It is unnecessary to dwell on the fact that Teignmouth, besides being a port, is a most flourishing watering-place. The colouring is very rich, and especially lovely when set off by a brilliant sky and glittering blue water. Blood-red cliffs lead north and south, and the green of grass and plants, broken by masses of wild-flowers of all tints, here scattered thinly, there in clumps, overlaps and creeps down the face of the rock wherever there is foothold. Between Teignmouth and Dawlish an 'island-rock' of the warmest red runs out into the sea, and through an arch in it the rippling water may be seen beyond. Looking down at Teignmouth from the hill on the opposite side, the town seems to run very flatly into the angle between sea and river. In the estuary, at low tide, the ships and boats lie in pools among the sand-banks, with the gulls circling and screaming about them.
It has been said that 'the cliffs of Teignmouth owe their deep-red hue to the slaughter of the inhabitants by the Danes in 970, when "the very rocks streamed with blood"'; and the old people confidently assert that the dwarf-elder (called hereabouts 'Danes-elder') grows only upon the site of old battle-fields 'where the Danes' blood was spilt!' These legends are not altogether baseless, for there is no doubt as to the pitiless brutality which the Danes showed in their various incursions into Devon between the years 894 and 1013. Drayton's image is bold and gruesome:
'When all the country swam with blood of Saxons shed.'
Teignmouth was last troubled by an enemy in 1690, when Admiral de Tourville, having defeated the united English and Dutch fleets off Beachy Head, sailed down the Channel and anchored one night in Tor Bay. The Devonshire militia flew to arms. 'In twenty-four hours all Devonshire was up. Every road in the county from sea to sea was covered by multitudes of fighting men, all with their faces set towards Torbay.' De Tourville, upon this discouraging reception, gave up any ideas he may have had of disembarking, and merely sent some galleys to Teignmouth, who first turned their cannon on the town and afterwards landed and burned it.
The general excitement that this attack created found voice in a ballad called 'The Devonshire Boys' Courage, 1690.' It is utter doggerel, but expresses the contemporary views of the people, and was sung to a tune called 'Liggan Water,' a title that, according to Mr William Chappell, refers to an Irish stream. I give only a few verses:
'Brave Devonshire Boys made haste away
When news did come from Tinmouth-bay,
The French were landed in that town
And Treacherously had burnt it down.
'When to the Town they did draw near,
The French did straightways disappear;
Because that they had then beat down
And basely burnt poor Tinmouth-town.
'On Haldon-Hill they did design
To draw their men up in a line;
But Devonshire Boys did make them run;
When once they did discharge a Gun.