Cornish Wreckers

Extenuation of Cornish Smuggling

Baring-Gould puts his own perspective on the wrongfulness of Cornish smuggling.

He explains that customs' duties were first imposed in England for protecting the coasts against pirates, who raided defenceless villages, kidnapped and carried off children and men to sell as slaves in Africa, or who waylaid merchant vessels and plundered them. But when all danger from pirates ceased, the duties were not only maintained, but made more onerous.

The Cornish folk believed, consequently, that the Crown had violated its side of the compact, and bold Cornishmen had no scruple of conscience in carrying on contraband trade. The officers of the Crown no longer captured, brought to justice, and hang notorious foreign pirates; but to capture, bring to justice, and hang native seamen and traders. The preventative services became a means of oppression and not of relief.

It was in this light that bold Cornishmen regarded the matter; and this was the way it was regarded not only by ignorant seamen only, but by magistrates, country gentlemens, and parsons alike. As an illustration, Baring-Gould relates a story from Reverend R. S. Hawker, a vicar on the north Cornish coast:

It was full six o'clock in the afternoon of an autumn day when a traveller arrived where the road ran along by a sandy beach just above high water mark.

The stranger, a native of some inland town, and entirely unacquainted with Cornwall and its ways, had reached the brink of the tide just as a landing was comming off. It was a scene not only to instruct a townsman, but to dazzle and surprize.

At sea, just beyond the billows, lay a vessel, well moored with anchors at stem and stern. Between the ship and the shore boats laden to the gunwale passed to and fro. Crowds assembled on the beach to help the cargo ashore.

On the one hand a boisterous group surrounding a keg with the head knocked in, into which they dipped whatever vessel came first to hand; one man had filled his shoe. On the other side they fought fought and wrestled, cursed and swore.

Horrified at what he saw, the stranger lost all self command and, oblivious of personal danger, he began to shout: "What a hoorible sight! Have you no shame? Is there no magistrate at hand? Cannot any justice of the peace be found in this fearful country?"

"No, thanks be," answered a hoarse, gruff voice; "none within eight miles."

"Well, then," screamed the stranger, "is there no clergyman hereabouts? Does no minister of the parish live among you on this coast?"

"Aye, to be sure there is," said the same deep voice.

"Well, how far off does he live? Where is he?"

"That's he, sir, yonder with the lantern." And sure enough, there he stood on a rock, and poured with pastoral diligence, 'the light of other days' on a busy congregation.

Baring-Gould says that it could almost be said that the government did its best to encourage smuggling by the harsh and vexatious restrictions it put on trade. Prohibited goods which might under no circumstances could be imported to Britain included:

Gold and silver brocade

Cocoanut shells

Foreign embroidery

Gold and silver plate

Ribbons and laces

Chocolate and cocoa

Calicoes printed or dyed abroad

Gloves and mittens

Besides this list, a vast number of goods carried high burdens of duties, making it profitable and probable men would attempt to run cargo without paying duty:

Spits

Tea

Tobbacco

Baring-Gould, A Book of Cornwall, pages 270-272.)

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