The Story of an Ancient Parish: Breage with Germoe / With Some Account of Its Armigers, Worthies and Unworthies, Smugglers and Wreckers, Its Traditions and Superstitions

by H. R. Coulthard

Harry Carter, John Carter, "King of Prussia"; Smuggling Ways and Days; William Lemon, Captain Tobias Martin, Poet, Joseph Boaden, Mathematician.

CHAPTER VIII.

Harry Carter, smuggler, privateer and revivalist, was born on a small farm at Pengersick in 1749. His father, who was a miner by trade, eked out a livelihood, with the assistance of his sons and daughters, in farming a small plot of ground. Harry Carter tells us in his memoirs[58] that he was one of a family of eight sons and two daughters; that his eldest and youngest brothers received some scanty education at Germoe School, but that he and the rest of his family received no education beyond some crude home lessons in reading, given through the medium of the Bible. The problem of daily bread in the household of his parents was of much too pressing a nature to allow more than this in the way of education. As soon as strength permitted, the children had to go forth to work in the fields or the mines, that each might bring his share of daily bread to the common store. Though life was thus hard, the principles of religion were not neglected in the home, the children being taught to recite some prayers "after they were in bed" and to attend when possible the services at Germoe Church. His youth coincided with the strange stirrings in the religious life of the people brought about by the not infrequent peregrinations of John Wesley through the district. When Harry was eight years of age the soul of his brother Francis was touched at one of those wild scenes of religious revivalism, and as the two brothers slept together, the little lad of eight became strangely impressed and awed by the change in the demeanour of his brother. He tells us, however, that these impressions of awe gradually faded out of his youthful mind. At ten he was sent to work at the mines on the surface, and he continued there for seven years, when he went to join his elder brothers in a more adventurous and stirring life upon which they had entered at Porthleah, soon to change its name to Prussia Cove.

Before we proceed further with the story of Harry Carter, it may be well to say something about Porthleah, so soon to become famous as a smugglers' haunt. Between Cudden Point on the west and Enys Point on the south lie three little coves. The one nearest to Cudden Point is called Pixies' Cove. This cove is too rocky and exposed to be used as a harbour, but its precipitous sides are riddled with caves suitable for the smugglers' trade. Next to Pixies' Cove comes Bessie's Cove, called after a wild character, Bessie Burrows, who there kept the Kiddlewink Inn, a famous rendezvous of the smugglers plying their lawless trade along the coast. Bessie's Cove is altogether hidden from view till the edge of the cliffs are reached which form its precipitous sides. A rugged road leads up the face of the cliff from Bessie's Cove, and at certain points in the ascent caves open into the recesses of the rocks. To the east of Bessie's Cove lies Porthleah, now known as Prussia Cove. The name Prussia Cove came to be given to it from John Carter, the elder brother of Harry, who soon came to be the acknowledged head of all the smuggling fraternity along the coast. In his youth John Carter had been the leader of his fellows in all boyish games, and stories of the great Frederick, King of Prussia, having penetrated to the remote West of Cornwall, had so fascinated the mind of this adventurous lad that he dubbed himself King of Prussia. This name not only stuck to him for the rest of his life, but it has stuck ever since to the little territory of Porthleah over which he ruled with an iron hand.

