelve.
A pathetic interest attaches to the large copper butterfly. This splendid
species was first discovered in Wales by the celebrated botanist Hudson. It
was subsequently captured in considerable numbers about Whittlesea Mere,
in Huntingdonshire. Now, alas! it is extinct, and a specimen such as one
possessed by Mr. Bignell is worth some pounds. The last secured was in
1847. Greedy collectors and dealers from London, after its discovery, were
waiting for it, and offered the country yokels five shillings for every
caterpillar secured. Now it is as extinct as the dodo and the great auk.
There would seem to be no living creature that is not a home and feeding
ground for parasites; even the butterflies are infested with them, and
probably these parasites also have others infinitely small that attack them.

Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas—and so ad infinitum.

One of the most interesting discoveries made by Mr. Bignell is that a
creature like a scorpion—but all claw—that is found upon the common
house-fly is not a true parasite. It likes a ride, and to do it cheap. And when
a fly comes within reach, it lays hold of it with its disproportionately huge
claws, clings, and has a ride, free, gratis and for nothing. When it has seen
enough of the world and is tired, it lets go and drops off.
Says Mr. Bignell: "The Blossom Underwing is a moth that was very
abundant on the male flowers of the great sallow on April 13th, 1866.
Previously this moth was very scarce; but on this night I saw at least a
thousand; they were all in pairs, and each pair occupied a flower, a sight
never to be forgotten. The fine flowering scrubby oaks were swarming with
the larvæ. A friend of mine who kept birds in a very large cage, seeing the
abundance of the caterpillars, decided to give his birds a treat; he
accordingly gathered about a pint of them, carried them home, and instead
of giving the birds two or three at a time, he incautiously put the tin into the
cage and removed the lid. At once the caterpillars began to escape, and the

seething mass of black and yellow wriggling over the floor, crawling about
the wires, so frightened the birds that it caused the death of two of three,
which beat themselves against the cage in vain hope to escape from these
uncanny horrors."
As may be well imagined, Mr. Bignell with his lantern stealing up the side
of a hedge in the night often enough routed the poachers and sent them
flying, thinking they were being watched by a policeman. On one occasion
he scared an owl. "I was enjoying myself, on my knees, hunting over the
contents of my net that I had used for sweeping the low foliage, to see what
captures I had made. My nose and bull's-eye lantern were thrust close to the
ground, to prevent anything escaping observation. In the midst of this
occupation an owl swooped down to see what was up, when I turned my
lantern on him, and away he flew in a mighty hurry, bringing the back of his
wings together with great force, like a man clapping his hands. He was
evidently in great alarm, and uttered an unearthly scream. It certainly gave
me also a turn, it was so sudden."
All moths with highly pectinated antennæ, that is to say with their feelers
comb-like at the extremities, have the most extraordinary power of scenting
a female moth at a great distance, even two or three miles, with a
favourable wind.
Mr. Bignell says: "I once had a virgin female of the Oak-egger moth, and
was desirous of getting some males. I started off with the lady in a tin box,
with a perforated zinc top, to give her air and allow her perfume to escape. I
walked through the fields towards Milehouse to where was a turnstile; and
at this spot lighted on a weary policeman resting. As it was a dull day,
without any token of the sun breaking out, to attract butterflies for their
usual gambols, the policeman jeeringly remarked that I had missed the right
day. I replied that I thought not, and that I could collect as many as I
desired, in fact, I could make them come to me. He laughed incredulously. I
then took out my tin box and placed it on the wall, and, magician-like,
whistled and waved my hand. The policeman stared, and thought I was
befooling him. But lo, in two or three minutes one male alighted close to
the box, soon followed by others, and in a quarter of an hour I had at least
fifty, and so tame that I picked them up with my fingers and distributed
them among about a dozen people who had gathered to see what I was

about. The policeman stared with open eyes and mouth, quite satisfied that
my whistle and mysterious signs in the air with my hand had called the
insects to me. Satisfied with what I had got I waved again and bade the
moths depart, and clapped the box in my pocket. Next day I took the empty
box out with me into the country. I had several males following me, and
some actually penetrated into my pocket where was the empty box, proving
that the perfume still remained in it, though wholly imperceptible to
myself."
On one occasion Mr. Bignell and a friend set out at night to find the
beautiful moth Heliophobus hispidus, knowing its haunts, between the
south side of the Plymouth citadel and the sea, where it is to be found in
September or October resting on the grass.
Accordingly, each furnished with a bull's-eye lantern, they visited the
locality, but it was some time before one was discerned, and that was on a
blade of grass overhanging the cliff and out of reach, a sheer drop of twenty
feet at least into the sea fretting and moaning below. Loath to miss it, as its
eyes shone like two rubies—in fact, both saw those glistening eyes before
they observed that they were in the head of the moth—they arranged that
one should lie flat on his stomach, and that Mr. Bignell should sit down, dig
the heels of his boots into the turf, then take his friend by the legs and thrust
him over the edge of the cliff, so far as to enable him to box the moth,
whilst holding the handle of his lantern between his teeth. This was done,
and the Heliophobus was secured.
But, after all, it is in the direction of parasites living upon insects that Mr.
Bignell has made the greatest research. He is the possessor of a unique
collection of the parasites that live on the aphis, and also of the hyper-
parasite which preys upon that parasite. The life-history of this insect was
unknown till Mr. Bignell detected a hyper-parasite pierce the aphis which
was itself a parasite. The specimen was secured, and from it was bred the
hyper-parasite itself.
The life-story of the aphis, that tiny green pest that infests the roses, has
been unrolled by this enthusiastic student, and is full of surprises. The
ichneumon fly as well has been watched, and all its wicked acts recorded.

Caterpillars, so fat and fleshy, form a delightful feeding ground for the
deposit of eggs, and serve as luscious food for the young to pasture upon.
We human beings, in common with all mammals, have the obligation
imposed on us of nourishing our own young, and with some of us we go on
sustaining them till we are exhausted in the process, but the ichneumonidæ
are more clever than we. They make others, notably the caterpillars,
maintain their young, and the frivolous mothers, after having once
deposited their eggs, gad about and enjoy themselves as having no concern
for their future well-being. It is a comfort to reflect that the insects thus
preyed upon do not seem to suffer much, if at all, and it may almost be said
that they exhibit a maternal regard for the young bred out of their bodies.
With his wonderful microscopes Mr. Bignell can explore far down the
ladder of life, but whether to its lowest rung may well be doubted. There is
always some living being to be found preying on the last of the minutest
creature last seen.
After a visit to Mr. Bignell's house in Saltash with a friend, I turned to him
and said: "I came here believing myself to be an Individual. I leave
knowing myself to be a Community."

SIR JOHN CALL, BART.
The Dictionary of National Biography says of Sir John Call that he was
"descended from an old family which, it is said, once owned considerable
property in Devon and Cornwall." That proviso "it is said" is conveniently
inserted. Anything may be said, as that the cow jumped over the moon, but
that a saying may be believed we must know who uttered it. Now the
originator of this saying was probably William Playfair, in his British
Family Antiquity, 1809. In that the following interesting statement occurs:
"From papers in the possession of the family, partly fabulous, though partly
true, it appears that the family of the Calls, consisting of three brothers,
came into England from Saxony towards the end of the eighth century. One
of these brothers settled in Scotland, from whom is descended the clan of
the McColls; the second in Norfolk, where the family continued until the
beginning of the last (eighteenth) century; and the third settled in Cornwall,
from whence the present family derives its origin. This very ancient, but
latterly not very opulent family, was formerly possessed of considerable
landed property both in Devonshire and Cornwall, which was first reduced
by the civil wars in the time of Henry VII, and afterwards nearly
annihilated, in consequence of the loyal attachment of some of its
individuals to the royal cause during the civil wars in the reign of Charles
I."

SIR JOHN CALL, BART.
From a portrait (by A. Hickle) in the possession of his great-granddaughter, Mrs. de Lacy Lacy

Why was the eighth century fixed on for the advent of the Calls upon the
scene? Presumably because the first Norsemen arrived in 787. Conceive the
Calls coming over in a dragon ship, filled with berserker rage, to ravage
England and glut themselves with our blood.
But we shall look for Calls in vain among the records of the past. As it
happens, Saxons and Northmen had no family, only personal names. The
story is as absurd as that also put forth that Callington derived its name
from the Calls, who only settled near it in 1770.

But these "family papers" are not so ancient as Sir John Call, who would
have been above such a pretence. As a matter of fact, the account supplied
to Playfair shows a surprising ignorance in the writer as to the existence of
Heralds' Visitations, Inquisitiones post mortem, Wills, Royalist
Composition Papers, Parish Registers, and all the material at hand to
confirm or disprove reckless genealogical assertions. Playfair does admit
that the story contained in the "family papers" is "partly fabulous." He
might have said that it was fabulous from beginning to end.
The Calls had no right whatever to bear arms, till a grant was made to them
—after reading the above flourish not inappropriate—of three trumpets.
The MS. "Names of Gentlemen in Devonshire and Cornwall with their
Arms," drawn up by John Hooker, alias Vowell, in 1599, is the only
armoury of the West that gives the name of Call with arms: Party per pale or
and gules; upon a chief az. 3 geese sable. But he gives no indication of
place where such a gentleman possessed land—and that, before this
"opulent family" had been ruined by the civil wars. Hooker probably
included the name, because, at the time, there was some gentleman Call
from another part of England living in Exeter. That the Calls of Whiteford
had no claim to his arms, nor could exhibit descent from him, is shown by
their not adopting his coat. In a MS. armoury of all England dating from
1632, that belonged to C. Pole, the name and arms of Call do not occur.
According to Foster's Baronetage, the Calls hailed from Prestacott, in
Launcells.
Actually the great-grandfather of Sir John was of Grove, in Stratton, a
tenant farmer. A good many Calls appear in the register of the parish, never
with gent. appended to the name, or even with Mr. preceding it, a title
generally accorded to a yeoman or a well-to-do tradesman; and one in 1735
is buried as a pauper. Their marriages also show to what class they
belonged, with the Uglows, Tanners, and the Jewells, in a humble walk of
life.
John Call, described as of Prestacott, in Launcells, was born in 1680, and in
1702 married Sarah Jewell, and died in 1730.

Prestacott consisted of three very small farms on the right-hand side of the
old road from Stratton to Holsworthy. Of late years the ramshackle
buildings have been pulled down and the lands thrown together and
constituted one farm, and a new house has been built. It belonged at the
time that John Call rented one of these little holdings to the Orchards of
Hartland Abbey. John Call had two sons, John and Richard. John was born
1st March, 1704-5, and married Jane, daughter of John Mill, of Launcells,
"the descendant of a respectable family, which had considerable possessions
there, as well as in Middlesex," says Playfair. He might have added with
equal truth that they possessed castles in the air. As it happens, the
Visitations of Cornwall and Lysons knew nothing of the family of Mill. The
Mills were of Shernick, a farm in Launcells, which they rented of the
Arundels of Trerice. Their ledger-stones are in the parish church, but they
are never described as gents. Mrs. Judith Mill was buried on October 14th,
1723, and Mr. John Mill on December 1st in the same year, and Mr. Richard
Mill on July 11th, 1766.
Sarah Call, widow of John Call (without even Mr. and Mrs. prefixed), was
buried on February 1st, 1747-8. Shernick is now the property of Sir C. T.
Acland, Bart., inherited through an heiress in the nineteenth century of the
Arundels.
John Call, who married Jane Mill, had a son, the subject of this memoir.
Afterwards, when this son was rich, he set up a tablet to the memory of his
father in Launcells Church, on which he gives him the title of "gent."
In Memory of John Call gent of Shernick in this parish, and of Whiteford in
Stoke Climsland. He was interred in this church 3 Jan. 1767, aged 63. Also
of Jane Call his widow, who was interred 9 Nov. 1781, aged 70. Also of
Jane Jones their daughter, wife of the Revd Cadwalader Jones, minister of
this parish, who was here interred 2 April, 1790, aged 50, and of their two
children, etc.
Concerning Mrs. Cadwalader Jones, more hereafter. The old gentleman,
John Call, had died on December 31st, 1766, going out with the old year.
John, the younger, was born June 30th, 1732, at Fenny Park, near Tiverton,
and was educated at a private school. For some reason or other, not known,
his mother disliked him, and when aged seventeen, and he had been

recommended to the notice of Benjamin Robbins, who was going out to
India, she refused to furnish him with the money required for his outfit and
passage to India, so that his more distant relatives, probably the Mill family
of Shernick, supplied the money.
Benjamin Robbins had composed a treatise on the principles of gunnery and
the price of gunpowder, that was not as yet published, and also an account
of Lord Anson's voyages. He was a mathematician, and had been appointed
chief engineer and captain-general in the East India Company's service, and
he was looking about for commercial clerks who would serve on a small
pay, when Call was recommended to him as a shrewd lad. John Call was
glad of the chance of seeing something of the world and of escaping from a
mother who flouted him, and he embraced the offer with gladness. Robbins
quitted England in 1749, and arrived with his clerks at Fort William in July,
1750.
Call had been given by Robbins his treatise on explosives to transcribe for
the press, and this interested the young man in the subject, and he pursued
the theme, and made considerable improvements in rifling barrels. He also
introduced one that enabled shells to be discharged from long guns. When
Robbins landed he had with him eight young clerks, of whom Call was one.
Robbins died in July, 1751, and Call then became the leading engineer.
War broke out among the native princes, backed up upon one side by the
French, on the other by the English, and Call was employed to carry out the
erection of defensive works at Fort S. David. This was an English
settlement near the mouth of the Southern Pennair River, and was only
twelve miles from Pondicherry, the French head-quarters.
Madras, at the mouth of the Triplicane, consisted of the native or black city
and of Fort S. George, which lay on the sea, and was almost engirdled by
the North River that with the Triplicane formed an island crossed by the
main road from Chinglapett and Vandalone.
The French, whilst in possession of Fort S. George, after it had been taken
by Labourdonnais in 1746, had made several improvements and additions
to the slight works they found, which, nevertheless, rendered the fort little
capable of long resistance against the regular approaches of a European
enemy; nor had they given any attention to the internal area, which did not

exceed fifteen acres of ground. Nevertheless, the English let the place
remain in the same state after its recovery from the French in 1751 till the
beginning of the year 1756, when the expectation of another war with that
nation, and the reports of the great preparations making in France against
India, dictated the necessity of rendering it completely defensible; and Call
was employed in the extension and perfecting of the work, that had received
the consideration of Robbins before his decease. Accordingly all the
coolies, labourers, and tank diggers whom the adjacent country could
supply were from this time constantly employed on the fortifications: their
daily number generally amounted to four thousand men, women, and
children. The river channel was diverted, and the old channel was filled up;
very extensive bastions and outworks were erected; and it was due to this
undertaking that Fort S. George was able to stand successfully against the
siege by the Count de Lally in 1759.
In the beginning of the year 1752 Call accompanied Captain (afterwards
Lord) Clive in an expedition against the French, who had possessed
themselves of the province of Arcot, and were plundering up to the very
gates of Madras; and he was with him in his occupation and subsequent
defence of Arcot, during a fifty days' siege. Clive had marched from Madras
with two hundred English soldiers and three hundred sepoys. He had with
him eight English officers, but of these only two had smelt powder, whilst
four, Call among them, were only commercial clerks forced by Clive's
example to draw the sword. The battle of Coverplank, near Arcot, gained by
Captain Clive in the February of 1752, in which the French lost all their
artillery and were totally dispersed, cleared the province of their influence
and established the English in the garrison of that capital. From Arcot the
victorious army, consisting of about five hundred Europeans and one
thousand natives, marched through the country back to Fort S. David, when
Mr. Call was appointed chief engineer at Madras, and eventually of all the
Coromandel coast.
In 1753 the French under Bussy and Dupleix were full of schemes to
retrieve the honour of their arms, and to obtain the absolute empire of the
Deccan and the south. In that year, the cession of five important provinces
had made them masters of the sea-coast of Coromandel and Orissa for an
uninterrupted line of six hundred miles, and also furnished the convenient
means of receiving reinforcements of men and military stores from

Pondicherry and Mauritius. But neither the Court of Versailles nor the
French India Company at home had approved the grand projects of Bussy
and Dupleix. The Court questioned the propriety of these wars with the
English in a time of peace, and the Company was impatient at the cost of
these wars, and doubted whether the territorial acquisitions could be
maintained profitably to themselves. The English Company also was
impatient at the heavy outlay, and was willing to leave the French in
possession of the Northern Circars; but Dupleix was not to be restrained. He
saw further into the future than did the merchants of Paris; he perceived that
an unrivalled opportunity was open to him to make all India tributary to
France, and he was determined to seize it. But to do so he must expel the
English. He claimed to be Nabob of the Carnatic, and unless his authority as
such were recognized by the English, he would make no terms whatever
with them. But Dupleix had had his day. His protectors and admirers were
now out of office, and he was recalled to France.
As soon as war had been declared in Europe, the Government of Louis XV
commenced preparations on a large scale for an expedition to the East, and
the arrival of a great armament was daily expected at Pondicherry.
It was not, however, until 28th April, 1758, that a squadron of twelve
vessels reached the coast. These ships had on board a regiment of infantry
eleven hundred strong, a corps of artillery, and a number of officers, all
under the command of the Count de Lally, a veteran officer of Irish
extraction, who had been all his life in the service of France. He had been
appointed Governor-General of the French possessions in India. He was a
man of great ability and ambition, and was animated by intense and
passionate hatred of England. Had he been supported from home, he would
almost certainly have made France predominant in the peninsula. No sooner
was he landed than he organized an expedition against Fort S. David, and in
June, 1758, he captured it. He then prepared to take Madras as a
preliminary to an advance on Bengal, and he hoped to drive the English out
of Calcutta. But he was without resources; there was no money to be had at
Pondicherry. At last he raised a small sum, chiefly out of his own funds, and
began the march to Madras; his officers preferring to risk death before the
walls of Madras to certain starvation within the walls of Pondicherry. Lally
reached Madras on the 12th December, 1758, and at once took possession
of the black or native town, commanded by Fort S. George, and began the

siege of that fort with vigour. Call was within. It was due to him that the
defences were in such a condition that the garrison could look with
confidence to withstand a siege. We hear, indeed, nothing of any active part
taken by him during the progress of the siege, but undoubtedly his
knowledge and talent had much to do with rendering the defence effective.
The real command was with Major Laurence and Mr. Pigot. The total force
collected was 1758 Europeans and 2220 sepoys. On the other side Lally had
an army of 2700 Europeans and 4000 native troops.
On 14th December the French took possession of the black town, which
was open and defenceless; and there the soldiers, breaking open some
arrack stores, got drunk and mad, and committed great disorders.
Taking advantage of this, a sortie was resolved upon, and six hundred
chosen men, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Draper and Major
Brereton, with two field-pieces, rushed into the streets of the black town.
Unluckily the drummers, who were all little black boys, struck up the
"Grenadiers' March" too soon and gave warning to the French, who left off
their drinking and plundering, and, running to their arms, drew up at a point
where the narrow streets crossed at right angles. Those who were drunk
were joined by those who were sober, till the whole number far exceeded
that of the English detachment. If Bussy, who was at hand, had made one of
the bold and rapid movements which he had been accustomed to make
when acting on his own responsibility, he might have taken the English in
rear. But he was sulky, and jealous of Lally, and remained inert. When
Draper saw that he must retreat, he found that all his drummer-boys who
should sound the recall had run away. He, however, managed to bring off
his troops, leaving two field-pieces behind, and having lost or killed,
wounded and prisoners, about two hundred men.
The siege dragged on. Most of Lally's heavy artillery was still at sea, and a
corps of sepoys captured and spiked his only 13-inch mortar, which was
coming by land. All his warlike means were as deficient as those of the
garrison were perfect, and dissensions and ill-will against him increased
among his officers.
For six weeks the French were without any pay, and during the last fifteen
days they had no provisions except rice and butter. Then the ammunition of

the besiegers failed. On the 15th February, 1759, he resolved on raising the
siege. He had thrown away his last bomb three weeks before, and he had
blazed away nearly all his gunpowder. Pouring forth invectives and blaming
every one but himself, Lally decamped on the night of the 17th as secretly
and expeditiously as he could.
In March, 1760, Call was employed in reducing Karikal, and at the latter
end of the year and in the beginning of 1761 he was employed as chief
engineer under Sir Eyre Coote in the reduction of Pondicherry, which, after
it had been battered furiously during two days, surrendered at discretion.
Then the town and fortifications were levelled with the ground. A few
weeks after the strong hill-fortress of Gingi surrendered, and the military
power of the French in the Carnatic was brought to an end.
In 1762 Call had the good fortune, when serving under General Cailland, to
effect the reduction of the strong fortress of Vellore, one hundred miles west
of Madras, which has since been the point d'appui of the English power in
the Carnatic.
In July, 1763, Mahomed Usuff Cawn, a native of great military talent,
employed in the service of the English, for usurping the government of
Madura and Tinnevelly, the two southernmost provinces of the peninsula,
had to be dealt with summarily. A considerable force marched against him,
under the command of Colonel Monson, of His Majesty's 69th Regiment.
Call acted as chief engineer under him, till the heavy rains in October
obliged the English army to retire from before Madura. Eventually that
place and Palamata were reduced, and Mahomed Usuff Cawn was taken
and hanged.
At the latter end of 1764 Call went into the Travancore country to settle
with the Rajah for the arrears of tribute due to the Nabob of Arcot. Having
satisfactorily accomplished that business and other concerns with southern
princes, he returned to Madras in January, 1765, and took his seat at the
Civil Council, to which he was entitled by rotation, and he obtained the
rank of colonel.
During a great part of the war with Hyder Ali in 1767 and 1768 Call
accompanied the army into the Mysore country, and whilst he was there the
Company advanced him to the third seat in the Council, and he was

strongly recommended by Lord Clive to succeed to the government of
Madras on the first vacancy. But news reached him of the death of his
father, and he made up his mind to return to England. He had managed to
scrape together a very considerable fortune, and he desired to spend the rest
of his days in the enjoyment of it. He embarked on February 8th, 1770, after
a service of nearly twenty years, and he landed at Plymouth on July 26th.

WHITEFORD. THE RESIDENCE OF SIR JOHN CALL
From a drawing in the possession of Mrs. de Lacy Lacy

He bought Whiteford, in the parish of Stoke Climsland, and greatly
enlarged the house. In 1771 he was appointed Sheriff of Cornwall, and in
March, 1772, he married Philadelphia, third daughter of Wm. Battye, m.d., a
somewhat distinguished physician living in Bloomsbury.
From this period till the autumn of 1782 he lived in retirement at Whiteford.
Whilst in India, Call had not forgotten his parents and sister at home, and
had sent to his mother priceless Indian shawls, which she, not knowing their
value, cut up and turned into under-petticoats for herself and daughter and
maids. A pipe of Madeira sent to the father was also as little appreciated. It
was distributed among the farm-labourers during harvest time to economize
the cider.

