The Quillers Part Two. Context: 'The White Witch of Zennor': A Window into a Lost World

1. Introduction

For many readers today, even those sympathetic to the oral tradition, William Bottrell's collection Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall presents almost insuperable problems, including the subject of this discussion, 'The White Witch, or Charmer of Zennor'. This is because drolls are expressed in forms of thought, images and a dialect of English inaccessible today even to most Penwith residents. The following analysis is probably the first and maybe the last attempt to dissect and interpret one of the most interesting, especially as it relates to the subjects of smuggling, privateering and, possibly, piracy.

The droll is not to be dismissed as a representation of fable because not only did Bottrell take it seriously but also because its geographical and historical details stand up to scrutiny. This present writer has walked and cycled the area involved and has established the Napoleonic period as the relevant time. Hunt helpfully talks about two remaining droll-tellers that he met:

These wanderers perpetuated the traditions of the old inhabitants; but they modified the stories, according to their fancy, to please their auditors. Not merely this: they without doubt introduced the names of people remembered by the villagers, and when they knew that a man had incurred the hatred of his neighbours they made him do duty as a demon, or placed him in no very enviable relation to the devil' (Hunt, p.28).

In 1870, when Bottrell's work was published, society looked upon the activities described with disapprobation, while droll-telling itself was being confined to the past. The 'Forster Education Act' of 1870 was a factor in the death of the oral tradition. Bottrell was fortunate in discovering Jack Tregear, one of the last of the droll tellers.

The picture of the Napoleonic period in Cornwall is authentic and illuminates certain aspects of the Polperro material (covered in A Study of the Quillers of Polperro and Q's Quiller Inheritance) which otherwise remain obscure.

There can be little question that what we have is oral history, even if sections sound unfamiliar to many, especially to academics, and maybe over-challenging. The Couches accepted reality as having two parts, a rational which should be developed, and a non-rational, which should be acknowledged and left alone. This study follows the Couch line.

It is strongly recommended that the study should be read alongside the droll 'The White Witch of Zennor'. It can be accessed at: Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall, Vol. 1: The White Witch, or Charmer of Zennor: Part First.

2. The significance of William Bottrell

The Bottrells were originally of Breton extraction, coming across to England with William the Conqueror in 1066. A remarkable number of families in south-west Britain claim Norman-Breton ancestry. Map 2, 'North-West Europe 400-550' in Susan Pearce's The Kingdom of Dumnonia illustrates the 'Great Migration' which took place from south-west Britain to 'Dumnonie' and 'Cornoueille' in 'Armorica' and to 'Britonia' in north-west Spain at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. 

There is a remarkable folk memory of the period involving Danish raids in William Bottrell's droll 'The White Witch, or Charmer of Zennor' when Matthew Thomas relates to Jack Tregear of how 'many of the rich people . . . buried their treasure and went to Wales or over sea' (Bottrell, p. 71). The treasure remains unclaimed.

For the Bretons in 1066, the expulsion of the Anglo-Saxons enabled them to return to ancestral lands and be reunited with the remaining branches of their families. The conquest of the south-west was left by William the Conqueror to Count Brian of Brittany (Morris, pp. 215, 224 and 227). Bretons continued to cross the channel. For example, during Edward II's reign, two brothers from Lannion crossed to Penwith, establishing the Lanyon family in St Buryan and Madron. Bottrell refers to the Lanyons of Buryan as kin to the 'olde gentil Bretons' who arrived from 'Armorica'. 

This establishes the antiquity of the folk or oral tradition found in Bottrell's Traditional and Hearthside Stories. 

Dr K. S. B. Keats-Rohan's Domesday Descendants: A prosopography of persons occurring in English documents 1066-1166; II, Pipe Rolls to 'Cartae Baronum', states that a William Boterel [sic] was 'first of a line of William Boterels in Cornwall, occurs first in 1129/30. He and his heirs held lands formerly held by Brien or Nigel under Robert and William Mortain in Cornwall' (Keats-Rohan, p. 182). 

The name Bottrell first appears in a latinised Cornish place name of 1283, Castrum Boterel, now Boscastle (Padel, p. 56). Thomas Hardy courted his first wife Emma Gifford in the Boscastle area in March 1870, visiting the area again in March 1913, after her death, celebrating the event in such poems as 'At Castle Boterel'.

In 1296, a William Bottreaux of Lelant and Treveth, in Penwith, was granted the privilege of a market by Edward I. In 1463, a William Bottreaux still held the manor of Lelant (Matthews, pp. 45 & 47). In Cornwall in the 13^th Century, Whetter identifies Bottrell landholdings in Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset. The Bottrells proliferated in the St Ives-Lelant district, at some point moving further west to Sennen, establishing themselves at Raftra, with the forename William remaining standard.

The folklorist's father, William Vingoe Bottrell, was born at Raftra in 1790, a year after Jonathan Couch was born at Polperro. Presumably, his mother was a Vingoe, a personal name evident in the local place name Trevingye: a Richard Bottrell of St Levan had married a Mary Vingoe in 1788. The Vingoes, like the Bottrells, date back to the Conquest and the family was also somewhat decayed. The privateer's name in the droll suggests 'Billy V.' to be connected to the Vingoes.

William Bottrell was born in Raftra in 1816. He turned from farming to more academic pursuits, becoming an English master at the Seminary in Quebec from 1847 to 1851. Following sojourns in Australia, Spain and Canada he returned to the Penzance area sometime in the 1850s, spending the rest of his life collecting and editing folktales. 

He became one of a number of distinguished folklorists working in Cornwall, including Dr Jonathan Couch, F. L. S., of Polperro, Dr Thomas Quiller Couch, F. S. A., of Bodmin, Robert Hunt, F. R. S., M. K. Courtney of Penzance, sister to the Rt. Hon. Leonard Courtney and A. K. Hamilton Jenkin, M.A., B.Litt. (Oxon). These were all well-educated, three with scientific training and qualifications, and capable of distinguishing the genuine from the fake, the sensible from the credulous, and oral history from fantasy.

3. Smuggling

The droll provides an authentic picture, the only one at present available, of a small-scale smuggling enterprise. It is very different from the large-scale and financially lucrative ventures of the Quillers and the Carters. There is no mention of Guernsey merchants, bankers such as Zephaniah Job or attorneys such as Christopher Wallis.

The only other such account is the one Q fictionalized in the short story collection Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts under the title 'The Singular Adventure of a Small Free-trader', only it comes from a Breton smuggler called Yann Riel. It is set in the spring of 1803, at a time when Matthew Thomas of Zennor and the Ludgvan smugglers were active.

In the story, Yann Riel receives an order for 144 'ankers' of Cognac, each containing 4 gallons at 5s 6d per gallon or one pound two shillings an anker – in old money. They would be 'ready slung' or roped to hang either side of a clipped and greased pony. The total consignment is worth nearly £160. The pay for freighting by lugger and for the twelve crew members is £17 per man.

The initial outlay is financed by Riel Senior of Roscoff. The remuneration comes after landing and counting on Rope Haven beach, Blackhead, probably the most dangerous moment of the whole exercise, as it turns out, as there are soldiers, probably from Bodmin barracks, on the cliffs above.

It seems that Riel Senior is paid in English money which he exchanges for French in Roscoff. Presumably, Matthew Thomas visited a money-changer in Roscoff before purchasing the Breton goods he required. The loss of a cargo would spell financial ruin.

While in Roscoff Matthew Thomas and the Ludgvan smugglers would have stayed at a boarding house. The Quillers boarded with a Mrs Magna (Couch, B., p. 31) while the Carters had their own property, losing it in the French Revolution.

The temptation to dismiss Matthew Thomas as simple and naive should be dismissed. Smuggling was a sophisticated operation, involving handling considerable sums of money, good organizational skills, a high level of seamanship, and a fair degree of courage.

Thomas's stream-works acted as a refuge for contraband landed by a 'noted crew of Ludgvan smugglers' at Long Rock on the eastern green of Penzance (Bottrell, p.69). This is a lengthy sand and shingle beach, relatively sheltered from south-westerly gales, with roads leading away to Penzance, Marazion, Ludgvan and Zennor. The crew did four trips each summer.

Thomas could probably accommodate the loss of stream-workers during the summer when the streams were low, making up the loss from the sale of contraband to his clients.

Once the danger of being intercepted in the Channel by the Revenue Cutter or even by Captain Edward Pellew RN, who would have impressed the smugglers, the Preventive Service at Penzance, where the old customs house still stands, offered little opposition, with a few kegs left in convenient places and the odd bottle left at the back door of the local justice sufficing.

Thomas' moor-house was specially constructed with a false inner wall to accommodate contraband (p. 73). The Quiller residence at Polperro was adapted for a similar purpose. When Matthew Thomas goes to Falmouth before the marriage to arrange a house for 'Billy V.' and 'Margaret D.', a carpenter would no doubt have been employed for the purpose of adaptation.

The articles of contraband listed are 'brandy, silk handkerchiefs, lace and other things'. These were not intended for working people, but for the gentry, the clergy, the mine-owners and Penzance businessmen. Sir Harry Trelawny JP, of Trelawne was not forgotten by the Polperro smugglers, particularly the Quillers, and Justice Jones of Penrose in Sennen would have been similarly served.

