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Introduction
Whilst
roundly condemning the smuggling of drugs and people when
we read in our daily paper that the Coastguard seized a quantity of
smuggled tobacco at one of our fishing ports, and that the navy has gone
round to render assistance if necessary, we feel a delicacy in speaking
or writing on the subject, lest our natural sympathy should give to our
remarks a tone which would belie our claim to rank as peaceful and
law-abiding subjects. Fortunately, we can find an escape from this
dilemma in the difference between the smuggling of the eighteenth
century and the mere revenue cheating of today.
The fact is that no one nowadays fits out luggers with eighteen
carriage guns, or charters French brigs or Irish wherries ‘heavily
armed and full of men’ for the trade, or imports 218 ankers of brandy
in one cargo without the knowledge of the officers of
H.M. Customs, as the ‘Proustock’ men did on June 10, 1762.
A Newlyn fishing boat dodging the watchful searchlight of the navy, in
order to buy a few cigars from a Dutch coaster off the Wolf, is a very
poor thing compared with the first Friday in March 1767, when ‘no less
than nine sail of large boats and sloops went from Penzance to France in
a fleet in open defiance at mid-day, even in the sight of the
man-of-war.’
Today,
most people don't look on smuggling of tobacco as a serious crime; and
two hundred years ago it was straightforward and above board. Scores of
well-found vessels and hundreds of honest, daring, reckless men made no
secret of their calling. The scale on which they worked required the
sterner virtues, and excluded the petty vices. Even the natural and
lawful enemy of all smugglers, the Collector of the Customs at Penzance,
writes in 1771 that ‘Richard Pentreath of Mousehole, otherwise known
as “Doga,” bears the character of an honest man in all his dealings.
He is a notorious smuggler,’ and Thomas Mann, of the same place, ‘a
reputed smuggler, is also an honest man.’
John Carter, the great King of Prussia Cove, himself set the high
example. On one occasion, during his absence from home the excise
officers from Penzance came round in their boats and took a cargo which
had lately arrived from France to Penzance, where it was secured with
other captured goods in the Custom House store. In due course, John
Carter returned to the Cove and learned the news. What was he to do? He
explained to his comrades that he had agreed to deliver that
cargo to his customers by a certain day, and his reputation as an honest
man was at stake.. He must keep his word. That night a number of
armed men broke open the Custom House store at Penzance, and the King
of Prussia took his own again. In the morning the officers found that
the place had been broken open during the night. They examined the
contents, and when they noted what particular things were gone they
said to one another that John Carter had been there, and they knew it,
because he was an honest man, who would not take anything that did not
belong to him.’
These eighteenth-century smugglers were brave as well as honest. All
their courage was not used in defying the Custom House, nor all their
powder and shot expended against humble sitters in the boat or
slow-sailing revenue cutters. I hope you enjoy reading about them. But
there are two sides to every tale and the men of the King were fighting
an uphill battle with many of them suffering injuries.
In
creating this site my aim is to draw up a list of both the smugglers of
Cornwall and those who tried to stop the trade from customs to coastguards. I
will include as many references as possible in order to
help those people researching their family trees. I hope that you may
find a missing link to your tree in these pages. If not then please come
back again because this is an ongoing project that welcomes your input.
George
Prichard
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