The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft

by Charles G. Harper

Upon these simple children of nature, imbued with many of the fearful beliefs current among the savages of the South Sea islands, the Reverend John Wesley descended, in 1743. They were then, he says, a people “who neither feared God nor regarded man.” Yet, so impressionable is the Celtic nature, so childlike and easily led for good or for evil, that his preaching within a marvellously short space of time entirely changed the habits of these folk. In every village and hamlet there sprang up, as by magic, Wesleyan Methodist meeting-houses; and these and other chapels of dissent from the Church of England are to this day the most outstanding features of the Cornish landscape. They are, architecturally speaking, without exception, hideous eyesores, but morally they are things of beauty. It is one of the bitterest indictments possible to be framed against the Church of England in the west that, in all its existence, it has never commanded the affections, nor exercised the spiritual influence, won by Wesley in a few short years.

It was about this period of Wesley’s first visits to Cornwall that the Carter family of Prussia Cove were born. Their father, Francis Carter, who was a miner, and had, in addition, a small farm at Pengersick, traditionally came of a Shropshire family, and died in 1784. He had eight sons and two daughters, John Carter, the “King of Prussia,” being the eldest. Among the others, Francis, born 1745, Henry, born 1749, and Charles, 1757, were also actively engaged in smuggling; but John, both in respect of being the eldest, and by force of character, was chief of them. He and his brethren were all, to outward seeming, small farmers and fisherfolk, tilling the ungrateful land in the neighbourhood of Porth Leah, but in reality busily employed in bringing over cargoes of spirits from Roscoff, Cherbourg, and St. Malo. The origin of the nickname, “King of Prussia,” borne by John Carter, is said to lie in the boyish games of the “king of the castle” kind, of himself and his brothers, in which he was always the “King of Prussia”—i.e. Frederick the Great, the popular hero of that age. Overlooking the cove of Porth Leah, at that time still bearing that name, he built about 1770 a large and substantial stone house, which stood a prominent feature in the scene, until it was demolished in 1906. This he appears to have kept partly as an inn, licensed or unlicensed, which became known by his own nickname, the “King of Prussia,” and in it he lived until 1807.

“Prussia Cove” is, in fact, two coves, formed by the interposition of a rocky ledge, at whose extremity is a rock-islet called the “Eneys”—i.e. “ynys,” ancient Cornish for island. The western portion of these inlets is “Bessie’s Cove,” which takes its name from one Bessie Burrow, who kept an inn on the cliff-top, known as the “Kidleywink.” The easterly inlet was the site of the “King of Prussia’s” house. Both these rocky channels had the advantage of being tucked away by nature in recesses of the coast, and so overhung by the low cliffs that no stranger could in the least perceive what harboured there until he was actually come to the cliff’s edge, and peering over them; while no passing vessel out in the Channel could detect the presence of any craft, which could not be located from the sea until the cove itself was approached.

Thus snugly seated, the Carter family throve. Of John Carter, although chief of the clan, we have few details, always excepting the one great incident of his career; and of that the account is but meagre. It seems that he had actually been impudent enough to construct a battery, mounted with some small cannon, beside his house, and had the temerity to unmask it and open fire upon the Fairy revenue sloop, which one day chased a smuggling craft into this lair, and had sent in a boat party. The boat withdrew before this unexpected reception, and, notice having been sent round to Penzance, a party of mounted soldiers appeared the following morning and let loose their muskets upon the smugglers, who were still holding the fort, but soon vacated it upon thus being taken in the rear, retreating to the “Kidleywink.” What would next have happened had the soldiers pursued their advantage we can only surmise; but they appear to have been content with this demonstration, and to have returned whence they came, while of the revenue sloop we hear no more. Nor does Carter ever appear to have been called to account for his defiance. But if a guess may be hazarded where information does not exist, it may be assumed that Carter’s line of defence would be that his fort was constructed and armed against French raids, and that he mistook the revenue vessel for a foreign privateer.