There can be little doubt that the smugglers who used the free-port of Roscoff – the Quillers, the Carters, Richard Rowett, the Ludgvan crew and Matthew Thomas – knew each other and lodged in similar houses, even if they worked independently. It is also more than likely that young Humphry Davy, who according to his biographer Dr John Davy, loved to wander the Penwith moors, would have been fascinated by the stream-works of Matthew Thomas.

If we cross-reference the information contained in the droll with what appears elsewhere, its veracity is beyond question. It contains historical information.

What is truly remarkable is that members of the Branwell family of Penzance, near relations of Maria and Elizabeth Branwell, mother and aunt of the Brontë novelists, were actively involved in smuggling and privateering, working as convenient with the Carters of Prussia Cove.

The 'Billy V.' and 'Margaret D.' of Bottrell's 'droll' may have been personally known to Elizabeth and possibly Maria.

Dr Melissa Hardie's study of the Branwell family in Brontë Territories, helps us construct a network of relationships – family, occupational, educational – showing the interconnectedness of Penwith life from 1750 to 1820.

It is reasonable to assume that the long winter evenings in Haworth parsonage were enlivened by recollections of Penwith, material informing the creative imaginations of the young novelists and stimulating their earliest stories.

4. Privateering

Up until the 1850s privateering was legal from British ports, although the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 brought it to an effective close. For the Quillers the most prolific time may have been the years immediately before the ending of the war with France and Spain in early 1783 (see Johns, The Smugglers' Banker, Ch. 3); although the re-opening of conflict with France in 1793, and again after the Peace of Amiens in 1803, when the Unity and the Pheasant were two of Polperro's most effective privateering craft, presented opportunities for making substantial profits (See Johns, ibid., Ch. 8).

Privateering was closely regulated by the government, which took a percentage of the profit without suffering the danger of loss. A 'Letter of Marque' had to be obtained from the Admiralty, with much paperwork involved and representation in London invariably necessary. As Jeremy Rowett Johns writes:

A letter of marque was a commission issued by the sovereign licensing the commander of a privately owned ship to cruise against enemy vessels in time of war (Rowett, p. 34, fn.)

All this work, along with arming and victualling vessels, fell in Polperro to Zephaniah Job, especially where the Quillers were concerned. The Quillers financed, either alone or with others, and frequently captained, privateering craft.

When war with France was declared on February 1, 1793, an expensive, specialized and lengthy process had to be gone through before a privateer could put to sea. In most cases, a group of venturers would have been necessary, putting up the money with the hope of each taking a percentage of the profit.

Selecting the captain of a privateer was the key to success. Presumably, the captain would take a percentage along with the venturers, although less, with the crew following, but all depending on the vessels captured. A prize and its cargo would have to be auctioned, the Quillers and Carters frequently using Fowey, with pounds sterling as the only currency permitted. The government percentage would have to be satisfied first.

Although Billy V. is named as the captain of a privateer, the droll suggests this to be a less than satisfactory identification. The captain of a privateer working for a group of venturers could not have accumulated the wealth of Billy V., nor could a privateer captain working the English Channel have accumulated the type of wealth described in the droll. The wealth of the Quillers, the Carters and Richard Rowett was quite different.

The evidence, as it is set out in the section headed 'The Sailor's History', suggests that he did not spend his time cruising the English Channel for French merchantmen, but either sailed out to the East Indies or across to Central America, where there were rich prizes and less interference from the Royal Navy.

At best Billy V. was a pirate, as he became after making out of Falmouth, or a slave-trader working in the triangle of Bristol – West Africa – East America – Bristol. 

Similarly, in Q's first novel Dead Man's Rock, Amos Trenoweth takes to sea to compensate for the poverty of his farm, ending up as a pirate, ruthless and materialistic, off the coasts of India and Ceylon. Billy V. and Amos Trenoweth have something in common, yet only something. On his return to Cornwall, tortured by conscience, Trenoweth becomes religious. There is no evidence, though, that either Billy V. or John D., who followed him, suffer from conscience or possess the slightest religious interest.

How many privateers strayed outside of the law is unknown, but most, like the Quillers and Carters, stayed strictly within, as far as privateering went. Bottrell's droll is important for identifying one who did not.

This helps to explain why the droll obscures the privateer's identity. Maybe his name was William Vingoe hence the 'Billy V.', and maybe again he was in some way related to William Vingoe Bottrell, the folklorist's father.

Privateering craft required a greater degree of manning than other boats of equivalent size. Not only would men be killed or wounded by a merchantman resisting, but if taken it would need crewing back for auction while the privateer sought other prizes.

When Billy V. endeavours to raise a new crew on Sennen Green, he is overwhelmed with applicants. Forty would probably have been a minimum number required. Most if not all men would have come from local families, some, maybe, from the Bottrells of Sennen and St Levan.

Two months later, only six remained alive. Of these only one ever returns to Cornwall, the crew-member who informs Margaret at Zennor. The loss of a privateer would have been devastating in a relatively small community – sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers. Matthew Thomas, who later narrates the incident to Jack Tregear, is fortunate in not being one.

When William Bottrell was born at Raftra in 1816, thirteen years after 'Billy V.' had sailed, the event must have been as controversial as the Lottery Incident in Polperro, and one remembered with equal bitterness.

5. The geography of the droll

The droll is set in West Cornwall, particularly West Penwith. There are, though, extensions to Falmouth, Roscoff in Brittany, Cadiz in Spain and the islands of the Spanish Main.

1. West Penwith

Most of the action takes place in a group of parishes running along the north-west coast of Penwith from St. Ives to Land's End.

Zennor Parish

Matthew Thomas has a small farm at Treen, a hamlet to the west of Zennor Churchtown. He runs a tin-streaming works in a valley running up from Zennor Churchtown to Trewey Common, Amalveor Downs and Lady Downs, with his moor-house situated in the upper valley.

Margaret D. seems to have her dwelling, from the time of her removal from Tregaminion, in the lower part of the valley, from Zennor Churchtown to Pendour Cove.

Morvah Parish

Morvah is to the west of Zennor. Tregaminion, or Trigaminion as it is spelt in the droll, is a manor house adjacent to Morvah Churchtown, where the Daniels farmed. The church is where they worshipped. At the time at which the droll is set,  Morvah was occupied by farmers and tinners; in 1800, it had a population of 282.

St Just

This is a mining village to the west of Morvah. Billy V. has friends and relations there. 

Sennen

Sennen Parish, including Land's End, was the ancestral home of the Vingoe and Bottrell families. The First and Last Inn was all that remained of the Vingoe inheritance. Trevilley Cliffs, where Billy. V.'s death ship is last seen, are to the south of Land's End. Adjacent to Sennen Churchtown is the farming hamlet of Escolls [Escalls] where Margaret D. spends her last years.

Ludgvan

The parish of Ludgvan is to the south of Zennor and had its own smuggling syndicate which landed contraband from Roscoff at Long Rock on Eastern Green outside Penzance.

Lelant 

Jack Tregear lives at Lelant which lies between Ludgvan and St Ives. As it is some distance from the moor-house and stream-works he often stays over with Matthew Thomas and hears his drolls.

Penzance

Penzance lies in the parish of Madron. Its Customs House can still be seen above the harbour.

2. Falmouth

When Billy V. returns to Morvah his privateer is moored in Falmouth. The droll also gives Falmouth as the place of marriage and where Billy and Margaret are to set up home. It is from Falmouth that Billy V. sets out on his last voyage.

3. Iberia

The privateer is captured by a Spanish merchantman off Scilly and the crew are taken back to Cadiz for hanging, but escape following a battle with a corsair and make off westwards to Central America.

4. The Spanish Main

Billy V. spends his last years on the Spanish Main, in the Caribbean, dying at a time when he is hoping to return to Cornwall.

6. The Daniell Family of Penzance and Truro and the Daniel Family of Morvah

To appreciate the droll as history it is necessary to have some knowledge of the Daniell family of Truro and their extension in Penzance, and the Daniel family of Morvah. Matthew Thomas knows Margaret D. and John D. and probably Mr Daniel of Morvah. Jack Tregear knows Margaret but not John. 

William Bottrell was too young to have known John but almost certainly knew or knew of Margaret as she spent her last years at Escalls in Sennen. The loss of the manor of Alverton by the Daniells of Penzance and the marriage of Margaret D. and Billy V. would have been common knowledge in the area.

The Daniells of Alverton

The history of the Daniells of Alverton can be found in P. A. S. Pool's History of Penzance and with additional information in his The Autobiography of Alexander Daniel of Alverton (1599-1668) in the Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, New Series, Vol. Viii, Part 4, 1977. William Bottrell did not have access to this sort of material, having to rely on the oral tradition. The Truro Daniells invariably used the double L. 

Richard Daniell of Truro purchased the Manor of Alverton in 1614 but seems to have resided in Truro, being Mayor in 1621 and the MP in 1624. Alexander Daniell (1599-1668) succeeded to Alverton and resided in Penzance from 1632. He must be the 'Squire Daniel of Alverton' in Bottrell's droll 'Madam Trezillian's Head-Dress' in the Series III edition. Madam Trezillian resides at Raftra where Bottrell was later to be born (Bottrell, 1880 ,p. 130). 

