Cornish Characters and Strange Events

Samuel Drew remained with his father's family from midsummer, 1782, till the autumn of the same year, and then took a situation in a shoemaker's shop at Millbrook, on the Cornish side of the estuary of the Tamar. After having been there for a year he moved to Cawsand and then to Crafthole, where he got mixed up in smuggling ventures.

Port Wrinkle, which Crafthole adjoins, lies about the middle of the extensive bay reaching from Looe Island to the Rame Head. It is little more than a fissure among the rocks which guard the long line of coast; and being exposed to the uncontrolled violence of the prevailing winds, affords a very precarious shelter.

Notice was given through Crafthole one evening, about the month of December, 1784, that a vessel laden with contraband goods was on the coast, and would be ready to discharge her cargo. At nightfall Samuel Drew, with the rest of the male population, made towards the port. One party remained on the rocks to make signals and dispose of the goods when landed; the other, of which he was one, manned the boats. The night was intensely dark; and but little progress had been made in discharging the vessel's cargo when the wind freshened, with a heavy sea. To prevent the ship being driven on to the rocks it was found expedient to stand off from the port; but this greatly increased the risk to those in the boats. Unfavourable as these circumstances were, all seemed resolved to persevere; and several trips were made between the vessel and the shore. The wind continuing to increase, one of the men in the boat with Drew had his hat blown off, and in leaning over the gunwale in his attempt to secure it, upset the boat, and three of the men were drowned. Samuel and two others clung to the keel for a time, but finding that they were drifting out to sea, they were constrained to let go and sustain themselves by swimming. But the night was pitch dark, and immersed in the waters they knew not in which direction to swim. Samuel had given himself up as lost, when he laid hold of a tangled mass of floating seaweed, and was able to sustain himself on that. At length he approached some rocks near the shore, upon which he and two other men, the only survivors of seven, managed to crawl; but they were so benumbed with cold and so much exhausted by their exertions that the utmost they could do was to cling to the rocks and let the sea wash over them. When a little recovered, they shouted for help, but the other boatmen were concerned in transporting their lading of kegs on shore, and not till the vessel had discharged all her cargo did they make any attempt to rescue the half-drowned men. Eventually they removed them to a farmhouse, where a blazing fire was kindled on the hearth and fresh faggots piled on it, while the half-drowned men, who were placed in a recess of the chimney, unable to relieve themselves, were compelled to endure the excessive heat which their companions thought was necessary to restore animation. The result was that they were half roasted. Samuel Drew says: "My first sensation was that of extreme cold. It was a long time before I felt the fire, though its effects are still visible on my legs, which are burnt in several places. The wounds continued open more than two years, and the marks I shall carry to my grave."

The death of his elder brother Jabez produced a profound impression on Samuel, and he became a Methodist.

"For the space of about four or five years I travelled through different parts of Cornwall, working whenever I could obtain employment; and during this period, waded through scenes of domestic distress, which can be interesting only to myself. Literature was a term to which I could annex no idea. Grammar I knew not the meaning of. An opportunity, however, now offering one an advance in wages at S. Austell, I embraced it, and came hither to work with rather an eccentric character. My master was by trade a saddler, had acquired some knowledge of book-binding, and hired me to carry on the shoe-making for him. My master was one of those men who will live anywhere, but get rich nowhere. His shop was frequented by persons of a more respectable class than those with whom I had previously associated; and various topics became alternately the subjects of conversation. I listened with all that attention which my labour and good manners would permit me, and obtained among them some little knowledge. About this time disputes ran high in S. Austell between the Calvinists and Arminians, and our shop afforded a considerable scene of action. In cases of uncertain issue, I was sometimes appealed to to decide upon a doubtful point. This, perhaps, flattering my vanity, became a new stimulus to action. I listened with attention, examined dictionaries, picked up many words, and, from an attachment which I felt to books that were occasionally brought to his shop to bind, I began to have some view of the various theories with which they abounded. The more, however, I read, the more I felt my own ignorance; and the more I felt my own ignorance, the more invincible became my energy to surmount it; and every leisure moment was now employed in reading one thing or other… After having worked with this master about three years, I well recollect, a neighbouring gentleman brought Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding to be bound. I had never seen or heard of these books before. I took an occasion to look into them, when I thought his mode of reasoning very pretty and his arguments exceedingly strong. I watched all opportunities of reading for myself, and would willingly have laboured a fortnight to have had the books. They, however, were soon carried away, and with them all my future improvement by their means. I never saw his essay again for many years, yet the early impression was not forgotten, and it is from this accidental circumstance that I received my first bias for abstruse subjects.