Now that he was in England and wealthy, he resolved on doing something
for his sister. She had married Cadwalader Jones, the vicar of the parish,
and the vicarage was a small, mean building, so Cadwalader Jones had
taken the manor house that was near the church on a long lease from the
Orchards, who were lords of the manor. This house had been a cell of
Hartland Abbey, but at the Restoration had been given to the Chammonds.
That family had died out, and now it had come to the Orchards, owners of
Hartland Abbey. Call rebuilt the house, or, to be more exact, built on a
modern house to the old, and installed Cadwalader and his sister in the new
mansion; he also made for them a large walled garden. When he did this, he
was under the impression that the property belonged to Cadwalader, and not
till he had completed his building did he learn that Mr. Jones had only a
lease of it. Moreover, Mrs. Jones did not live to enjoy the new house very
long, as she died in 1780, and then Cadwalader married again. In course of
time Cadwalader went to join his ancestors, and thereupon Mr. Hawkey saw
and loved the widow and the mansion, and married her. Thus it came about
that the manor house built for Mrs. Jane Jones passed into other hands. But
thus it happens also that through Miss Charlotte Hawkey we have some
account of Sir John Call.
Lord Shelburne, when Prime Minister, being desirous of investigating some
of the existing abuses and reforming some of the public departments, fixed
on Call and engaged him along with Mr. Arthur Holdsworth, of Dartmouth,
to inquire into the state and management of Crown lands, woods, and
forests, which had long been neglected; Call had seen this with regard to the
Duchy property at his doors, and had drawn attention to it. In November,
1782, they made their first report; but a change of Ministry taking place
soon after, their proceedings were interrupted till the Duke of Portland, then
First Lord of the Treasury, authorized them to continue their investigation.
Before they had gone far another change took place in the Ministry, and Pitt
became Prime Minister. These frequent interruptions interfered with the
progress of the investigation, and to obviate that, in 1785-6 Sir Charles
Middleton, Call, and Holdsworth were appointed permanent Parliamentary
Commissioners.
Call became a banker, a manufacturer of plate-glass, and a copper-smelter.
He designed and saw to the execution of the Bodmin gaol in 1779. He was
elected M. P. for Callington in 1784, and retained his seat till 1801. On July

28th, 1791, he was created a baronet, and granted as his arms, gules, three
trumpets fessewise in pale, or; as crest, a demi-lion ramp. holding between
the paws a trumpet erect, or.
By his wife he had six children. In 1785 he purchased the famous house of
Field-Marshal Wade, in Old Burlington Street. He became totally blind in
1795, and died of apoplexy at his residence in town on March 1st, 1801,
and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his son, William Pratt Call, who
died in 1851, leaving a son, William Berkeley Call, the third baronet, who
died in 1864, and with the son of this latter, Sir William George Montague
Call, the fourth baronet, the title became extinct. It will be noticed that the
two last affected aristocratic Christian names, Berkeley and Montague.
Whiteford was sold to the Duchy of Cornwall, and all the noble trees in the
park were cut down and turned into money, and the mansion converted into
an office for the Duchy. Davies Gilbert, in his Parochial History of
Cornwall, tells a couple of anecdotes of Sir John, but they are too pointless
to merit repetition.
Call was one of those admirable, self-made men who have been empire-
makers in the East, and, better than that, have been makers of the English
name as synonymous with all that is powerful and true and just. He well
deserved the title accorded to him. He was a man of whom Cornwall may
be proud, and it needed no trumpets in his arms and fictions about the origin
of his family to make the name honourable.
As Dr. Johnson said, "There are some families like potatoes, whose only
good parts are underground."
The authorities for the life of Sir John Call are Playfair's British Family
Antiquity, 1809; Clement R. Markham's Memoir on the Indian Surveys,
1878; H. G. Nicholl's Forest of Dean; and Neota, by Charlotte Hawkey,
1871.
The grant of the baronetcy to Sir John Call, dated 1795, is now in the
Museum of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, at Truro.

JOHN KNILL
In August, 1853, appeared the following account in the Gentleman's
Magazine:—
"An eccentric old gentleman of the name Knill, a private secretary some
fifty or sixty years ago to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, becoming
afterwards collector of the port of S. Ives, built a three-sided pyramid of
granite on the top of a high hill, near the town of S. Ives. The pyramid is
represented as a pocket edition of an Egyptian one, and in it this gentleman
caused a chamber to be built, with a stone coffin, giving out his intention to
be buried there, and leaving a charge on an estate to the corporation of S.
Ives for the maintenance and repair, etc., of the pyramid. He, however, died
in London; and by his latest will, so far from perpetuating the ostentatious
idea, desired that his body should be given up to the surgeons for dissection,
a penance, it is supposed, for past follies, after which the remains were
buried in London. The pyramid, however, still stands as a landmark. On one
side, in raised letters in granite, appear the words 'Hic jacet nil.' It was
understood that the 'K' and another 'l' would be added when the projector
should be placed within; and on the other side, 'Ex nihilo nil fit,' to be filled
up in like manner, Knill. The mausoleum obtained then, and still bears the
name of Knill's Folly."
This account, full of inaccuracies, called forth a letter to the editor from a
relative of John Knill, at Penrose, by Helston, dated October, 1853, which
appeared in the November issue of the same magazine. He stated that John
Knill was educated for the law, but did not adopt it as a profession. He
preferred to accept the office of collector of customs at S. Ives. After a
while he was sent as Inspector-General of Customs to the West Indies,
whence he returned to his duties at S. Ives, after having discharged his
office of inspectorship. In 1777 the Earl of Buckinghamshire, who was
recorder of S. Ives, invited Mr. Knill to accompany him to Ireland as his
private secretary, when he, the earl, had been made lord-lieutenant. The
offer was accepted.

In 1782, thirty years before his death, he erected the mausoleum, partly
actuated by a philanthropic motive as affording a landmark to ships
approaching the port, and partly by a wish to find employment for men at a
time of considerable distress, having also a desire to be buried there, if the
ground could be consecrated. This intention was afterwards abandoned.
Mr. Knill resided for some years previous to his death in Gray's Inn, and
was a bencher of that society. He died there in 1811, and was buried in the
vaults of S. Andrew's, Holborn. On one side of the monument is the word
"Resurgam." On the second side, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and on
the third is no inscription at all, and the silly puns given by the informant of
the Gentleman's Magazine had no existence save in the imagination of the
correspondent.
The same writer adds: "Though he had a wide circle of acquaintances and
he was highly esteemed by all who knew him, he resisted every invitation
to dine in private society, and for many years past dined at Dolly's Coffee
House, Paternoster Row, walking through the chief avenues of the town in
the course of the day, in order to meet his friends and to preserve his health
by moderate exercise."

JOHN KNILL
After a picture by Opie in the possession of Captain Rogers of Penrose

We are able to supplement this scanty record from a memoir of him by Mr.
John Jope Rogers, of Penrose, published in 1871 by Cunnack, of Helston.
John Knill was born at Callington on January 1st, 1733. His mother was a
Pike of Plympton, and her mother was an Edgcumbe of Edgcumbe, it is
stated in the memoir, but no entry of any such marriage is in the pedigree of
the Edgcumbes in Vivian's Heralds' Visitations of Devon.

Mr. Knill was very desirous to trace a descent from the family of Knill of
Knill, in Hereford, but entirely failed to do so.
John Knill's mother, one of the seven daughters of Mr. Pike, married
secondly Mr. Jope, and it is thus that the portrait of the subject of this
memoir came into the possession of Mr. John Jope Rogers, of Penrose,
author of the memoir.
John Knill, according to Davies Gilbert, "served his clerkship as an attorney
in Penzance, and from thence removed to the office of a London attorney,
where, having distinguished himself by application and intelligence, he was
recommended to the Earl of Buckinghamshire, who, at that time, held the
political interests of S. Ives, to be his local agent." In the year 1762 he was
appointed collector of customs at S. Ives, in Cornwall, and held it during
twenty years, at the end of which time he wrote to Mr. William Praed,
March 30th, 1782: "I purpose to be in London in May, in order to resign my
office of collector, which I shall finally quit at the end of next midsummer
quarter."
In November, 1767, he was chosen mayor of S. Ives, and lived in a red-
brick house facing the beach, in Fore Street. Although mayor and collector
of customs, it was strongly believed that he was in league with smugglers
and wreckers.
One day, during the latter half of the eighteenth century, a strange vessel ran
on the rocks on the Hayle side of Carrick Gladden, and the crew escaped to
land and disappeared. The ship, now a derelict, had apparently no owner,
and next day a number of people boarded her, and found her full of
chinaware and other smuggled goods. The ship's papers could not be found;
they had been carried off when the crew deserted her, and it was strongly
supposed that they were destroyed, as implicating Knill and Praed, of
Trevetho. The customs officer, Roger Wearne, went on board and stuffed
his clothes full of china; having a pair of trousers on with a very ample and
baggy seat, he thought he could not do better than stow away some of the
choicest pieces of porcelain there. But as he was getting down the side of
the ship into the boat, very leisurely, so as not to injure his spoils, a
comrade, getting impatient, struck him on the posteriors with the blade of
his oar, shouting to him, "Look out sharp, Wearne!" and was startled at the

cracking noise that ensued, and the howl of Wearne when the broken
splinters of china entered his flesh.
In 1773 the Government sent him to Jamaica to inspect the ports there; he
remained in the West Indies one year, and used his eyes and ears, for in
1779 he wrote an account of the religion of the Coromandel negroes for
Bryant Edwards' History of the West Indies, from information he then and
there gathered. For his services he received from the Board of Customs the
substantial sum of £1500. He returned to his duties at S. Ives in 1774. In
1777 he became private secretary to the Earl of Buckinghamshire, in
Dublin, but he returned to S. Ives after six months in Ireland. In 1779 he
speculated in a bootless search for treasure, which the notorious pirate,
Captain John Avery, was supposed, on his return from Madagascar, to have
secreted near the Lizard. But, as none of the Lives of that freebooter gave
any hint of his having done so, the attempt was not the least likely to lead to
satisfactory results. Davies Gilbert says that Knill equipped some small
vessels to act as privateers against smugglers, but if local tradition may be
relied on, these vessels were only nominally for this purpose, and were
actually engaged in running contraband goods; but this is highly
improbable.

GLASS INSCRIBED "SUCCESS TO THE EAGLE FRIGATE, JOHN KNILL
COMMANDER"
From the Collection of Percy Bate, Esq. of Glasgow

In 1782 he was employed in the service of the customs as inspector of some
of the western ports, making occasional visits to London, where he settled
for the rest of his days. In 1784 he purchased chambers in Gray's Inn
Square, where he died on March 29th, 1811, at the age of seventy-seven. He
was painted by Opie in 1779, dressed in a plain suit of blue, with frilled
shirt and ruffles. He made his half-brother, the Rev. John Jope, of S. Cleer,
his sole executor.

It was in the year 1782 that John Knill erected his mausoleum on Worral
Hill, on land purchased from Henry, Lord Arundell, for five guineas. The
total cost of the monument was £226 1s. 6d. Sixpence a year is paid to the
owner of Tregenna for a right of way to the obelisk. By a deed dated May
29th, 1797, Knill settled upon the mayor and capital burgesses of S. Ives,
and their successors for ever, an annuity of £10 as a rent-charge, to be paid
out of the manor of Glivian, in Mawgan, which sum is annually to be put
into a chest which is not to be opened except at the end of every five years.
Then, out of the accumulated sum, a dinner was to be given to the mayor,
collector of customs, and vicar of S. Ives, and two friends to be invited by
each of them, and £15 to be equally divided among ten girls, natives of S.
Ives, under ten years old, who should, between 10 a.m. and noon on S.
James the Apostle's Day, dance and sing round the mausoleum, to the
fiddling of a man who was to receive a pound for so doing and for fiddling
as the procession of girls went to the obelisk and returned. One pound was
to be laid out in white ribbons for the damsels and a cockade for the fiddler.
Some of the money was to go to keep the mausoleum in repair, and there
were certain benefactions also recorded.
The first Knillian celebration took place in July, 1801, when, according to
the will of the founder, a band of little girls, all dressed in white, with two
widows and a company of musicians, marched in procession to the top of
the hill, where they danced about the monument, then, as Knill desired,
sang the Hundredth Psalm to its old melody, and after that returned in the
same order to S. Ives. The ceremony still takes place every fifth year.
In dancing the children sing the following in chorus:—

Shun the bustle of the bay,
Hasten, virgins, come away;
Hasten to the mountain's brow,
Leave, O leave, S. Ives below.
Haste to breathe a purer air,
Virgins fair, and pure as fair;
Fly S. Ives and all her treasures,
Fly her soft voluptuous pleasures;
Fly her sons and all their wiles,
Lushing in their wanton smiles;

Fly the splendid midnight halls;
Fly the revels of her balls;
Fly, O fly the chosen seat,
Where vanity and fashion meet.
Hither hasten from the ring,
Round the tomb in chorus sing,
And on the lofty mountain's brow, aptly dight,
Just as we should be, all in white,
Leave all our troubles and our cares below.

THOMAS TREGOSS
A certain Roscadden going on a pilgrimage in the days before the
Reformation, and being absent some years, was surprised on his return to
find that his wife had borne one if not more children. Very much and very
naturally put out, he consulted with one John Tregoss, who advised him to
settle his estate upon some friend whom he could trust, for the use and
benefit of his children whom he would own, and for the wife not to be left
absolutely destitute in the event of his death. Mr. Roscadden approved of
this counsel, and constituted John Tregoss his heir absolutely, but always
with the understanding that the said Tregoss should administer his estate
according to the wishes and instructions of Roscadden. But this gentleman
dying soon after, John Tregoss entered on possession of the estate, "turned
the wife and children out of doors, who for some time were fain to lye in an
hog-stye, and every morning went forth to the Dung-hill, and there upon
their faces imprecated and prayed that the vengeance of God might fall
upon Tregoss and his posterity for this so perfidious and merciless deed.
"And after this, God's severe but righteous judgments fell upon Tregoss's
family. For his son Walter, one day riding upon a Horse in a fair way, the
horse threw him, and broke his neck: and some of his issue came to
untimely ends, and it is observed that a curse hath remained ever since: and
this Mr. Tregoss of whom we write was so sensible of it, that it cost him
many fervent prayers to God for the removal of that dreadful curse, as
himself assured a bosom friend"—but it does not seem to have occurred to
him to give up the heritage to the Roscaddens—that is, if he were the
possessor.
The family of Tregose, or Tregosse, was one of the oldest in the
neighbourhood of S. Ives. The names of Clement and John Tregose of S.
Ives appear in the Subsidy Roll of 1327. In the list of circa 1520, Thomas
Tregoos' lands in Towednack were assessed at the yearly value of 13s. 4d.,
and those of John Tregoz, in the parish of S. Ives, at 11s.; but Thomas also
had lands at S. Ives, valued the same as those of John.

In 1641, William Tregose, gent., had at S. Ives goods to the annual value of
£3.
Thomas Tregoss, the subject of this notice, was the son of William Tregoss
of S. Ives. His parents were strong Puritans and very austere, and they
hedged about their son with restrictions, not suffering him to partake in
games or any childish relaxations from the strain of study or the
contemplation of religious themes. At first he seemed to be of poor
capacity, but at the age of seven years he began to show that he had a quick
apprehension and a retentive memory. Cut off from all worldly distractions,
he was allowed but one direction in which his faculties and his ambitions
could stretch and expand. He had not the force of character and strength of
will to revolt against the numbing restraints that bound him in. His only
play as a boy was standing on a chair and preaching to his fellow pupils.
He was sent to Oxford and admitted into Exeter College, and after a few
years spent there, returned to S. Ives; and as the Parliamentary
Commissioners had ejected the vicar, he was thrust in as Puritan preacher in
1657, and he then married a Margaret Sparrow of the same way of thinking.
The life of Thomas Tregoss, as given by Samuel Clark in his Lives of Some
Eminent Persons, 1683, is interspersed with Remarkable Providences and
Extraordinary Judgments, but for the most part they are neither remarkable
nor interesting.
The following is, perhaps, an exception:—
Shortly after his arrival at S. Ives, in the summer, the greater portion of the
fishing season had passed without the pilchards appearing, and this to the
great distress of the people. By the advice of Tregoss a day was set apart for
humiliation and prayer, and next day a shoal of pilchards arrived.
In the ensuing summer the fishermen, having taken a great number of fishes
on the Saturday, wanted to spread and dry their nets on the Sunday. Tregoss
learning this, came forth and rebuked and denounced God's judgment on
them if they should profane the "Sabbath" in this manner. They did not
hearken to him, observing that their nets must be dried or would rot. From
that day no more pilchards visited the bay during that season.

From S. Ives Tregoss was transferred to Mylor in October, 1659, but was
ejected from the living on August 24th, 1660, as not ordained, and
unwilling to receive ordination, and to subscribe to the articles and confirm
to the liturgy. However, he continued to preach to a privately assembled
number of puritanically minded people, and he was proceeded against and
committed to the custody of the marshal in Launceston gaol, where he
remained for three months, and was then released by order of the Deputy
Lieutenant.
In September, 1663, he removed to Kigilliath, near Penryn. On October 1st,
1664, whilst he and his wife were lying awake in bed, they experienced an
earthquake shock, and this he held to be "a symbolick image of that
trembling Heartquake which he shortly felt in his conversion."
On January 1st ensuing, he fell into deep despondency and the spirit of
bondage—his liver being probably out of order—till he fancied himself
relieved by receiving the spirit of adoption. He had been converted half a
dozen times before, but never before preceded by an earthquake, so that
there could be no mistake about its reality this time.
Fired with new zeal, he broke into Mabe church at the head of a number of
his adherents, mounted the pulpit, and harangued his congregation. For this
he was arrested and imprisoned again in Launceston gaol, but was shortly
released, July 29th, 1665; and he had the pleasing satisfaction of knowing
that a bull had gored Justice Thomas Robinson, who had sent him to prison.
Undeterred by what he had gone through, he again invaded Mabe church,
and was again committed to gaol on September 18th, but was once more
released, on December 14th.
On February 4th, 1666, he once more broke into the parish church of Mabe
at the head of a body of Puritans, and was again arrested and sent to the
marshal at Bodmin, but by the order of the King was at once set free.
In 1669 he was at Great Torrington, where he preached, and was sent to
Exeter gaol, but was at once bailed out. He died at Penryn in January, 1672.
On September 4th, 1775, John Wesley preached at S. Ives "in the little
meadow above the town." He wrote in his diary that "the people in general
here (excepting the rich) seem almost persuaded to be Christians. Perhaps

the prayer of their old pastor, Mr. Tregoss, is answered even to the fourth
generation."

ANTHONY PAYNE
Anthony Payne, the "Falstaff of the West," was born in the manor house,
Stratton, the son of a tenant farmer, under the Grenvilles of Stowe. The
registers do not go back sufficiently far to record the date of his birth. The
Tree Inn is the ancient manor house in which the giant first saw the light.
He rapidly shot up to preternatural size and strength. So vast were his
proportions as a boy, that his schoolmates were accustomed to work out
their arithmetic lessons in chalk on his back, and sometimes even thereon to
delineate a map of the world, so that he might return home, like Atlas,
carrying the world on his shoulders for his father with a stick to dust out.
It was his delight to tuck two urchins under his arms, one on each side, and
climb, so encumbered with "his kittens," as he called them, to a height
overhanging the sea, to their infinite terror, and this he would call "showing
them the world." A proverb still extant in Cornwall, expressive of some
unusual length, is "As long as Tony Payne's foot."
At the age of twenty-one he was taken into the establishment at Stowe. He
then measured seven feet two inches in height without his shoes, and he
afterwards grew two inches higher. He was not tall and lanky, but stout and
well proportioned in every way. The original mansion of the Grenvilles at
Stowe still in part remains as a farmhouse. The splendid house of Stowe,
built by the first Earl of Bath, was pulled down shortly after 1711, and it
was said that men lived who had seen the stately palace raised and also
levelled with the dust. This was at a little distance further inland than the
old Stowe that remains. The Grenvilles had also a picturesque house at
Broom Hill, near Bude, with fine Elizabethan plaster-work ceilings, now
converted into labourers' cottages.
At Stowe Anthony Payne delighted in exhibiting his strength. In the
hurling-ground a rough block of stone is still pointed out as "Payne's cast,"
lying full ten paces beyond the reach whereat the ordinary player could "put
the stone."

It is said that one Christmas Eve the fire languished in the hall. A boy with
an ass had been sent into the wood for faggots. Payne went to hurry him
back, and caught up the ass and his burden, flung them over his shoulder,
and brought both into the hall and cast them down by the side of the fire.
On another occasion, being defied to perform the feat, he carried a bacon-
hog from Kilkhampton to Stowe. Then came the Civil War, when Charles I
and his Parliament sought to settle their differences on the battlefield.
Cornwall went for the King, and Anthony Payne had the drilling and
manœuvring of the recruits from Kilkhampton and Stratton. At one time Sir
Beville Grenville had his head-quarters at Truro, but the great battle of
Stamford Hill, May 16th, 1643, was fought but eight miles from Stowe, and
on the night preceding it Sir Beville Grenville slept in his house at Broom
Hill. The battle was desperate, the Royalist soldiers being outnumbered, and
attacked; amidst them was Anthony Payne, mounted on his sturdy cob
Samson, rallying his troopers and terrorizing the enemy, who fled. At the
next pitched battle at Lansdown, near Bath, the forces of the King were
defeated and Sir Beville was killed. Anthony Payne, having mounted John
Grenville, then a youth of sixteen, on his father's horse, had led on the
Grenville troops to the fight. The Rev. R. S. Hawker gives a letter from the
giant to Lady Grace Grenville, conveying to her the news of the death of
her husband; but it is more than doubtful whether this be genuine. He says
of it: "It still survives. It breathes, in the quaint language of the day, a noble
strain of sympathy and homage." It does not exist except in Mr. Hawker's
book, and is almost certainly a fabrication by him.