Alexander Daniell had five sons, Richard being the eldest. He had two sons and four daughters, one of whom might have been Margaret D's forebear. Alexander made the property over to Richard who dissipated the inheritance and in 1664 sold the lordship of Alverton. Eliaseph Daniel married Jane Penrose of Madron who had two daughters. George Daniell founded a school at Madron, which still carries his name. 

Cornish Wills, 1569-1799 lists Alexander Daniell of Madron in 1669 who died in 1668 with the will not fully ratified until the following year. The will of Eliaseph Daniell of Madron is dated 1699. 

The Daniels of Morvah

The Daniels of Morvah do not appear in Cornish Wills, and with a single 'l', until after this. They probably but not certainly belonged to a different family. There are seven, from William Daniel of 1710 to Matthew Daniel of 1788.

In the independent Morvah parish register, before union with Madron, William Daniel married in 1703, possibly being the son of William Daniel above. William made his will and died in 1728. Between 1749 and 1759, John, Mark and Matthew Daniel made wills. If they were three brothers they must have made money independently.

Tregaminion in Morvah seems to have been originally owned by the Lanyons – who claim to have descended from the Lanions of Brittany. Bottrell has much information on the family of Lanyon or Lenine in Series I, variously between pages 185 and 230:

1702: a lease was granted to Matthew Daniell, yeoman of Morvah of ¼ of Rosemergy by Sampson Morris on the lives of John Daniell, son of Matthew, etc.

9/11/1708: a mortgage on Tregaminion was granted by John Borlase of Pendeen, commonly called John of Pendeen, the father of the Revs William and Walter Borlase, to Samuel Enys of Truro (CB/1/1/253).

7/5/1716: a quitclaim of lands in Morvah and Madron: Charles Figgen, yeoman, Gulval, to Richard Rodda, yeoman, Madron, included 'part of Rosemergy occupied by Matthew Daniel' for £5 and 3 gold moidors' (ML/171). This suggests Matthew Daniel to have been engaged in shipping or smuggling.

A reference on the parish register of Madron appears to refer to the Margaret Daniel of Bottrell's droll. On 31/7/1795 Margaret Daniel married a William Richards of Gulval, the Richards family seemingly originally coming from Morvah. However, although 1795 is an appropriate date for the marriage of Margaret D. and Billy V., on this occasion the bride was both a widow and illiterate, whereas the Margaret of the droll is neither. 

The lease of ground at Rosemergy granted to Matthew Daniell, yeoman, which then fell to John Daniel, is of particular interest in that John and Alice Daniel of Rosemergy were two of John Wesley's earliest converts in Morvah. They were converted in 1743 and John was hauled up before Dr Walter Borlase for being a Wesleyan (see Wesley's journal entry of 10/04/1744 and Pearce's footnote). Daniel's cottage still stands. Alice Daniel died on 18/03/1769. Presumably, Margaret D. would have known her.

The droll states: 'Margaret the witch belonged to one of the old, decayed, poor and proud families of Morvah . . . the poor widow's maiden name was Margaret D.' - given in the Index as Daniel of Morvah – 'This decayed family was, a century or so ago, connected by marriage with all the ancient blood of the West' (Bottrell, p. 78). 'West' in this context probably means Penwith:

...her grandmother or her great-granny was one of an ancient family, many of whom were remarkable for their flighty ways . . . produced many learned astrologers who, however, do not seem to have profited much by their science, as they failed to secure Alverton, and their other ancient possessions, to their descendants, some of whom still claim to be legal heirs to this property (ibid., p. 80).

Margaret D. appears to have been a Daniel of Morvah who was related to the Daniells of Penzance and Truro through her grandmother or great-grandmother. 

In the droll Margaret D's father, who seems to have been a tenant farmer at Tregaminion, was an elderly man at the time of Margaret's marriage. John Daniel of Rosemergy was probably his uncle. 

The Daniels of Morvah, a 'proud' but 'decayed' family, had the ignominy of watching their neighbours of inferior pedigree amassing wealth from mineral rights, mine speculation and venturing. R. A. Daniell of Truro was rich enough to buy a seat in Parliament. Even some of the moorland farmers had struck it lucky. 

In the droll Mr D. must have wanted his daughter Margaret, a striking-looking young lady, to marry money and status, not a privateer, for all his sudden wealth. Mr D. accurately assesses Billy V.'s character, and his prophecies regarding the marriage of Margaret to Billy prove all too true. The deleterious atmosphere at Tregaminion following Billy V.'s obvious descent into piracy – taking 'John D.' with him – is all too understandable. The Daniels of Tregaminion have been humiliated in the eyes of all the local landed families and the Daniells of Truro.

7. Where did Jack Tregear's information come from?

While most of the material contained in the droll comes from Matthew Thomas some scenes are witnessed by Tregear personally:

a. the attack on the moor-house of Matthew Thomas (Bottrell, p. 84);
b. the attack on Margaret D.'s dwelling in Zennor from the curse laid on Katy the Kite (ibid., p.93);
c. the celebrations which followed (ibid., p. 94);
d. the night of Margaret D.'s wedding anniversary (ibid., p. 108).

These events occur after Margaret D. has left Tregaminion to settle at Zennor. The description of the outside and inside of her dwelling at Zennor is authentic.

Matthew Thomas

Matthew Thomas is the main source of information. He is a close friend of Billy V. from adolescence, sailing with him aboard the East Indiaman, (ibid., p. 97). He sees nothing of Billy V. in the years of supposed privateering, but receives the letter for Margaret D. when the sailor returns to marry her and is one of the first to greet him (ibid., pp. 100-1). 

Thomas is one of those entrusted with preparing the wedding celebrations at Falmouth. Although he signs up for Billy V.'s privateer, drunkenness prevents his commitment (ibid., p. 103).

Thirty years later he receives the apparition of Billy V. and his death ship (ibid., pp. 104-7).

When the 'aged seaman' and former crew member arrive at Zennor to provide Margaret D. with an account of Billy V.'s departure at Falmouth and his subsequent adventures, Thomas is present for the second part (ibid., pp. 113-4).

Thomas knows all the main players in the drama: Margaret and John D; Mary Polteer; the villagers who attack the moor-house and Margaret's dwelling. It is also likely that he knew some of the minor ones: Mr Daniel of Tregaminion; those who visited Margaret on her annual wedding celebration; the relative of Margaret who brought the 'aged seaman' to Zennor and possibly the seaman himself. 

Margaret D. or Daniel

Margaret Daniel was probably a minor source of information although one in possession of most of the facts. Tregear seems to have known her reasonably well without being intimate. The descriptions of Margaret and her dwelling are certainly accurate.

The 'Aged Seaman'

The 'aged seaman' and 'crew member' who arrive at Margaret D.'s dwelling accompanied by one of her husband's relations relate an account of Billy V.'s later years in a succinct, chronological and noticeably different style than that found in the rest of the droll (ibid., pp. 109 -114). Jack Tregear may have arrived with Matthew Thomas at Margaret's dwelling for the section from page 113 which contains Margaret's interjections. He may have obtained an account from Matthew Thomas, from the relation or from the 'mariner'.

Mary Polteer

Whether Mary Polteer is present to hear the 'mariner' is not stated, but before this Matthew Thomas has provided her with 'as much as he knew of the sailor's history' (ibid., p. 108).

She is present at the time of Matthew Thomas's 'apparition' (ibid., pp. 104-6) and appears to have had a similar experience, although this event may have been included for satirical purposes, with factual and hysterical accounts contrasted.

Other

Jack Tregear possibly had other minor sources unstated.

8. Dating

Dating presents the reader with two related problems: 
    the year in which the droll was delivered to William Bottrell by Jack Tregear;
    the time in history when the events occurred.

A John Tregear was buried at St-Just-in-Penwith 4/10/1850 at the age of 77, so his birth was c. 1773. Both John and Jack Tregear were tinners, although Jack is called 'an aged tinner of Lelant' (p. 72) and John was buried at St Just, a few miles to the west. So it is entirely likely that these are one and the same since St Just and Lelant are so closely located.

William Bottrell seems to have left Cornwall sometime in the 1830s and returned about 1860 or after. In 1833, John Tregear would have been 60, old age for most tinners. Bottrell probably correlated his droll material in the 1860s. 

The 'aged tinner of Lelant' also relates to the drolls Bottrell reports to have heard from his mother, who had worked at Kenegie Manor in Gulval 'previous to her marriage about four-score years ago' (Bottrell, 1880, p. 21).

Robert Hunt collected much of his droll material in 1829-30 and this seems appropriate for William Bottrell.  As Jack Tregear says that he witnessed the later scenes described in 'The White Witch', John Tregear of St Just seems a likely fit as the originator of the droll. This would put the Napoleonic Wars as the central historical event. 

9. Dating the events described in the droll

Although no specific dates are given some events are dateable even if not exactly. Taken together a chronology can be constructed. 

1. The droll looks back to the loss of Alverton Manor in Penzance by the Daniell family in the 1660s and the lawsuits which were not finally settled, to the disadvantage of the Daniells, until 1714 (p. 82).

Margaret's 'grandmother or her great-granny', possibly daughter to Eliaseph Daniell, was among the dispossessed (p. 82). This places Margaret in the second half of the 18th century. 

