A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall

by S. Baring-Gould

One morning a lugger was descried by the crew of the revenue boat, then stationed on shore. She was lying becalmed in Whitsand Bay. The glass informed them that it was the Lottery, of Polperro, well known for her fast sailing qualities, as well as for the hardihood of her crew. There was little doubt that with the springing up of the breeze she would put to sea. Accordingly the officer in command, with all despatch, manned two or three boats and put off, making sure of a rare capture, for there seemed little chance of an escape.

Their movements were, however, observed by the smugglers, who made preparations for resistance. The boats, on seeing their intentions, commenced firing when at a considerable distance; but it was not until they had approached her pretty near that the shots were returned from the lugger, which now assumed an unmistakable attitude of defiance. When within a few yards of the expected prize, Ambrose Bowden, who pulled the bow-oar of one of the attacking boats, fell mortally wounded.

It was plain that the Polperro men had come to a determination not to give up their fine craft and valuable cargo without a struggle, so the boats withdrew, and allowed the Lottery to proceed to sea. This affray was reported to the authorities, and orders were issued at all hazards to arrest the vessel and her crew. The smugglers were alarmed at what had been done, and at the dogged manner in which the officers of justice pursued them. They were kept continually concealed in pilchard cellars, in barns, in closets, and were liable at dead of night to have their houses surrounded and searched by a troop of dragoons, who made stealthy descents on the town.

At length a certain Toms, who had formed one of the crew of the Lottery, gave himself up, and declared that a man named Tom Potter had fired the fatal shot.

The Polperro people made common cause of this, and resolved at once to preserve Potter and to punish Toms. The revenue men knew the danger in which the latter stood, and they took him on board a cutter cruising off the coast

On a certain occasion the cutter was off Polruan, when some of the Polperro men persuaded Toms’ wife to decoy him on land, solemnly assuring her that they would not touch his life, and that all they desired was to remove the only evidence that existed against Potter.

She fell in with their wishes, and by her means Toms was seized and at once carried off, kept in hiding-places till an opportunity occurred, when he was shipped to Guernsey, preparatory to conveying him to America. But he was traced, and was pounced on by the Government officers in the hold of an outward-bound vessel.

Meanwhile the dragoons, who had been engaged in the search at home, discovered that their movements were observed, and that intelligence of their approach from Plymouth was sure to precede them to Polperro. A detachment was therefore sent to Truro, with orders to march from the west, in which way they were enabled to come on Polperro unobserved. On one of these visits Potter was captured. He was taken to London, tried at the Old Bailey, convicted on the evidence of Toms, and hanged. The evidence, however, was strongly believed to be false. The shot had entered the breast of Bowden in a direction opposite to the fire of the smugglers; and one of the coastguardsmen who were engaged in the affair averred that the unfortunate man Bowden was accidentally shot by one of his own crew.

Toms was never able to show his face again in Polperro, and a place was found for him in a menial capacity in Newgate, where he ended his days.

Lanreath stands between the Fowey and the Looe rivers, about midway. It has a fine church with a beautiful screen. Usually the paintings on these screens are mere daubs, but such as remain at Lanreath, though sadly defaced, show that there was at the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century a school of real artists in the West. Unhappily, only scanty remains of the paintings can be seen. A late rector is said to have proposed to scrape one half the screen if the parish would do the other half. Accordingly he effaced all the beautiful painted work of the portion between nave and chancel. The parish, however, did not like this sort of “restoration,” and happily refused to complete the defacing of this work of art.