ANTONY PAYNE
From the picture by Sir Godfrey Kneller

At the Restoration, Sir John Grenville was created Earl of Bath, and was
made governor of the garrison of Plymouth, and he then appointed Payne
halberdier of the guns. The King, who held Payne in great favour, made him
a yeoman of his guards, and Sir Godfrey Kneller, the Court artist, was
employed to paint his portrait.
Whilst in Plymouth garrison an incident occurred that has been recorded by
Hawker. At the mess-table of the regiment, during the reign of William and
Mary, on the anniversary of the day when Charles I had been beheaded, a

sub-officer of Payne's own rank had ordered a calf's head to be served up.
This was a coarse and common annual mockery of the beheaded king
indulged in by the remnants of the old fanatical Puritan party. When Payne
entered the room his comrades pointed out the dish to him. Anthony flared
up, and flung the plate and its contents out of the window. A quarrel and a
challenge ensued, and at break of day Payne and his antagonist fought with
swords on the ramparts, and Anthony ran the offender through the
swordarm and disabled him, as he shouted, "There's sauce for thy calf's
head."
Hawker, who tells the story, supposed that the incident occurred during the
reign of George I. But Anthony died at an age little short of eighty, and was
buried at Stratton July 13th, 1691, and William of Orange did not die till
1702.
After his death at Stratton, which took place in the house where he was
born, neither door nor stairs would afford egress for the large coffined
corpse. The joists had to be sawn through, and the floor lowered with rope
and pulley, to enable the giant to pass out to his last resting-place, under the
south wall of Stratton Church.[12]
The history of the vicissitudes through which went the painting by Kneller
is peculiarly interesting.
When Stowe was dismantled, on the death of the Earl of Bath, the picture
was removed to Penheale, another Cornish residence of the Grenville
family.
But here the portrait of him who had done so much for the house was not
valued, and was soon forgotten. Gilbert, the Cornish historian, in one of his
rambles, whilst staying at an old inn in Launceston, was informed that this
painting was still extant, and he went to Penheale, where the farmer's wife
occupying the house said that she did indeed possess "a carpet with the
effigy of a large man on it," that had been given to her husband by the
steward on the estate. It was rolled up, and in a bad and dirty condition. She
gladly sold it to C. S. Gilbert for £8. On Gilbert's death his effects were sold
at Devonport, and a stranger bought it for £42. In London it was recognized
as the work of Kneller, and was resold for the sum of £800. It next appeared
amongst the effects of the late Admiral Tucker, at Trematon Castle; and

when the sale took place this picture was bought by a gentleman in Devon.
Finally Mr. (now Sir) Robert Harvey purchased it, and most generously
presented it to the Royal Institution of Cornwall.
The authorities for Anthony Payne are Hawker's Footprints of Former Men
in Cornwall; the Journal of the R. Inst. of Cornwall, Vol. X, 1890-1; Wood
(E. J.), Giants and Dwarfs, 1868.
Next in size to Anthony Payne among big Cornishmen was Charles
Chilcott, of Tintagel, who measured 6 feet 4 inches high, and round the
breast 6 feet 9 inches, and who weighed 460 pounds. He was almost
constantly occupied in smoking, three pounds of tobacco being his weekly
allowance. His pipe was two inches long. One of his stockings would
contain six gallons of wheat. He was much gratified when strangers came to
visit him, and to them his usual address was, "Come under my arm, little
fellow." He died in his sixtieth year, 5th April, 1815.

NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD
Was the son of George Burnard, a stonemason, who lived at Penpont,
Altarnon, in a house with mullioned windows and a newel staircase, said to
have been the old manor house of Penpont. He was born in 1818, and was
baptized on November 1st in that year.
The only education Nevil received was from his mother, who kept a dame's
school and made straw bonnets in her spare time.
He was mortar-boy to his father, and would often slip away and cut figures
of men and animals on an old oak door, getting many a "lacing" for not
minding his proper work. His earliest tools were nails, which he sharpened
on a grinding-stone, before he had any chisels.
There was at that time no machinery for facing slate slabs; so he used an old
French "burr"—i.e. part of a French millstone. Such millstones were
constructed in four parts, cemented together. This "burr" he put into a rough
frame of wood, and used it like a plane over the face of the slate, which was
laid on a bench, or "horse." The existing examples of slabs worked in this
way are most excellent, in flatness and in smoothness.
The Delabole slate had been employed for many centuries for tombstones
and monuments, and lent itself surprisingly to being sculptured. In the
North Cornish churches are numerous examples of monuments richly
sculptured with heraldic figures of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
all on slate, and sharp to this day as when they left the workshop.

NEVIL NORTHEY BURNARD
From a bas-relief by the sculptor himself, in the possession of S. Pearn, Esq., Altarnon

At the age of fourteen Nevil cut a tombstone to his grandfather; that is now
in Altarnon churchyard, and affords evidence of skill, artistic sense, and
fineness of detail. There are other stones of his in the same churchyard; also
one or two by his brother George. An old man is still alive in Altarnon who
used to sharpen the nails on a grindstone for Burnard, with which he did his
carving on slate.
At fifteen he left Altarnon. Wesley's head, over the porch of the old
Meeting-house, Penpont, was cut by him when he was sixteen.

From Altarnon he went to Fowey, and the late Sir Charles Lemon, of
Carclew, took him by the hand. At the age of sixteen he carved in slate the
group of Laocoon, sent in 1834 to the Exhibition of the Royal Cornwall
Polytechnic Society at Falmouth. This carving in bass-relief, executed by a
boy from a wild moorland village, without instruction, copied from a wood-
cut in the Penny Magazine, and with tools of his own making, was
considered so very remarkable a production that the Society awarded him a
silver medal. Nevil was sent to London, and through Sir Charles Lemon's
influence was presented to the Queen and Prince Consort, and he was
allowed to cut a profile of the Prince of Wales, then a boy, and this portrait
was sent to Osborne, and was approved by the Royal parents. Sir Charles
Lemon further introduced the lad to Chantrey, who secured for him
employment as a carver in one of the most celebrated ateliers in London.
Burnard reproduced his profile of the Prince of Wales in marble for the
Public Hall at Falmouth, and the general opinion expressed upon it was that
it amply sustained the early expectation which had been formed of his
talents.
Thus fairly launched in his profession as a carver in London, he found
employment in the studios of the best sculptors of the day, as Bailey,
Marshall, and Foley; and there was no lack of work, and no falling short of
pay.
Caroline Fox, in her Memories of Old Friends, says:—
"1847, October 4th.—Burnard, our Cornish sculptor, dined with us. He is a
great, powerful, pugilistic-looking fellow at twenty-nine; a great deal of
face, with all the features massed in the centre; mouth open, and all sorts of
simplicities flowing out of it. He liked talking of himself and his early
experiences. His father, a stonemason, once allowed him to carve the letters
on a little cousin's tombstone which would be hidden in the grass; this was
his first attempt, and instead of digging in the letters he dug around them,
and made each stand out in relief. His stories of Chantrey very odd: on his
death Lady Chantrey came into the studio with a hammer and knocked off
the noses of many completed busts, so that they might not be too common
—a singular attention to her departed lord. Described his own distress when
waiting for Sir Charles Lemon to take him to Court: he felt very warm, and

went into a shop for some ginger-beer; the woman pointed the bottle at him,
and he was drenched. After wiping himself as well as he could he went out
to dry in the sun. He went first to London without his parents knowing
anything about it, because he wished to spare them anxiety, and let them
know nothing until he could announce that he was regularly employed by
Mr. Weekes. He showed us his bust of the Prince of Wales—a beautiful
thing, very intellectual, with a strong likeness to the Queen—which he was
exhibiting at the Polytechnic, where it will remain."

WESLEY'S HEAD OVER THE OLD MEETING-HOUSE, PENPONT, ALTARNON
Cut by Burnard when 16 years of age

TOMBSTONES CUT BY BURNARD
That on the right is upon the grave of his grandfather in Altarnon Churchyard, and was cut when
the sculptor was only 14 years old; the one on the left is in Bodmin Churchyard

"1849, March 1st.—Found a kindly note from Thomas Carlyle. He has seen
'my gigantic countryman,' Burnard, and conceives that there is real faculty
in him; he gave him advice, and says he is the sort of person whom he will
gladly help if he can. Burnard forwarded to me, in great triumph, the
following note he had received from Carlyle with reference to a projected
bust of Charles Buller: 'February 25th, 1849.... Nay, if the conditions never
mend, and you cannot get that Bust to do at all, you may find yet (as often
turns out in life) that it was better for you you did not. Courage! Persist in
your career with wise strength, with silent resolution, with manful, patient,
unconquerable endeavour; and if there lie a talent in you (as I think there
does), the gods will permit you to develop it yet.—Believe me, yours very
sincerely, T. Carlyle.'"
On the return of Richard Lander from Africa, after having traced the Niger
through a great part of its course, Burnard was commissioned to execute a
statue of the explorer for the column erected in Lander's honour at Truro.
His only other public work of any consequence was the statue of Ebenezer
Elliott, the Corn-law Rhymer, for the market-place of Sheffield; but he was

employed in executing portrait busts of many men of importance, as
General Gough, Professor John Couch Adams, his fellow-Cornishman,
Professor Ed. Forbes, and one of Makepeace Thackeray, which Burnard
gave as a present to the Cottonian Library at Plymouth, where it now stands
above the door.
He exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1855, 1858, 1866, and 1867. He
married in London, but lost his wife, and then took to drink. The boys, as he
said, jeered at him, and called him "Old Burnard."
As a man, he was tall and big, with an enormous head which no ordinary
hat would fit; so that his hats had to be made for him.
Eventually he went "on tramp," paying periodical visits to old friends at
Altarnon. He would make sketches, draw portraits, at farms and in public-
houses; was ready to write an article for a newspaper, or to make an election
squib, for either side; and was, in fact, as clever with his pen and pencil as
he was with chisel.
He was a most entertaining companion, and able to converse on any
subject.
Thus he lived by his wits, mixing with the highest, but by preference with
the lowest. The last time he visited Altarnon was in 1877, three years before
his death; he remained there on that occasion for a week, with hardly any
clothes to his back, and was boarded by his old playmate, Mr. S. Pearn, and
slept in the common lodging-house, Five-lanes. After having been fitted out
with fresh clothes by some friends he proceeded to the west of the county.
During this last visit at Altarnon he drew some large pencil heads, which
show a firm and delicate hand, but he delighted in minute execution. There
is also evidence that his mind at this time was as steady as his hand, for he
composed a poem on the death of Mr. F. Herring, one or two verses of
which may be given.

I stood beside the spot where late you laid him,
The spot to each of us most hallowed ground;
After the angels had in white array'd him,
And his smooth brows with flowers immortal crown'd.

Who in the wilderness would wish to wander,
Whose feet have trodden once the promised land?
Believe that all is well, nor pause to ponder
On things that mortals cannot understand.
He is most bless'd that is the firmest trusting,
Believing One that's wiser far than he,—
Is, for his good, the balance still adjusting;
So—tell my parents not to mourn for me.
I now can see what might have been my story,
Had I remained through man's allotted day:
(Sorrow for joy, dark age for youth and glory:)
And bless the love that hastened me away.
And wafted me across the mystic river,
Where all discords and elements agree,
Calmed by His word, that can from death deliver,
So tell my loved ones not to mourn for me.

TOMBSTONES IN ALTARNON CHURCHYARD CUT BY BURNARD

He was equally ready to lampoon any one, whether friend or foe; probably
accommodating his muse to the humour of those with whom he happened
to be.
One day he had been making a sketch of a farmer called Nicoll, and
resorted to the public-house in Liskeard with his patron. Whilst there he
scribbled on a piece of paper and handed to his friend Nicoll:—

Cash is scarce, and fortune's fickle;
I should like to draw some silver now,
As I've all day been drawing nickel.

There is at Penpont House, Altarnon, a small profile head of Burnard
executed by himself. It is a cameo in plaster of Paris. He is said to have
sketched his face by looking in a mirror, and then cut an intaglio in slate
from his drawing.
Nevil N. Burnard died in the Union, Redruth, of heart and kidney
complaint, 27th November, 1878.

SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY, KNT.,
INVENTOR
This man of remarkable versatility and genius was the fourth son of John
Gurney, of Trevargus; he was born at Treator, near Padstow, on February
14th, 1793, and was baptized at Padstow on the ensuing 26th June.
He was named after his godmother, a daughter of General Goldsworthy and
a maid of honour to Queen Charlotte. He was educated at the Truro
Grammar School, and during part of his holidays was wont to stay with a
relative, the rector of S. Erth, in which parish lived Mr. Davies Giddy (who
afterwards changed his name, and was better known as Mr. Davies Gilbert,
President of the Royal Society), in whose house he very frequently met
Richard Trevithick, a plain, unpretending man, of great genius, connected
with the neighbouring copper mines, who lived near, and who often
consulted Mr. Giddy on mathematical calculations connected with the
steam-engine and his mechanical inventions. Although so young, Mr.
Gurney, whose natural bent was for these subjects, soon formed an
acquaintance with this singularly original and talented man, and he
continued during the period of his medical studies in correspondence with
him.
Mr. Gurney saw Trevithick's first steam-carriage in 1804, and followed
closely his improvements and experiments on locomotion, and he
remembered, moreover, the contemptuous treatment this gifted man
received at the hands of the engineers of the day.

S. C. Smith, del. W. Sharp,
lithog.
SIR GOLDSWORTHY GURNEY

His views were described as "wild theories," and his plans were scoffed at.
But Mr. Giddy or Gilbert encouraged Trevithick to go on and not be
discouraged, and Richard Trevithick became the inventor of the locomotive
as well as of the high-pressure engine. His first locomotive was constructed
to travel on common roads; he afterwards modified it and set it to run on
rails at Merthyr Tydvil. The trial was made there on February 4th, 1804. In
the year 1813 he exhibited his locomotive on a temporary railway, laid for
the purpose near Euston Square, and showed the great speed it was capable

of attaining. This speed, however, was only maintained while the
accumulated steam in the boiler was worked off, but his experiment showed
that, if a sufficient quantity of steam could be "kept up," as he termed it, the
speed might be maintained for any distance and any length of time. But
how was this to be effected? That was the difficulty, and that difficulty
arose out of another—how was a sufficient draught to be created to keep the
fire in the furnace at full activity? As the locomotive moved it created a
draught the reverse of that required for the fire, and unless a strong and
steady draught into the furnace could be created, sufficient heat could not
be generated to produce a sufficient and continuous amount of steam.
Trevithick in his first locomotive had discharged the steam up the funnel to
get rid of it, but without any idea of creating a vacuum by means of which a
draught could be caused. Stephenson did the same. Mr. Smiles has claimed
that the "steam-jet" was invented by Stephenson, but this was not the case.
The steam used in Trevithick's and Stephenson's engines was waste or
exhaust steam, discharging itself through the funnel indeed, but not filling
it, so that it created no perceptible draught.
Mr. Smiles says: "The steam after performing its duty in the cylinders was
at first allowed to escape into the open atmosphere with a hissing blast, to
the terror of horses and cattle. It was complained of as a nuisance, and a
neighbouring squire threatened to commence an action against the colliery
lessees unless it was put a stop to."
Accordingly the steam was introduced into the funnel about half-way up at
the side so as to get rid of it and obviate the objection of the noise. But the
evidence that Stephenson had discovered that it could be employed to create
a draught is inconclusive.
Goldsworthy Gurney had been placed at Wadebridge with Dr. Avery as a
medical pupil, and there he married Elizabeth Symons in 1814. He settled
down at Wadebridge as a surgeon, but his active mind would not let him
rest as a small country practitioner; he felt that he had powers and visions
that would bring him before the public as an inventor and a benefactor.
Accordingly he moved to London in 1820, where he made the acquaintance
of several able physicians, and was called to deliver a course of lectures on
the elements of chemical science at the Surrey Institute. It was in 1823 that

he began his experiments with steam and on locomotion, and he abandoned
the medical profession in order to devote himself to these researches. His
desire was to construct an engine that would travel on common roads, and
travel at a more rapid pace than horses.
Now Stephenson, in his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee, stated
that the rate at which his locomotive travelled was "from 3 to 5 or 6 miles
an hour."
"Q. So that these hypothetical cases of 12 miles an hour do not fall within
your general experience?
"A. They do not.
"Q. Laying aside the 12 miles an hour, I think the rate at which these
experiments were made was about 6¾ miles to 7?
"A. I think the average was 6½ miles."
In the first edition of Nicholas Wood's Treatise on Railways, 1829, occurs
this passage: "It is far from my wish to promulgate to the world that the
ridiculous expectations, or rather professions, of the enthusiastic specialist,
will be realized, and that we shall see them travelling at the rate of 12, 16,
18, or 20 miles an hour. Nothing could do more harm towards their
adoption or general improvement than the promulgation of such nonsense."
Before a second edition appeared, Mr. Gurney's steam-jet had
revolutionized the engine, and it blew this absurd passage out of the book
and the disbelief out of Wood's head.
Nicholas Wood was a viewer at Killingworth Colliery, and assisted George
Stephenson in his experiments, and he first saw the steam-blast in Mr.
Hackworth's Sans Pareil in 1829, so that gentleman had adopted it on Mr.
Gurney's recommendation and according to his plan.
Wood thus describes what he then saw: "Mr. Hackworth had, it appears, in
his engine, resorted to the use of the waste steam in a more forcible manner
than before used, throwing it up in a jet, and which, when the engine moved
at a rapid rate, and the steam thereby almost constantly issued from the
pipe, had a most powerful effect. The consequence was, that when the

engine began to travel at the rate of twelve or fifteen miles an hour, the
draught was so great that it actually threw the coke out of the chimney."
Here then is the first sight of the steam-blast to Nicholas Wood, fellow-
worker with George Stephenson. He knew nothing of it before.
But Goldsworthy Gurney's steam-blast had been adopted before this on
steamboats. It was first applied to the Alligator in 1824; then to the Duchess
of Clarence, and other steamboats. It had made its way into France.
In the Lords' Committee Report of 1849 on "Accidents in Mines," a Mr.
Keene, engineer of Bayonne, was examined.
"Q. Have you ever seen Mr. Gurney's plan used on the Continent?
"A. It has been used on the Continent for producing draughts in furnace-
chimneys.
"Q. Furnace-chimneys—for what purpose?
"A. Where the draught has been sluggish; I used it to get a stronger draught
on board a steamboat in 1830, to enable me to stem the strong currents of
the Garonne.
"Q. Have you any knowledge of some experiments made by Mr. Gurney in
the year 1826 with respect to the power of the steam-jet?
"A. I saw frequent experiments made by Mr. Gurney in 1826 to produce
draught by the action of high-pressure steam, exactly in the same way as it
is now employed for producing ventilation in the collieries; that is, there
were a number of jets of about a quarter to three-eighths of an inch
diameter, communicating directly with a high-pressure boiler; the cock
being open, the full steam from the boiler was brought upon those jets, and
a draught was produced by their action in the chimney-shaft.
"Q. In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive engine?
"A. In the chimney-shaft of a locomotive and in the shaft of a factory; the
experiments were tried in various ways. I saw these experiments frequently;
many other persons saw them at the same time; and I employed the same
myself shortly afterwards for a like purpose abroad."

Mr. Keene in his evidence further stated, in answer to the question whether
Mr. Gurney's experiments were open to the public:—
"Many persons visited the place daily, and the carriage went out into the
road, and into the barracks, and was often surrounded by a group of
persons. It was understood and known how this draught was procured,
because the passage of the steam was heard up the chimney when the
carriage was still, and the great draught of the furnace was the occasion of
remark by everybody who was around it; they were quite surprised how
such a great current could be produced with so small a height of chimney: it
was a very remarkable thing, and drew attention from everybody around at
that time."
The principle of the action of the steam-blast was simple enough. It was to
fill the funnel with high-pressure steam, which would act much as the
sucker in a pump, exhaust the air and draw up air through the furnace, as
the cone of steam escaped out of the funnel. To act thus, the steam must
completely fill the chimney, allowing of no down draught.
This was what had entirely escaped Trevithick and Stephenson. Up to the
discovery of the steam-jet by Gurney, the waste steam, as has been stated,
was uselessly dispersed through the chimney.
In 1827, Gurney took a steam-carriage he had constructed to Cyfarthfa, at
the request of Mr. Crawshay, and while there applied his steam-jet to the
blast-furnaces. This gave a great impetus to the manufacture of iron.
Stephenson now adopted it, and employed it for his locomotive the Rocket,
that ran on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in October, 1829.
Previously on one occasion Stephenson had run his engine continuously for
fifty-three minutes doing twelve miles. But now, with the adoption of the
steam-blast, it attained a velocity of twenty-nine miles an hour.
"It is not too much to say that the success of the locomotive depended upon
the adoption of the steam-blast. Without that, by which the intensity of
combustion, and the consequent evolution of steam, were maintained at the
highest point, high rates of speed could not have been kept up, the
advantages of the multitubular boiler afterwards invented could never have
been fairly tested, and locomotives might still have been dragging

themselves unwieldily along at little more than five or six miles an hour."
[13]

It had been in July of the same year that Gurney had made a journey in his
steam-coach from London to Bath and back again, on the main road, at the
rate of fifteen miles an hour. This journey, undertaken at the request of the
quartermaster-general of the army, was the first long journey at a
maintained speed ever made by any locomotive on road or rail.
Mr. Gurney's steam-coach was, of course, provided with the steam-jet.
The Mirror of December 15th, 1827, says: "Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney,
whose name is familiar to most of our readers, after a variety of
experiments during the last two years, has completed a steam-carriage on a
new principle. We have accordingly introduced the annexed engraving,
which will enable our readers to enter into the details of the machinery.
First as to its safety, upon which point the public are most sceptical. In the
present invention it is stated that even from the bursting of the boiler there
is not the most distant chance of mischief to the passengers. The boiler is
tubular, and upon a plan totally distinct from anything previously in use....
The weight of the carriage and its apparatus is estimated at 1½ tons, and its
wear and tear of the road, as compared with a carriage drawn by four
horses, is as one to six. When the carriage is in progress the machinery is
not heard. The engine has a 12-horse power, but may be increased to 16;
while the actual horse-power in use, except in ascending a hill, is but eight
horses.... Mr. Gurney has already secured a patent for his invention; but he
has our best wishes for permanent success."
Sir Charles Dance in 1831 ran a steam-coach of Gurney's make between
Gloucester and Cheltenham five times a day for four months, and during
this time carried three thousand passengers some four thousand miles,
without a single accident occurring.
There seemed to be every prospect of the steam-carriage superseding the
mail-coach, and indeed of private gentlemen setting up their Gurney steam-
carriages, as now they run their motors. But trustees of roads, coach-
proprietors, coachmen, and other interested persons formed a strong body
of opposition. How violent this was may be judged from the fact that on one

occasion a pile of stones eighteen inches high was thrown across the road,
and in struggling through it the axle of the coach was broken.
But prejudice and dullness are mighty powers.

How little, mark! that portion of the ball,
Where, faint at best, the beams of Science fall;
Soon as they dawn, from Hyperborean skies
Embody'd dark, what clouds of Vandals rise!

Parliament interfered. Tolls on highways were raised to a prohibitive rate,
so that the running of steam-conveyances was brought to a standstill. A
committee of the House of Commons, appointed in 1831 to inquire into the
matter, reported "that the steam-carriage was one of the most important
improvements in the means of internal communication ever introduced; that
its practicability had been fully established; and that the prohibitory clauses
against its use ought to be immediately repealed." The committee
recommended that the Turnpike Act should be repealed. It ascertained that
upon the Liverpool and Prescot road Mr. Gurney would be charged £2 8s.,
while a loaded stage-coach would have to pay 4s. On the Bath road the
same carriage would be charged £1 7s. 1d., while a coach drawn by four
horses would pay 5s. On the Ashburton and Totnes road Mr. Gurney would
have to pay £2, while a coach drawn by four horses would be charged only
3s. On the Teignmouth and Dawlish road the proportion was 12s. to 2s.
The Report of the Committee on Steam-Carriages, ordered to be printed by
the House of Commons, 12th October, 1831, was reasonable and just. It
reported:—
"Besides the carriages already mentioned, 'twenty or forty others are being
built by different persons, all of which have been occasioned by his (Mr.
Gurney's) decided journey in 1829.'
"The committee have great pleasure in drawing the attention of the House
to the evidence of Mr. Farey. He states that he has no doubt whatever but
that a steady perseverance in such trials will lead to the general adoption of
steam-carriages; and again, that what has been done proves the
practicability of impelling stage-coaches by steam on good common roads,
without horses, at a speed of eight or ten miles an hour.