2. Billy V. is designated a merchant seaman turned privateer. 'Letters of Marque' were only granted in times of war and against enemies. The possible relevant periods are:

1778-1783: The American War of Independence:
against France 6 February 1778 to 3 September 1783
against Spain 16 June 1778 to 3 September 1783

1793-1802: The French Revolutionary Wars:
against France 1 February 1793 to 27 March 1802
against Spain 5 October 1796 to 27 March 1802

1803-1815: The Napoleonic Wars:
against France 17 May 1803 to 30 May 1814, the Treaty of Paris
against Spain 17 May 1803 to 1807, The Peninsula War.

As Billy V. had been 'nearly three years' a privateer, or working for a company under the guise of a privateer, this suggests 1 February, 1793 to 5 October, 1796 in the French Revolutionary Wars. Billy V. would have received his 'Letter of Marque' from the Admiralty following the declaration of war on 1 February, 1793, protecting him from accusations of piracy from British, French and Spanish authorities. Evidence in the 'droll' suggests that he strayed into piracy or slave trading even before his marriage. 

3. At the time of the attack by villagers on Margaret's dwelling near Zennor she sports a 'short red scarlet mantle' (Bottrell, p. 91), and again a 'short red mantle' (ibid., p.92). In The Life of Jonathan Couch, Bertha Couch states how following the resumption of war in 1803 her father could remember women 'wearing scarlet cloaks', presumably military scarlet (Couch, B., p. 18).

4. The meeting of Billy V. and John Daniel, Margaret's brother, at a public house in Morvah following Billy's return from seafaring and shortly before the marriage, is compared with the 'twin brothers, Dick and Bob Edwards, . . . who . . . worked the same gun on board the Nymphe, till Pellew left that ship . . .' (Bottrell, p.99).

Naval records show Captain Edward Pellew working the Nymphe out of Falmouth in 1793 and 1794. Bottrell explains in 'Pellew and his Cornish Crew', how 'upwards of four score men from St Just and scores from other eastern parishes' manned the Nymphe under Captain Pellew (Bottrell, 1880, p. 144). 'The School-days and Home of Pellew' describes the cottage of Captain Edward Pellew, later Admiral Lord Exmouth, in Penzance, where it still stands (ibid., pp. 131-133).

Points 2 and 4 suggest the central events of 'The White Witch' take place during the Napoleonic period. 

5. In response to the attack upon the dwelling at Zennor, Margaret says: 'My curse descend on the arm that cast that stone!' On later being entreated to lift the curse she says how the curse of a woman can only be lifted by a man – and vice versa – 'She must go to the Pellar of Helston' (p. 94). This event is observed by Jack Tregear.

In the following droll, 'Annual Visit of the West-country Folks to the Peller of Helston to Have Their Protection Renewed', Jack Tregear accompanies an aging Matthew Thomas to the Pellar at Helston who is revealed later as 'the wise man J. T.' (p. 123).

The later events involve two historically known characters, James Thomas and Tamsin Blight or Tammy Blee, pellars of Helston, who married in 1835.

The pellar of Helston referred to by Margaret D. must be James Thomas, whether or not he was married to Tamsin Blight at the time. The later scenes of 'The White Witch' most probably date from after the Napoleonic Wars. 

Tamsin Blight was born in 1793 and died in 1856. If the attack upon Margaret's dwelling at Zennor was sometime about 1823, then an associate of Tamsin could well have been called upon to reverse the curse. For reference see The Witch of the West: or, The Strange and Wonderful History of Thomasine Blight by Jason Semmens, 2004.

10. An earlier dating for the droll? Historical evidence in parish and other records by Jane Prince

The main problem in dating the droll is that not all of the events and people mentioned can be reconciled with each other and with the dates involved. The question, therefore, is how much of the droll is evidence of local history and how much is romance and exaggeration woven around a few remembered local events and people? The mention of some historical figures who certainly did exist points to a period during the Napoleonic Wars but others suggest an earlier date for the events described, from the mid-18th century onwards.

Justice Jones of Penrose

The incident involving Justice Johns of Penrose is clearly, as has been pointed out earlier, a case of misplaced information as the notorious Justice belongs to the 17th century. William Bottrell was told the droll by an 'aged tinner' alive in the mid-19th century, who was recounting events told to him in his own early life, clearly belonging to the 18th or possibly early 19th century.

The Visit to the Pellar of Helston

Part Three of the droll, 'Annual Visit of the West-Country Folks to the Pellar of Helston to have their Protection Renewed' seems to suggest a later dating. This section, describing the visit of Matthew Thomas and Jack (Jan) Tregear to the Pellar of Helston is followed by the droll 'Tom Treva's Cows' which includes the initials J. T. in referring to the Pellar of Helston. This suggests James Thomas who married the widow and famous witch Thomasine (Tamsin) Blight in 1835. They were married at Gwennap, Redruth, where Tamsin Blight lived, and then worked together at Helston. It is not quite clear whether the section involving the visit of Matthew Thomas and Jan Tregear is also meant to suggest James Thomas or some other Pellar of Helston. James Thomas's date and place of birth are not known but Tamsin Blight was 42 at the time of their marriage, so it is possible that James, himself a widower at the time of their marriage, was older and may already have been practising at Helston for some years, perhaps as early as 1800 as a young man, although this is pure speculation. 

On the way back from Helston, Matthew Thomas and Jack Tregear take a wrong turning and end up at Hayle. The 'Standard' is mentioned (Bottrell, 1870, p. 119). This is the Royal Standard Hotel (still in existence), formerly known as the Passage House, where travellers waited for the tide before being guided across the treacherous sands of the Hayle estuary, where Matthew Thomas gets into difficulties. This crossing meant that men living on the Lelant side and working in Hayle were forced to time their journey to take account of the tide. As the droll relates: 'the smelters came over two hours before work-time, that they might not have to take the journey of several miles round by St Erth church-town'. An Act of Parliament in 1825 provided for the construction of a bridge and turnpike road from Grigg's Quay, Lelant to Hayle Foundry, citing this very reason (CRO: H/143, 1825-1837).

At Hayle, Jack and Matthew meet men coming to work at Copperhouse, which gives us another date as the Cornish Copper Company, formed in 1756 at Camborne, moved to Hayle in 1758 and built their smelting house at Ventonleague. The droll mentions smelters and, by 1819, the Cornish Copper Company had changed from copper smelting to an iron foundry crafting machinery for the iron industry (CRO: GR/705, 24/10/ 1758).

Having crossed, Jack Tregear and Matthew Thomas then make their way towards Penzance, stopping at the Lamb and Flag at Rose-an-Grouse. The building is still in existence and until 2017 was still a public house.

The date of Matthew and Jack's visit to the pellar would appear, therefore, to have taken place sometime between 1758 and 1819 and certainly before 1825.

The visits of Usticke and Maddern to Margaret D. at Escalls

Also mentioned in the droll are Dr Maddern and 'Usticke of Bottallack', who discuss astrology etc. with Margaret D., then an elderly widow living at Escalls. Charlotte MacKenzie identifies among the group of men of science who appear in the works of Bottrell: the Rev. Robert Corker of St Buryan (died 1764); Dr Thomas Maddern, (died 1782); The Rev. Henry Usticke, (died 1769); and Dionysius Williams of Mahon (died 1775), (Mackenzie, 2023, pp. 8-9, 10, 13-14, 15).

If Usticke and Maddern both visited Margaret D. at Escalls then this took place before 1769. However, it may be that both names are mentioned simply because of the known connection between the two men. The Rev. Henry Usticke had a close business association in the tin mining industry with John Maddern, of Carrarack, St Just in Penwith, Thomas's father. Usticke's wife, Mary Borlase, was the sister of Rev. Dr William Borlase, the antiquary, and the Rev. Dr Walter Borlase, and a relative, probably a cousin, of Jane Borlase, the mother of Dr Thomas Maddern. The Borlase family owned property at Morvah, the home of Margaret D. which is described as being at Tregaminion in the droll. On 9/11/1708 a mortgage on Tregaminion was granted by John Borlase Esq of Pendeen (father of William, Walter and Mary) to Samuel Enys of Truro (CRO, 1708, CB/1/1/253). In 1770, Walter Borlase leased part of Tregaminion to Stephen and Martin Usticke (CRO: X110/4, 1770). 

Thomas Maddern was apprenticed in 1749, aged 16, to surgeon Robert Arundel of Marazion. Maddern was listed in a directory of 1780s as being the sole medical practitioner west of Penzance (Mackenzie, 2023, p. 10). 

If Thomas Maddern but not Henry Usticke visited Margaret then this visit took place before 1782.

Descriptions of clothes in the droll as possible dating evidence

The descriptions of the clothes worn by Margaret D. and Billy V. on his return from sea before their marriage fit the mid-18th century but not the later period (Bottrell, 1870, pp. 98-99).

The scarlet cloak (Bottrell, 1870, p.92) was worn throughout the 18th century and was a fashion which persisted into the first two decades of the 19^th century. Pehr Kalm, a Swedish man travelling from Sweden to America in 1748 described how English women in the country 'commonly wore red cloaks' when visiting (Kalm, 1748, p. 326). As Jonathan Couch notes, the fashion persisted and can be seen in the delightful Regency watercolours of Diana Sperling (Sperling, Mingay, 1981).

