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    Transcriber's Note:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
    possible. The Cornish dialect written by Captain Carter includes
    inconsistencies in spelling and capitalisation. Some changes have
    been made. They are listed at the end of the text.

    Blank spaces, representing missing words in the original MS., have
    been replaced by "[...]".

    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.

    Text marked ^{thus} was superscripted.




[Illustration]




A CORNISH SMUGGLER


[Illustration: LANDING THE CARGO.

_F. BRANGWYN._]




 THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
 OF
 A CORNISH SMUGGLER


 (CAPTAIN HARRY CARTER, OF PRUSSIA COVE)

 1749-1809

 _WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_

 BY
 JOHN B. CORNISH

 SECOND EDITION.

 London:
 GIBBINGS & CO., LTD., 18 BURY STREET, W.C.
 J. POLLARD, TRURO, PENZANCE, & FALMOUTH.
 1900.

 WILLIAM BYLES AND SONS, PRINTERS,
 129 FLEET STREET, LONDON,
 AND BRADFORD.




INTRODUCTION.


The existence of the Autobiography which is published in the following
pages came to my knowledge in the course of a chance conversation with a
distant relative of the writer's family. The original manuscript has
been carefully preserved, and has been for many years in the possession
of Mr. G. H. Carter, of Helston. He received it from his father, the G.
Carter mentioned on page 1, who was a nephew of Harry Carter himself.
The memoir of the writer, which will be found in the "Wesleyan Methodist
Magazine" for October, 1831, was based upon information supplied by G.
Carter, partly from the manuscript and partly from his own knowledge. It
is now printed from the manuscript which was kindly lent to me for the
purpose by Mr. G. H. Carter.

The part of Cornwall to which the autobiography chiefly relates is the
district lying between the two small towns of Marazion and Helston, a
distance of about ten miles on the north-eastern shores of Mounts Bay,
comprising the parishes of Breage, Germoe, St. Hilary, and Perranuthnoe.
The bay is practically divided into two parts by Cuddan Point, a sharp
small headland about two miles east from St. Michael's Mount. The
western part runs into the land in a roughly semicircular shape, and is
so well sheltered that it has almost the appearance of a lake, in fact,
the extreme north-western corner is called Gwavas Lake. From the hills
which surround it the land everywhere <DW72>s gently to the sea, and is
thickly inhabited. The towns of Penzance and Marazion and the important
fishing village of Newlyn occupy a large portion of the shore, and
around them are woody valleys and well cultivated fields. To the
eastward of Cuddan is a marked contrast. There, steep and rocky cliffs
are only broken by two long stretches of beach, Pra Sand and the Looe
Bar, on which the great seas which come always from the Atlantic make
landing impossible except on a few rare summer days. With the exception
of the little fishing station of Porthleven there is not a place all
along the coast from Cuddan Point to the Lizard large enough to be
called a village. Inland the country is in keeping with the character
of the coast. Trees are very scarce, and the stone hedges, so
characteristic of all the wild parts of West Cornwall, the patches of
moorland, and the scattered cottages, make the whole appearance bare and
exposed.

Porth Leah, or the King's Cove, now more usually known as Prussia
Cove,[1] around which so much of the interest of the narrative centres,
lies a little to the eastward of Cuddan Point. There are really two
coves divided from one another by a point and a small island called the
"Enez." The western cove, generally called "Bessie's Cove," is a most
sheltered and secluded place. It is so well hidden from the land that it
is impossible to see what boats are lying in the little harbour until
one comes down to the very edge of the cliff. The eastern side of the
point, where there is another small harbour called the "King's Cove," is
more open, but the whole place is thoroughly out of the world even now.

The high road from Helston through Marazion to Penzance now passes about
a mile from the sea, but at the time of which Harry Carter was writing
this district must have been unknown and almost inaccessible. From all
accounts West Cornwall at that time was very little more than half
civilised. The mother of Sir Humphry Davy (born at Penzance, 1778) has
left us a record that when she was a girl "West Cornwall was without
roads, there was only one cart in the town of Penzance, and packhorses
were in use in all the country districts" (Bottrell, iii. 150). This is
confirmed by a writer in the "Gentleman's Magazine," who says that in
1754 there were no roads in this district, the ways that served the
purpose were merely bridle paths "remaining as the deluge left them and
dangerous to travel over" ("Gentleman's Magazine," October, 1754); and
by the official records of the town of Penzance, which show that in 1760
the Corporation went to some expense in opposing the extension of the
turnpike beyond Marazion, to which place it was then first carried from
Penryn (Millett's "Penzance, Past and Present").