"Much, of course, must remain to be done in improving their efficacy; yet
Mr. Gurney states that he has kept up steadily the rate of twelve miles per
hour; that the extreme rate at which he has run is between twenty and thirty
miles per hour.
"The several witnesses have estimated the probable saving of expense to the
public, from the substitution of steam power for that of horses, at from one-
half to two-thirds. Mr. Farey gives, as his opinion, that steam-coaches will
very soon after their establishment be run for one-third of the cost of the
present stage-coaches.
"Sufficient evidence has been adduced to convince your committee—
"That carriages can be propelled by steam on common roads at an average
rate of ten miles per hour.
"That they can ascend and descend hills of considerable inclination with
facility and safety.
"That they are perfectly safe for passengers.
"That they are not nuisances to the public.
"That they will become a speedier and cheaper mode of conveyance than
carriages drawn by horses.
"That such carriages will cause less wear of roads than coaches drawn by
horses.
"That rates of toll have been imposed on steam-carriages, which would
prohibit their being used on several lines of road, were such charges
permitted to remain unaltered."
But the House of Commons would not listen to the recommendations of its
committee, and the employment of motors as means of locomotion on roads
was postponed till the present age, when again dullness did its best to
impede the adoption and to drive the manufacture out of England to France.
Mr. Goldsworthy Gurney was in advance of his time, and had to suffer
accordingly. The committee had suggested that as the prohibition of steam-
coaches on roads was a ruinous blow to Gurney, he should be indemnified

with a grant of £16,000. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer refused the
grant, and the Bill, after passing the Commons, was thrown out by the
Lords.
So the unfortunate Goldsworthy Gurney, after having abandoned his
profession, in which he was rapidly gaining a large practice, and after
spending £30,000 and five years of toil to perfect his invention, was ruined.
Another of his inventions was the Bude light, at first intended for
lighthouses. For this he obtained a patent in 1838. In its first form it
consisted of a common Argand oil lamp of rather narrow circular bore and
the introduction into the centre of the flame of a jet of oxygen. This was
not, however, an original discovery, for it had been employed by Dr. Ure in
Glasgow in 1806 or 1807. But it was found to be too expensive for use in
lighthouses, nor was the brilliancy of the flame sufficiently heightened to
lead the Masters of Trinity House to adopt it.
Mr. Gurney was not discouraged. It had long been known that by dissecting
a flame of the compound jet of hydrogen and oxygen upon a bit of clay a
most vivid illumination was set forth. But Mr. Gurney substituted lime for
clay as less liable to disintegration by heat; and he adopted the Argand lamp
with an improvement such as had been suggested and adopted from Fresnel.
This consisted in a lamp composed of a series of four, five, or six concentric
wicks on the same plane, supplied with oil from a fountain below by means
of a pump; and he obtained a second patent in 1839. He next applied his
principle to gas, purified in a peculiar manner, and burned in compound
Argand lamps, consisting of two or more concentric rings perforated with
rows of holes in their upper surfaces, having intervals between the rings for
the admission of an upward rush of air to maintain a high incandescence.
The intensity and whiteness of the light thus produced by the combustion of
coal-gas surpassed anything hitherto discovered till the production of the
mantle-burner.
It was he, moreover, who proposed the flash-light for lighthouses, as a
means by which seamen might identify lighthouses. He proposed that a
powerful light should be made by periodic flashes to correspond with the
number of the lighthouse, and that every lighthouse along the coast should

have a registered number, so that the number of flashes per minute should
represent the lighthouse.
Gurney was present at Sir W. Snow Harris's experiment on Somerset House
terrace with wire for ships' lightning-conductors. Turning to Sir Anthony
Carlisle, in reference to the magnetic needle which, as he observed, made
starts on meeting the poles of a galvanic battery, he said with the inspiration
of genius, "Here is an element which may, and I foresee will, be made the
means of intelligible communication."
Whilst engaged at the Surrey Institution he invented the oxyhydrogen blow-
pipe. Before this was introduced the risk of accident was so great that
recourse was seldom had to oxyhydrogen.
Gurney applied his steam-jet to other purposes than propelling locomotives
and exciting the ardour of furnaces in ironworks. By its means he
extinguished the fire of a burning coal-mine at Astley, in Lancashire, and in
1849 another at Clackmannan, where the bed of coal had been burning for
over thirty years. He also employed it for expelling noxious gases from
sewers, and planned and superintended in 1849 the ventilation by this
means of the pestilential sewer in Friar Street, London, which resisted all
other efforts to cleanse it; and he suggested to the metropolitan
commissioner of sewers that a steam-jet apparatus should be placed at the
mouth of every sewer emptying into the great main sewer by the Thames
river-side.
He was employed on the lighting, heating, and ventilation of the old House
of Commons, and he held the appointment of superintendent of these
functions from 1854 to 1863.
He had remarked that the flame of hydrogen gas caused vibrations that
produced musical tones, and in 1823 wrote on "the analogy between
chemical and musical combinations." He suggested "an improved finger-
keyed musical instrument, in the use of which a performer is enabled to
hold or prolong the notes, and to increase or modify the tone at pleasure." In
1825 and 1833 he proposed "certain improvements in musical instruments."
He invented a stove, and saw and advocated the advantage of the
employment of circulation of hot water for the heating of a building. He
advocated the employment of concrete for foundations where there was no

rock, and to show that it was possible to build a house upon the sand, he
reared the castle at Bude upon concrete floated into the shifting sand above
high-water mark. He again was the first to point out and insist on the
necessity for there being two shafts to every colliery, so as to maintain a
circulation of air.
For several years Mr. Gurney resided at Hanacott Manor, near Launceston,
but he had also a house at Reeds, in Poughill by Bude, and the castle at the
latter place, which is usually let. He was knighted in 1863—a tardy
acknowledgment of his great services and extraordinary ability. The honour
came too late to really advantage him. That same year he was stricken with
paralysis, and therefore could do nothing in the way of scientific research
and invention. He was attended till his death by his only child, a daughter,
Miss Anna D. Gurney. He expired at Reeds on the 28th February, 1875, and
was buried at Launcells in the graveyard just under the south wall of the
nave.
Like Henry Trengrouse, so with Sir Goldsworthy Gurney—a man of genius
and perseverance, and one who benefited mankind, received no adequate
recognition in his lifetime. May posterity do for him, as for Trengrouse,
what his contemporaries denied him. Mr. Smiles vainly endeavoured to
refuse to credit him with the invention of the steam-blast; but the writer of
his life in the Dictionary of National Biography afforded him tardy justice.
"One soweth and another reapeth" is true of all inventors with few
exceptions. How much do we owe to Sir Goldsworthy! He was the pioneer
of locomotion by motors on our roads, the salvation of many lives by the
ventilation of coal-mines; he invented the system of heating mansions by
hot water, the flash-light for lighthouses, the steam-blast revolutionizing
locomotion by steam; he showed that houses could be built on concrete
foundations; he discovered the limelight, the oxyhydrogen blow-pipe: and
he was repaid with a barren knighthood when about to be struck down by
paralysis.

For his bounty,
There was no winter in't; an autumn 'twas,
That grew the more by reaping.
Antony and Cleopatra, v. 2.

THE JANES
The family of Jane, descended from the ancient family of Janes of
Worcestershire, was settled in Cornwall at an early date. It bore as its arms,
arg. a lion rampant az. between 3 escallops gules. It was settled in S.
Winnow early in the sixteenth century, and at the beginning of the following
century was at Lanhydrock and at Liskeard, at which latter place Thomas
Jane was mayor in 1621. His son Joseph Jane was M.P. for Liskeard in 1625
and 1640, and was mayor in 1631, 1635, and 1636. He married Loveday,
daughter of William Kekewich, in 1633. He was a whole-hearted Royalist,
and when the King was at Oxford, in 1643, he attended him there. In the
following year he was one of the Royal Commissioners in Cornwall, and
when Charles I came to Cornwall, in 1644, he entertained him in August in
his house at Liskeard.
During 1645 and 1646 he carried on a correspondence with Edward Hyde,
afterwards Earl of Clarendon, on the condition of the Royalist cause in
Cornwall. Liskeard had fallen into the hands of the Parliamentarians, but Sir
Ralph Hopton defeated Ruthven on Braddock Down on January 19th, 1643,
and recovered Liskeard for the King. Ruthven fled to Saltash, which he
fortified with much expedition.
When the Royal cause was lost the vengeance of the Parliament fell on
Joseph Jane, and he was nearly ruined by the heavy composition he was
forced to pay. In 1650, and again in 1654, he was named Clerk of the Royal
Council, but it was an empty honour; Charles II could pay nothing, and the
Council could only grumble and plot.
Jane attempted to answer Milton's Εικονοκλαστης in a work, Εικων
ακλαστος the Unbroken Image, but it was a poor performance. It was
published in 1651; Hyde says, however, in a letter to Secretary Nicholas,
"the King hath a singular good esteem both of Joseph Jane and of his book."
He had a son, William Jane, baptized at Liskeard, 22nd October, 1645, who
was educated at Westminster School, elected student of Christ Church,
Oxford, 1660, and graduated B.A. in 1664, and M.A. in 1667, and D.D. in

1674. After his ordination he was appointed lecturer at Carfax. He attracted
the attention of Henry Compton, who became Canon of Christ Church in
1669, by his sturdy loyalty and orthodoxy; and when Compton became
Bishop of Oxford, he chose Jane to preach the sermon at his consecration,
and he appointed him one of his chaplains.
In 1670 he became Canon of Christ Church, and was given the living of
Winnington in Essex. In 1679 he received a prebendal stall in S. Paul's
Cathedral and the archdeaconry of Middlesex. In May, 1680, he was
appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford. This rapid promotion
was due in part to the staunch loyalty of his father and the losses of his
family on that account, but also to his cool, businesslike abilities, and to his
learning, which though not profound was good.
In July, 1683, he framed the Oxford declaration in favour of Passive
Obedience, and committed the University to an opinion which subsequent
events were calculated to stultify.
As Green says: "The Cavaliers who had shouted for the King's return, had
shouted also for the return of a free Parliament. The very Chief Justice who
asserted at the trial of the Regicides, the general freedom of the King from
any responsibility to the Nation, asserted just as strongly that doctrine of
ministerial responsibility, against which Charles the First had struggled. It
was the desire of every royalist to blot out the very memory of the troubles
in which monarchy and freedom had alike disappeared, to take up again, as
if it had never been broken, the thread of our political history. But the point
at which even royalists took it up was not at the moment of the Tyranny, but
at the moment of the Long Parliament's first triumph, when that Tyranny
had been utterly undone. In his wish to revive this older claim of the
Crown, which the Long Parliament had for ever set aside, the young King
found himself alone. His closest adherents, his warmest friends, were
constitutional royalists of the temper of Falkland and Culpepper. Partisans
of an absolute monarchy, of such a monarchy as his grandfather had
dreamed of and his father had for a few years carried into practice, there
now were none."
The clergy in advocating passive obedience were actuated by the sense of
the miseries through which England had passed during the Great Rebellion

—better to submit under protest than to fly to arms again, better certainly to
submit even to what was deemed an injustice or inexpedient, when the
Crown was hedged about with restrictions, and when the ministers of the
Crown were responsible to the nation. There was, however, a noisy and
vehement party that went much beyond this, and one Filmer had worked the
theory of Divine Right of the Sovereign into a system, that was accepted by
the more crazy and immoderate of the old Tory party, mainly among the
clergy; and the Oxford declaration went a long way in this direction. Men
were beating about for a theory on which to base Government by a King,
they had not grasped the truth that the King represents the people, just as
does a President in a Republic, but with the superaddition of Divine
ratification and imparted grace for the task of ruling, by unction and
coronation. That the Kings of England had ever been elected, and that
coronation was the confirmation by God, through the Church, of the choice
of the people, had been forgotten through the prevalence of feudal ideas in
the Middle Ages. Filmer propounded his doctrine that the Divine Right
rested in primogeniture, and the rabid Tories, looking out for a theory,
snatched at this for want of a better.
On the very day on which Russell was put to death, the University of
Oxford adopted by a solemn public act, drawn up by Jane, this strange
doctrine, and ordered the political works of Buchanan, Milton, and Baxter
to be publicly burned in the court of the schools.
James II, in hopes of winning the Earl of Rochester to join the Papal
Church, desired a disputation between some Roman divines and some of
the Church of England, making no doubt that the former would be able to
confound the latter. The King bade Rochester to choose English divines,
excluding two only, Tillotson and Stillingfleet, dreading the latter as a
consummate master of all controversial weapons. Rochester selected Simon
Patrick and Jane. The conference took place at Whitehall on November
13th, 1686, but no auditor was suffered to be present save the King.
"The subject discussed," says Macaulay, "was the Real Presence. The
Roman Catholic divines took on themselves the burden of the proof. Patrick
and Jane said little, nor was it necessary that they should say much; for the
Earl himself undertook to defend the doctrine of his Church, and, as was his
habit, soon warmed with the conflict, lost his temper, and asked with great

vehemence whether it was expected that he should change his religion on
such frivolous grounds."
In 1685 Jane had been appointed to the deanery of Gloucester. He resigned
the archdeaconry of Middlesex in 1686, but retained the canonries of Christ
Church and S. Paul's till his death.
In 1688 James II had fled the kingdom, and the English nation and
Parliament had accepted William and Mary as King and Queen of England.
The whole fabric of Divine Right had crumbled to the ground. James had
reduced the theory to a reductio ad impossibile. This even the lay cavaliers
had recognized. "A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion
still," and it was so with the more fanatical Tories among the clergy. They
refused to take the oath of allegiance to William and Mary, and were thrust
out of their cathedral thrones and stalls and livings, and joined the sect of
the Nonjurors.
But Jane was not one of them. He had the good sense to acknowledge that
the theory he had taken up with some ardour was as impracticable as it was
absurd. It was cast in his teeth that he changed his opinion because he
desired to retain his benefices. One need not take this view of his conduct.
He sought William of Orange at Hungerford, and assured him of the
adhesion of the University of Oxford. His enemies said that he hinted at the
same time his readiness to accept the vacant bishopric in return for his
services in securing this sign of devotion. But nothing is more easy than to
make such an accusation, and there is no proof that he did this. However,
the fact that the framer of the Oxford declaration should have thrown over
the principles advocated therein, laid him open to attack, and a shower of
epigrams fell on him. His name Jane gave good opportunity to the wits to
liken him to Janus, who looked two ways at once. But he showed no further
desire to court the favour of William, and he opposed the projects for
Comprehension favoured by the latitudinarians, Tillotson and Burnet. In
1689 two Bills had been introduced into Parliament, a Toleration and a
Comprehension Bill. The former was to grant facilities of worship to the
Puritans and other Dissenters; the other was a Bill for altering the creed and
the formulas and ceremonies of the Church, removing from them whatever
might be distasteful to the Dissenters, so that all excuse might be taken

from them for separating themselves from the Church. Both the King and
Tillotson, who all knew was destined by the King to be Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Burnet, Bishop of Salisbury, were eager to get both passed.
Tillotson was so latitudinarian that his churchmanship was nebulous. Burnet
was the son of a Covenanter who had been hanged, had been brought up in
Presbyterianism, had found satisfaction in the ministry of Calvanist pastors
in Holland, and had not the faintest conception of the principles of the
Church or of its true organization.
The Earl of Nottingham advocated the Comprehension Bill and drafted
both. The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate. But it was
otherwise with the Comprehension Bill. The first clause in this dispensed all
the ministers in the Church from the necessity of subscribing the Thirty-
nine Articles. Then it was provided that any minister who had been
ordained after the Presbyterian fashion might be eligible to any benefice in
the Church without ordination by the bishop.
Then followed clauses providing that a clergyman might wear the surplice
or not as he thought fit; it left the sign of the cross optional in baptism; and
provided that the Eucharist need not be received kneeling. The concluding
clause was drawn in the form of a petition; it was proposed that the two
Houses should request the King and the Queen to issue a commission
empowering thirty divines of the Church of England to revise the liturgy,
the canons, and the constitution of the ecclesiastical courts, and to
recommend such alterations as might seem to them desirable.
But this Bill roused serious opposition. It was felt by all who had any
respect and feeling for the Church, as one in all times from the Apostolic
period, who regarded her claim to maintain the same faith, the same
Apostolic constitution and the same sacraments, as from the earliest age of
the Church, that this Comprehension Bill if it became law must of necessity
alienate them from such a body—drenched with Protestantism, till scarcely
a tinge of the old wine of Catholicism remained in her; and would leave
them no other course open than to shake off the dust of their feet against her
and join the Church of Rome, or the Church of the Nonjurors. Most of the
bishops who had taken the oaths to William and Mary were placed on the
Commission; and with them were joined twenty priests of note. Of these
twenty, Tillotson was the most important as expressing the mind and wishes

of the King. He was a latitudinarian, without a spark of feeling for historic
Christianity. With him went Stillingfleet, Dean of S. Paul's, Sharp, Dean of
Norwich, Patrick, Dean of Peterborough, Tenison, Rector of S. Martin's,
and Fowler. But conspicuous on the other side were Aldrich, Dean of Christ
Church, and Jane, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.
Early in October, 1689, the commissioners assembled in the Jerusalem
Chamber. But hardly had they met before Sprat, Bishop of Rochester,
started up and denied that the Commission was legal. There was a sharp
altercation, violent words were flung about, and Sprat, Jane, and Aldrich
withdrew. The strength of the Catholic party was broken, and the rest
agreed to sanction nearly all the changes advocated by those who desired to
entirely alter the character of the Church.
"They had before them," Burnet tells us, "all the exceptions that either the
Puritans before the war, or the Nonconformists since the Restoration, had
made to any part of the Church service; they had also many propositions
and advices that had been offered, at several times, by many of our bishops
and divines upon those heads; matters were well considered and freely and
calmly debated; and all digested into an entire correction of everything that
seemed liable to any just objection." To guide them, as Burnet admits in his
Triennial Visitation Charge of 1704, they were furnished with a great
collection of the books and papers in which the Dissenters had at different
times set forth their demands. The Commission was prepared to surrender
everything. The chanting of psalms, even in cathedrals, was to be done
away with. The lessons from the Apocrypha were to be abolished. The
Saints' days omitted from the Calendar, the form of absolution altered,
remission of sins to be removed from it "as not very intelligible." The cross
in baptism, the use of god-parents, the wearing of the surplice were to be
optional. Episcopal ordination was not to be required of the Ministry.
Kneeling to receive the Holy Communion was left to the choice of the
Communicant; the collects, as too concise, were to be blown out with pious
bombast.
It is possible that, as Calamy asserts, such alterations as these would have
brought over two-thirds of the English Dissenters to the Established
Church; but it is certain that it would have driven two-thirds of the members
of the Church, lay and clerical, out of her, as having forfeited her claim to

be a branch of the Catholic Church, and they would probably have swelled
the ranks of the Nonjurors, and made of that communion a body that would
have really represented the Church in England.
Owing to the secession of the Nonjurors, sees and benefices had been filled
with men who were in sympathy with the views of Tillotson and Burnet, or
who were only solicitous to live in the smiles of William. Little resistance,
if any, was to be expected from the episcopal bench.
When the Commission had concluded its labours, writs were issued
summoning the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. The clergy
were in a ferment throughout England. They thought that the heritage of
faith was going to be taken from them. The Toleration Act had removed the
disabilities of the Dissenters; they might build their conventicles and preach
what and when they liked; why, then, open the doors of the Church to admit
them as a flood to swamp the faithful?
When the Declaration of Toleration had been issued by James II, in 1687,
removing all disabilities from the Dissenters, on the sole understanding that
they should abstain from attacking the Churches of Rome and England,
their preachers found that they had nothing to say. They preferred to be
under disabilities rather than give up assaults on the Scarlet Woman,
Babylon, the Beast, and Prelacy, its shadow.
When Convocation was elected, it became evident to all that the bulk of the
priests were against all watering down of the formulas of the Church, her
faith, her ritual. The most important office in Convocation was that of
Prolocutor of the Lower House. The Prolocutor was to be chosen by the
members; Tillotson was proposed by the Protestant party as one whom the
King delighted to honour, and who it was well known would be appointed
to the Archbishopric of Canterbury when vacant.
On November 20th, Convocation met in Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster.
"Compton was in the chair. On the right and left those suffragans of
Canterbury who had taken the oath were ranged in gorgeous vestments of
scarlet and miniver. Below the table was assembled the crowd of presbyters.
Beveridge preached a Latin sermon, in which he warmly eulogized the
existing system, and yet declared himself favourable to a moderate reform."
In a word, he blew hot and cold with the same breath.