"My master growing inattentive to his shoe-making trade, many of my friends advised me to commence business for myself, and offered me money for that purpose. I accepted the offer, started accordingly, and by mere dint of application, in about one year discharged my debts and stood alone. My leisure hours I now employed in reading, or scribbling anything which happened to pass my mind."

Thus he went on till 1798, when he laid the foundation of an Essay on the Immortality of the Soul. Whilst engaged upon this he had T. Paine's Age of Reason put into his hands. He read it, but saw the fallacy of many of his arguments, and he wrote his remarks on the book, and published them in pamphlet form at S. Austell in 1799.

Through this tract he obtained acquaintance with the Rev. John Whitaker, to whom he showed his MS. on The Immortality of the Soul, and was encouraged to revise, continue, and complete the essay, and it was published in November, 1802.

"During these literary pursuits I regularly and constantly attended on my business, and do not recollect that ever one customer has been disappointed by me through these means. While attending to my trade, I sometimes catch the fibres of an argument, which I endeavour to note the prominent features of, and keep a pen and ink by me for the purpose. In this state, what I can collect through the day remains on any paper which I have at hand till the business of the day is dispatched and my shop shut up, when, in the midst of my family, I endeavour to analyze, in the evening, such thoughts as had crossed my mind during the day."

At one time the bent of Drew's mind was towards astronomy, but when he considered how impossible it was for him, without means, to purchase a powerful telescope, to make any progress in the study of the stars, he abandoned the thought and devoted himself to metaphysics – perhaps one of the most unprofitable of all studies. His works were, however, read by some when they issued from the press, and are now no longer even looked into.

A friend one day remarked to him, "Mr. Drew, more than once I have heard you quote the line —

'Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise.'

How do you make that out?"

"I will tell you by my own experience," replied Drew. "When I began business I was a great politician. For the first year I had too much to think about to indulge my propensity for politics; but, getting a little ahead in the world, I began to dip into these matters again, and entered into newspaper argument as if my livelihood depended on it; my shop was filled with loungers, who came to canvass public measures. This encroached on my time, and I found it necessary sometimes to work till midnight to make up for the hours I lost. One night, after my shutters were closed, and I was busily employed, some little urchin who was passing put his mouth to the keyhole of the door, and with a shrill pipe called out, 'Shoemaker! Shoemaker! Work by night and run about by day!' Had a pistol been fired off at my ear I could not have been more confounded. From that time I turned over a new leaf. I ceased to venture on the restless sea of politics, or trouble myself about matters which did not concern me. The bliss of ignorance on political topics I often experienced in after life – the folly of being wise my early history shows."

His sister kept house for him. One market-day a country-woman entered his shop, and having completed her purchases, remarked that she thought he would be more comfortable if he had a wife. Drew assented, but said, "I don't know any one who would have me." "Oh! that's easily settled," said the woman, and left. Next market-day she returned, bringing her buxom, apple-cheeked daughter with her. "There, Mr. Drew," said she; "I brought this maid, who will make 'ee a good wife."

Samuel demurred; he neither knew the family nor the qualities and character of the wench.

"Lor' bless 'ee!" said the woman, when he made these objections, "take her. The trial of the pudding is in the eating."

He declined the proposal, however; but this incident turned his mind to matrimony, and on April 17th, 1791, when in his twenty-seventh year, he married Honor Halls, and by her had five sons and three daughters. His wife's immediate fortune was £10, a sum of great importance at that time to him. Three years after it was increased by a legacy of £50.

Having made a certain amount of success with his Essay on the Immortality of the Soul, Drew next undertook one on The Identity and Resurrection of the Human Body, and this was published in 1809.

