From the North Foreland to Penzance

by Clive Holland

The fate which overtook boats taken in flagrante delicto and condemned was usually that of being sawn asunder in three pieces and broken up; and many a fine lugger and cutter shared this unkind fate, though occasionally very handy and swift sailers were not thus destroyed but were taken into the revenue service, sometimes to be repurchased later on by the smugglers for further illicit use.

But although smuggling loomed so large in the lives and occupations of Polperro folk during the later years of the eighteenth and early years of the nineteenth century it by no means formed the sum total of their seagoing activities. The Polperro privateers were quite as famous in their way as the smugglers. As was perfectly natural the stern training which was necessary to fit men for the hazardous calling of smugglers, the resource, good seamanship, weather lore, courage, and daring proved equally of service when they were brought face to face with the enemies of their country, whether between the decks of a frigate or line-of-battle ship to which they had been drafted as a punishment for some smuggling exploit, or aboard the swift-sailing Polperro luggers turned for the nonce into free lances as privateers. There were quite a number of stories of privateering days current amongst the older folk a couple of decades ago. One or two are worth quotation, as they come from the lips of active participants or descendants of those who took part in the exploits narrated.

There was the case of the Eagle, “a heavily armed lugger of some 135 tons, which, finding itself becalmed some sixty miles south-east of Land’s End one August morning in the year 1809, was somewhat dismayed to discover a frigate, of undeniably French cut, coming up with the wind, and accompanied by what appeared to be a large chasse-marée, or privateer, probably hailing from the port of Brest.... The Eagle was perforce compelled to await the coming of the enemy, who, when about three and a half miles off, ‘broke out’ the tricolour. Fortunately the wind preceded the frigate’s coming by some two miles or more, and although the privateer had advanced to within a mile or so of the English boat, through sailing a shorter course and closer to the wind than the frigate, and began to open fire, the Eagle was able to trim sails and head for Penzance.”

Then followed a running fight with the frigate’s bow chasers, throwing shot short but continuously, and the shot of the chasse-marée occasionally passing through the Eagle’s sails or falling aboard. As was often the case, “the English and French privateers gradually outdistanced the larger and heavier vessel, as the breeze was light, and by six in the afternoon had dropped her hull down.... An hour later those aboard the Eagle were relieved to see the frigate give up the chase, and stand away for the French coast.... All these hours the two smaller craft had scarcely changed the positions they occupied when first they got within range of the long gun each apparently carried.... And so the fight went on until almost dusk, when a lucky shot from the bow chaser of the Frenchman brought the mainsail of the Eagle down on deck with a run.... Three of her crew had been killed or seriously injured, and half a dozen more were hurt. Now overtaking the English boat hand over hand the Frenchman (who afterwards proved to be the Belle Etoile of Brest) came alongside, and, after pouring in a broadside of six guns, crashed into the Eagle. Luckily for the Polperro men, the mainsail proved a barrier for a moment or two to the advance of the Frenchmen, who swarmed over the after bulwarks, and in the delay pistols were used to such effect as well as cutlasses that half a score of Frenchmen were put out of action. Inch by inch, however, the superior numbers of the Belle Etoile’s crew gained possession of the Eagle’s deck, and drove the crew into the waist; but by good luck one of the latter had thoughtfully (!) loaded one of the smaller guns with pistol bullets, and he and two companions had managed to get the piece inboard and had trained it on the Frenchmen, who were pressing the Polperro men from the fore part of the ship.... There was an explosion, which lit up the vessel and the smoke-grimed and bloody faces of the combatants, and a whole row of Frenchmen fell riddled with balls, which but for the close range would have spread more happily (!) and swept away the whole lot.”

This diversion decided the day or rather night, and we are told that, “rallying with lusty cheers, the Polperro men not only drove the Frenchmen overboard and back on to their own deck, but followed them up, and after twenty minutes’ bloody work, which caused the deck of the Belle Etoile to run red, succeeded in gaining the mastery.... After the mainmast had been ‘fished’ and a fresh yard hoisted, the Eagle and her prize, the crew of which was twenty men stronger, and of four more and heavier guns, laid a course for Falmouth, which was reached next day in safety, after speaking one of His Majesty’s cruisers.”

From the History of Polperro we take the second account of the doings of its privateering fisherfolk. The story tells how when the Unity, a hired armed lugger, was cruising in the Channel off Ushant, with one Richard Rowett of Polperro in command, he discovered at dawn one morning the presence of two French frigates, “one on either side, who hoisted English colours, but from their build and rig he (Richard Rowett) had his suspicions as to their nationality. All doubts, however, were dispelled when a shot was fired across his bows to bring him to, and both immediately displayed the French flag. The nearest hailed him, and, considering the Unity to be their prize, ordered him to lie to while they boarded her. This order Captain Rowett feigned to obey, and for the moment shortened sail; but when under the lee of the enemy, who were both lying to, quite contentedly lowering their boats with the sails aback, he suddenly spread all sail, passing ahead of both frigates, took the helm himself, ordered the crew to lie flat on the deck to escape the perfect shower of balls rained from the bow chasers and muskets of the enemy, which, in their anger and disappointment at so unexpectedly losing their prey, were fired on them.” Such smart seamanship and daring well deserved the success with which it met, and it is satisfactory to find that the “Unity soon escaped out of range without anyone being hurt, and with only very slight damage being done to the sails and rigging.”

Very little trace of the stirring times of old is discoverable in the peaceful life and law-abiding inhabitants of Polperro of these prosaic twentieth-century days. It is just a charming little haven with the quaintness which seems inseparable from all Cornish fishing villages, redolent of many memories of gallant and daring deeds accomplished by the ancestors of the contemplative fisherfolk who lounge in the sunshine on the quay—still smoking, maybe, tobacco on which duty has never been paid—when they are not engaged upon fishing expeditions or in saving their boats and belongings during the gales which turn the little haven into a roaring cavern of the winds.

Fowey, but seven miles further west, is a much more sophisticated though perhaps not less charming place. For one thing, it has the railway, and another it has, somehow or other, preserved a measure of the importance and prosperity which belonged to it in the days when it, too, owed much to contraband trade, privateering, and hazardous enterprises.

As one enters the Fowey River between the headlands, one truly (in the quaint words of old Carew) “lighteth on a fair and commodious haven, where the tide daily presenteth his double service of flowing and ebbing, to carry and recarry whatsoever the inhabitants shall be pleased to charge him withal, and his creeks, like a young wanton lover, fold about the land with many embracing arms.”

Amongst the famous folk who of recent years have come to dwell in Fowey none has sung its praises more lustily than that engaging writer who signs himself so modestly “Q,” but whose real name is A. T. Quiller-Couch. In his novels he has put on record something at least of the town’s social life and history. “Q” states that Fowey “has a history, and carries marks of it.” And he also tells us: “The visitor, if he be at all of my mind, will find a charm in Fowey over and above its natural beauty, and what I may call its holiday conveniences for the yachtsman, for the sea-fisherman, or for one content to idle in peaceful waters.” And although he appears to lament that it no longer has a Mayor and Corporation of its own (some may not deem this any disadvantage or discredit) he hastens to assert that “it is as capable of managing its affairs as any town of its size in Cornwall.”