The Napoleonic invasion scare, which was renewed after the short-lived treaty of Amiens, affected Looe as it did most towns on the south and south-west coasts. “The country,” says Jonathan Couch, “from end to end bristled with volunteers. Even those persons who were not actually enrolled had some specific duty assigned to them in case of invasion,” such as the exciting work of driving off the cattle inland, setting fire to the corn, ricks, and other stores which could not be removed to a place of safety. Many honest, though timid-hearted, individuals lived in continual fear, dreading to go to bed, lest they should awake to the call of French trumpets, in midst of the invaders’ troops, or perhaps be foully murdered by “Boney’s” myrmidons whilst asleep. “A fear,” says another historian of this period, “not altogether unreasonable was entertained that a diversion would be made by sending an army into Cornwall to draw hither the troops whilst the main efforts of the invaders were directed against London.”
It is interesting to know the total number of Cornish folk who flocked to the defence of their country in this crisis. In the year 1806 there were enrolled in Cornwall no less than 8,362 men and 149 officers, whilst the total effective force of the volunteer army in Great Britain at the same period was 370,860, divided as follows: cavalry, 31,771; artillery, 10,133; infantry, 328,956. The Looe artillery numbered seventy men. At Polperro, close by, there was a large force of “sea-fencibles,” as they were called, armed with pikes; as well as heavy artillery under the command of a naval captain. Details of the uniform worn by the East and West Looe Artillery, which was commanded by a Captain Bond, have been fortunately handed down to us. It was, we are told, “blue with red facings, like the regular artillery (what glory!), but with plain buttons. The men,” we are further told, “were practised in the infantry exercise when not engaged with cannon. The latter were naval eighteen pounders, fixed in the Church-end battery at East Looe. The men were provided with clothes and had pay on those days when they were paraded, but the officers had no pay and provided their clothes at their own cost.”
Such is a fairly vivid picture of the times when Looe was a bustling place.
But nowadays it has no such exciting incidents to disturb or stir up the “sleepy hollow” character of its existence, although at one time the place was engaged not only in contraband trade on a truly magnificent scale, but enjoyed quite a large legitimate trade with the ports of Eastern Europe. Except for its fishing fleet, which ventures as far afield as the Irish coast on occasion, and the coming and going of a trading brig or tramp steamer, the pretty harbour, which lies as it were in a cleft between the hills, whose midway slopes are tree-clad, preserves little indication of the bustling life of former times; but, all the same, it is a spot in which to linger, and a snug harbourage in almost all weathers.
Polperro is but a short six sea miles from Looe, and is too delightsome a place to be passed by without threading its narrow entrance of less than sixty feet between the piers, which makes it a veritable “needle’s eye” not easily to be passed through save in a moderate and fair wind.
LOOE
The name is said to be derived from Pol or Pool, and Perro supposed to be a corruption of Peter, thus meaning Peter’s Pool, or perhaps Peter’s Port. Old Leland describes it as “a fischer towne with a peere,” but after a visit to it most people will agree that the description does the place but scant justice, for indeed Polperro is a very charming old-world spot.
The entrance is through a gap between two ledges of rock, and once safely inside, the little town, which blocks the way up the narrow valley in which it is situated, is straight before one, with the fishermen’s dwellings picturesquely huddled together in the hollow and climbing—with a few houses of greater size and importance—the gorse-clad hillsides. It is a place enjoying some reputation with holiday folk as well as artists and writers.
But sheltered as is this tiny Cornish village, lying with its feet in the sea and its head often veiled in the blue-grey smoke which hangs like a cloud of incense over the weather-worn roofs on still days, in south-westerly, southerly and south-easterly gales the sea runs in dangerously high, so much so, indeed, that in former times a boom used to be strung across the harbour entrance to break the force of the waves. Those who have by any chance heard the “organ note” of a gale from either quarter we have named as it roars in at the entrance and sweeps up the little funnel-like valley will not soon forget it. Then with the fisherfolk it is a case of sauve qui peut as regards the boats.