'L—— is the happy messenger to the West of Cornwall. Peace, and I hope perpetual. Sadd houses I have seen many, but a joyfuller pleasanter day never than this. Sende the money, as much and as soon as you can. Sende to all our ffriends at home, especially, this good news. I write this on my saddle. Every friend will pardon the illness of it, and you chiefly, my perfect joy.
'F. Basset.
'The Kinge and army march presently for Plymouth. Jesus give the Kinge it and all.
'The King, in the hearing of thousands, as soon as he saw me in the morning, cryed to mee "Deare Mr. Sheriffe, I leave Cornwall to you safe and sound."
'To my lady Basset, at her Tehidy, joyfull.'
But Sir Francis, though he did not live to see the days of the Commonwealth (for he died 19th September, 1645), lived long enough to see the reverse of such joyful pictures as the foregoing.
Upon his son and heir, John, fell the full vengeance of Cromwell's government. He was imprisoned for his father's 'delinquency'—though he had never himself been in arms—was compelled to compound for his estates, and, saddest blow of all, in 1660 to sell St. Michael's Mount, which from that date has been held continuously by the family of St. Aubyn. Other hardships too he suffered, which, the county historians tell us, reduced his estate and the family very low. Up to this date the Bassets had undoubtedly vindicated their claim to the first half of the family motto—'Pro Rege.'
But three good matches brought more money into the impoverished Tehidy coffers; and great profits from tin again restored the Bassets to wealth and prosperity.
The Vice-Admiral had a second son—Francis—also a Colonel in the army. But in later life he became a Baptist, and resided at Taunton; one of that class who, imbued with stern and self-denying views of religion, caused Erasmus to ejaculate, 'O, sit anima mea cum Puritanis Anglicanis.'
The Colonel was accused in 1661 of a conspiracy against Charles II., and there is a Star Chamber complaint to this effect; but ultimately the letter pretending to have been written by Francis Basset was demonstrated to be a forgery. Indeed the whole family seems to have been so thoroughly attached to the Stuarts, that, on the accession of the house of Hanover in 1714, one is not very much surprised to find that Mr. Basset of Tehidy would have been arrested by Mr. Boscawen (then Sheriff of Cornwall) as a Jacobite, had not Mr. Basset made a timely flight from his house. Unless I am mistaken, this was the same Francis Basset who was himself Sheriff of Cornwall in 1708.