Into a controversy he was engaged in with Mr. Polwhele in 1800 on Methodism we need not enter, but it made no breach of friendly feeling between Mr. Polwhele and him, and it was at the request of the former that Drew wrote the little account of his life that appeared in Polwhele's Literary Characters, 1803.

Having experienced his own great difficulties in acquiring the principles of the English grammar, in 1804 he gave a course of lectures on that subject. These lectures, which occupied about two hours, were delivered on four evenings of the week, two being allotted to each sex separately. A year completed the course of instruction, and for this each pupil paid thirty shillings. He was able to illustrate his lectures very happily with anecdote and from his own experience, so as to render the barren study of grammar interesting and entertaining. Though never able to write first-class English, and often clumsy in diction, yet he was studiously correct in grammar, if often awkward in construction of a sentence.

In the year 1805 he gave up his cobbling business and devoted himself entirely to his pen. Seeing his value as a polemic writer in favour of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, several of the clergy of Cornwall were anxious that he should join the Church; but his early association with Dissent, and his ignorance of Catholic doctrine, induced him to remain where he was in the Methodist Connection.

He next wrote an Essay on the Being and Attributes of the Deity, and a reply to Thomas Prout, On the Divinity of Christ and the Eternal Sonship. All this was very well in its way at the time, but is now so much waste paper, used only for covering jampots.

In 1814 Samuel Drew undertook his most voluminous work, the History of Cornwall, one which he was wholly unqualified to undertake, as he had no familiarity with the MS. material on which that history should be based; and it was a mere compilation from already printed matter.

In 1819 Samuel Drew removed to Liverpool, where he acted as local preacher in the Methodist meeting-houses. To this period belongs the epigram written on him by Dr. Clarke: —

Long was the man, and long was his hair,And long was the coat which this long man did wear.

He became editor of the Imperial Magazine, and after a short while in Liverpool, migrated to London.

In 1828 he lost his wife. "When my wife died," he was wont to say, "my earthly sun set for ever."

In 1833 he returned to Cornwall, and died at Helston on March 29th, at the age of sixty-eight.

Slender in form, with a head remarkably small for the length of his limbs, his stature exceeded the common height. He had a searching and intelligent eye, was somewhat uncouth in his movements, but was full of energy of mind and body. He sometimes wrote verses, which only a very partial biographer would call poetry. But what he prided himself on being was not a poet, but a metaphysician.

The story goes that S. Augustine was walking one day by the seashore, musing on the attributes of God and on the demonstration of the Divine nature, when he saw a child digging a hole in the sand, and then with a fan-shell ladling the sea-water into the hole it had made.

S. Augustine paused and asked, "My child, what are you about?"

"I am going to empty the sea into this hole," replied the child.

Then S. Augustine entered into himself and thought: "Can a man with the limited capacity of his brain embrace the infinity of the Divine nature and perfections? Is it not like emptying the sea into a tiny hole to try to effect this?"

Drew's life labours were just doing this. There was a certain amount of intellectual ingenuity in his arguments, but that was all. Not a leaf that he wrote is of any permanent value, but that it was of value at the time when he wrote I should be the last to deny.

There is abundant material for a life of Samuel Drew. Not only may it be found in the life by his son mentioned at the head of this article, and in his own biographical memoir given by R. Polwhele, but his son J. H. Drew also published a second memoir, under the title Samuel Drew, M. A., the Self-Taught Cornishman; A Life Lesson, published in 1861; also in Lives of the Illustrious, by J. P. Edwards, 1852; and Mr. Smiles has devoted some pages to him in Self-Help, 1866. The portrait of Samuel Drew is given as frontispiece to the first volume of The Imperial Magazine, 1819, and also to the Life by his son.

THE SIEGE OF SKEWIS

Skewis is a small, not very interesting farmhouse in itself, on the high road from Camborne to Helston, near the station of Nancegollan. Although at a distance of five miles from Tregonning Hill, that height crowned by a stone camp, and with two camps on its slopes, seems to dominate it. The country around is bleak and treeless except in dips, and where are the grounds of Clowance. To the north is the camp of Tregeare, where was once seated an ancient family of the same name, which died out in the reign of William of Orange with Richard Tregeare, sheriff of Cornwall. Skewis had been for some time the patrimony of a succession of yeoman proprietors of the name of Rogers.