The occupation of the Carter brothers at Prussia Cove was nominally that of peaceful fishermen, but in reality that of daring smugglers. From this quiet and secluded nook in the coast Harry Carter began his career by making several voyages as supercargo of contraband in Folkestone and Irish luggers. Like so many men of his time and country anxious to make their way in the world, Harry Carter lost no opportunity of self-education, and rapidly made himself proficient in a rude system of accounts. At twenty-five he found himself in command of a small sloop of sixteen or eighteen tons and a crew of two men, busily engaged in the exciting trade of importer of contraband goods. The sun shone upon his illegal efforts, and so great was his success that he soon succeeded in making himself master of a sloop of thirty-two tons; but his vaulting ambition aspired to still greater things, and the success that fortune so often extends to new and inexperienced players was still his. The sloop of thirty-two tons was quickly exchanged for one of fifty tons and a crew of ten men; and this in its turn soon gave place to a heavily-armed cutter of sixteen guns and a crew of thirty-two men. At this time there seemed no cloud on his horizon, save gloomy religious thoughts that came welling up in his heart. He was greatly troubled about the sin of swearing and his lack of assurance that he was a "saved man," but not a whit about the dishonest and lawless nature of his calling. Having obtained from Government a licence to sail as a privateer in the American War, and with strict injunctions to his crew against all swearing on board, he set sail in December, 1777, in search of adventures and profit on a wider and more extensive scale; but his star was no longer in the ascendant, and the favours of fickle fortune were to be denied him for many a long year. Off the French coast his bowsprit was carried away, and he put into St. Malo for repairs, little recking of the momentous transpirings since he had sailed from Penzance Bay; for France had entered into alliance with the revolted American colonies, and was now at war with England. Carter thus sailed his heavily-armed cutter into a trap, out of which there was no escape. He and his men were made prisoners, and his ship and all that she contained became a French prize of war. "The King of Prussia," who happened to be on "business" at this time in the Channel Islands, hastened to his rescue, and attempted to explain matters to his captors. The attempt was a foolish one, and he soon found himself locked up with his brother Harry and the crew of the cutter in a French prison. Their captivity proved a hard and tedious one, but like the men of resource and purpose that they were, they at once set to work to make the best of their situation by learning the French language, whilst Harry, in addition, beguiled the ennui of his captivity by the study of navigation, which in after years served him in good stead. The two brothers did not obtain their liberty until after a captivity of two years, when freedom came to them in an exchange of prisoners.

Harry Carter on his return home refitted his old fifty-ton cutter and made several successful smuggling runs. One of these runs was attended with unpleasant consequences, which nearly proved disastrous. He had sailed to deliver a contraband cargo in South Wales; on reaching the Welsh coast he left his cutter lying off the Mumbles whilst he landed to make final arrangements about running the cargo. In his absence the cutter was mistaken by a cruiser for one of the Dunkirk privateers, which at this time were haunting the Welsh coast like birds of prey, snapping up vessels engaged in the coasting trade. These privateers were for the most part commanded and manned, Carter tells us, by Irishmen. The crew of the cutter, seeing the cruiser bearing down upon them, put out to sea to save their cargo of contraband, and soon succeeded in eluding the cruiser by superior speed. On giving up the chase the cruiser sent a boat on shore, and Carter was arrested as the captain of the Irish pirate. The matter ended in his being detained on suspicion for twelve weeks, and his ultimate liberation was only brought about by the representations of his Cornish friends to the Admiralty. With the exception of this slight overclouding of his horizon, things still continued for some time to prosper with him. On his return home he informs us that "he rode about the country getting freights and collecting money for the 'company.'" Indeed, things continued for some time to prosper so well with the "company" that soon another large cutter of one hundred and sixty tons, and carrying nineteen guns, was purchased by them, whilst they gave orders for the building of a lugger mounting twenty guns. These two vessels when fitted out sailed, under the supreme command of Harry Carter, on voyages of illicit merchandise. No wonder, under the circumstances, Harry Carter began to fancy himself again, as he tells us in his memoirs; but there was, alas! a fly in the ointment. In the pride of his prosperity and self-satisfaction swear words began continually to slip out of his lips; this weighed at times heavily on his soul and plunged him in deep spiritual gloom. It was evidently words and not deeds that counted in this man's creed.

