"Then, monsieur," said the Frenchman, "I know you, and I can well remember your kindness and hospitality when I was wrecked off the Lizard some years ago. Then you received me into your house, and entertained me most generously."
This was an unexpected and welcome encounter. The gentleman then required the party to surrender what arms and money they had with them, and Mr. Sands handed over forty guineas that he had received at Falmouth for pilchards just before he was driven out to sea in the boat. He and his companions were required to yield themselves prisoners of war; and Mr. Sands was received into the gentleman's home. All next day were brought before a magistrate and examined, and orders were given that they should not be kept in custody as prisoners of war, but should be permitted to go about at liberty, and beg alms of the people. And the kind-hearted Normandy peasants and gentlemen showed them great favour, and supplied all their pressing wants.
The news of the event not only flew over the country, but reached the ears of the King, who thereupon ordered that the whole party should be sent back to England by the first transport ship for prisoners of war; which happened soon after.
Mr. Sands took leave of his kind host in whose house he had been hospitably entertained, and begged him to accept the forty guineas as some acknowledgment of his kindness. This, however, the gentleman refused to do, saying that he would take nothing at his hands, since God in such a wonderful manner had preserved him and his companions from the perils of the deep. Then Mr. Sands pressed five guineas on the wife of his host, begging her with that sum to purchase something which might remind her of him and his party; and this she reluctantly received.
So they parted, and all went on board a transport ship and were safely landed at Portsmouth; and in eight weeks after their departure from England returned to S. Keverne, to the great joy and surprise of their friends and relations, who had concluded that all of them had been drowned.
The Rev. Sampson Sandys was grandson of the gentleman who was carried over to France, as described. He lived at Lanarth to a great age. His daughter Eleanor married Admiral James Kempthorne, r.n. He was succeeded at Lanarth by his nephew, William Sandys, a colonel in the army of the East India Company, who rebuilt the house. It must be added that the original name of the family was not Sandys but Sands, and that it assumed the former name as more euphonious and as supposing a connection which, however, has not been proved to exist, with Lord Sandys of The Vine, and Ombersley, Worcestershire, and the Cumberland family of Graythwaite. At the same time, it assumed the arms of the same distinguished family, or, a fesse dancetté between three crosses crosslet fichée gules.