The Lower House listened, unstirred, cold and resolute. Dean Shays, put
forward by the members favourable to Comprehension, proposed Tillotson;
Jane was proposed on the other side. After an animated discussion, Jane
was elected by fifty-five votes to twenty-eight.
The Prolocutor was then formally presented to the Bishop of London, and
made, according to ancient usage, a Latin oration, in which he eulogized the
Church in England as maintaining the faith as delivered to the saints, and as
preserving all the marks of the Catholic Church throughout all ages and all
the world; and he very plainly declared that no alteration in a downward
direction would be tolerated; and he concluded with the significant and
well-known words, "Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari."
It soon became evident that the Lower House was absolutely determined
not to have the proposed alterations made; but the plan they adopted was to
shun the discussion of the recommendations made by the Commissioners,
so as not directly to reject what they knew lay very near to the King's heart.
With this object they adopted a system of tactics that in the end answered
their purpose.
"The law," says Macaulay, "as it had been interpreted during a long course
of years, prohibited Convocation from even deliberating on any
ecclesiastical ordinance without a previous warrant from the Crown. Such a
warrant, sealed with the Great Seal, was brought in form to Henry the
Seventh's Chapel by Nottingham. He at the same time delivered a message
from the King. His Majesty exhorted the assembly to consider calmly and
without prejudice the recommendations of the Commission, and declared
that he had nothing in view but the honour and advantage of the Protestant
religion in general and of the Church of England in particular.
"The bishops speedily agreed on an address of thanks for the royal message,
and requested the concurrence of the Lower House. Jane and his adherents
raised objection after objection. First they claimed the privilege of
presenting a separate address. When they were forced to waive this claim,
they refused to agree to any expressions which implied that the Church of
England had any fellowship with any other Protestant community.
Amendments and reasons were sent backward and forward. Conferences
were held at which Burnet on one side and Jane on the other were the chief

speakers. At last, with great difficulty, a compromise was made; and an
address, cold and ungracious compared with that which the bishops had
framed, was presented to the King in the Banqueting House. He dissembled
his vexation, returned a kind answer, and intimated a hope that the assembly
would now at length proceed to consider the great question of
Comprehension." But this was precisely what they were resolute not to
consider. They had made up their minds on the subject already, but they
were unwilling to fly too openly in the face of the King. As for trusting the
bishops to stand firm on any principle, the Lower House knew that this was
not to be expected. When had the bishops of the Established Church, since
the Reformation, ever shown firmness and united action on any principle,
except once, and that was to oppose general Toleration?
So soon as the clergy were again assembled, a fresh difficulty was started. It
was mooted that the Nonjuring bishops had not been summoned, and they
were to be regarded as bishops of the Catholic Church quite as certainly as
were those nominees of the King who had been intruded into their vacated
thrones.
Then it was complained that scurrilous pamphlets were hawked about the
streets, and the people were being worked into a temper of opposition to
Convocation. It was asked why Convocation should be called together to
emasculate the Church, if it was to be suffered to be jeered at by
pamphleteers.
Thus passed week after week. Christmas drew nigh. The bishops proposed,
during the recess, to have a committee to sit and prepare business. The
Lower House rejected the proposal; and it became plain to every one that it
was determined not to consider one of the suggested concessions to
Protestant prejudice.
Moreover, it soon became evident that the Dissenters themselves did not
desire Comprehension. Their ministers were petted and made much of by
the well-to-do yeomen and the rich merchants in country and town. They
lived on the fat of the land, snapped up wealthy widows and bought broad
acres. Whereas the needy country parson was hard pressed to wring the
tithes from his parishioners. While the walls of exclusion of Jericho stood,
the rams' horns brayed against them daily, and seven times on the Sabbath;

but so soon as the walls were prostrate, and every man could go up into the
city and take up his quarters there where he liked, the rams' horns would
have to be laid aside as superfluous lumber.
The King was disappointed and offended. What he did was to prorogue
Convocation for six weeks, and when those six weeks had expired, to
prorogue it again, and many years elapsed before it was again suffered to
assemble.
That Convocation of 1689 saved the Church of England from dissolution
into a formless, gelatinous, and invertebrate mass.
Burnet himself, though disappointed at the time, felt afterwards that the
determination of the Lower House had saved the Church at a time of crisis.
"There was," he says, "a very happy direction of the providence of God
observed in this matter. The Jacobite clergy who were then under
suspension were designing to make a schism in the Church, whensoever
they should be turned out and their places should be filled up by others.
They saw it would not be easy to make a separation upon a private and
personal account; they therefore wished to be furnished with more specious
pretences, and if we had made alterations in the Rubrics and other parts of
the Common Prayer, they would have pretended that they still stuck to the
ancient Church of England, in opposition to those who were altering it and
setting up new models. And, as I do firmly believe that there is a wise
providence that watches upon human affairs, and directs them—so I have
observed this in many instances relating to the Revolution ... by all the
judgments we could afterwards make, if we had carried a majority in the
Convocation for alterations, they would have done us more hurt than good."
Burnet was morally and intellectually incapable of seeing that it was a case
of conscience, of stantis vel cadentis ecclesiæ, and he attributed the motives
of the recalcitrant clergy to political prejudice.
On Jane's return to Oxford, he found another opportunity of defending the
Church, by framing the decree of 1690, which condemned the "Naked
Gospel" of Arthur Burge.
Jane had no hopes whatever of preferment from William, if he cared for it.
In 1696 it was even rumoured that the King meditated turning him out of

his professorship, because he had not signed the "Association for King
William." But on Anne's accession, all his fears were at an end. It would
appear from a letter of Atterbury that at Oxford the University desired to get
rid of him, because he neglected giving lectures on Divinity, and left the
work to be discharged by a subordinate named Smallridge.
In 1703 Bishop Trelawny appointed him to the Chancellorship of Exeter
Cathedral, which he exchanged for the precentorship in 1704, but he
retained his Regius professorship to the end. Undoubtedly it was a great
pleasure to him in the decline of his life to be back in the West Country.
He resigned the precentorship of Exeter in 1706, and died on the 23rd
February, 1707, at Oxford, and was buried in Christ Church.
The writer of his life in the Dictionary of National Biography sums up his
career with these words: "Jane was a clerical politician of a low type;
Calamy says of him, 'Though fond of the rites and ceremonies of the
Church, he was a Calvinist in the respect of doctrine,' and the pleasantest
thing recorded of him is his kindness shown at Oxford to the ejected
Presbyterian, Thomas Gilbert."
Calamy, as a Dissenter, was prejudiced against Jane; and I do not see that he
was of a low type of polemical cleric—because when he saw that the theory
of government he had embraced would not bear the test of experience, he
had the courage to reject it. Every man is liable to make mistakes; it is only
the brave man who can acknowledge that he has been mistaken.
Nor was Jane alone. Compton, Bishop of London, and several other
bishops, had appealed to William of Orange to come over and help the
people and the Church of England to be free from a tyrannous and
subversive despotism. The Earl of Danby, under whose administration, and
with his sanction, a law had been proposed, which, if it had passed, would
have excluded from Parliament and office all who refused to declare on
oath that they thought resistance to the King in every case unlawful—he
had seen the mistake as well, and had invited William over.
As Macaulay says: "This theory (of passive obedience) at first presented
itself to the Cavalier as the very opposite of slavish. Its tendency was to
make him not a slave, but a free man and a master. It exalted him by

exalting one whom he regarded as his protector, as his friend, as the head of
his beloved party, and of his more beloved Church. When Republicans were
dominant the Royalist had endured wrongs and insults which the restoration
of the legitimate government had enabled him to retaliate. Rebellion was
therefore associated in his imagination with subjection and degradation, and
monarchical authority with liberty and ascendancy. It had never crossed his
imagination that a time might come when a King, a Stuart, could prosecute
the most loyal of the clergy and gentry with more than the animosity of the
Rump or the Protector. That time had however arrived. Oppression speedily
did what philosophy and eloquence would have failed to do. The system of
Filmer might have survived the attacks of Locke; but it never recovered
from the death-blow given by James."
Jane changed his opinion indeed, but so did nearly the whole of the Tory
party and of the clergy of the Church.

THE PENNINGTONS
About seven years ago I attended the baptism of some bells for a new
church at Châteaulin, in Brittany. The ceremony was quaint, archaic, and
grotesque. The bells were suspended in the chancel "all of a row," dressed
in white frocks with pink sashes round their waists. To each was given god-
parents who had to answer for them, and each was actually baptized, after
which each was made to speak for itself. The ceremony evidently dates
from a period when the bell was regarded as anything but an inanimate
object—it had its responsibilities, it did its duties, it spoke in sonorous
tones. The very inscriptions on them to the present day prescribe something
of this character—invest each bell with a personality, as these:—

I sweetly tolling men do call
To taste of meats to feed the soul.

Also:—

I sound to bid the sick repent,
In hope of life when breath is spent.

As late as last century we find these:—

Both day and night I measure time for all,
To mirth and grief, to church I call.

And this in 1864:—

I toll the funeral knell,
I ring the festal day,
I mark the fleeting hours,
And chime the church to pray.

In the Western Counties bell-ringing was a favourite and delightful pastime.
Parties of ringers went about from parish to parish and rang on the church
bells, very generally for a prize—"a hat laced with gold." At Launcells,
where the bells are of superior sweetness, the ringers who rang for the
accession of George III rang for that of George IV, there not having been a
gap caused by death among them in sixty years. No songs are so popular
and well remembered at bell-ringers' feasts as those that record the
achievements of some who went before them in the same office. I give one
that has never before been printed, that can be traced back to 1810, but is
certainly older. It relates to the ringers of Egloshayle.

1. Come all you ringers good and grave,
Come listen to my peal,
I'll tell you of five ringers brave
That lived in Egloshayle.
They bear the sway in ring array,
Where'er they chance to go;

Good music of melodious bells,
'Tis their delight to show.

2. The foreman gives the sigan-al,
He steps long with the toe,
He casts his eyes about them all,
And gives the sign to go.
Away they pull, with courage full,
The heart it do revive,
To hear them swing, and music ring,
One, two, three, four, and five.

3. There's Craddock the cordwainer first,
That rings the treble bell;
The second is John Ellery,
And none may him excel;
The third is Pollard, carpenter;
The fourth is Thomas Cleave;
Goodfellow is the tenor man,
That rings them round so brave.

4. They went up to Lanlivery,
They brought away the prize;
And then they went to San-Tudy,
And there they did likewise.
There's Stratton men, S. Mabyn men,
S. Issey and S. Kew,
But we five lads of Egloshayle
Can all the rest outdo.

5. Now, to conclude my merry task,
I' th' Sovereign's health we join;
Stand every man and pass the flask,
And drink his health in wine.
And here's to Craddock, Ellery,
And here's to Thomas Cleave,
To Pollard and the tenor man
That rings them round so brave.

Humphry Craddock died in 1839; John Ellery in 1845, aged 85 years; John
Pollard in 1825, aged 71; Thomas Cleave in 1821, aged 78; John
Goodfellow in 1846, aged 80.
But for bell-ringers there must be bells; and who cast those that have been
in past years and are still pealed so merrily? A great many were cast by the
Penningtons of Lezant, and latterly at Stoke Climsland. The Penningtons
were an ancient family in Bodmin, resident there in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. Perhaps because not being landed gentry, perhaps because they
could not establish the right, they did not record their arms or give their
pedigree in the Heralds' Visitations. But the coat they bore or assumed was
a goodly one and simple, and therefore ancient—or, in fesse five lozenges
azure. Robert Pennington, of Bodmin, had two sons—John, baptized in
1595, and Bernard two years later. John married at Bodmin, and had seven
sons baptized there, one of whom was probably the progenitor of the
Penningtons of Lezant and Stoke Climsland. The pedigree of the Exeter
bell-founders of the family has not been made out; but that they belonged to
the stock that sprang up at Bodmin cannot be doubted.
Bernard Pennington, baptized in 1605, was Mayor of Bodmin in 1666, and
was a bell-founder. He died in 1674. His son Christopher Pennington,
baptized 1631, was also a bell-founder. He died in 1696. Christopher's son
of the same name was Mayor of Bodmin in 1726, 1727, and 1733. He died
in 1749. The Penningtons seem to have abandoned the bell-casting business
at the beginning of the nineteenth century; but, as Sir William Maclean
says, "between 1702 and 1818 these popular founders cast nearly five
hundred bells in the county of Devon, and, it is believed, as many in
Cornwall."[14]
There are sixty-six in Devon cast by John Pennington, of Exeter. The
earliest that is dated is at Payhembury, 1635, and the latest 1690 at
Kentisbeare. In 1669 T. P. and I. P. appear together on a bell at Merton, as if
they were partners; and ninety-five bear the trade-mark of Thomas and John
Pennington—large Roman initials with a bell in outline between. The
earliest is found at Eggesford, 1618. Sometimes they impressed the coin
then current. At Ottery S. Mary, 1671, and at S. Martin's, Exeter, 1675, they
used a satirical medal representing a pope and a king under one face,
another representing a cardinal and a bishop.

Besides two generations of Penningtons in Exeter, there was, as already
stated, Christopher Pennington, who cast a bell at Stowford dated 1710, and
one at Philleigh, in Roseland, with C. P. and the skeleton of a bell between,
as did the other Pennington. But his earliest known is at Fremington, 1702.
He was succeeded by FitzAnthony Pennington, of Lezant, who in 1768,
whilst crossing the Tamar in the Antony ferry with a bell he had cast to be
set up at Landulph, was drowned. He is buried in the tower of Landulph,
and on a mural tablet, beside his age, which was thirty-eight, and the date of
his death, April 30th, 1768, are these lines:—

Tho' boisterous winds and billows sore
Hath toss'd me to and fro,
By God's decree, in spite of both,
I rest now here below.

After his death we have the initials of the three brothers, John, Christopher,
and William. From their head-quarters, first at Lezant and then at Stoke
Climsland, they itinerated through Cornwall and Devon, casting bells
wherever they could find deep clay, and sufficient bell-metal was provided
by the parish that desired to have a bell in its tower, and generally the bell
was cast near the church for which it was intended.[15]
There are as many as 480 bells by this Cornish family from 1710-1818;
their latest are at Bridgerule and Bovey Tracey, at this last date.
William Pennington, son of the second Christopher, entered Holy Orders
and became vicar of Davidstowe. His progenitors had furnished the voices
calling to church from the village towers, and now this member sounded
within the church also calling to prayer and praise. His son, William
Pennington, purchased the site of the Priory, Bodmin, in 1788, having
rebuilt the house some twenty years previously under a lease. He was
mayor of Bodmin 1764, 1774, 1787, and died without issue in 1789,
bequeathing his possessions to his niece Nancy Hosken, daughter of his
sister Susanna, who had married Anthony Hosken, vicar of Bodmin and
rector of Lesneuth. Nancy married Walter Raleigh Gilbert, one of the
gentlemen of the bedchamber, and descended from the ancient Devonshire
family of Compton Castle. As Mr. Gilbert died without issue, the Priory

passed to his brother, and, consequently, wholly away from the
Penningtons.

DOCTOR GLYNN-CLOBERY
This amiable and good man was born at Helland, 5th August, 1719, and was
the son of Robert Glynn, by Lucy, fourth daughter of John Clobery, of
Bradstone, in Devon. A singular fatality attended this ancient family, that
possessed a very interesting Elizabethan mansion. John Clobery had eight
daughters and only one son and heir, and that son died without issue, and
only three of the daughters married. Lucy had but the one son, Robert
Glynn, and the fifth daughter, Mary, also only a son; and as these sons died
unmarried, the estate passed to remote connections.
Robert Glynn assumed his mother's name and succeeded to the estates on
the death of his uncle, William Clobery. Robert Glynn was an M.D. and a
Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, where he resided. He was a simple-
minded man, and was completely taken in by the Chatterton forgeries, and
for some time strenuously defended them. On which account Horace
Walpole speaks of him with great contempt as "an old doting physician and
Chattertonian at Cambridge." "I neither answer Dr. Glynn, nor a poissarde.
Twenty years ago I might have laughed at both, but they are too small fry,
and I am too old to take notice of them. Besides, when leviathans and
crocodiles and alligators tempest and infest the ocean, I shall not go a-
privateering in a cockboat against a smuggling pinnace." That was in
August, 1792.
Dr. Glynn was very fond of seeing young gownsmen at his rooms, and had
tea for them and conversed with them; but he never drank tea himself. C.
Carlyon says: "His custom was to walk about the room and talk most
agreeably upon such topics as he thought likely to interest his company,
which did not often consist of more than two or three persons. As soon as
the tea-table was set in order, and the boiling water ready for making the
infusion, the fragrant herb was taken, not from an ordinary tea-caddy, but
from a packet, consisting of several envelopes curiously put together, in the
centre of which was the tea. Of this he used, at first, as much as would
make a good cup for each of the party; and, to meet fresh demands, I
observed that he invariably put an additional teaspoonful in the teapot; the

excellence of the beverage, thus prepared, ensuring him custom. He had
likewise a superior knack of supplying each cup with sugar from a
considerable distance, by a jerk of the hand which discharged it from the
sugar-tongs into the cup with unerring certainty, as he continued his walk
around the table, scarcely seeming to stop whilst he performed these and
other requisite evolutions of the entertainment."
Dr. Glynn or Clobery would only eat when his appetite summoned him
imperiously for a meal. A faithful old servant was in constant attendance
upon him, and, whenever his master called out for food, he was prepared to
set before him some plain dish and a pewter of porter.
Nothing would induce the doctor to believe that gout was hereditary. He
once took occasion to mark this with peculiar emphasis, when a writer
signing himself W. A. A. consulted him in his first attack, then in his
nineteenth year. He observed, "My young friend, you call this gout! Pooh,
pooh! You have not yet earned the costly privilege; you must drink your
double hogshead first."
"But my father, sir; it is in my blood by right of inheritance."
His reply was, "You talk nonsense. You may as well tell me you have a
broken leg in your veins by inheritance."
One Sunday morning he met an undergraduate of his acquaintance on his
way to S. Mary's Church, and said to him—
"Well, my master, and whither are you going?"
"I am going to S. Mary's," replied the young gownsman.
"And who is the preacher to-day?"
"I don't know."
"Not know who is the preacher? Then, upon my word, you have no small
merit in taking pot-luck at S. Mary's."
During a long illness the good old doctor attended a poor man, of whose
family party a pert, talkative magpie made one; and as the patient observed
that Dr. Glynn always, when paying a visit, had some joke with the bird, he

thought that perhaps the doctor might like to possess it. Accordingly, when
the poor man was well again, with overflowing gratitude, but with no
money to pay a bill, he thought he could do no better than make his kind
friend a present of the magpie; and sure enough the prisoner in its cage was
conveyed to his rooms in King's College. There the bearer met with a very
kind reception, but was desired to carry back the bird with him. "I cannot,"
said the doctor, "take so good care of it as can you; but I shall consider it
mine, and I entrust it to you to keep for me; and, as long as it lives, I will
pay you half-a-crown weekly for its maintenance."
The anecdote was turned into verse by Mr. Plumtre, and is given in
Gunning's Reminiscences of Cambridge. When Dr. Glynn assumed the
name of Clobery he assumed also the Clobery arms—three bats; and no
animal could better symbolize the man, with his curious blindness to what
was obvious to most—that the Chatterton papers were forgeries. He went
down to Bristol on purpose to examine the chest with its MS. contents. The
fact that in one of them the invention of heraldry was ascribed to Hengest,
and that of painted glass to an unknown monk in the reign of King Edmund,
did not disturb his faith. He entered into vehement controversy with George
Steevens, in his endeavour to establish their genuineness. He waxed hot
over it, and it took a good deal to put Glynn-Clobery out of his usual
placidity and coolness.
He set up to be a poet. His Seatonian prize poem on the "Day of Judgment"
was thought much of at the time. Previously Christopher Smart had won the
prize over and over again. Glynn wrested the laurels from him. This is not
saying much; his poem was not much better, and not at all worse, than the
general run of these prize poems. But it had the advantage of pleasing, and
has been repeatedly republished, and has even obtained for the old doctor a
niche in the temple of Poesy—a notice in a Biographical Dictionary of
Poets.
He died at Cambridge on February 8th, 1800, and at his own desire was
buried at midnight in King's College Chapel.

THREE MEN OF MOUSEHOLE
In the year 1849, Captain Allen Gardiner, an intrepid sailor and a religious
enthusiast, formed the plan of converting the natives of Terra del Fuego and
of Patagonia. He knew nothing of their language or habits, nothing indeed
of their land. He was, however, possessed with the idea that he was called to
be an apostle of those bleak and fog-wrapped regions. Of all inhabited spots
on the earth, the Terra del Fuego is the most miserable. Cold, whirlwinds
and tempests of snow and hail, frozen fogs with but rare glimpses of
sunshine, form its climate; and the natives are utterly barbarous, apparently
the refugees from the Continent, driven out of the somewhat less desolate
peninsula of Patagonia by the giants that now possess it, and in their misery
sinking to the lowest depths to which man can descend.
During a year or more Captain Gardiner's efforts to rouse interest in his
scheme, sufficient interest to make the money flow, had met with no
success. He applied to the Moravian Brethren to take up the mission; they
declined. Then he placed the matter before the Scottish Establishment, but
the canny Scotchmen would nae think ov it. At last a lady at Cheltenham
furnished him with £700, and this, with £300 from his own private purse,
formed all the resources on which he acted. As he could not afford to
charter a schooner, he had four open boats built for him at Liverpool. Two
of these were launches of considerable size, to which he gave the names of
the Speedwell and the Pioneer; the other two were small dinghies, to be
used as tenders or luggage boats.

DOROTHY PENTREATH of MOUSEHOLE in CORNWALL
the last Person who could converse in the Cornish language?

Captain Gardiner now looked about him for enthusiasts like himself to
share the perils and the possible glories of spreading the gospel over Terra
del Fuego, in which not a cross had been planted nor the Word of God
proclaimed.
He secured the services of a surgeon, a missionary, and from Mousehole,
near Penzance, drew three sturdy Cornish sailors, or fishermen—John
Pearce, John Badcock, and John Davy Bryant—who little knew what risks
they ran.

The party left England on September 27th, 1850, in the ship Ocean Queen,
bound from Liverpool to California, taking with them their boats and six
months' provisions. They were landed on the inhospitable foreign shore on
the 5th December.
Pinkerton, in his Modern Geography, thus graphically describes the scene
of their projected labours:—
"A broken series of wintry islands, called Terra del Fuego, from two or
more volcanoes which vomit flames amidst the dreary wastes of ice. Terra
del Fuego is divided by narrow straits into eleven islands of considerable
size. In their zeal for Natural History, Sir Joseph Banks and Doctor
Solander had nearly perished amid the snows of this horrible land; but they
found a considerable variety of plants. The natives are of a middle stature,
with broad flat faces, high cheeks, and flat noses, and they are clothed in the
skins of seals. The villages consist of miserable huts in the form of a sugar
loaf, and the only food seems to be shell-fish."
The lack of common prudence, of common sense, exhibited by Captain
Gardiner is astounding. Here was he, with a party whom he had beguiled to
attend him, dropped in this barren country wrapped in snow and fog,
without an interpreter, and consequently without the means of
communication with the inhabitants should they come across them. From
the moment that the sails of the Ocean Queen disappeared behind the rocks
on her way to double Cape Horn, the eye of no civilized man ever saw these
brave sailors and missionaries alive. All that is known of them has been
gathered from the papers subsequently found.
Seven men in all, with four open boats, were left on the most inhospitable
coast that could be found, where there is little food to be got, where
vegetation is scarce. Their resolution was heroic, but the whole enterprise
was madness.
They soon found that the Pioneer leaked. In several short voyages from
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.

