Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/613

 MARITIME HISTORY from proper supervision, ceased to be used for prisoners. 1 The fact that a victualling contractor at Falmouth had recently been sentenced to 3,000 fine and six months' imprisonment for mal- practices no doubt had weight in causing this decision. When the Revolutionary War broke out the great need was for men. Years of ever-widening commerce and of naval victory had their effect eventually in attracting thousands of men to the sea, but at first the supply of sailors was quite insufficient to man the royal and merchant navies. Therefore, besides the impress system, always working, and a suspension of certain sections of the Navigation Acts, Parliament sanctioned, in 1795 and 1796, an experiment analogous to the ship- money project of Charles I, by requiring the counties each to obtain a certain number of men for the navy who were to be attracted by a bounty to be raised by an assessment charged in every parish like other local rates. 2 In 1795 the county was called upon for 194, and in 1796 for 252 men, comparing with 393 and 509 for Devon, and 351 and 455 for Somerset. The ports, also, were required to procure a supply of men, an embargo being placed upon all British shipping until they were obtained. Falmouth was assessed at twenty-one men, Fowey seventy, Gweek seven, Looe sixteen, Padstow nineteen, Penryn eleven, Penzance thirty-five, Scilly three, St. Ives thirty-one, and Truro eleven. In 1798 the need of men was greater than ever ; Ireland was in revolt, the discontent which had flamed into the mutinies of 1797 was still smouldering in the fleets, the French armies were terrorizing Europe, and the battle of the Nile was not won until August. In May all protections from the press, for fishermen and others, were suspended, and by an Order in Council of the I4th of that month a new force, the Sea Fencibles, was directed to be enrolled. It was raised with the intention of meeting an invading flotilla with another of the same character, and for the purpose of manning the coast batteries ; it was to be composed of fishermen and boatmen, as well as the semi-seafaring dwellers of the shore who were not liable to impressment. The order applied to the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, but had especial reference to that bastion, extending from Norfolk to Hampshire, which fronts the continental centre, and is always particularly exposed to attack. The men were to be volunteers, and the principal inducement offered was that while enrolled the seafaring members were free from the liability to be impressed ; they were under the command of naval officers, and were paid a shilling a day when on service. South Cornwall was divided into two districts one from the Rame Head to the Dodman, with one captain, six lieutenants, and 422 men ; the other from the Dodman to the Land's End, with one captain, seven lieutenants, and 723 men. On the north coast there were six officers and 463 men from the Land's End to Hartland Point ; the Scillies were a separate district with three officers and 340 men. 3 These numbers show that enrolment could not have been restricted to seafaring men, and that practically every one who volunteered was entered. The expectation of invasion did not become acute until 1801, when Napoleon collected his army and flotilla at Boulogne and in the neighbourhood. On 24 July Nelson, just returned from the Baltic, was placed in command of the eastern Channel, where the danger was greatest. English naval and military officers were not alarmed for the western counties, and Napoleon's own dispositions and the character of his preparations showed that they were not his objective. When the war was renewed in 1803, the Sea Fencibles were reconstituted in deference to popular fears, but among professional men the force was regarded with contempt as a refuge for skulkers in the lower grades, and for officers, who were better paid for doing nothing on shore than their comrades were at sea. The outer ring of fleets, with a great volunteer army on shore, were relied upon for security until Trafalgar extinguished the possibility of invasion. Cornwall, however, entered with enthusiasm into a decorative defence by raising volunteer artillery corps round the coast at St. Ives, Mount's Bay, Pendennis, Scilly, Fowey, Maker, Portreath, and East and West Looe, most of them with several uniforms. The Ordnance Department encouraged their spirit by providing guns for batteries of position, sending four to Portreath, where the ground was furnished by Lord De Dunstanville ; twelve to St. Ives, for a battery erected by the townspeople ; fourteen to Mount's Bay, and four to St. Anthony, Falmouth (both dismantled in 1817) ; six to Mevagissey ; ten to Fowey, where three batteries had been thrown up on ground belonging to the town ; ten to Crinnis Cliff, and four to Looe. 4 Besides the permanent fortifications at the Scillies there were also twelve open-earth batteries. 5 It was perhaps fortunate that the men behind the guns in these local batteries were never required to meet Napoleon's regiments of the line. The inspecting officer of the Mount's Bay artillery volun- teers reported in 1805 that it was 'a very indifferent corps .... the officers appear to have no sort of command among the men. ... I have sometimes suspected that many of them were only hired and dressed up for the day,' 6 and it is not likely that the Mount's Bay corps was much worse than ' Part. Papers (1798), 1, 143. It is worth noticing that the Americans were confined not as prisoners of war, but as 'under suspicion of high treason.' Had the fortune of war been adverse to the rebel colonies it would probably have gone hard with at least a percentage of these men. ' Stat. 35 Geo. Ill, c. 5 ; Stat. 37 Geo. Ill, c. 4. 1 Par/. Paper, (1857-8), xxxix, 337. ' W. O. Ord. Engineers, cxlvii. ' Ibid. ' Trans, of Penzance Nat. Hist, and Antiq. Sue. i, 75, N.S. 509