John Carter, and indeed all his brothers with him, was highly respected, as the following story will show. The excise officers of Penzance, hearing on one occasion that he was away from home, descended upon the cove with a party, and searched the place. They found a quantity of spirits lately landed, and, securing all the kegs, carried them off to Penzance and duly locked them up in the custom-house. The anger of the “King of Prussia” upon his return was great; not so great, it seems, on account of the actual loss of the goods as for the breaking of faith with his customers it involved. The spirits had been ordered by some of the gentlefolk around, and a good deal of them had been paid for. Should he be disgraced by failing to keep his engagements as an honest tradesman? Never! And so he and his set off to Penzance overnight, and, raiding the custom-house, brought away all his tubs, from among a number of others. When morning came, and the custom-house was unlocked, the excisemen knew whose handiwork this had been, because Carter was such an honourable man, and none other than himself would have been so scrupulous as to take back only his own. Yet he was also the hero of the next incident. The revenue officers once paid him a surprise visit, and overhauled his outhouses, in search of contraband. The search, on this occasion, was fruitless. But there yet remained one other shed, and this, suspiciously enough, was locked. He refused to hand over the key, whereupon the door was burst open, revealing only domestic articles. The broken door remained open throughout the night, and by morning all the contents of the shed had vanished. Carter successfully sued for the value of the property he had “lost,” but he had removed it himself!

We learn something of the Carter family business from the autobiography written by Henry Carter, an account of his life from 1749 until 1795. Much else is found in a memoir printed in The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 1831. “Captain Harry” lived until 1829, farming in a small way at the neighbouring hamlet of Rinsey. He had long relinquished smuggling, having been converted in 1789, and living as a burning and a shining light in the Wesleyan communion thereafter, preaching with fervour and unction. He tells us, in his rough, unvarnished autobiography [173] that he first went smuggling and fishing with his brothers when seventeen years of age, having already worked in the mines. At twenty-five years of age he went regularly smuggling in a ten-ton sloop, with two men to help him; and was so successful that he soon had a sloop, nearly twice as large, especially built for him. Successful again, “rather beyond common,” he (or “we,” as he says) bought a cutter of some thirty tons, and employed a crew of ten men. “I saild in her one year, and I suppose made more safe voyages than have been ever made, since or before, with any single person.” All this while, he tells us, he was under conviction of sin, but went on, nevertheless, for years, sinning and repenting. “Well, then,” he continues, “in the cource of these few years, as we card a large trade with other vessels allso, we gained a large sum of money, and being a speculating family, was not satisfied with small things.” A new cutter was accordingly built, of about sixty tons burthen, and Captain Harry took her to sea in December 1777. Putting into St. Malo, to repair a sprung bowsprit, his fine new cutter, with its sixteen guns, was taken by the French, and himself and his crew of thirty-six men flung into prison, difficulties having again sprung up between England and France, and an embargo being laid upon all English shipping in French ports. In prison he was presently joined by his brother John; both being shortly afterwards sent on parole to Josselin. In November 1779 they were liberated, in exchange for two French gentlemen, prisoners of war. The family, Captain Harry remarks, they found alive and well on their return home after this two years’ absence, but in a low state, the “business” not having been managed well in their enforced absence.

It is impossible to resist the strong suspicion, in all this and other talk in the autobiography, of buying and building newer and larger vessels, that the Carters were financed by some wealthy and influential person, or persons, as undoubtedly many smugglers were, the profits of the smuggling trade, when conducted on a large scale and attended by a run of luck, being very large and amply recouping the partners for the incidental losses. But the loss of the fine new cutter, on her first voyage, at St. Malo, must have been a very serious business.

After another interval of success with the smaller cutter they had earlier used, with spells ashore, “riding about the country getting freights, collecting money for the company, etc., etc.,” another fifty-ton cutter was purchased, mounting nineteen guns. That venture, too, was highly successful, and “the company accordingly had a new lugger built, mounting twenty guns.” Horrible to relate, Captain Harry, “being exposed to more company and sailors of all descriptions, larned to swear at times.” This is bad hearing.