So, this fashion is not necessarily evidence of a later date for the droll, although it could be.

The central characters of the droll: Margaret D., Billy V., Matthew Thomas, and Jack Tregear

We have no reason to doubt that these characters were real people. The fact that Bottrell discreetly uses initials for the surnames of Billy and Margaret is an indication. However, in that case one would also expect to find evidence of their existence in parish records.

Margaret D.

The reference to Alverton clearly indicates that the D. is meant to stand for Daniel. Margaret D.'s grandmother or great-grandmother is supposed to have been descended from the Daniells of Alverton who 'failed to secure Alverton, and other of their ancient possessions, to their descendants, some of whom still claim to be legal heirs to this property' (Bottrell, 1870, p.82).

There is certainly an element of romantic exaggeration to this assertion. The Daniells of Alverton were a merchant family from Truro some of whom turned themselves into landowners, and the lordship of the manor of Alverton, together with other property in the Penzance area, was only acquired by them in 1614 when Richard Daniell bought it off his wife's step-father, George Whitmore. The first Daniell to live in Penzance was Richard's son, Alexander, who had been born and raised in Middleburg on the island of Walcheren, Holland. Alexander later lived with his grandmother in Antwerp and then was sent to live in Truro with his Uncle Jenkin Daniell. He moved to Penzance with his wife Grace Bluett in 1632. There was no manor house and demesne at Alverton to go with the lordship and Alexander rented houses then built his own at Larrigan. He passed most of the Penzance property to his eldest son Richard on the latter's marriage. Richard lived in London and rapidly dissipated his inheritance, and had sold off all the Penzance property, including the lordship of Alverton by 1664 (Pool, 1977, pp. 262-275). 

Of Alexander's other surviving children, Eliaseph married Jane Penrose and had two daughters, and a son who died in infancy; Jacquelina married Paynter of Sithney and had a son and three daughters; and Mary married Treveathan of Penzance and had three sons. It is possible that Margaret D. was related to one of these Daniell descendants but no link to the Daniels of Morvah with any of these families has yet been established from parish records.

From parish records, the Daniels appear to have been established first at Sancreed, then Zennor and only appear at Morvah in parish records from 1666 when a daughter of Richard Daniel, Elizabeth, was baptised.

In the droll, the family of Margaret D. live at Tregaminion (Bottrell, 1870, p. 99). However, in local records the Daniels of Morvah seemed to have been associated with Rosemergy rather than Tregaminion, as various deeds dated between 1702 and 1781 indicate, and on 29/8/1927 there was a final conveyance of Rosemergy farmhouse and premises, Morvah, by Lydia and Caroline Borlase of Castle Horneck, descendants of Walter Borlase, and the last of that family, to Matthew Thomas, farmer of Lanyon Farm. (CRO: ML/302/304 (1702 & 1721); ML/ 171 (1716); ML/165 (1741); ML/164 (1773); ML/416/33/34/36 (1779, 1780, 1781); AD2968/3/3 (1927)).

Margaret D. is said in the droll to have had a younger brother John and several other brothers. No record of baptism can be found for a Margaret Daniel with several brothers, one called John. There are very few Margaret (or even Margery) Daniels and none seem to fit. Nor are there any John Daniels born which seem to fit the information contained in the droll.

However, a Margaret Vingoe was buried at Sancreed in 1794, where the Daniel family was first established but which is not an area associated with the Vingoes. A search of baptisms and burials 1500-1850 only reveals four baptisms of Vingoes in Sancreed, all after 1830, and only two burials, one of which is Margaret Vingoe in 1794. This Margaret Vingoe, then, is a possible contender for Margaret D.

Margaret D., after 'Billy V. sails', retires to a hut at Zennor where the Daniel family was also established and where Matthew Thomas may have also originated. By the time of the visit to the Pellar of Helston, Matthew is old and has retired to tend his small patch at Zennor from where he and Jack Tregear set off.

After the returning sailor has confirmed Billy V's death, Margaret moves to a cottage at Escalls, Sennen, where the Vingoes live, and lives a normal life.

Billy V.

The Vingoes were long established in Sennen at Trevascan, Trevilley and Sennen Churchtown, where they kept the First and Last Inn.

The Vingoes were said to be an 'ancient Norman family' given their land by the Conqueror and William Bottrell may have had this from his own family who were related to the Vingoes, but this belief is frankly unlikely to be correct, and is another example of a romantic family belief in a distinguished past. We know from Domesday that there were only 3 manors in Penwith: 

Kelynack: (6 villagers, 10 smallholders, 5 slaves) tenant-in-chief, Robert, Count of Mortain, half-brother of the Conqueror; and the lord of the manor of Kelynack was Robert's steward Richard FitzTurolf;
Brea: (1 villager, 5 smallholders, 3 slaves) tenant-in-chief, Robert of Mortain; lord of the manor Erchenbald the Fleming;
St Buryan: (6 villagers, 6 smallholders) tenants-in-chief and lords of the manor, the Canons of St Buryan who also held it before 1066 (Domesday Book 10, Cornwall, (1979) 5,3,28; 5,12,3; 4,27) .

The Vingoes' land at Sennen would, then, have been held by the Canons of St Buryan. After the Dissolution it was acquired by the Arundells. Moreover, no Vingoes (or alternative spellings) appear in the Cornwall Feet of Fines between the reigns of Richard 1 and Edward III (Cornwall Feet of Fines Vol. 1, 1914, ed. Rowe).

A Nicholl Vyngowe of Sennen first appears on the Cornwall Muster Roll of 1569 with 'bill and 6 arr[ows]', so from quite a modest background (Cornwall Muster Roll, 1984). 

Trevilley is mentioned in the droll and also appears in Robert Hunt's Romances, in the story of the death-token of the Vingoes contributed by William Bottrell. This is followed by an apocryphal tale of Robert, Earl of Moreton [Count of Mortain, half-brother of William the Conqueror] hunting in the woods around Bodmin Moor where he sees a black goat carrying the naked and wounded king, William Rufus, 'to judgement'. Robert 'related the circumstance to his followers and they shortly learned that at that very hour William Rufus had been slain in the New Forest by an arrow of Walter Tirrell': this in spite of the fact that Robert of Mortain died about six years before William Rufus. Another example of how drolls contain nuggets of historical fact (William Rufus was indeed accidentally killed while hunting in the New Forest by an arrow shot by Walter Tirel) but embellished with extravagant, romantic detail and with a fine disregard for anachronism (Hunt, 1865, pp. 372-3).

The Vingoes have several branches but the Billy V. of the droll appears to have belonged to the Sennen branch. They were both farmers and seafarers which fits with the Billy V. of the droll.

Mr D. - Margaret's father - was described as a cousin of Billy V. and parish records reveal a marriage between Mary Daniel of Sancreed and William Vingoe at St Buryan in 1730.

The William Vingoe who married Mary Daniel, according to the Vingoe family website maintained by George and Sandra Pritchard (nee Vingoe), first married Ann (surname unknown) and had a son, John who took over Trevascan, and several daughters; then, by his marriage to Mary Daniel had three sons, William (born 1731), Henry and Richard. William Vingoe Senior had interests in fishing boats and seines, and both he and his sons William and Henry all disappear from parish records; it is presumed that they were lost at sea, as the younger son Richard inherited Trevilley and the property at Sennen Churchtown.

The oldest son John, from William Vingoe Senior's marriage to Ann, had two sons John and William. John Vingoe Junior was in partnership with Richard Treeve (who also had family connections in the customs service) in the ownership of a cutter, the Lands End, reputed to have been involved in the smuggling trade. In 1781 they were given Letters of Marque to pursue Dutch prizes. 

William Vingoe, John Senior's other son was, according to the family website, a lieutenant aboard the sloop HMS Wolf during the 1770s. He appears on the Paul marriage register 30/7/1774 as belonging to 'HMS sloop Wolf' – bride Anne Maddran, although his rank is not given. He can't, therefore, be the William Vingoe of the 'droll'. 

Richard Vingoe (1736-1817), the younger son of William Vingoe and Mary Daniel, who inherited Trevilley, married Mary Pemberthy in 1763 and had a son also William Vingoe (b. 1767) who died of consumption in 1800. William had two daughters and the male line of this branch died out and the property at Trevilley and Sennen churchtown including the First and Last Inn passed to the daughters, as it is told in the 'droll': 'The two oldest branches of the family terminated in daughters who gave themselves and their land to other names.' This seems to indicate that the events in the droll happened before 1800 (Bottrell, 1870, p. 97).

According to the droll, Billy V. serves first aboard an East Indiaman with Matthew Thomas and becomes second mate before he is twenty and then moves to privateering to make his fortune and win the hand of Margaret D (Bottrell, 1870, p. 97). However, a search of the records of employees of the East India Company has so far revealed no William Vingoe. Nor does a search of the Lloyds' Registers of Shipping available online for the years 1764 & 1768; 1776, 1778, 1779; 1780, 1782,1783, 1784, 1787, 1789; all 1790s; & 1801-1815 inclusive. The lists include the names of ships' masters but no William Vingoe appears.