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.
Jeffery, at the age of eighteen, had entered in 1807 on board the Lord
Nelson privateer of Plymouth; but eight days after, when the privateer had
put into Falmouth, was pressed by an officer of the Recruit, which soon
after sailed for the West Indies. Jeffery was a skulking, ill-conditioned
fellow, who was caught stealing a bottle of rum and was punished for it, and
by his own acknowledgment, on December 10th, went to the spruce-beer
cask and drew off about two quarts. A shipmate saw and informed against
Jeffery, and Captain Lake ordered the sergeant of marines to "put him in the
black list," and he had the word Thief painted on a bit of canvas and affixed
to his back.
Edward Spencer, master, told his captain that the fellow was no good on
board, and that the best thing that could be done with him was to put him on
shore.
On the 13th December the Recruit was passing the island of Sombrero, that
lies between the islet of Anyada in the Puerta Virgin Islands and that of
Anguella in the Lesser Antilles group. It was towards evening between five
and six of the afternoon. Captain Lake then ordered Jeffery to be brought on

deck, and saying that he would not keep such a worthless scoundrel on the
ship, gave orders to Lieutenant Mould to have out the boat and convey
Jeffery on shore. Neither the captain nor any of the crew knew that the
island was desert and waterless. They believed that it was inhabited by a
few fishermen, and in the evening light mistook some rocks on shore for
houses. Accordingly, a little before 6 p.m., Jeffery was placed in a boat
along with the second lieutenant of the brig, Richard Cotten Mould, a
midshipman, and four sailors, and landed on Sombrero, without shoes to his
feet, or any other clothes than those on his back, and without even a biscuit
for food.
Lieutenant Mould, seeing that the lad's feet were cut and bleeding by
stepping on the sharp-pointed rocks, begged a pair of shoes for him from
one of the seamen, and gave him his knife and a couple of handkerchiefs, to
be made use of as signals, and advised him to keep a sharp look-out for
passing vessels. Then he pulled back to the Recruit.
Captain Lake was possibly suffering from what would now be termed a
"swollen head." His father, a gallant officer, but of no great descent, for his
services in the Maharatta war had been created Baron Lake of Delhi and of
Aston Clinton, Bucks, in 1804, and had received thanks for his services by
both Houses of Parliament. His elder brother had married the sister of
Charles, Earl of Whitworth, and his father had been granted an
augmentation of arms, a fish naiant in fesse, to represent the fish of the
Great Mogul, pierced with shafts.
Lake was a hot-headed man, and he had just dined. That he intended to
commit an act of barbarity is far from the truth. Jeffery was a nuisance of
which he desired to free the ship, and the opportunity offered, and he took
advantage of it without stopping to inquire what was the nature of the island
on which he left the young man.
On reaching the Leeward Islands, where Sir Alexander Cochrane was in
command of the squadron, that officer heard of what Lake had done,
promptly reprimanded him, and ordered him to return to Sombrero and
fetch off Jeffery.
On February 11th, 1809, the Recruit anchored off the island, and her
officers landed and searched it over, but neither Jeffery nor his body could

be found. A pair of trousers and a tomahawk handle were the only vestiges
of humanity discoverable. The island, however, abounded in turtle and wild
birds and their eggs, but the water was brackish.
For eight days, in fact, Jeffery had wandered over the hump of rock and
sand that constituted the islet of Sombrero, and lived on limpets and eggs,
and drunk the water collected in fissures of the rock. He does not seem to
have been given flint and steel, and the means of making a fire, so that he
could not feast on turtle and puffins; but, indeed, there were no trees,
consequently hardly any fuel available for cooking a dinner.
He saw several vessels pass, and indeed Sombrero was in the track of
merchant vessels, but he failed to make them observe his signals. At length,
on the morning of the ninth day, the schooner Adams, of Marblehead,
Massachusetts, John Dennis master, came to the island and took the fellow
off, and landed him at Marblehead, where he worked at a forge. Little
conscious that he was like to be made political capital of and to become of
consequence, he did not even trouble to write home to Polperro to announce
his safety and his whereabouts.
Sir A. Cochrane was satisfied that the man could not have died on
Sombrero, as his body was not discovered, nor was he likely to die on an
island abounding in turtles and eggs; he concluded that he had been carried
away by one of the many ships that passed. He convinced himself that
Captain Lake had been guilty of an illegal act, but had not desired to do one
that was cruel, and he hoped that the matter would be forgotten after he had
administered a reprimand.
But the story got about. It reached England. A busybody, Charles M.
Thomas, who had been purser on board H.M. sloop Demarara, but had
been imprisoned on suspicion that he had defrauded the Government, wrote
home to Mr. C. Bathurst, brother of the M.P. for Bristol, to this effect: "I
deem it a duty I owe to humanity, to inform you that Captain Lake, when
commander of the Recruit, set a man belonging to that vessel on shore at
Sombrero, an uninhabited island in the Atlantic Archipelago, where he died
through hunger, or otherwise, for more was never heard of him. This was
known to Sir A. Cochrane, who suffered this titled murderer to escape, and
he is now in command of the Ulysses." The letter was dated March 24th,

1809, more than a year after Jeffery had been left on Sombrero. Its purport
was obvious enough. Thomas wanted to be revenged on Cochrane for
looking into the matter of his alleged frauds.
The fat was now in the fire. Sir Francis Burdett took the matter up, the
Radicals throughout the country made immense capital out of the starving
to death of a poor seaman by a member of a noble family. The case was
kept perseveringly before the public, so that the Government was
constrained to issue orders for a strict inquiry to be made as to whether
Jeffery was still alive or dead.
Presently an account was received, purporting to be by Jeffery, giving
information relative to his rescue and his condition in America; but as to
this was appended a cross for his signature, whereas Jeffery was known to
have been able to write, the public were led to suspect that this was a
fabrication contrived by Lake's relatives and friends.
To settle the matter finally, a ship was despatched to bring Jeffery home,
and he arrived at Portsmouth in October, 1810, three years after his
adventure in Sombrero, and to find himself the hero of a party. On October
22nd he attended at the Admiralty, where he received his discharge, and had
the "R" taken off his name, by which he became entitled to all arrears of
pay. The family of Captain Lake made him liberal compensation for the
very slight hardships he had undergone, but which in Jeffery's own account
and in that of his partisans were magnified enormously.
On the 5th and 6th of February, 1810, a court-martial assembled on board
the Gladiator at Portsmouth to try Captain Lake for having abandoned a
seaman on a desert and uninhabited island. Captain Lake complained that
the witnesses whom he might have summoned to speak for him were away
in various ships in different parts of the world. He produced a letter signed
by all the officers of the Ulysses, the vessel he then commanded, protesting
that he was humane and incapable of doing an act of wanton cruelty.
At this time it was not known whether Jeffery was alive or dead. Captain
Lake made a manly defence. "You will be pleased to recollect the evidence
of Mr. Spencer, the chief witness on the part of the prosecution, on this
point. He himself advised me to get the man out of the ship, and I declare
that, by landing him, I thought he would be made more sensible of his want

of conduct, and reform in future. I was persuaded at the time that the island
was inhabited; in addition to which, I cannot but suppose it within your
knowledge that the island is not out of reach of human assistance. I need not
state that it is within the track of vessels on particular destinations, and
which frequently pass within hail of the island. Jeffery found this to be the
case, and there is no reason to doubt but that he was taken off the island; for
on a search being made for him there afterwards, one of the witnesses states
expressly that not a trace of him was to be found, which I cannot conceive
could have been the case if he had perished there, as is most unwarrantably
asserted by Thomas. Gentlemen, I have no doubt he was conveyed to
America in perfect safety. I myself verily believe he is in England at this
moment, consigned (as it were) to the merchants who, perhaps, are keeping
him concealed till the edict of the court-martial is known, and then he may
be let loose upon me, to seek a compensation in damages by an action at
law. The place of his concealment, however, has hitherto eluded the
diligence of my agents."
He appealed to the official report made to the Admiralty at the time by Sir
A. Cochrane: "Be pleased to consider attentively the statement made by this
official communication; contrast it with the letter of Thomas, and then
decide whether he was warranted in asserting that Robert Jeffery had
perished through the inhumanity of one whom he has thought proper to
describe as a 'titled murderer.'"
The court-martial pronounced sentence: "Pursuant to an order from the
Right Honourable Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, dated 3rd
February instant, and directed to the President, setting forth that a letter had
been addressed to their Lordships by the Right Hon. Charles Bathurst,
enclosing a letter to him from Mr. Charles Morgan Thomas, dated 24th
March, 1809 ... and having heard evidence produced in support of the
charge, and by the said Hon. Warwick Lake in his Defence ... the Court is of
opinion, That the charge has been proved against the said Hon. Warwick
Lake, and doth adjudge him to be dismissed from His Majesty's service; and
the said Hon. Warwick Lake is hereby dismissed from His Majesty's
service."
In 1836 the Hon. Warwick Lake succeeded to the viscounty, and died in
1848, leaving behind him only two daughters, one unmarried, the other

married to a Gloag. He was certainly very hardly treated, and as certainly an
utterly worthless scoundrel was exalted into a hero. Jeffery returned to
Polperro, where he was received with curiosity. There his antecedents were
well known, and the value of his statements of terrible privation taken for
what they were worth. Elsewhere he received an enthusiastic ovation. He
hired himself out to be "run" by speculators at some of the minor theatres in
London as "Jeffery the Sailor." After a few months he returned to Polperro
with money enough in his pocket to enable him to purchase a small
schooner for the coasting trade.
The speculation did not answer his expectations. He fell into consumption,
and died in 1820, leaving a wife and daughter in great penury. He was a
mean, not to say a despicable creature, who was used for political purposes,
and when he had served these was allowed to drop into his proper
insignificance.
Authorities are a Life of Robert Jeffery, published by B. Crosby, 1811. An
Account of R. Jeffery, published by J. Pitt, 1811.
A Narrative of the Life of Robert Jeffery, with portrait, 1810.
Couch, J.: History of Polperro, edited by J. Q. Couch, 1870.
James's Naval History, 1876, Vol. IV.
Cobbett's Political Register, 1810, pp. 396-415, 459-464.
Cobbett gives a report of the courts-martial.
The story was also given in Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, 1848, pp. 147-
51.

ADMIRAL RICHARD DARTON THOMAS
Richard Darton Thomas was born at Saltash on 2nd June, 1777, son of
Charles and Mary Thomas of that place. Drinking in the sea air, living in
the midst of sailors and fisher-folk, he early took a fancy for the sea, and
entered as an able-bodied seaman in the Royal Navy, in 1790, at the age of
thirteen. His intelligence, his pleasant manners, won the regard of his
officers and he was raised to be midshipman in 1792, and became master's
mate in the ensuing year. He was in the Boyne under Sir John Jervis when
Martinique was captured, and on the return of the Boyne to England, he was
on board when that vessel was burnt at Spithead, 1st May, 1795. The
marines had been exercising and firing on the windward side, and it is
supposed that some ignited paper of the cartridges flew through the quarter-
galley into the admiral's cabin and communicated with the papers lying
about on the table. It was at 11 a.m. that the fire broke out, the flames
bursting through the poop before the fire was discovered, and it spread so
rapidly that in less than half an hour this fine ship, in spite of every exertion
of the officers and crew, was in a blaze fore and aft. As soon as the fire was
discovered by the fleet, all the boats of the ships proceeded to the assistance
of the Boyne, and the whole of the numerous crew, except eleven, were
saved.
The Boyne's guns being loaded went off as they became heated, discharging
their shot among the shipping, whereby two men were killed and one
wounded on board the Queen Charlotte. At about half-past one the Boyne
burnt from her cables and drifted to the east with a streamer of fire and
smoke pouring from her; she then grounded and continued to burn till six
o'clock, when the fire reached her magazine and she blew up. This, as
Captain Brenton wrote, "offered one of the most magnificent sights that can
be conceived. The afternoon was perfectly calm and the sky clear; the
flames which darted from her in a perpendicular column of great height
were terminated by an opaque white cloud like a round cap, while the air
was filled with fragments of wreck in every direction, and the stump of the
foremast was seen above the smoke descending to the water."

We next find Thomas serving as lieutenant on board the Excellent,
commanded by Captain Collingwood, in the battle off Cape S. Vincent. It
was intended that the Spanish fleet should join that of Brest, if this latter
could get out, then if joined by the Dutch fleet, cover the transports that
would convey an invading army to England. But, as Touchstone wisely
said, there is "much virtue in If." Sir John Jervis fell in with the Spanish
fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line, on February 14th, 1797, as it had just
issued from Cadiz. The English had only fifteen men-of-war; but the greater
part of the Spanish crew were about equally destitute of seamanship and
spirit, and Nelson had said just before the breaking out of the war with
Spain, that if her fleet were no better now than when it acted in alliance
with us it would "soon be done for." By breaking the line, by battering and
boarding, four Spanish ships of the line, including one of 112 guns, were
taken; and all the rest were driven into Cadiz and there blockaded.
During the action the Excellent, on which Richard Thomas was lieutenant,
was acknowledged by Nelson to have taken a very distinguished share, and
to have rendered him the most effectual support in the hottest part of the
battle, as will be seen by the following note which he addressed to her
commander, and an extract from his own account of the transactions in
which he himself was personally engaged.
His note ran: "Dear Collingwood,—A friend in need is a friend indeed."
Nelson's account of the assistance he received from the Excellent runs thus:
—
"At this time (about 2.15 p.m.) the Salvador del Mundo and San Esidero
dropped astern, and were fired into, in a masterly style, by the Excellent,
Captain Collingwood, who compelled the San Esidero to hoist English
colours; and I thought the large ship, the Salvador del Mundo, had also
struck, but Captain Collingwood, disdaining the parade of taking possession
of a vanquished enemy, most gallantly pushed up, with every sail set, to
save his old friend and messmate, who was to appearance in a critical state,
the Blenheim being ahead, the Culloden crippled and astern. The Excellent
ranged up within two feet of the San Nicholas, giving a most tremendous
fire. The San Nicholas luffing up, the San Josef fell on board her; and the

Excellent passing on for the Santa Trinidada, the Captain resumed her
station abreast of these, and close alongside."
The Excellent, in fact, succeeded in getting close under the lee of the
Santissima Trinidada, mounting 130 guns, and engaged her for nearly an
hour, assisted by the Orion, the Irresistible, and the Blenheim. The huge
vessel was compelled to haul down her colours, but the approach of thirteen
other Spanish ships prevented her opponents from profiting by the
advantage they had gained. The total loss on the Excellent amounted to
eleven men killed and a dozen wounded.
We need not follow Richard D. Thomas through his various changes of
ships. He was mainly with Collingwood, whose flag, as Rear-Admiral of
the White, was flying on board the Barfleur, of ninety-eight guns. With him
he remained on Channel service till the suspension of hostilities in 1802. He
was given the rank of commander in 1803, when in the Chichester off
Halifax.
Returning from Nova Scotia, as a passenger on board the packet Lady
Hobart, commanded by Captain Fellowes, he experienced shipwreck and
terrible hardships, by the vessel running on an iceberg.
After giving an account of his sailing from Halifax, June 22nd, 1803, and
the capture of a French schooner laden with salt fish on the 26th, Captain
Fellowes says:—
"Tuesday, 28th June.—Blowing hard from the westward, with a heavy sea
and hazy weather, with intervals of thick fog. About 1 a.m. the ship, then
going by the log at the rate of seven miles an hour, struck against an island
of ice with such violence that several of the crew were pitched out of their
hammocks. Being roused out of my sleep by the suddenness of the shock, I
instantly ran upon the deck. The helm being put hard aport, the ship struck
again about the chest-tree, then swung round on her keel, her stern-post
being stove in, and her rudder carried away before we could succeed in an
attempt to haul her off. At this time the island of ice appeared to hang quite
over the ship, possessing a high peak, which must have been at least twice
the height of our masthead; and we suppose the length of the island to have
been from a quarter to half a mile.

"The sea was now breaking over the ice in a dreadful manner, the water
rushing in so fast as to fill the hold in a few minutes. Hove the guns
overboard, cut away the anchors from the bows, got two sails under the
ship's bottom, kept both pumps going, and baling with buckets at the main
hatchway, in the hope of preventing her from sinking; but in less than a
quarter of an hour she settled down in her forechains in the water.
"Our situation was now become most perilous. Aware of the danger of a
moment's delay in hoisting out the boats, I consulted Captain Thomas of the
Navy, and Mr. Bargus, my master, as to the propriety of making any further
attempts to save the ship."
Both declared that nothing effectual could be done to the vessel herself, and
that, as every moment was precious, the boats should be got out and
manned. Of these there were two, the cutter and the jolly-boat, and the
ladies were placed in the former.
Captain Fellowes expressed himself afterwards warmly of the ability and
readiness with which Captain Thomas aided him. In bringing the ladies into
the cutter, one of them, Miss Cottenham, was so terrified that she sprang
from the wreck and pitched in the bottom of the boat with considerable
violence. This accident might have been serious, but happily she was not
injured.
"The few provisions which had been saved from the men's berths were then
put into the boats. By this time the main deck forward was under water, and
nothing but the quarter-deck appeared; I then ordered my men into the
boats.
"The ship was sinking fast, and I called to the men to haul up and receive
me, intending to drop into the cutter from the end of the trysail boom.
"The sea was running so high at the time we hoisted out the boats that I
scarcely flattered myself we should get them out safely; and, indeed,
nothing but the steady and orderly conduct of the crew could have enabled
us to effect so difficult and hazardous an undertaking; it is a justice to them
to observe that not a man in the ship attempted to make use of the liquor,
which every one had in his power.

"We had scarce quitted the ship when she suddenly gave a heavy lurch to
port, and then went down foremost. I cannot attempt to describe my own
feelings, or the sensations of my people, exposed as we were, in two small
open boats, upon the great Atlantic Ocean, bereft of all assistance but that
which our own exertions, under Providence, could afford us, we narrowly
escaped being swallowed up in the vortex.
"We rigged the foremast, and prepared to shape our course in the best
manner that circumstances would admit of, the wind blowing from the
precise point on which it was necessary to sail to reach the nearest land. An
hour had scarcely elapsed from the time the ship struck till she foundered.
The distribution of the crew had already been made in the following order,
which we afterwards preserved:—
"In the cutter were embarked three ladies and myself, Captain Richard
Thomas; the French commander of the schooner; the master's mate, gunner,
steward, carpenter, and eight seamen; in all eighteen people, whose weight,
together with the provisions, brought the boat's gunwale down to within six
or seven inches of the water. From this confined space some idea may be
formed of our crowded state; but it is scarcely possible for the imagination
to conceive the extent of our sufferings in consequence.
"In the jolly-boat were embarked Mr. Samuel Bargus, master; Lieut.-
Colonel George Cocks, of the 1st Regiment of Guards;[16] the boatswain,
sailmaker, and seven seamen—in all eleven persons.
"The only provisions, etc., we were enabled to save consisted of between
forty and fifty pounds of biscuits, one vessel containing five gallons of
water, a small jug of the same, and part of a small barrel of spruce beer; one
demi-john of rum, a few bottles of port wine, with two compasses, a
quadrant, a spy-glass, a small tin mug, and a wine-glass. The deck lantern,
which had a few spare candles in it, had been likewise thrown into the boat;
and the cook having had the precaution to secure the tinder-box and some
matches that were kept in a bladder, we were afterwards enabled to steer by
night.
"The wind was now blowing strong from the westward, with a heavy sea,
and the day just dawned. Estimating ourselves to be at the distance of 350
miles from S. John's, Newfoundland, with a prospect of a continuance of

westerly winds, it became necessary to use the strictest economy. I
represented to my companions in distress that our resolution, once made,
ought on no account to be changed, and that we must begin by suffering
privations, which I foresaw would be greater than I ventured to explain. To
each person, therefore, were served out half a biscuit and a glass of wine,
which was the only allowance for the ensuing twenty-four hours, all
agreeing to leave the water untouched as long as possible."
On the following day even this small allowance had to be contracted, in
consequence of the biscuit being much damaged by salt water during the
night. "Soon after daylight we made sail, with the jolly-boat in tow, and
stood close-hauled to the northward and westward, in the hope of reaching
the coast of Newfoundland or of being picked up by some vessel. Passed
two islands of ice. We now said prayers, and returned thanks to God for our
deliverance."
It was now the 4th July. The sufferings of those in the boats became
excessive. The commander of the French schooner that had been captured
went mad, and threw himself overboard. One of the French prisoners
became so outrageous that it was found necessary to lash him to the bottom
of the boat.
At last, on this same day, the 4th July, after seven days of dreadful privation
and incessant storm, they reached Conception Bay, in the Avalon Peninsula,
Newfoundland. They had been reduced to a quarter of a biscuit per diem
and a wine-glass of port wine and spirit, and then of water.
Captain Fellowes says: "Overpowered by my own feelings, and impressed
with the recollections of our sufferings and the sight of so many deplorable
objects, I promised to offer up our solemn thanks to heaven for our
miraculous deliverance. Every one cheerfully assented, and as soon as I
opened the Prayer-book there was an universal silence. A spirit of devotion
was singularly manifested on this occasion, and to the benefits of a religious
sense in uncultivated minds must be ascribed that discipline, good order,
and exertion, which even the sight of land could scarcely produce.
"The wind having blown with great violence from off the coast, we did not
reach the landing-place at Island Cove till four o'clock in the evening. All
the women and children in the village, with two or three fishermen (the rest

of the men being absent), came down to the beach, and appearing deeply
affected at our wretched situation, assisted in carrying us up the craggy
rocks, over which we were obliged to pass to get to their habitations.
"The small village afforded neither medical aid nor fresh provisions, of
which we stood so much in need, potatoes and salt fish being the only food
of the inhabitants. I determined, therefore, to lose no time in proceeding to
S. John's, having hired a small schooner for that purpose. On the 7th July
we embarked in three divisions, placing the most infirm in the schooner, the
master's mate being in charge of the cutter, and the boatswain of the jolly-
boat; but such was the exhausted state of nearly the whole party, that the
day was considerably advanced before we could get under way.
"Towards dusk it came on to blow hard in squalls off the land, when we lost
sight of the cutter, and were obliged to come to anchor outside S. John's
Harbour. We were under great apprehensions for the cutter's safety, as she
had no grapnel, and lest she should be driven out to sea, but at daylight we
perceived her and the schooner entering the harbour.
"The ladies, Colonel Cooke, Captain Thomas, and myself, having left the
schooner when she anchored, notwithstanding the badness as well as
extreme darkness of the night, reached the shore about midnight. We
wandered for some time about the streets, there being no house open at that
late hour, but were at length admitted into a small tenement, where we
passed the remainder of the night on chairs, there being but one miserable
bed for the ladies. Early on the following day, our circumstances being
made known, hundreds of people crowded down to the landing-place.
Nothing could exceed their surprise on seeing the boats that had carried
twenty-nine persons such a distance over a boisterous sea, and when they
beheld so many miserable objects, they could not conceal their emotions of
pity and concern."
It was found that the greatest circumspection had to be used in
administering nourishment to those who came on shore. They were so much
frost-bitten, moreover, as to require constant surgical assistance. Many had
lost their toes, and they were constrained to remain at S. John's till they
were in a fit state to be removed to Halifax.

On the 11th July Captain Fellowes, with Captain Thomas, and Lieutenant-
Colonel Cooke, engaged the cabin of a small vessel, bound for Oporto, so
as to return to England.
When Captain Fellowes sent in his report on the loss of the Lady Hobart, he
added a postscript: "I regret that, in the hurry of drawing up this narrative, I
should have omitted to make particular mention of Captain Richard
Thomas, r.n., from whose great professional skill and advice throughout
our perilous voyage I derived the greatest assistance."
In December, 1803, Captain Thomas commissioned the Ætna bomb, and
soon after joined the fleet under Lord Nelson in the Mediterranean station,
where he was very actively employed up to the battle of Trafalgar. After
that he served as flag-captain under his old friend and patron, Lord
Collingwood.
In February, 1811, he was appointed to the Undaunted, employed in co-
operation with the Spanish patriots off the coast of Catalonia. He was
subsequently employed in command of a squadron stationed in the Gulf of
Lyons, blockading Toulon. He was made Vice-Admiral of the Blue in 1848;
Admiral of the Blue, 1854; Admiral of the White, 1857, in which year he
died, and was buried at Stonehouse, 27th August. He married, in 1827,
Gratiana, daughter of Lieutenant-General Richard Williams, r.n.
His brother, Charles Thomas, m.d., was for some time physician to the
Devonport Dispensary.