The places of which the names are mentioned in the autobiography, but
which are not shown in the map, such as Rudgeon, Trevean, Caerlean,
Pengersick, Kenneggey, and Rinsey, are all in the immediate
neighbourhood of Prussia Cove. They are merely little hamlets of four
or five cottages each, and there is no reason to suppose that they were
any larger one hundred years ago. Helston, the market town of the
district, is about six miles off, and had then a population of some two
thousand people.

The chief interest in the autobiography is probably that which it
attracts as the most authentic account of the smuggling which was
carried on in the neighbourhood in the latter portion of the last
century. Cornwall has long enjoyed a certain reputation for pre-eminence
in this particular form of trade, and apparently not without some
reason. A series of letters of the years 1750-1753 were published some
years ago in the journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall (vol. vi.
pt. xxii. p. 374, "The Lanisley Letters") to a Lieutenant-General
Onslow, from George Borlase, his agent at Penzance, asking that soldiers
might be stationed in the district, because "the coasts here swarm with
smugglers," and mentioning that a detachment ought to be stationed at
Helston, as "just on that neighbourhood lye the smugglers and wreckers
more than about us, tho' there are too many in all parts of this
country." In his "Natural History of Cornwall," published in 1758, Dr.
Borlase regrets (p. 312) that "the people of the sea coast are, it must
be owned, too much addicted to carry off our bullion to France and to
bring back nothing but brandy, tea, and other luxuries." This is
delicate, but there can be no doubt of his meaning; and he goes on to
complain that "there is not the poorest family in any parish which has
not its tea, its snuff, and tobacco, and (when they have money or
credit) brandy," all, we may presume, duty free. The will of Philip
Hawkins, M.P. for Grampound, who died on September 6, 1738, is perhaps
the most striking record, for he actually bequeathed L600 to the king to
compensate for the amount of which his tenants had defrauded the
Customs.

That the smuggling prevailed to such an extent is not to be wondered at,
for the law must have had but a very slight hold on such a rough and
scattered population, living so far away from any of the large centres
of England. In such a narrow country too, where no one lives very far
from the sea, the miners took to smuggling as readily as the fishermen.
A trip to Roscoff or Guernsey formed a pleasant change after a spell on
tribute underground or working stamps. A rough, reckless, and drunken
lot were these tinners, and if riots and bloodshed were more scarce in
West Cornwall than in some parts, it must have been due to the judicious
absence of the Custom House officials, and not to any qualities in the
smugglers. George Borlase says ("Lanisley Letters") that in December
1750 a Dutch ship laden with claret was wrecked near Helston, and "in
twenty-four hours the tinners cleared all," the authorities apparently
not daring to interfere; and that just before this date a man who went
to the assistance of the revenue officers had been killed near the same
place.

Beyond these I have mentioned, the literary records are very meagre, but
the whole county, and especially the western part, abounds with
legends. The smuggling was so universal, that every cove, and fishing
village on the coast has its own stories, and everywhere the curious
visitor is still shown the place where the smugglers landed their
cargoes, the secret caves where they stored them, and sometimes, but not
often, the places where the "officers" found them. Prussia Cove, beyond
all others, has the richest store of such history. Here are little
harbours cut out of the solid rock, which are now occupied by innocent
fishing boats. The visitor can see a roadway partly cut and partly worn
crossing the rocks below high water mark, and caves of which the mouths
have been built up, and which are reputed to be connected with the house
on the cliff above by secret passages.

In the legends of the Cove the personality of John Carter looms so large
that his associates are almost if not entirely forgotten, and everything
centres around him alone. It was he who cut the harbours and the road,
it was he who adapted the caves, and he is the hero of most of the
tales which are told of the good old days. One of these stories is worth
recording. On one occasion, during his absence from home, the excise
officers from Penzance came around in their boats and took a cargo,
which had lately arrived from France, to Penzance, where it was secured
in the Custom House store. In due course John Carter returned to the
Cove, and learned the news. What was he to do? He explained to his
comrades that he had agreed to deliver that cargo to the customers by a
certain day, and his reputation as an honest man was at stake. He must
keep his word. That night a number of armed men broke open the stores at
Penzance, and the "King of Prussia" took his own again, returning to the
Cove without being discovered. In the morning the officers found that
the place had been broken open during the night. They examined the
contents, and when they noted what particular things were gone, they
said to one another that John Carter had been there, and they knew it,
because he was an honest man who would not take anything that did not
belong to him. And John Carter kept his word to his customers. The story
that he once opened fire on a revenue cutter from a small battery which
he had made at the Cove is well known along the coast.