In 1734 there were two brothers of that name sons of the owner of Skewis. On their father's death the eldest succeeded to the property, and the younger, Henry, carried on the trade of pewterer in Helston. Both were married, but the elder had no children, whereas Henry had several.

On the death of the elder brother, his widow, whose maiden name had been Millett, produced a will whereby her late husband had bequeathed all his freehold property to her. This greatly exasperated Henry, who considered that as Skewis had belonged to the Rogers family for many generations, he was entitled to it, and he averred that the will had been wrung from his dying brother by the importunity of the wife when he was feeble in mind as well as body. Forthwith, in place of disputing the will when proved, he took forcible possession of the house, and turned out of it some female servants left in charge of it whilst his sister-in-law was from home.

The whole neighbourhood was satisfied that great wrong had been done to Henry Rogers, and was loud in its condemnation of the widow.

When Mrs. Rogers found herself forcibly dispossessed she appealed to the law, and judgment was given against Henry.

Stephen Tillie was under-sheriff, and he received orders to eject Rogers, and place Anne, the widow, in possession. On June 18th, 1734, he accordingly went to Skewis to serve the summons. But Henry stood at an upper window armed with a gun, and dared the under-sheriff to approach. Tillie shouted to him that he had the King's writ and must have possession, but assured him that he would not meddle with his person.

By this time a crowd of some two or three hundred persons had assembled, all sympathizers with Henry Rogers, and murmuring their disapproval of the ejectment.

Henry, from his window, called out that the Lord Chancellor had made an unjust decree.

Tillie replied that Henry Rogers might appeal against the decision, but surrender the house he must.

Rogers, in reply, fired, and, as the under-sheriff stated, "burned his wig and singed his face."

This so frightened Tillie that he withdrew, and sent to Helston for some soldiers; and Captain Sadler, then in charge of the military there, despatched some to his aid.

So reinforced, on the morrow Tillie went again to Skewis, and found the door shut, and a hole cut in it, with a gun-barrel protruding.

Again the under-sheriff demanded admittance, and for reply the gun was fired, and a bailiff named William Carpenter was mortally wounded. Another gun was then discharged, and Hatch, the under-sheriff's servant, was struck. Anne Rogers, the plaintiff, was in the rear animating the soldiers against the occupants of the house. Mrs. Henry Rogers was within, loading and serving out the guns to her husband and to his servant John Street. A soldier was shot in the groin, and two other men were wounded. Thereupon the soldiers fired upon the house, and though the bullets flew in at the window, none of those within were hurt.

Woolsten, the soldier shot in the groin, was taken to the rear, where he died. A bullet whizzed through Stephen Tillie's hat. Discretion is the better part of valour. Accordingly the under-sheriff gave orders to beat a retreat, and like the King of France's men who marched up a hill and then marched down again, Tillie and his posse of bailiffs and military retired from the battlefield, carrying their dead and wounded, without having effected an entry. In a kindly spirit Rogers offered Tillie a dram, but the under-sheriff's courage was too much quailed to allow him to draw near enough to accept the hospitable offer.

Indeed, it took Mr. Tillie nine months to gather up sufficient courage to resume the attack, and then not till he had ordered up cannon from Pendennis Castle. On the former occasion there had been at least ten soldiers under the command of an officer. Within the house were only Henry Rogers, his wife, his small children, and his servant-man.

On March 16th, in the year following, another party was sent to apprehend Rogers and take possession of the house. On this occasion, apparently Mr. Stephen Tillie did not put in his appearance, but left the duty to be discharged by the constables. Henry Rogers was prepared for them, and fired, when one named Andrew Willis, alias Tubby, was shot dead. Rogers then, with the utmost coolness, came out of the door and walked round the man he had shot, and again on this occasion offered the besiegers a drink. The besiegers then retired, but not till a second man had been shot.

During the night Henry Rogers effected his escape. He travelled on foot to Salisbury, with the intention of making his case known to the King.

