Cornish Characters and Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

The origin of the Carter family is obscure. It is supposed to have come from Shropshire, and the name is not Cornish. But what could have brought it to this wild and remote spot in the south-west is quite unknown. The father, Francis Carter, was born in 1712 and died in 1774, and his wife, Agnes, died in 1784. They had eight sons and two daughters. The eldest of the sons was John, the famous Cornish King of Prussia. He obtained this nickname in the following manner: He and other boys were playing at soldiers, and the renown of Frederick the Great having reached him, John dubbed himself the King of Prussia, and the title not only adhered to him through life, but he has bequeathed the name of Prussia to the cove, which formerly bore that of Porthleah.

John Carter, when he grew to man's estate, made himself fame as a daring smuggler, and he was ably seconded by his brother Henry, who contrived to his own satisfaction to combine perfervid piety with cheating the customs.

Smuggling in those days was carried on upon a large scale, in cutters and luggers armed with eighteen or twenty guns apiece. Harry Carter, in his autobiography, says: "I think I might have been twenty-five when I went in a small sloop about sixteen or eighteen tons, with two men besides myself as smugglers, when I had very great success, and after a while I had a new sloop built for me, about thirty-two tons. My success was rather beyond common, and after a time we bought a small cutter of about fifty tons, and about ten men." The measurements at the present day would be ten, eighteen, and thirty tons.

John Carter was never caught. On one occasion the revenue officers came to his house and demanded to ransack his sheds. One of these was locked, and he refused to surrender the key, whereupon they broke it open, but found that it contained only household articles. As they were unable to refasten the door, the shed remained open all night, and by morning everything it had contained had disappeared. The "King" thereupon sued the officers for all his goods that had been taken from him. It is perhaps needless to say that he had himself conveyed them away. The officers had to refund the losses.

On one occasion when John Carter was absent from home, the excise officers from Penzance came to Prussia Cove in their boats and succeeded in securing a cargo lately arrived from France. They carried it to Penzance and placed it under lock and key in the custom-house. Carter, on his return, heard of the capture. He was highly incensed, for the brandy had all been promised to some of the gentry round, and he was not the man to receive an order and fail to execute it. Accordingly, he made up his mind to recover the whole cargo. Assisted by his mates, in the night he broke into the custom-house store and removed every barrel that had been taken from him.

Next morning, when the officers saw what had been done, they knew who the perpetrator was, for nothing had been touched and removed but what the "King" claimed as his own; and these smugglers prided themselves on being "all honourable men."

The most famous episode in John Carter's career was his firing on the boat of the revenue cutter The Faery. A smuggling vessel, hard pressed, ran through a narrow channel among the rocks between the Enys and the shore. The cutter, not daring to venture nearer, sent her boat in; whereupon Carter opened fire upon her from an improvised battery in which he had mounted several small cannon. The boat had to withdraw. Next morning the fight was resumed, The Faery opening fire from the sea. But in the meantime mounted soldiers from Penzance had arrived, and these fired from the top of the hill upon those working the guns in the battery, taking them in the rear. This was more than the smugglers could stand, and they retreated to Bessie Burrow's house, and were not further molested, the soldiers contenting themselves with remounting their horses and riding back to Penzance. Unfortunately, with regard to John Carter, the "King of Prussia," we have but scattered notices and tradition to rely upon; but it is otherwise with his brother Henry, who has left an autobiography that has been transcribed and published by Mr. J. B. Cornish under the title The Autobiography of a Cornish Smuggler, London (Gibbons and Co.), 1900.

But Harry Carter is somewhat reticent about the doings of the smugglers, and avoids giving names, for when he wrote "free trade" was in full swing. He wrote in 1809, when John his brother and the "Cove boys" were still at it, and Prussia Cove had not ceased to be a great centre of smugglers. He is much more concerned to record his religious experiences, all of which we could well spare for fuller details of the goings-on of his brothers and their comrades.

In 1778 an embargo was laid on all English trade, when the French Government made a treaty with the States of America, and not knowing of this, Henry Carter was arrested at S. Malo, and his cutter, with sixteen guns and thirty-six men, taken from him. He was sent to the prison at Dinan; and in like manner his brother John was taken, and they were allowed to remain on parole at Josselin till the November of 1779, when they were exchanged by order of the Lords of the Admiralty for two French gentlemen. "So, after I was at home some time, riding about the country getting freights, collecting money for the company, etc., we bought a cutter about 160 tons (50 tons), nineteen guns. I went in her some time smuggling. I had great success."

In January, 1788, he went with a freight to Cawsand in a lugger of 45 tons in modern measurement, and mounting sixteen carriage guns. But he was boarded, and so cut about the head, and his nose nearly severed in two, that he fell bleeding on the deck.