The only William Vingoe of the Sennen branch of the family who is a possible contender for the Billy V. of the droll seems to be the William Vingoe born 1731 (above) who disappears from records and is presumed lost at sea. Billy V. is a younger son and this is the case of William Vingoe (Bottrell, 1870, p. 97).

According to the droll, Billy V. goes to sea aged fifteen, so in 1746 if the William Vingoe born 1731 was Billy V. he became second mate while he was still in his teens, so c. 1749. He then spends three years as a privateer before coming home to claim Margaret D. as his bride. So a possible date of the wedding is c. 1752.

Mr D. is opposed to the marriage of Margaret with Billy although appears to wash his hands of the affair muttering 'proverbs' about those who make their beds must lie on them etc.

No marriage record between Margaret Daniel and William Vingoe can be found. If they married before the 1753 Clandestine Marriage Act, no licence or calling of banns would have been necessary, and if after that Act, then as long as Mr D. did not actually voice his opposition then banns could be called but his formal consent would be needed for a licence. Billy V. seems to have been onshore long enough for arrangements to be made for banns to be called but the complete lack of records appears to indicate a clandestine marriage (Ibid., p. 102).

From 1744 to 1763 Britain was at war with France (part of the War of the Austrian Succession; the Carnatic Wars involving the East India Company 1746-63; and 1756 to 63 the Seven Years War). Privateering was positively encouraged by the Naval Prize Act of 1743.

However, the ship which Billy V. captures is a Spanish merchantman and Britain was not at war with Spain at the time, so although they may have possessed Letters of Marque valid for the capture of a French prize, Billy and his fellow sailors are condemned to be hanged but escape during a conflict between the Spanish ship and a corsair. Britain was at war with Spain from 1762-63 when Spain entered the Seven Years War.

A letter of the Rev. Henry Usticke to his brother in 1762, mentions a terrific storm which killed several people and caused severe damage, destroying the church tower at St Austell. Could this be the storm referred to in the droll and another example of an event which passed into local lore but which was misplaced information in the droll? The final sentence in the letter reads:

The Works there [at St Just] seem to be in a more prosperous way than they have been so that had not this Spanish War come upon us we might hope to recover some of our past hopes (CRO: X1424/49, 18/1/1762).

Matthew Thomas

Matthew Thomas, Billy V., and Margaret D. were contemporaries.

The Matthew Thomas of the droll has his stream-works near Zennor and retires there. A Matthew Thomas was buried at Zennor in 1803. His age is not given but a Matthew Thomas was baptised at Zennor in 1723 making him 80 in 1803.

Matthew Thomas marries Joan. The only marriage found is that of Matthew Thomas and Joan Pearce at Redruth in 1751. The location makes it doubtful as being the correct one and their marriage may be another example of an unrecorded 'clandestine' marriage. This does not mean that it was illegal. The only requirement before the Act was that the marriage be conducted by an Anglican clergyman. A Joan Thomas was buried at Madron in 1803 aged 71, so was born c. 1732, consistent with a possible marriage in 1751 and with the probable age of Matthew Thomas above.

It would have been just possible for this Matthew Thomas to have consulted the pellar of Helston, James Thomas, although it would mean that James Thomas started practising at an early age. This is assuming that it is James Thomas the husband of Tamsin Blight who is intended by this section of the droll.

Jack or Jan Tregear

The droll mentions as William Bottrell's source, an 'ancient tinner of Lelant'. The name Tregear is not associated in parish records at Lelant except for two entries in 1704 and 1742 which belong to the gentry family of Tregeare. The name is, however, associated with St Just. A John Tregear, tinner, died in St Just 1850 aged 77, therefore was born c. 1773, as has been stated earlier.

In Bottrell's Stories and Folk-Lore of West Cornwall, published in 1880, an 'aged tinner of Lelant' is again Bottrell's source for the droll, 'The Ghosts of Kenegie Manor'. Jack Tregear's mother, was, before her marriage 'some four score years ago', in service at the manor. Assuming that the John Tregear who died in 1850 is the Jack Tregear of the droll, and that Bottrell collected his information during the 1840s, this information could fit nicely with a birthdate of 1773 for Jack Tregear, although the information contained in this droll is again confusing. Kenegie Manor belonged for many years to the Harris family, the last of whom was Christopher Harris who died in 1775. Kenegie then passed to William Arundell of Menadarva who took the name Harris. His grandson, William Arundell Harris of Lifton, Devonshire did not live at Kenegie which was leased to Rose Price Esq., c. 1813. However, the droll mentions the custom followed of leaving the principal entrance door open for a Harris ghost of Kenegie 'from further back than there is any remembrance' until the 'last Harris of Kenegie who disposed of his ancestral home'. This must have been William Arundell Harris Arundell (1794-1865) who sold Kenegie in 1828. The ghosts of Kenegie appear to wear sixteenth century costume and the Rev. Polkinhorne who lays the ghost of 'Wild Harris' in the following droll must belong to the gentry family of Polkinghorne Manor, Gwinear, Hayle, who became extinct in 1665 when the heiress married Glynn (Lysons, 1814, pp. 112-130, & cxviii-clxxix).

In the droll, the 'White Witch of Zennor', Jack Tregear tells how when he was young he worked with Matthew Thomas, so if he was the John Tregear born c. 1773, this would have been around 1783, although could have been before as children were commonly employed from about age seven, as census records from 1841 onwards reveal. Jack Tregear may have also known Margaret D.. Therefore Matthew Thomas and probably Margaret D. died after 1783.

It is possible that the stated thirty years time lapse after the wedding of Billy V. and Margaret D. was a mistake or exaggeration on the part of Jack Tregear, who is relating a story told to Mary Polteer by Matthew Thomas and told to Tregear himself years later; twenty to twenty-five years rather than thirty would allow the visits between Thomas Maddern and Margaret to have taken place.

Mary Polteer herself is a mystery. The name Polteer (or near spellings) part from one example is not one found in Cornish parish records and perhaps it was one made up by Bottrell as a Cornish-sounding name to cover a lapse in memory by Jack Tregear who admits to not knowing the real names of persons such as Gracey Winkey who feature in his account.

A possible timeline for an earlier dating of the droll

Question marks in square brackets [?] indicate where an identification with the characters in the droll is possible but not proven.

Dates in bold indicate historical facts.

Dates given as circa indicate events in the droll.

1880: William Bottrell publishes Stories and Folklore of West Cornwall.

1870: William Bottrell first publishes Traditions and Hearthside Stories.

1867-1869: William Bottrell contributed drolls to the Cornish Telegraph.

1865: Robert Hunt published Popular Romances of the West of England, which included material supplied by William Bottrell. 

1850: Burial of John Tregear [?]

c. 1840-50: Jack Tregear relates his stories and William Bottrell collects other evidence.

1835: Tamsin Blight married James Thomas the Pellar of Helston.

1825: Turnpike Act. Lelant to Hayle. 

1816: Birth of William Bottrell at Raftra.

1803: Burial of Joan Thomas at Madron.1803 and Burial of Matthew Thomas at Zennor. [?]

c. 1800-1802: Visit of Matthew Thomas and Jack Tregear to the Pellar of Helston.

1794: Burial of Margaret Vingoe at Sancreed where the Daniels of Morvah originated. ['Margaret D'?]

c. 1783 Jack Tregear commences work for Matthew Thomas.

1782: Burial of Dr Thomas Maddern at St Just.

1773: Birth of Jack Tregear [?]

c. 1772-1780: Margaret goes to live at Escalls where she is visited by Thomas Maddern.

c. 1772- 1780: Matthew Thomas relates the Sailor's History to Mary Polteer who sees an apparition of William Vingoe on the bed at Margaret hut.

Later the same year a returning sailor brings news of Billy V. and John D. who had died 9 years before. Margaret has already seen them in a vision.

c. 1763-1771: Death of Billy V. on board ship. John D. stays in the West Indies with his wife and children and refuses to go to sea again. Matthew Thomas sees an apparition of Billy V. at the same time.

c. 1767-1772: Before Margaret moves to Escalls the incident with Katey the Kite, Gracey Winkey and Cherry the child takes place with Mary Polteer, a young woman at the time ,warning Margaret of what is to come.

1762: a Cherry Rodda was baptised at Madron [?]. The Rodda family were also associated with Rosemergy, as were the Daniels, in various leases.

1769: Death of the Rev. Henry Usticke of Botallack.

1763: End of the Seven Years War.

1762-63: Britain at War with Spain.

1762: Terrific storm mentioned by Rev. Henry Usticke.

1758: Cornish Copper Company establishes a smelting works at Hayle. 

1753: Clandestine Marriage Act.

c. 1752: Marriage of Margaret D. and Billy V. at Falmouth. Immediately after the marriage Billy sails after a Spanish merchantman which he captures. He is condemned to hang for piracy but escapes during a conflict with a corsair.

1751 Marriage of Matthew Thomas and Joan [?]

c. 1749: Billy V. becomes second mate. He then becomes a privateer.

c. 1746: Billy V. goes to sea on an East Indiaman with Matthew Thomas.

1744: Britain and France at War.

1743: Naval Prize Act.

1732: Birth of Joan Thomas [?]

1731: Baptism of William Vingoe [Billy V?]