His relations with the collector of Customs and preventive officers seem to have been of the most friendly character, and herein lay most probably the secret of his success as a smuggler; indeed, the friendship of Carter with these officials helps us to understand the cause of the extreme prosperity of the smuggling industry along the Cornish coast at this period. In December, 1780, Harry Carter was lying in Newlyn Road aboard his cutter, with her consort the lugger alongside, when a messenger came from his friend the collector of Customs, saying that a Dunkirk privateer, called the Black Prince, and bearing a terrible reputation, was off St. Ives, committing many depredations upon the local shipping. The collector concluded his message by asking him to capture the privateer and so end the reign of terror along the coast. This duty was not at all to Harry Carter's liking; but, considering his business, it was a dangerous thing to displease the collector of Customs, and so with not a few qualms he set out upon the dangerous enterprise of actual warfare. He put round to St. Ives with his two vessels, and anchored off that town. On Christmas Day, in the morning, the redoubtable Black Prince hove in sight, and Carter sailed out of St. Ives Bay with his two ships to engage her. The Black Prince immediately put about and made for the open sea, a running fight ensuing between pursuers and pursued. The lugger in the pursuit soon received a fatal shot, which caused her to rapidly fill and sink with all hands on board. In the meantime Carter, having had his jib carried away by a shot and another planted in his hull, thought it high time to abandon the pursuit of the Black Prince; he was thus able to bear up and rescue seventeen of the lugger's crew of thirty-one, but the rest found a watery grave. Carter tells us: "Before we came up with the privateer, in expecting to come to an engagement, oh! what horror was on my mind for fear of death! as I knew I must come to judgment sure and 'sartin.' I feared if I died I should be lost for ever. Notwithstanding all this I made the greatest outward show of bravery, and through pride and presumption exposed myself to the greatest danger. I stood on the companion until the wad of the enemy's shot flew in fire about me, and I suppose the wind of the shot struck me down on the deck, as the shot took in the mainsail right in a line with me. One of my officers helped me up and thought I was wounded, and he would suffer me to go there no more."

In 1786 Carter married Elizabeth Flindel, of Helford, and in the following year was born his only child, Elizabeth Carter. In January, 1788, happened the great disaster of his life. In attempting to land a cargo of smuggled goods in Cawsand Bay, he was surprised by boats sent off by a man-of-war. He and his crew attempted to offer an armed resistance; the cutter was quickly boarded by the boat's crew, and Carter himself received a severe cutlass wound upon the head and was left lying upon the deck of his ship for dead. He was able to retain consciousness all the time, and when unobserved, with great difficulty, he managed to plunge into the water. Luckily he was seen by sympathisers on the shore, who only succeeded with great difficulty, on account of his wounded and exhausted condition, in bringing him safely to land. This adventure was to cost Carter dear, and it proved the culminating point in his career; henceforth the sun of good fortune only shone upon his path in fitful and watery gleams. In spite of the serious wound from which he was suffering, his friends managed in two days to bring him to the house of his brother Charles at Kenneggie, in Breage; there he and his friends soon learnt the disquieting intelligence that the Government had offered a reward of £300 for his capture. It was now necessary for Carter, in order to avoid arrest, to be removed by night to Marazion. Soon the scent became too strong, and he again had to be removed in the dead of night to Acton Castle, then only occupied in the summer months by its owner, Mr. Stackhouse Pendarves. The land attached to this house was farmed by the "King of Prussia," who kept the keys of the house in the absence of the family. In this deserted mansion the wounded man had to lie in solitude for many weary months. It is said that the doctor who attended him in this retreat was brought blindfolded by night, and that on one occasion Carter only eluded justice by hastily assuming the garb of a woman. In this lonely refuge his disposition at once manifested its gloomy morbidity and intense practicalness: much time seems to have been profitably spent in the study of navigation, and much wasted upon hypochondriacal maunderings upon the condition of his soul, his occasional proclivity for swear words and lack of assurance as to his state of salvation. When his wounds healed he used to steal out of his lair at night to Prussia Cove, returning ere the dawn. On one of these occasions, as he returned he moralised on the singing of the birds in the dawn "answering the end for which they were sent into the world, so that I wished I had been a toad or a serpent or anything, so that I had no soul. Likewise there was a grey thrush which sang to me night and morning, which have preached to me many a sermon."

The sermons of this bird, like many other sermons, seem to have produced no practical effect upon Carter's life. His mind was utterly untroubled so far as the lawlessness of his life was concerned, or the questionableness of many of his deeds; indeed, he made careful preparation for continuance in lawless courses by the study of navigation.