COMMANDER JOHN POLLARD
Little did John Pollard as signal midshipman of the Victory in the battle of
Trafalgar suppose that he was running up a message to the fleet from
Nelson that would never be forgotten so long as the English name lasts, and
the Englishman maintains the character which has ever belonged to him.
He was the son of John Pollard, and entered the Navy on November 1st,
1797. Before the battle commenced Nelson dictated the signal, "England
confides that every man will do his duty." Pollard, to whom the order was
given, remarked that the word confides was not in the code, and suggested
in its stead the term expects, which Nelson at once accepted. Napoleon so
much admired this last order of Nelson's that he caused it to be printed, with
a difference, of France for England, and commanded that a copy should be
given to each of the officers of the navy. "It is the best of lessons," he said.
Pollard was born at Kingsand, Cornwall, on 27th July, 1787, so that he was
aged but eighteen when he suggested the alteration in Nelson's famous
message, and saw it signalled to the fleet. He died in the Royal Hospital,
Greenwich, 22nd April, 1868, at the advanced age of eighty-one. He did
nothing further that was remarkable, and is remembered only in connection
with Nelson's signal, an instance of:—

Unregarded age in corners thrown

THE CASE OF BOSAVERN PENLEZ
At the end of June, 1749, a sailor was robbed in a low, disreputable house in
the Strand. He stormed and demanded the restoration of his purse, but could
obtain no redress; he was laughed at and ejected from the place. He at once
returned to his vessel and narrated his wrongs, and so roused the resentment
of his comrades that they promised to accompany him to the Strand and
work retribution on the thieves.
Accordingly on July 1st a body of them marched down the Strand, and
reaching the house broke in the door and "levell'd their rage against the
house and goods of the caitif, whom they looked on as the author of the
villainy exercised on their brother Tar. Accordingly they went to work as if
they were breaking up a ship, and in a trice unrigg'd the house from top to
bottom. The movables were thrown out of the windows or doors to their
comrades in the street, where, a bonfire being made, they were burnt, but
with so much decency and order, so little confusion, that notwithstanding
the crowd gather'd together on this occasion, a child of five years old might
have crossed the street in the thickest of them without the least danger.
"The neighbours, too, though their houses were not absolutely free from
danger of fire by the sparks flying from the bonfire, were so little alarm'd at
this riot that they stood at their doors, and look'd out of their windows, with
as little concern, and perhaps more glee and mirth, than if they had been at a
droll in Bartholomew Fair, seeing the painted scene of the renoun'd Troy
Town in flames." After the house had been completely gutted, and not
before, the guards came from the Savoy, which, by the way, was not above
a good stone's throw from the scene of action, whereupon the sailors
withdrew, unarrested and unpursued. If matters had remained here it would
have been well, but unhappily this first performance whetted the appetites
of the sailors for another, and they resolved on sacking another house a few
doors from that they had gutted, which also did not bear a good character.
Accordingly next evening, being Sunday, they returned, and proceeded to
treat this second house in the same manner as the first "without so much as

the least interruption, till they had full timely notice to get off before the
guards arrived, who came, as before, too late, that one would have been
tempted to imagine they came too late on purpose.
"A regular bonfire then having been made as before, all the goods of the
house were triumphantly convey'd into it; and if the finding of bundles and
effects of any of the actors would have aggravated their guilt, numbers
might have been seized with the goods upon them, between the house and
the bonfire, where they were all carefully destroy'd, to avoid any slur or
suspicion of pillage for private use. This was carry'd to such an exactness
that a little boy, who perhaps thought no great harm to save a gilt cage out
of the fire for his bird at home, was discover'd carrying it off, when the
leaders of the mob took it from him and threw it into the fire, and his age
alone protected him from severe punishment. Nothing, in short, was
imbezzled or diverted, except an old gown or petticoat, thrown at a hackney
coachman's head as a reward for a dutiful Huzza, as he drove by.
"As to the neighbours, who were at their doors and windows seeing the
whole without the least concern or alarm, there was not probably one of
those who, though as good and as loyal subjects as any his Majesty has, and
as well affected to the peace and quiet of his government, imagin'd or
dream'd there was any spirit of sedition or riotous designs in these
proceedings beyond the open and expressed intention of destroying these
obnoxious houses; and tho' the coolest and sensiblest doubtless thought the
joke was going too far, and wished even that the Government had
interposed sooner, and less faintly, yet they had not the least notion of any
such extraordinary measure of guilt in their proceedings as would affect life
or limb."
The sailors had now gathered about them, some as lookers on, some as
assistants, a large number of men and boys, and these now moved up the
street in a body, with a bell ringing before them, to the house of one Peter
Wood, a hairdresser, but in bad odour, as keeping a disorderly house, under
the sign of the Star.
Into this house the mob broke, although Peter Wood offered money if only
they would spare him and its contents. But they were deaf to his entreaties,
and his house was only saved by the arrival of the guards, who at once

proceeded to arrest several persons. Among those they secured was
Bosavern Penlez, or Penlees, son of a clergyman in Cornwall, who had been
put apprentice to a wig-maker in town.
With him were secured John Wilson, Benjamin Lander, and another, who
shortly after died of gaol-fever in Newgate. All these four, not one of whom
was a sailor, were locked up in prison, and kept there till the September
Sessions, when they were indicted "for that they, together with divers other
persons, to the number of forty and upwards, being feloniously and
riotously assembled, to the disturbance of the public peace, did begin to
demolish the house of Peter Wood against the form of the statute in that
case made and provided, July the 3rd."
Against Lander, Peter Wood swore that "he was in the passage of his house,
assisting to break the partition; that that was the first time of his seeing him;
that he broke the window of the bar with his stick; that he (Lander) was
taken upstairs."
On a cross-examination he averred that he did not see Lander at the first
coming up of the mob to his house; but he asserted that he stuck fast to him
when he saw him in the passage, which was half an hour before the arrival
of the guards.
Peter Wood's wife swore that Lander had knocked her down, and had
beaten her almost to a jelly.
Lander, in his defence, proved that between twelve and one o'clock that
night he was going home to his lodgings, when he heard that there was a
riot in the Strand; and that meeting with a soldier who had been ordered
with his detachment to disperse the mob in the Strand, he persuaded him to
enter with him into a public-house and have a drink. The soldier consented,
and then left, and Lander followed to see the fun, and found the mob
retreating to Temple Bar, driven forward by the guards. Thereupon,
according to his own account, he went into Peter Wood's house to see what
mischief had been done, when Wood laid hold of him, under the notion that
he was a straggler left behind of those who had begun to wreck the house.
Happily at that moment in came the soldier whom Lander had treated to a
pint of beer. The evidence of this soldier was conclusive, and Lander was
discharged, after having suffered imprisonment for over two months.

It appears evident that Peter Wood's testimony was false; not perhaps
purposely so, but erroneous through his mistaking one man for another in
the excitement of the partial destruction of his house.
The evidence he gave against John Wilson was that the man knocked him
down, and that Wilson, stooping over him, asked, "You dog, are you not
dead yet?" and that he caught hold of Wilson's hand and kissed it and
prayed for mercy. Moreover, Mrs. Wood testified that she also had entreated
him to stay his hand, and had "held him by the face, and stroked him." The
waiting-man clinched the testimony by swearing that he also had seen
Wilson in the parlour as the settee-bed was being thrown out of the window,
and that he (Wilson) helped to throw the bed out. John Wilson earnestly
protested that a mistake had been made, and that he was not the man who
had done that of which he was accused. He brought numerous testimonies
to his good character; but these availed not, and he was condemned to
death.
Bosavern Penlez admitted that he had been in Peter Wood's house; he had
been rather tipsy at the time, and had been drawn in to follow the mob, but
he had done no mischief, neither had he joined the rabble with any evil
intent. This availed not; he also was condemned to death. At the last
moment Wilson was reprieved and finally pardoned; but poor Bosavern was
hanged at Tyburn on the 18th October, 1749, at the age of twenty-three.
Much feeling had been roused in favour of Penlez, and a petition had been
got up, numerously signed, requesting that he might be pardoned; but it
availed nothing. Then a pamphlet appeared, entitled, The Case of the
Unfortunate Bosavern Penlez, published by T. Clement, S. Paul's
Churchyard, 1749.
As this was widely disseminated, and comments were passed that a
grievous injustice had been committed, Henry Fielding, the magistrate,
published an answer, entitled A True State of the Case of Bosavern Penlez.
A. Miller, Strand, 1749.
According to this, on July 1st the house of one Owen, in the Strand, had
been attacked. Nathaniel Munns, beadle, had tried to stop it, and two rioters
were taken by the constables and conveyed to the prison of the Duchy of
Lancaster Liberty. On Sunday, July 2nd, there was a recurrence of the riot,

outside the beadle's house; the windows were broken, the bars wrenched
away, and the prisoners were released, and doors and windows of the
watch-house were smashed.
John Carter, constable, gave evidence as to July 1st, that two wagon-loads
of goods had been consumed by fire outside Owen's house. He appealed to
General Campbell, at Somerset House, for assistance, and the General sent
twelve of the Guards, when the rioters retreated, and began an attack on the
house of one Stanhope, throwing stones, breaking windows, and pelting the
soldiers, so that soon forty men of the Guards had to be despatched to
disperse the rioters.
On Sunday, July 2nd, according to the constable, the mob again assembled
in front of Stanhope's house and demolished its contents. Mr. Wilson, a
woollen draper, and Mr. Actor, of the same trade, applied for protection, as
their shops adjoined the house of Stanhope, and again soldiers were sent
for, who dispersed the mob.
James Cecil, Constable of St. George's parish, deposed that on Monday,
July 3rd, he was attending prisoners in a coach to Newgate, and he had
difficulty in making his way through the mob; and he saw the rioters
engaged in smashing the windows of a house near the Old Bailey.
Saunders Welsh, gent., High Constable of Holborn, deposed that on Sunday,
July 2nd, he had received information from Stanhope, as to the wrecking of
Owen's house on the previous night, and of his fears for his own. On
returning that same evening through Fleet Street, he perceived a great fire in
the Strand, upon which he proceeded to the house of Peter Wood, who
informed him that the rioters had demolished the house of Stanhope,
burning his furniture and goods, and that they threatened to deal in the same
manner with his house. Whereupon, he, Mr. Saunders Welsh, applied at the
Tilt-yard for a military force, which he could only obtain with much
difficulty, as he could produce no order from a Justice of the Peace. At
length he procured such order, and then an officer and forty men were sent
to the scene of the riot. On reaching Cecil Street, he ordered that the drum
should be beaten. When he came up to Peter Wood's house, he found that
the mob had already in part demolished it, and had thrown a great part of its
contents into the street, and were debating about burning them. Had they

done so, the deponent said, it would infallibly have set fire to the houses on
both sides of the street, which at that point was very narrow, and opposite
Wood's house was the bank of Messrs. Snow and Denne. Hearing, however,
the rattle of the drum, and the tramp of the advancing soldiers, the mob
retreated, and it was whilst so retreating that Bosavern Penlez was arrested,
carrying off with him some of the goods of Peter Wood.
Penlez and others were brought before Henry Fielding, J. P. for Middlesex,
and were committed to Newgate. This was on Monday. But the same
evening there was a recrudescence of the riots, and four thousand sailors
assembled on Tower Hill with the resolution to march to Temple Bar. To
obviate all future danger, a larger party of soldiers was called out, and these,
along with the peace officers, patrolled the Strand all night.
Samuel Marsh, watchman of St. Dunstan's, had apprehended Bosavern
Penlez, as he was making off with a bundle of linen, which he pretended
belonged to his wife. Before he was arrested, the watchman saw him
thrusting divers lace objects into his bosom and pockets, but he let fall a
lace cap. When apprehended, he protested that he was conveying his wife's
property, who had pawned all his clothes, and that he was retaliating by
taking her articles to pawn.
There were other witnesses against Penlez, and although the evidence of
Peter Wood was worthless, that of the beadles and watchmen sufficed to
show that he had been collecting and making into a bundle various articles
from Wood's house, with the object of purloining them. The question of
Penlez having been in Wood's house was not gone into. Bosavern in vain
called for witnesses to his character. His master, the peruke maker, declined
to put in an appearance and give favourable testimony; for, in fact, Penlez
had been leading a dissipated and disorderly life. Henry Fielding, in
conclusion, says: "The first and second day of the riot, no magistrate, nor
any other higher peace-officer than a petty constable (save only Mr. Welsh)
interfered in it. On the third day only one magistrate took on him to act.
When the prisoners were committed to Newgate, no public prosecution was
for some time ordered against them; and when it was ordered, it was carried
on so mildly, that one of the prisoners (Wilson) being not in prison, was,
though contrary to the laws, at the desire of a noble person in great power,
bailed out, when a capital indictment was then found against him. At the

trial, neither an Attorney nor Solicitor-General, nor even one of the King's
Council, appeared against the prisoners. Lastly, when two were convicted,
one only was executed; and I doubt very much whether even he would have
suffered, had it not appeared that a capital indictment for burglary was
likewise found by the Grand Jury against him, and upon such evidence as I
think every impartial man must allow would have convicted him (had he
been tried) for felony at least."
There had been found on Penlez ten lace caps, four laced handkerchiefs,
three pairs of laced ruffles, two laced clouts, five plain handkerchiefs, five
plain aprons, one laced apron, all the property of the wife of Peter Wood. It
was altogether false that Penlez was married. Fielding says: "I hope I have
said enough to prove that the man who was made an example of deserved
his fate. Which, if he did, I think it will follow that more hath been said and
done in his favour than ought to have been; and that the clamour of severity
against the Government hath been in the highest degree unjustifiable. To
say the truth, it would be more difficult to justify the lenity used on this
occasion."
The case of Bosavern Penlez was the more hard and open to criticism, in
that, in the very same year, there was a serious riot in the Haymarket
Theatre, when the Duke of Cumberland, a prince of the blood, had drawn
his sword, and leaping upon the stage, had called on everybody to follow
him. The people, ripe for mischief, were too loyal to decline a prince's
invitation. The seats were smashed, the scenery torn down, and the
wreckage carried into the street, where a bonfire was made of it; and but for
the timely appearance of the authorities the building itself would have been
added to the fuel. For this, no one was hanged. What was sauce for the
goose was not sauce for the gander.
Reference is made to the case of Bosavern Penlez in Walpole's Memoirs of
the Last Ten Years of George II, I, p. 11, and in the Private Journal of John
Byrom, published by the Chetham Society, as also in the Gentleman's
Magazine for 1749.

SAMUEL FOOTE
This dramatic author and player was born at Truro in the year 1721.[17] His
father, John Foote, was a magistrate of the county of Cornwall and
commissioner of the Prize office and Fine contract. He was well descended,
deriving from the family of Foote of Trelogorsick, in Veryan, afterwards of
Lambesso, in S. Clements, acquired by bequest in the reign of Charles II.
The arms of the family were, vert a chevron between three doves argent—
the doves singularly inappropriate as the cognizance of Samuel, as that bird
was deemed to be without gall. Bodannan, in S. Enoder, was acquired by
the Footes of Lambesso by purchase. The family did not register its arms
and establish its pedigree at the visitation of the Heralds in 1620, but that it
was gentle admits of no dispute. As no pedigree of the family has been
recorded, it is unknown who was the grandfather of Samuel Foote, but
possibly he may have been the Samuel Foote of Tiverton whose daughter
Elizabeth married, 1691, Dennis Glyn of Cardinham, son of Nicolas Glyn
of Cardinham, M.P. for Bodmin and Sheriff of Cornwall. Samuel's mother,
descended in the female line from the Earls of Rutland, was daughter of Sir
Edward Goodere, Bart., who had two surviving brothers out of six—Sir
John Dinely Goodere, Bart., and Samuel Goodere, captain of His Majesty's
ship Ruby. A disagreement having arisen between the two brothers, Sir John
cut off the entail of his estates and settled them on his sister's family. This
widened the breach, and the brothers had not spoken for years.

S. Foote

Matters were in this train when, by accident, both brothers met in Bristol in
the January of 1741. Samuel was then in command of his ship, lying in the
roads. Sir John was invited to dine with Mr. Jarrit Smith, an attorney living
on College Green, and the captain called on this gentleman and requested
permission to be admitted to his table to meet his brother, whom he had not
seen for a very long time. Mr. Smith readily acceded to this proposal, and
was glad to have the opportunity of apparently reconciling the brothers.
After dinner he left the room for an hour in order to afford them a better
opportunity of completing the reconciliation. On his return he found them

on the most friendly terms. In this manner they parted at six o'clock in the
evening, the captain taking his leave first. When some half an hour later Sir
John quitted the house, as he was passing the College Green Coffee-house,
on his way to his lodgings, he was fallen upon by a party of the sailors of
the Ruby and the Vernon privateer, with Captain Goodere at their head; a
cloak was thrown over his head to muffle his cries for help, and he was
hurried to a boat, awaiting them in the river, and conveyed thence on board
the Ruby. When there, they got him into the purser's cabin, and the captain,
by promises of ample reward, induced two of his sailors, Matthew Mahony
and Charles White, to strangle him. In order to effect this the captain cut the
cord that attached his escritoire to the floor of the cabin, and himself passed
it round his brother's neck. Then, drawing his sword, he stood sentinel at the
door and bade the two ruffians do their duty. Owing to the struggles of Sir
John and the nervousness of the men, half an hour elapsed before the
baronet was dead. At last, when all was over, the captain deliberately
walked to his brother's body, held a candle over it to assure himself that he
was dead, and exclaimed, "Aye, this will do; his business is now done."
Next day the circumstance of a gentleman having been kidnapped on
College Green induced Mr. Smith to make inquiries; when, finding that the
description of the gentleman answered to the person of Sir John Dinely
Goodere, he entertained strong suspicions of foul play shown by his
brother, and he applied to the mayor of Bristol for a warrant to search the
Ruby. This was granted, and there the baronet was found strangled in the
purser's cabin, and the captain already secured by the first lieutenant and
two of the men, who had overheard the conference relative to the murder.
Captain Samuel Goodere and his two associates were tried at the next
assizes at Bristol on March 26th, 1741, were found guilty of "wilful
murder," and were hanged.
Thus Mrs. Foote, deriving under the will of her brother Sir John, became
heiress to his estates.
John Foote had two sons by this lady, Samuel and Edward. The first, the
subject of this memoir, was designed for the Bar; the second for the Church.
This latter was a feeble-minded man, who never obtained preferment,

dribbled away his fortune, and was latterly in great distress, supported by
the liberality of his brother.
Foote was sent to school as a boy under the worthy Mr. Conon, head-master
of Truro Grammar School. There he was initiated into Terence's plays, and
in acting his part excelled all his schoolfellows, and it was in consequence
of his success within this little circle that he caught his first inspiration for
the stage.
One of the earliest instances of his jocularity, as practised on his own father,
is related by R. Polwhele in his Traditions and Recollections. Imitating the
voice of Mr. Nicholas Donnithorne, from an inner apartment where his
father had supposed that gentleman was sitting, he drew his father into
conversation on the subject of a family transaction between the two old
gentlemen, and thus possessed himself of a secret, which, whilst it
displayed his power of mimicry, justly incurred his parent's displeasure.
Mr. Polwhele says: "Those (of the inhabitants of Truro) are gone who used
in his presence to arise trembling with their mirth. Conscious of some
oddnesses in their appearance or character, they shrunk from his sly
observation. They knew that every civility, every hospitable attention, could
not save them from his satire; and, after such experience, they naturally
avoided his company instead of courting it. Foote, indeed, had no restraint
upon himself, with respect either to his conversation or his conduct. He
was, in every sense of the word, a libertine.... He was certainly a very
unamiable character. Polly Hicks, a pretty, silly, simpering girl, was dazzled
by his wit. She had some property; he therefore made her his wife, but
never treated her as such."
The father died soon after the establishment of his sons in their several
professions; but the mother lived to the advanced age of eighty-four. W.
Cooke says of her:—
"We had the pleasure of dining with her, in company with a granddaughter
of hers, at a barrister's chambers in Gray's Inn, when she was at the age of
seventy-nine; and although she had full sixty steps to ascend before she
reached the drawing-room, she did it without the help of a cane, and with
all the activity of a woman of forty.

"Her manners and conversation were of the same cast—witty, humorous,
and convivial; and though her remarks occasionally (considering her age
and sex) rather strayed beyond the limits of becoming mirth, she, on the
whole, delighted everybody, and was confessedly the heroine of that day's
party.
"She was likewise in face and person the very model of her son Samuel—
short, fat, and flabby, with an eye that eternally gave the signal for mirth
and good humour; in short, she resembled him so much in all her
movements, and so strongly identified his person and manners, that by
changing habits they might be thought to have interchanged sexes."
After leaving school Samuel Foote received his education at Worcester
College, Oxford, formerly Gloucester Hall, which owed its refoundation
and change of name to Sir Thomas Cooke, Bart., a second cousin of
Samuel.
The church connected with the college fronted a lane, where cattle were
sometimes turned out to graze during the night, and the bell-rope hung very
low in the middle of the outside porch. Foote one night made a loop in the
cord and inserted a wisp of hay. One of the cows smelling this seized it, and
by tugging at the rope made the bell ring, and continue to ring at jerky
intervals till the hay was consumed. This produced consternation in the
neighbourhood; people ran out of their houses thinking that there must be a
fire somewhere. The same happened next and the following nights, and it
was concluded that the church was haunted. But Dr. Gower, the then
provost, and the sexton sat up one night and watched, and discovered that
this was a prank of one of the scholars.
From the University Foote was removed to the Temple, but the dryness of
the law was not to his taste, and he turned to the stage.
His first appearance was in the part of Othello at the Haymarket Theatre,
February 6th, 1747. But as Macklin said on this occasion, "it was little
better than a total failure. Neither his figure, voice, nor manners
corresponded with the character; and in those mixed passages of tenderness
and rage the former was expressed so whiningly, and the latter in a tone so
sharp and inharmonious, that the audience could scarcely refrain from
laughing."

Probably he speedily saw that his genius did not lie in the direction of
tragedy, and he soon struck out into a new and untrodden path, in which he
at once attained the two great ends of affording entertainment to the people
and gaining emolument for himself. He opened the Haymarket Theatre in
the spring of 1747 with a piece of his own writing, entitled The Diversions
of the Morning. This consisted of a mimicry of the best-known men of the
day—actors, doctors, lawyers, statesmen. Had he contented himself with
this he might not have been interfered with, but to the piece of mimicry he
added the performance of popular farces—and he had failed to procure a
licence. To evade this difficulty he announced his entertainment as a
Concert of Music, after which would be given gratis his Diversions and a
play.
The managers of the patent houses could not tolerate such an infringement
of their rights. They appealed to the Westminster magistrates, and on the
second night the constables entered the theatre and dispersed the audience.
But Foote was not so easily put down. The very next morning he published
the following statement in the General Advertiser: "On Saturday afternoon,
exactly at twelve o'clock, at the New Theatre in the Haymarket, Mr. Foote
begs the favour of his friends to come and drink a dish of chocolate with
him, and 'tis hoped there will be a great deal of company and some joyous
spirits. He will endeavour to make the morning as diverting as possible.
Tickets to be had for this entertainment at George's Coffee House, Temple
Bar, without which no one will be admitted. N.B.—Sir Dilbury Diddle will
be there, and Lady Betty Frisk has absolutely promised." No one knew what
this advertisement meant, and a crowded house was the natural result.
When the curtain rose Foote came forward and informed the audience that
"as he was training some young performers for the stage, he would, with
their permission, whilst chocolate was getting ready, proceed with his
instructions before them." Then some young people, engaged for the
purpose, were brought upon the stage, and under the pretence of instructing
them in the art of acting, he introduced his imitations.
As he was not interfered with, he changed the hour to the evening and
substituted tea for chocolate.