1730: Marriage of William Vingoe of Sennen and Mary Daniel of Sancreed.

1723: Baptism of Matthew Thomas at Zennor [?]

11. Misplaced information

Jack Tregear augments the droll with information appropriate to an earlier age though associated in terms of ideas and locations.

At the conclusion of the droll Margaret is said to have moved from Zennor to Escols [Escalls] in Sennen, where 'she passed so much time in the study of astrology as to become a great proficient in that mysterious science, which was then much cultivated by many noted scholars of the west . . . Usticke of Botallack and Dr Maddern are said to have been frequent visitors to Margaret at Escols' (Bottrell, 1870, p.114). 

In 'The Astrologers of the West', Bottrell provides a longer list: 'Parson Corker, of Buryan; Mr Jenkyn of Trezidder, or Alverton; Dr Maddron of St Just; Mr Usticke of Morvah; and Mr Matthew Williams, of Mayon' (Bottrell, 1880, p.141). These men were grammar-school educated with proficiency in Latin and mathematics. Margaret must have had a similar proficiency. 

On July 14, John Wesley wrote a letter to the Rev. Robert Corker, LLD, of Falmouth, curate in charge of St Buryan, regarding his defaming of Wesley from the pulpit of St Buryan church (Pearce, p. 103, fn. 51).

A Dr Maddern or Madron of St Just is mentioned in Madam Trezillian's Head-Dress', living at the time of 'Squire Daniel of Alverton' (Bottrell, 1880, p. 130). In 'Bosava: The Demon Mason, and Lenine the Cobbler' (Bottrell, 1870, pp. 228-235), Parson Corker and Dr Maddern exorcise the old house of the Lenines.

Mr Usticke of Morvah must have been of the Ustickes of Botallack who similarly opposed Wesley at that time. Mayon, the home of Matthew Williams, is in walking distance of Escalls, and Raftra, the home of Madam Trezillian and later William Bottrell.

It is interesting, and left unmentioned in Methodist literature, that early opposition to the Wesleys often came from those practising astrology.

In 'Old Songs and Nicknames', the inhabitants of Escalls are associated with hand-weaving and 'to study', one 'for her acquaintance with Greek and Latin authors, which she read in their originals' (Bottrell, 1873, pp. 196-7).

If we look at teenage Humphry Davy of Penzance in Chapter One of Dr John Davy's Life we cannot but be struck by the depth and breadth of his reading, his interest in oral traditions and the range of his accomplishments in chemistry, medicine and poetry. This is rarely what we find today. Yet it is very much in line with Q's understanding of education as set out in his inaugural lecture and in The Art of Reading.

A second example of misplaced information may relate to the supposed landing of John D. and some crew members, between the exit from Falmouth harbour and the sighting of the Spanish merchantmen near Scilly. They 'landed at Genvor, and had their game with the old justice of Penrose' (Bottrell, 1870, p. 109) named as 'Justice Jones' (Ibid., p. 103).

The history of Penrose and the Penrose family is found in 'The Smugglers of Penrose', (Bottrell, 1873,I, pp. 212-223). The family of Jones subsequently purchased the property for smuggling.

In 'Old Justice Jones and Cheap Labour', Justice Jones is presented as 'long the unquestioned tyrant of that part of the country'. He was opposed by 'Many of the old families', especially the Vingoes of Treville. The Vingoes were of an 'ancient Norman family'. In 'The Vingoes of Treville – The justice's Punishment' (Bottrell, 1880, p.143), the Vingoes are joined by 'a smuggling crew', including 'a Daniel and Ustick', whose 'headquarters were at Priest's Cove and Pendeen', who nearly killed him.

Justice Jones seems to be a figure from the 17th century. The Daniels also seem to be a long-standing family in the area as the droll 'The White Witch' asserts. The story of the punishment appears in various guises in various 'drolls', for instance 'Sarah Polgrain' (Bottrell, 1870, pp. 204-5). 

12. The internal timeline found in Tregear's droll

As Billy V. could not have received a Letter of Marque from the Admiralty in London before about March 1793, a month after the declaration of war with France on February 1, 1793, 'nearly three years of privateering' brings him to January/February 1796.

The marriage of Billy V. and Margaret D. occurred not long after his return, sometime in 1796. 

Immediately following the marriage Billy V. leaves Falmouth to intercept a dispersed fleet of Spanish merchantmen, even though 'This country was not at war with Spain'. As they were pirates, their capture by a merchantman was to lead to their hanging at Cadiz. They escape through a lucky chance, immediately making for the Spanish Main. If they had returned to Falmouth hanging could well have followed there. 

It appears likely that the marriage of Billy V. and Margaret D. takes place at Falmouth in the summer of 1796, the period of the year most favourable for merchantmen crossing the Atlantic.

The meeting of Billy V. and John D. at a public house in Morvah happens shortly after the reunion of Dick and Bob Edwards, the 'Morvah Devils' in about 1795.

Starting from the summer of 1796, a rough chronology can be constructed using the information in the droll, although there is one inconsistency. 

In Bottrell's printed text of Jack Tregear's story, Matthew Thomas's personal account of the life of Billy V. is to be found in section two under the sub-heading 'The Sailor's History', pp. 96 -104. It continues under 'The Apparition of Billy V.', pp. 104 -108, concluding with the arrival of a former crewmember of Billy V., which in part is heard by Jack Tregear, on pp. 109 - 114. 

In the first section, Billy V. is only briefly referred to. He is 'sailor V.', or 'my old comrade, her husband'. Matthew Thomas had seen an apparition of Billy V. in Margaret's dwelling 'three years ago' but has not seen him in the flesh since 'her wedding day, now nearly thirty years ago'. 

The apparition, which occurs at the time of the attack by villagers on the moor-house of Matthew and the subsequent attack on Margaret's dwelling, can be dated on this information to thirty minus three, or 27 years later, 1823. The events occur in the first section, pp. 84 - 89, and in the second section on pp. 91 - 95. The apparition follows the attack on Margaret's dwelling on page 96 and in more detail under the subheading 'The Apparition of Billy V.' on pp. 104 - 106. 

Finally, there is the account given by the returning crew member in Margaret's dwelling at Zennor, part of which Jack Tregear hears in person, pps 109 -114. 

It is possible that William Bottrell, who might have been a Sennen relative of Billy V., obtained information from other sources, discreetly inserting it into the story where appropriate. 

While the accounts are not entirely consistent, a chronology can be attempted:

The central event is the marriage of Billy V. and Margaret D. at Falmouth. This must have happened between the declaration of war with France on February 1, 1793, and Spain's declaration of war with Britain on October 5, 1796; the summer of 1796, probably July or August, is the most likely date, being consistent with all the available information. 

From this we can work back to the earlier life of Billy V. and Margaret D., and forwards to their final years.

13. 'Margaret D.' or Margaret Daniel of Tregaminion in Morvah

Margaret Daniel is the central and tragic figure of the droll. It is from her the other characters take their direction. She functions at two levels, the rational and the non-rational, and it is the conflict between the two levels that provides much of the creative dynamic of the story.

Most of her behaviour can be understood at the rational or emotional level. She is educated, more so than those around her. As she has studied astrology she is probably a Latinist. She is also eminently practical, working as a herbalist and spinning high-quality thread.

Some of her behaviour lies in the area of the non-rational. This is neither irrational, as it has its own logic, nor supernatural, involving a superior reality. She possesses a natural faculty that is less developed in others and is completely absent from those whose only concern is the intellect. She was far from alone in having this faculty, even in Zennor, but the most famous person was Tamsin Blight of Helston whose portrait hangs in Truro Museum.

Jonathan Couch was aware of those in the Polperro area who possessed it, including John Stevens. To a lesser extent it is found in the Quillers. It is evidenced in some of Q's novels and short stories. 

In the droll Margaret Daniel at times makes Matthew Thomas uneasy. Tregear's narrative uses various words and phrases, none totally appropriate, to describe her: 'white witch' (Bottrell 1870, p.82), 'overwise' (ibid., p. 100), 'visions' (p. 113), 'apparition' (p. 158), 'astrology' and 'mysterious science' (p. 114), 'half-crazy' (p. 92), 'ghostly weapons' (p. 93). She is also an actor, as in the presence of her attackers (pp. 93-4). These two aspects are not mutually exclusive.

In 'Part First' of 'The White Witch, or Charmer of Zennor', Margaret is not introduced in the initial section, pp. 72 - 79. There then follows her formal introduction using the vehicle of 'ill-wished' cattle. This section is listed in the index as 'Daniels of Morvah', clearly identifying 'Margaret D.' as Margaret Daniel or Daniell.

There follows a description of her dwelling at Zennor and her connections with the Daniels of Alverton. Billy V. is mentioned once, as the 'young mariner for whose love she had forsaken her home and proud kinsfolk long ago' (p. 81). The relationship between Margaret and Billy only becomes the dominant theme well into 'Part Second', remaining so to the end Ibid., pp. 95-114).

Margaret is probably in her mid-teens when she falls in love with Billy V., the second mate of an East Indiaman, a vessel her brother John enlisted on. Mr Daniel considers Billy V. an inappropriate choice, not without reason.