Sir John S. Aubyn, of Clowance, now took an active part in endeavouring to secure the fugitive, and handbills descriptive of Rogers were circulated along the road to London, whither it was known he was making his way. Near Salisbury a postboy, driving homewards a return post-chaise, was accosted by a stout man walking with a gun in his hand, who requested to be given a lift. The boy drove him to the inn, where he procured a bed; but the circumstances and description had excited strong suspicion, and he was secured in his sleep. The prisoner was removed to Cornwall. He and his man Street were tried at the assizes at Launceston on August 1st, 1735, were both found guilty of murder, and were both hanged.

It is not possible to withhold sympathy from both men, especially Street, who acted on the belief that it was his duty to be true to his master, and to defend him and his property to the utmost.

Mr. Davies Gilbert gives the minutes of an interesting conversation he had with the son of Henry Rogers who was hanged.

"On the 30th October, 1812, I called on Mr. Henry Rogers, formerly a saddler at Penzance, but then residing there in great poverty, being supported by a small allowance from a club, and by half a crown a week given him by the Corporation, nominally for yielding up the possession of a house, but in truth to prevent his becoming a common pauper.

"Mr. Henry Rogers was then eighty-four years of age and remembered the unfortunate transactions at Skewis perfectly well; he was between seven and eight years old at the time. He recollected going out with his father into the court after there had been some firing. His father had a gun in his hand, and inquired what they wanted. On this his father was fired at, and had a snuff-box and powder-horn broken in his pocket by a ball, whilst he stood on the other side.

"He recollected that whilst he was in bed, several balls came in through the windows of the room, and after striking the wall rolled about on the floor.

"One brother and a sister, who were in the house, went out to inquire what was wanted of their father, and they were not permitted to return.

"On the last night, no one remained in the house but his father, himself, and the servant-maid. In the middle of the night they all went out, and got some distance from the house. In crossing a field, however, they were met by two soldiers, who inquired their business. The maid answered that they were looking for a cow, when they were permitted to proceed. The soldiers had their arms, and his father had his gun. The maid and himself were left at a farmhouse in the neighbourhood, and Mr. Rogers proceeded on his way towards London."

The authorities for the story of the siege of Skewis are: Richard Hooker's Weekly Miscellany, 9 August, 1735; George Harris's Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwick, I, pp. 295-303; Caulfield's Portraits of Remarkable Persons, 1813; and Davies Gilbert's Parochial History of Cornwall.

THE VOYAGE OF JOHN SANDS

Lanarth, in the parish of S. Keverne, in the Lizard district, was for many generations the residence of the family of Sands. The family was not represented at the Heralds' Visitation of 1620, and did not record its arms and pedigree, but was nevertheless regarded in the eighteenth century as "gentle," and was united to other families of respectability.

Sampson Sands, who died in 1696, was married to Jane, daughter of John Coode, of Breage, but he died without issue and left his estate to his brother's son, John Sands, married to a daughter of Hamley, of S. Neot.

This John Sands, one afternoon in January, 1702-3, and seven other persons, men and women, of S. Keverne, were returning from Falmouth in a fishing boat of about five tons burden, without deck or covering, after having done their marketing at a fair there.

When they had got to sea, about a league from the mouth of the Fal and about two leagues off S. Keverne, suddenly there rose a storm of wind from the west, and the sea rising and rolling in great crested waves round the terrible points of the Manacles, the rowers were unable to make headway against it. If they could not reach Porthoustock, for which they were bound, they hoped at least to run into Porthallow. But even this they were unable to effect. The fury of the blast and the great masses of water heaved against the little boat made progress impossible, and they resolved on running back into Falmouth harbour. Accordingly the vessel was turned, but the raging wind and sea and the tide setting out from the land swept them from the coast. Moreover, the short winter day was closing in. The sun went down behind a wild and inky bank of cloud, and speedily night set in dark and terrible. The unfortunate boatload of marketers could do no more than invoke God's protection, and bail out the water as fast as it poured over the gunwale. The oars were shipped, and the boatmen declared that there was nothing to be done but to let loose the helm and allow the boat to drive.