It is characteristic of the history of the smugglers everywhere that
they enjoyed the support of popular sympathy. This was certainly the
case in West Cornwall, where the farmers, the merchants, and, it is
rumoured, the local magistrates, used to find the money with which the
business was carried on, investing small sums in each voyage. Harry
Carter finding shelter at Marazion when the Government were offering a
reward for his capture (p. 26), and the action of the unnamed "great man
of the neighbourhood" on his return from America (p. 90), are perhaps
the reverse of the picture which George Borlase drew for General Onslow
("Lanisley Letters"); "the countenance given to the smugglers by those
whose business it is to restrain these pernicious practices, hath bro't
'em so bold and daring that nobody can venture to come near them with
safety whilst they are at their work." It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that there must have been some powerful influence exerted in
his favour to obtain his exchange from prison in France in 1778, and
what else can we make of the commission to go privateering against the
Americans. The Government had then recently passed a measure[2] to
encourage privateering by authorising the Admiralty to grant
commissions, and apparently English sailors were everywhere readily
taking advantage of the opportunity so afforded for their enterprise.[3]
But to obtain such a commission the applicant had to find the security
of sureties, of whose "sufficiency" the commissioners were to satisfy
themselves, and also to send in a written application specifying the
ship for which the commission was asked, with full details as to the
number of her guns and other matters. He surely could not have ventured
to place himself in the hands of the Government in this way without a
friend at Court. It certainly seems a fair inference from their
popularity, their fame, and from the fact that they both rose to leading
positions amongst the smugglers while still comparatively young, that
Harry Carter and his brother John were superior men to the rough
material of which their crews were probably composed.

The accounts of the actual smuggling in the following pages are not very
elaborate, but we must remember that at the time when Harry Carter was
writing (1809), John Carter and the "Cove boys" were still at it, and
Prussia Cove had not yet ceased to be a great centre of smugglers. This
would also explain the absence of any more particular reference to any
of his companions. This reticence, which we must respect, although we
may regret it, is quite compensated by the variety of his later
experiences. To have been a prisoner in France during the Reign of
Terror, and at a time when the Convention had decreed that no quarter
should be given to an Englishman,[4] is of itself no small claim on the
attention of his countrymen. From his account, which is, I believe,
unique in English literature, and especially when it is compared with
those of French writers, it would seem that the English, who were, of
course, prisoners of war, were placed on the same footing as the
"aristocrats" and "suspects," the great number of whom made it necessary
to utilise the convents and even private houses as prisons. Alexandrine
des Echerolles tells us ("Private life in Public Calamities") that
"Bread was distributed daily to the prisoners, and their pitchers were
filled every morning with fresh water. Those who could not pay the
turnkeys for their trouble got none, so the rich used to bestow alms
upon the poor in this form.... Once a fortnight, I think, they were
supplied with fresh straw, or what was called such, each person
receiving an armful." She mentions that by degrees the prisoners
managed to make themselves more comfortable by introducing tables, and
chairs, and mattresses, which they were compelled to leave behind on
their removal to other prisons. All this coincides very closely with
Harry Carter's account, and he seems to have shared their anxiety as to
the fate of his friends and the common anticipation of the guillotine.

Even this does not exhaust the interest of his life. The very first
lines of his writing show the object with which he wrote. In no part of
England did the teaching and influence of John Wesley obtain such a hold
as in Cornwall. At the time of his first visit he speaks of the natives
of this distant country as "those who neither feared God nor regarded
man" ("Diary," May 17, 1743); he accuses them of wrecking and of
murdering those who were washed ashore, and describes their pastimes as
"hurling, at which limbs were often broken, fighting, drinking, and all
other manner of wickedness." The "Lanisley Letters" contain similar
charges of wrecking and murder, and Dr. Borlase confirms the statement
as to their drunken habits. In 1750 Wesley mentions how greatly all
these things were changed. They were, perhaps, not as much changed as he
thought, but undoubtedly they were greatly improved, for it is plain
fact that the whole of the moral reformation of the Cornish folk is due
to him. He gained followers so rapidly in the west that at the first
Methodist Conference in 1744, St. Ives is classed with London, Bristol,
and Newcastle; "from this it is evident," says Dr. Smith ("Hist. of
Methodism," i. 213), "that London, Bristol, St. Ives, and Newcastle were
regarded as the great centres of Methodism in England at this period."
At the third Conference (1746) Cornwall forms one district out of seven,
while the others included in some cases four and in one case six English
counties. In 1750 John Wesley ("Diary," August 18) says of St. Just,
"There is still the largest society in Cornwall, and so great a
proportion of believers I have not found in all the nation beside."
Similar societies or classes sprang up in the most remote places, such
as Rugan, or Rudgeon as it is more usually spelt now, where the society
met at which Charles Carter was converted; at Trevean and Caerlean,
where Harry Carter preached.

That especial characteristic of Wesley's organisation, "the local
preacher," took root firmly