He mimicked Quin as a watchman, with deep, sonorous voice calling out,
"Past twelve o'clock, and a cloudy morning"; Delane as a one-eyed beggar;
Peg Woffington as an orange girl, and imitated the unpleasant squealing
tone of her voice; Garrick in his dying scenes, on which he prided himself.
As may well be supposed, actors, who are peculiarly sensitive to ridicule,
were offended. When they appeared in a grave play, as for instance, when
Garrick was dying on the stage, the audience laughed, recalling what they
had witnessed at the Haymarket. They complained, "What is fun to you is
death to us," but Foote paid no regard to their remonstrances; he laughed
and pursued his course. He was perfectly unscrupulous, wholly devoid of
delicacy of feeling, and would turn his best friend and benefactor into
ridicule in public. But when, later, Weston took him off, he was highly
incensed, and bided his time to be revenged on him.
Next year Foote called his performance "An Auction of Pictures." Here is
one of his advertisements: "At the forty-ninth day's sale at his auction
rooms in the Haymarket Mr. Foote will exhibit a choice collection of
pictures—some new lots, consisting of a poet, a beau, a Frenchman, a
miser, a taylor, a sot, two young gentlemen, and a ghost. Two of which are
originals, the rest copies from the best masters." In this several well-known
characters were mimicked—Sir Thomas Deveil, then the acting magistrate
for Westminster, Cook, the auctioneer, and orator Henley. To the attractions
of his "Auction," in ridicule of the Italian Opera, he gave a "Cat Concert."
The principal performer in this was a man well known at the time by the
name of Cat Harris. Harris had attended several rehearsals, where his
mewing gave great satisfaction to the manager and performers. However, on
the last rehearsal Harris was missing, and as nobody knew where he lived,
Shuter was deputed to find him, if possible. He inquired in vain for some
time; at last he was informed that he lived in a certain court in the Minories,
but at which house he could not exactly learn. Shuter entered the court and
set up a cat solo, which instantly roused his brother musician in his garret,
who answered him in the same tune. "Ho, ho! Are you there, my friend?"
said Shuter. "Come along; the stage waits for you."
Fashion, as usual, flocked to the Haymarket to hear and see its tastes turned
into ridicule.

At the close of the season (1748) Foote was left a considerable fortune by a
relative of his mother, which enabled him to move in all that luxury of
dissipation which was so congenial to his temper. Then he departed
suddenly for Paris and communicated with none of his friends. Some
supposed him to have been killed in a duel, some that he had been hanged,
some that he had drunk himself to death. But he reappeared in London at
the close of the season of 1752, having dissipated the fortune left him, but
having enriched his mind with studies made in France. He brought with him
a play he had composed, The Englishman in Paris, which was brought out
at Covent Garden Theatre on March 24th, 1753, and it proved a success; so
much so, that Murphy, the dramatic author, wrote a sequel to it, The
Englishman returned from Paris, which he had the frankness to show to
Foote, who was his friend. Foote, without a word, without asking leave,
appropriated the plot and characters, and turned out a farce with the same
title before Murphy had placed his. Murphy was, naturally, highly offended,
and produced his play in another theatre, but without great success, as
Foote's play had already taken with the public.
In the season of 1757 Foote produced at Drury Lane his comedy of The
Author, that principally turns on the distresses incident to a writer
dependent on his pen for his daily bread, and on the caricature of a
gentleman of family and fortune, whom he entitled Cadwalader, who
appears ambitious to be thought a patron of the arts and sciences, of which
he is profoundly ignorant. Cadwalader was a caricature of one of his most
intimate friends, a Mr. Ap Rice, a man of fortune and education, and allied
to many families of distinction. At his table, where Foote was hospitably
received, in open and unguarded familiar discourse, Ap Rice had laid
himself open to ridicule. The Welsh gentleman was stout, had a broad,
unmeaning stare, a loud voice, and boisterous manner, and as he spoke his
head was continually turning to his left shoulder. The farce was performed
for several nights to crowded audiences before Mr. Ap Rice felt the
keenness of the satire. At last the joke became so serious, that whenever he
went abroad, in the park, the coffee-house, or the assembly, he heard
himself spoken of as Cadwalader, and pointed at with suppressed laughter,
or heard quotations from his part in the play: "This is Becky, my dear
Becky." Mightily offended, and really hurt, he applied to Foote to have the
piece suppressed. But this Foote would not hear of—it was drawing

crowded houses. Then Ap Rice applied to the Lord Chamberlain and
obtained an injunction to restrain the performance.
Dr. Johnson was informed by a mutual friend that Foote was going to
produce an impersonation of him on the stage. "What is the price of a
cane?" asked the doctor. "Sixpence." "Then," said he, "here is a shilling; go
and fetch me the stoutest you can purchase, and tell Mr. Foote that at his
first performance I shall visit the theatre, go on the stage, and thrash him
soundly."
This was repeated to the mimic, and he deemed it advisable to desist from
this impersonation.
In A Trip to Calais he threatened to ridicule the notorious Duchess of
Kingston unless bought off. The audacity of his personalities was
astounding, where he thought he could use his gift of mimicry without
being subject to chastisement. In the Orators, 1762, he personated, under
the name of Peter Paragraph, a noted printer and publisher and alderman of
Dublin, known as One-legged Faulkener. The imitation was perfect. The
Irishman brought an action for libel against him, and a trial ensued. But
Nemesis of another sort fell on him four years later. In 1766 he was on a
visit to Lord Mexborough, where he met the Duke of York, Lord Delaval,
and others, when some of the party, wishing to have a little fun with Foote,
drew him into conversation on horsemanship, and the comedian boasted
"that although he generally preferred the luxury of a post-chaise, he could
ride as well as most men he knew." He was urged to join that morning in the
chase, and was mounted on a high-spirited, mettlesome horse belonging to
the Duke of York, that flung him as soon as he was in the saddle, and his leg
was so fractured that it had to be amputated, and its place supplied by one
of cork.
The Duke of York was not a little concerned at the part he had taken in this
practical joke, and to make what amends he could obtained for him a royal
patent to erect a theatre in the city and liberties of Westminster, from the
14th May to the 14th September, during the term of his natural life. This
was giving him a fortune at one stroke, and Foote immediately purchased
the old premises in the Haymarket and erected a new theatre on the same
ground, which was opened in the May following, 1767. He made

considerable profits, and lodged twelve hundred pounds at his banker's and
kept five hundred in cash.
But his usual demon of extravagance haunted him. He went to Bath and fell
in with a nest of gamblers, who rapidly swindled him, not only out of his
five hundred, but also out of the sum he had placed with his banker. Several
of the frequenters of the rooms saw that he was being cheated, and the
Right Hon. Richard Rigby, Paymaster of the Forces, took an opportunity of
telling him that he was being plundered, "that from his careless manner of
playing and betting, and his habit of telling stories when he should be
minding his game, he must in the long run be ruined." Foote, instead of
taking this hint in good part, answered angrily and so insultingly that Rigby
withdrew.
When he had money he spent it in play and profligacy. Three fortunes had
been left him, and he threw all away, and adopted as his motto, "Iterum,
iterum, iterumque."
His mother, as has been said, had inherited a large fortune, but she had
squandered it and was locked up in the Fleet Prison for debt. Thence she
wrote to her son:—

"Dear Sam,
"I am in prison for debt; come and assist your loving mother,
"E. Foote."

To this brief note he replied:—

"Dear Mother,
"So am I; which prevents his duty being paid to his loving mother by
her affectionate son,
"Sam. Foote."

When bringing out his comedy of The Minor considerable objections were
started to its being licensed, and among other objectors was Secker,
Archbishop of Canterbury. Foote offered to submit the play to him for

revision, with permission to strike out whatever he deemed objectionable.
But the prelate was not to be trapped thus. He knew well that had he done
this, Foote would have advertised its performance "as altered and amended
by his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury."
Having made a trip to Ireland, he was asked on his return what impression
was made on him by the Irish peasantry, and replied that they gave him
great satisfaction, as they settled a question that had long agitated his mind,
and that was, what became of the cast clothes of English beggars.
One evening at the coffee-house he was asked if he had attended the funeral
of a very intimate friend, the son of a baker. "Oh yes, certainly," said he;
"just seen him shoved into the family oven."
Although he had on more than one occasion applied to Garrick for loans of
a few hundred pounds, this did not deter him from mimicking Garrick, and
when the Shakespeare Jubilee took place at Stratford-on-Avon, under the
superintendence of this latter, Foote was so jealous and envious of its
success, that he schemed bringing out a mock procession in imitation of it,
with a man dressed to resemble Garrick in the character of the Steward of
the Jubilee, with his wand, white-topped gloves, and Shakespeare medal;
whilst some ragamuffin was to address him in the lines of the Jubilee poet-
laureate—

A nation's taste depends on you,
Perhaps a nation's virtue too;

to which the mimic Garrick was to reply by clapping his arms, like the
wings of a cock, and crowing—

Cock-a-doodle-doo!

It was with difficulty that Foote could be deterred from carrying his scheme
into effect.
But, indeed, he spared no one. He had been separated practically, though
not legally, from his wife, whom to his friends and acquaintances he spoke
of as "the Washerwoman." She was a quiet, inoffensive, worthy woman;
and his friends induced him after a while to allow her to return to his house.

As it chanced, her conveyance was upset on the way, and she was thrown
out and much cut and bruised in her face and person. Instead of
sympathizing with her, he turned the matter into joke with his boon
companions, and said, "If you want to see a map of the world, go and look
at my wife's face. There is the Black Sea in her eye, the Red Sea in her
gashes, and the Yellow Sea in all her bruises."
Dining once with Earl Kelly at his house at North End in the early part of
the spring, his lordship, who was a bon vivant and had a very red face,
apologized during dinner that he was unable to give the party cucumbers
that day, as none were ripe. "Your own fault, my lord," said Foote. "Why
didn't you thrust your nose into the hot-house?"
On another occasion, Foote calling on the elder Colman, the dramatist,
heard him complain of want of sleep. "Read one of your own plays," said
Foote.
Dining one day with Lord Stormont, he noticed the diminutive size of the
decanters and glasses. His lordship boasted of the age of his wine. "Dear
me," said Foote. "It is very little, considering its age."
A young parson was on his honeymoon. "I'll give you a text for your next
sermon," said Foote: "Grant us thy peace so long as the moon endureth."
Some one asked Dr. Johnson whether he did not think that Foote had a
singular talent for exhibiting character. "No, sir," replied the doctor. "It is
not a talent, it is a vice. It is what others abstain from. His imitations are not
like. He gives you something different from himself, without going into
other people. He is like a painter who can draw the portrait of a man who
has a wen on his face. He can give you the wen, but not the man."
In The Mayor of Garratt Foote took off and held up to derision the old
Duke of Newcastle, under the name of Matthew Mug. Of the Duke he was
wont to say that he always appeared as if he had lost an hour in the morning
and was looking for it all day. In The Patron he satirized Lord Melcombe,
but indeed there were few with any peculiarity of manner or taste or
appearance, whom he was able to study, whom he did not hold up to public
ridicule.

The first time that George II attended the Haymarket The Mayor of Garratt
was on the stage. When His Majesty arrived at the theatre, Foote, as
manager, hobbled to the stage door to receive him; but, as he played in the
first piece, instead of wearing the court dress usual on these occasions, he
was equipped in the immense cocked hat, cumbrous boots, and all the other
military paraphernalia of Major Sturgeon. The moment the King cast his
eyes on this extraordinary figure, as he stood bowing, stumping, and
wriggling with his wooden leg, George II receded in astonishment,
exclaiming to his attendants, "Look! Vat is dat man—and to vat regiment
does he belong?" Even Samuel's not very bright brother came in for his
sneers. Edward Foote was fond of hanging about the theatre, and frequented
the green-room. Some one asked Samuel who that man was. "He?" replied
Foote. "He's my barber." Somewhat later the relationship came out, and the
same person remarked to him on his having spoken so contemptuously of
Edward. "Why," said Samuel, "I could not in conscience say he was a
brother-wit, so I set him down as a brother-shaver."
Retribution came on him at last.
The reason why Foote did not produce his "take-off" of the Duchess of
Kingston as Lady Kitty Crocodile has never transpired. According to one
account, he had threatened to caricature her in the hopes of levying
blackmail on her to stop the production; according to another, he received
threats that made him fear for his life, or at least a public horse-whipping, if
he proceeded, and he altered the character. But he was very angry, and to be
revenged he produced a piece, The Capuchin, which was the original Trip
to Calais altered, but his satire was transferred from the Duchess to her
chaplain, named Jackson, whom he held up to public scorn as Doctor Viper.
Jackson was furious, and trumped up a vile charge against Foote, by the aid
of a coachman whom the actor had discharged from his service for
misconduct. Foote had made so many enemies that those whom he had
wounded and mortified found the money for a prosecution; and the case
was tried at King's Bench before Lord Mansfield and a special jury. But it
broke down completely, and Foote was acquitted.
As soon as the trial was over, his fellow dramatist Murphy took a coach and
drove to Foote's house in Suffolk Street, Charing Cross, to be the first

messenger of the good tidings.
Foote had been looking out of the window in anxious expectation of such a
message. Murphy, as soon as he perceived him, waved his hat in token of
victory, and jumping out of the coach, ran upstairs, to find Foote extended
on the floor, in hysterics. In this condition he continued for nearly an hour
before he could be recovered to any kind of recollection of himself.
The charge, and the anxiety of the trial, broke his heart; he never thoroughly
rallied after it, and sold his patent in the Haymarket Theatre to George
Colman on January 16th, 1777. By the terms of this agreement Colman
obliged himself to pay Foote an annuity of sixteen hundred pounds.
Having in some degree recovered his health, he was advised by his
physician to try the south of France during the winter; and with this intent
he reached Dover on the 20th October, 1777, on his way to Calais.
Whilst at Dover, he went into the kitchen of the inn to order a particular
dish for dinner, and the cook, understanding that he was about to embark for
France, began to brag of her powers, and defy him to find any better cuisine
abroad, though, for her part, she said, she had never crossed the water.
"Why cookey," said Foote, "that cannot be, for above stairs they informed
me you have been several times all over grease (Greece)." "They may say
what they like," retorted she, "but I was never ten miles from Dover in all
my life." "Nay, now," said Foote, "that must be a fib, for I myself have seen
you at Spit-head."
This was his last joke. Next morning he was seized with a shivering fit
whilst at breakfast, which increasing, he was put to bed. Another fit
succeeded that lasted three hours. He then seemed inclined to sleep, and
presently with a deep sigh expired on October 21st, 1777, in the fifty-
seventh year of his age. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The authors of the Biographica Dramatica say of his farces "Mr. Foote's
dramatic works are all to be ranked among the petites pièces of the theatre,
as he never attempted anything which attained the bulk of the more perfect
drama. In the execution of them they are sometimes loose, negligent, and
unfinished, seeming rather to be the hasty productions of a man of genius,
whose Pegasus, though endued with fire, has no inclination for fatigue, than

the laboured finishings of a professed dramatist aiming at immortality. His
plots are somewhat irregular, and their catastrophes not always conclusive
or perfectly wound up. Yet, with all these little deficiencies, it must be
confessed that they contain more of one essential property of comedy, viz.
strong character, than the writings of any other of our modern authors."

THE LAST LORD MOHUN
The first of the family of Mohun known to history came over with the
Conqueror from Normandy, and received the name and title of Sapell, Earl
of Somerset. How the earldom lapsed we do not know, but a Mohun next
appears as Baron of Dunster. Apparently, but not certainly, the earldom was
taken from them by Henry III, for siding against him with the Barons in
1297. A branch of the family settled at Boconnoc early in the fifteenth
century. In the church of Lanteglos by Fowey is a brass of William Mohun,
who died in 1508. Sir Reginald Mohun, Knt., was sheriff of Cornwall in
1553 and 1560. He was squire of the body to Queen Elizabeth, and his son,
Sir William Mohun, was sheriff in 1572 and 1578. His son, Sir Reginald,
was created baronet in 1612, and his grandson John was raised to be Baron
Mohun of Okehampton in 1628. Warwick, the second Lord Mohun, died in
1665, leaving a son, Charles, third Baron, who married Lady Philippa
Annesley, daughter of the Earl of Anglesea, and by her had a son Charles,
fourth Baron, and a daughter Elizabeth, who died unmarried. He acted as
second to Lord Candish in a duel, where he was wounded in the belly and
died soon after; he was buried October 20th, 1677.
Charles, fourth Baron Mohun of Okehampton, was married in the first place
to Charlotte, daughter of Thomas Mainwaring. With her he lived unhappily
and was separated from her, nor would he acknowledge the daughter born
to her as being his own child. He had the good fortune, however, to be rid
of her at last, as she was drowned on a passage to Ireland with one of her
gallants. He married secondly Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Thomas Laurence,
physician to Queen Anne, and widow of Colonel Edward Griffith.

Charles Mohun Lord Mohun.

Fitton Gerrard, Earl of Macclesfield, maternal uncle of his first wife, to
make him some amends for his bad bargain, left to Lord Mohun a good part
of his estate.
Charles, fourth Baron Mohun, was of a contentious nature, and was
involved in several duels. He fought Lord Kennedy on December 7th, 1692.
On October 7th, 1694, a Mr. Scobell, a Cornish M.P., interfered with Lord
Mohun, who was attempting to kill a coachman in Pall Mall. Mohun,
furious at being interfered with, cut Mr. Scobell over the head, and
afterwards challenged him. He was also engaged in a duel with a Captain

Bingham on April 7th, 1697, when he was wounded in the hand. He was
next engaged in a quarrel with a Captain Hill of the Foot Guards, at the
Rummer Tavern on September 14th, 1697; he managed to kill Hill.
The story of the murder of Mountford the actor by Captain Hill, in which
Lord Mohun was involved as abetter, is given very fully by Sir Bernard
Burke, in his Romance of the Aristocracy, 1855, and I will here condense
his account.
Mrs. Bracegirdle was at the time a very charming actress, with a delicious
voice of remarkable flexibility, and her singing of such a song as Eccles'
"The bonny, bonny breeze" brought down the house; but the mad song, "I
burn, my brain consumes to ashes," as sung by her in the character of
Marcella in Don Quixote, was considered one of her masterpieces. Cibber
says that all the extravagance and frantic passion of Lee's Alexander the
Great were excusable when Mrs. Bracegirdle played Statira; that scarcely
an audience saw her that were not half her lovers without a suspected
favourite among them. In an age of general dissoluteness she bore an
immaculate reputation, and the licentious men about town knew perfectly
well that she was beyond the reach of their solicitations. Mrs. Bracegirdle
had a friend, "a miracle of fine acting," Mrs. Mountford, also a performer at
the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and became intimate with her. Some of the
malicious, who could ill believe that an actress was virtuous, supposed that
Mrs. Bracegirdle favoured that lady's husband, who was a good actor of
heroic tragedy.
Among the many admirers of Mrs. Bracegirdle was a Captain Richard Hill.
So infatuated was he with her charms, that he proposed to marry her; but,
when she rejected his offer, he regarded this as an insult, and supposed that
she had been persuaded by Mountford to refuse him. Hill, in ungovernable
wrath, vowed that he would kill the actor who had dared to tender advice to
the beautiful Mrs. Bracegirdle to reject his offer, and also to carry off his
mistress by force.
At a supper, where were Lord Mohun, Captain Hill, Colonel Tredenham,
and a Mr. Powell, Hill spoke openly of his purpose, and turning to Powell
said, "I am resolved to have the blood of Mountford." Powell, who was a
friend to both parties, took alarm at these words, and replied that he should

certainly inform Mountford of the threat and caution him to be on his guard.
Captain Hill then drew off from him, and approached Lord Mohun, whom
he speedily discovered to be ready to act as his ally.
Along with Mohun, Hill now seriously set about the requisite preparations
for carrying out his purpose, which they agreed should take place the
following night. With this view, their first care was to order a coach to be in
waiting for them at nine o'clock in Drury Lane, near the theatre; but, so as
not to attract particular notice, with two horses only, while a reserve of four
more was to be held in readiness at the stables, to convey Hill and Mrs.
Bracegirdle to Totteridge. That they expected a serious resistance was
apparent, for they not only provided themselves with pistols, but had bribed
a party of soldiers to assist them in the enterprise.
During the day the confederates dined together at a tavern in Covent
Garden, and talked openly of their intention, before several other persons
who were present. But strangely enough, not a syllable reached those
interested, to give them timely warning. Yet the conversation was of a
nature to excite attention; they discussed the scheme unreservedly, and Lord
Mohun remarked that the affair would cost at least fifty pounds; to which
Hill replied, "If that villain Mountford resist I will stab him." "And I will
stand your friend if you do," observed Lord Mohun.
It so happened, however, that Mrs. Bracegirdle did not play that night, and
the confederates learned the fact, as also that she was supping at the house
of a Mr. Page in Princes Street hard by, and thither, accordingly, they
repaired, planting themselves with the soldiers over against a house
occupied by Lord Craven.
Nine o'clock struck, and still no signs of her for whom they were watching.
They began to think that they must have been misinformed and ordered the
coachman to drive to Howard Street, where Mrs. Bracegirdle lodged, in the
house of a Mrs. Browne. Howard Street is a cross-way leading from
Arundel Street, through Norfolk Street, to Surrey Street, in the former of
which lived Mountford, so that it was not possible for the actor on his return
from the theatre to fail coming upon them. Here, however, they did not
remain long, their suspicions having been excited by the appearance of
several individuals pacing up and down in front of the lady's lodgings, and

these they thought must be spies set to watch their proceedings. They
accordingly returned to their former station by the house of Mr. Page. At ten
o'clock the door opened and that gentleman issued forth along with Mrs.
Bracegirdle, her mother and brother, and volunteered to accompany them
home, an offer they declined, as they said that they needed no further
protection; however, he attended them part of the way. On coming up Drury
Lane they were surprised to see a crowd about a coach drawn up before the
house of Lord Craven, with the steps down. In this Lord Mohun was seated,
with several cases of pistols near him. Before they had time to inquire into
the meaning of this, two of the soldiers rushed forward, forced Mrs.
Bracegirdle away from Page, and would have dragged her to the coach but
that her mother clung about her neck, in spite of some rough handling by
the ruffians. Thereupon up ran Hill, and he struck at both Page and the old
lady with his drawn sword; but some of the crowd looking on interfered so
effectually that he found himself obliged to withdraw. However, he rallied,
and pretending that there was a disturbance and that the lady was in danger
and that she required safe conduct, he so persuaded Mrs. Bracegirdle that he
had no part in the matter that she allowed him to escort her and her mother
to their home, and Lord Mohun and the soldiers followed as though in
pursuit, Hill occasionally facing round as though to dare them to approach.
Upon reaching Howard Street the soldiers were dismissed, as being no
longer required, as it was now deemed impossible to carry out the original
plan of a forcible abduction.
Just as Hill was about to withdraw, he plucked Page by the sleeve, and
intimated to him that he had a desire to speak with him in private; but that
gentleman, who was eager to be back at his own house, replied hastily that
"another time would do; to-morrow would serve."
However, no sooner was Mrs. Bracegirdle safe within the house, than the
others, fearing that evil might befall Page, laid hold of him and drew him
within, and closed the door in the face of Captain Hill.
Instead of having his ardour cooled by his rebuff, the captain became more
wroth, and determined to revenge himself on Mountford; and in conjunction
with Lord Mohun, he continued pacing up and down the street for two
mortal hours with his sword drawn.