Within recent times the Government decided to make of Scilly a naval base, but after spending five years and a quarter of a million of money in constructing new batteries they discovered in 1905 that the firing of the guns would bring down the houses of Hugh Town. So again the fortifications have been abandoned, and the history of Scilly as a centre of warfare appears to have come to an end.
Peace has reigned there since the days of Cromwell, but it has not always been peace with plenty as it is nowadays. The islanders have passed through hard times before arriving at their present state of prosperity; the history of these vicissitudes, however, belongs to another chapter.
[III]
FORMER INDUSTRIES
FOR many years the condition of the people of Scilly was not an enviable one. Their isolated situation, without any regular communication with the mainland, threw them for long periods upon their own resources, which were very limited. They lived by agriculture, fishing, “kelping,” and piloting, with some admixture of smuggling; but sometimes their services as pilots would not be required for months together; their crops, their kelp, and their fishing would fail, and their smuggling ventures miscarry, and then they would be in a sorry plight, and in danger of famine.
Under these circumstances we cannot wonder at an Order of the Council, issued in 1740, forbidding the exportation of corn; for the islanders used to sell everything they could to passing ships, and not keep enough for themselves.
Another order is more puzzling. It prohibited all masters of ships or boats “to import any stranger to settle here, or to carry any person from the islands” under penalty of a fine of ten pounds. It is easy to understand why strangers might not be imported; but since Scilly was supposed to be over-populated at that time, why were the islanders not allowed to leave? This was indeed turning the islands into a prison, and giving a real ground for Heath’s quaint supposition:—
“Here is no prison,” he writes, “for the confinement of offenders, which shows that the people live upright enough not to require any, or that the place is a Confinement of itself.”
Smuggling was a very popular employment. It was so easy to slip over to France and return with a cargo of contraband goods, which could be dropped overboard attached to a buoy if the revenue-officer inconveniently appeared. Even the clergy engaged in the traffic. It is said that Parson Troutbeck, who speaks feelingly of the drunkenness occasioned by smuggling, was himself obliged to leave the islands from fear of the consequences of having taken part in it. The Parsonage on Tresco was originally built in a spot especially convenient for this trade, although not otherwise suitable; and one of its tenants had also to run away because he was mixed up in some smuggling affair.