To accrue wealth, which he wrongly believes would change Daniel's opinion, he becomes the captain of a 'privateer'. As Britain was at peace until the declaration of war with France on February 1, 1793, the word 'privateer' suggests March 1793.

The droll states the privateering period to have been 'nearly three years' (p. 98). During this period Billy V. was not seen at Tregaminion, but 'rich presents were always arriving for Margaret and her brothers', (p. 98), the last being 'trinkets and jewels' (p. 100). It is easy to see how a teenager would be dazzled, even if her father is not.

The droll states that the marriage of Margaret and Billy takes place at Falmouth, although in reality there is no record of it in the Falmouth marriage register. The summer of 1796 is the most likely date.

When in the droll Margaret and her brother John leave their father, 'who could not give his consent' to part with either son or daughter', on Sennen Green, Mr Daniel would have returned to Tregaminion, Matthew Thomas would have travelled to Falmouth to arrange the celebrations, and Margaret, John and Billy V.'would have arrived later. 

Billy V. takes a furnished house at Falmouth for Margaret, hoping she would live there with her father; 'Much money and other valuables' are placed in her hands (p. 103). It can be assumed that Billy V. adapted the property as the Millers had adapted their in Polperro, so as to store valuable and illegal goods (p. 103).

Following the wedding celebrations a violent storm arises which the droll interprets as a portent or omen, an acknowledgement of Billy V.'s past and future activities (p. 102-3). The storm results in the dispersal of a Spanish merchant fleet. Even though Britain and Spain were at that time at peace, Billy V. immediately prepares to intercept it. How he could have disposed of the prizes, unless he presented them as French, which would have fooled few, is unclear. Billy V. seems to be a man who acted first and thought afterwards, a character trait of which Mr Daniel was probably aware.

Margaret's marriage is in ruins from the moment the privateer leaves port. Billy V.'s assertion of returning within a fortnight is a deception (p. 103). She gives up the house in Falmouth and returns to Tregaminion. In disgrace, she eventually removes herself to Zennor.

For descriptions of the dwelling, inside and out, and its location, as directly observed by Jack Tregear, and her later character, see pp. 73 - 83, 90 - 92, 94 - 96, and 104 - 108. The value of this is that it is the result of direct observation free from an academic or popular agenda. 

The droll presents us with a woman who before her marriage is passionately and blindly in love, and who afterwards is anguished and broken-hearted, occasionally demented, but still just as much in love as when she was 18 years old. What eventually comforts her is the knowledge, which comes from the returned crew member, that Billy V. had remained faithful to her.

At Zennor, her non-rational faculty becomes increasingly pronounced, although this is probably more of a curse than a blessing. What Jonathan Couch said of John Stevens, Matthew Thomas says of Margaret, 'like all overwise ones, she could never read her own fortune' (Ibid., p. 100).

As with all good stories the climax comes near the end. Margaret loves 'Billy V.' from her adolescent years until the day of her death. The Daniel family, with the exclusion of John, have a different and far more accurate opinion of him. 

Her years of waiting, first at Tregaminion and then at Zennor, following Billy's sailing out of Falmouth in 1796, are at least gilded with a belief in his faithfulness and the expectation of his return. This is all but dashed when on their wedding anniversary in about 1815 she has a vision of her husband lying mortally wounded on the deck of a boat, overlooked by a 'dark complexioned lady' and 'two boys' (ibid., p. 112).

Of this vision she never speaks until the day of the former crew member's arrival at Zennor, in 1825 or 1826, with an account of Billy's final years. She is able to recount the death-scene, before being told, from her vision, but she is ignorant of who the woman and the children are, fearing the probability of a second marriage. The knowledge that it is John Daniel's wife and children relieves her anxiety: Billy has been faithful to the last.

Margaret's last reported speech, on turning towards Matthew Thomas who, possibly accompanied by Jack Tregear, has entered the dwelling and stands silently by the door – is the most moving in the whole droll.

The words cannot have been invented by Matthew Thomas or Jack Tregear, because they are spoken with the poise, clarity and control of an educated woman, which Margaret was, showing her in command of herself and all those in the room:

"Old friend," said she, "you have often heard me called mad, and many say that my visions are only waking dreams; but it was no diseased fancy which made me see all that took place, a little before noon, on the feast-day I have always observed. The day was close and sultry: I had been up early, preparing to receive my accustomed visitor. Feeling faint and weary, I sat a few moments on the rock outside the door, when, suddenly, a thick fog surrounded me and hid everything from my view. Then it seemed as if the sea were close at my feet. I heard around me the bubbling of the waves, the confused clamour of many voices, mixed with the booming of cannon. Another moment the sound of my husband's and my brother's well-known voices came to my ears. Then the rock on which I sat seemed to be the deck of a vessel, floating in sea and mist. Before me (and as near me as I am to you) lay my husband bleeding – a dark-complexioned lady kneeling on the deck beside him, trying to staunch his wound, the mariners all around him weeping, as the seaman had just related. The fearful vision lasted no longer than a minute, when all vanished and left me like one newly awakened from a trance. Though I have never spoken of this apparition it left too deep a pang to be forgotten. Yet now I rejoice to know that my husband's last thoughts were of me, and that the dark lady was my brother's wife." 

14. John D. or Daniel of Tregaminion

John D. can possibly be identified with the youngest child of Daniel of Tregaminion in Morvah; as such he would have no prospect of inheriting anything from his father and faced likelihood of a future as a farm labourer. In the droll, he shares his sister's fascination with the seafarer Billy V., seeing the ocean as a route to self-respect and wealth.

Neither Jack Tregear nor William Bottrell knew 'John D.' personally, so we have no description of his appearance – as we do with Billy and Margaret. John is the last significant character to enter the narrative, where he is presented as the brother of Margaret and a crew member of an East Indiaman along with Matthew Thomas and Billy V..

While not addressed in the droll, presumably he goes to sea at 15 and is still too young to go privateering when Billy V. changes occupations. However, he joins a group of local smugglers who trade with Roscoff. He is the only member of the Daniel family to side with Margaret and support the marriage. 

When Billy returns to marry and wishes to hire a new crew, John is old and experienced enough to join as chief mate (ibid., p. 103). When Billy leaves Falmouth to intercept the Spanish merchantmen, John is full of enthusiasm, irrespective of the illegal nature of the operation. Subsequently, he leads the group that attacks Justice Jones at Penrose (p. 103). John survives the dangers of the following engagements (p. 109), arriving with the remnant on the Spanish Main where he helps found a colony of seafarers and pirates, taking as wife a Spanish or Indian maiden. 

The last we hear of John Daniel is the result of a vision Margaret received, at the time of her husband's death, with John kneeling with a 'dark-complexioned lady', his wife, trying to staunch the blood from Billy V.'s fatal wound (ibid., p. 112).

It is possible that as the Daniel family were extant at the time of Bottrell's publication in 1870, the full name of this smuggler and pirate is obscured.

The life of John Daniel shows why privateering, a dangerous occupation, was so attractive to young men from the farms and, indeed, the fisheries. It was a route out of poverty and low status, superficially offering excitement and the prospect of wealth. This was particularly true of those uninfluenced by Wesleyanism. Although John seems to have been reared an Anglican his religion was easily cast off. By nature he was as secular as Zephaniah Job.

15. Billy V. 

Bottrell's printed text provides the reader only with an abbreviated name and a location for Billy V.This is also true for Margaret and John D. of Morvah. Yet for others a complete identification is included: Matthew Thomas, tin-streamer of Treen in the parish of Zennor; Jack Tregear of Lelant near St Ives; Mary Polteer of Zennor.

This leads to the question of who 'Billy V.'  - assuming that he does represent a real person - actually was and why his proper name is not provided.

In the text he is called 'Billy V.', 'Sailor V.', Cousin Bill', 'the privateer captain', 'the commander', 'bold buccaneer' etc. Billy is presumably William. As he is invariably associated with Sennen and St Just, the V suggests the local name of Vingoe.

The text states that the marriage of Billy V. and Margaret D. took place at Falmouth (ibid., p. 102), when Britain and Spain were still at peace (ibid., p. 109), thus before October 5, 1796, but after the declaration of war with France on February 1, 1793. If Billy V. was in reality a privateer, his activities would have been centred on the English Channel.

But was Billy V. the captain of a privateer based at Falmouth working for a syndicate of local venturers, as Richard Rowett captained a privateer out of Polperro for a syndicate associated with Zephaniah Job? Or was he involved in another maritime activity, one providing swifter returns?

The text claims Billy V to have been away for about three years; which must have commenced with the French declaration of war on Britain on February 1, 1793. It was immediately after the declaration that Polperro privateers were fitted out. Three years from February 1, 1793, brings us to February 1796. 

During the three years 'rich presents were always arriving' at Tregaminion but never Billy V. himself. If he was a Falmouth privateer he would, like the Quillers and Carters, have auctioned his prizes at Fowey, a few hours from Morvah. 

When Billy V. finally returns to Morvah 'his skin was the colour of mahogany' (ibid., p. 98) scarcely suggesting privateering in the English Channel or the Bay of Biscay. He sends Margaret Daniel a parcel of 'trinkets and jewels' (ibid., p. 100), while distributing to his relations 'scores of gold rings, and rich jewels, pieces-of-eight, moidores, and doubloons' (ibid., p. 102).

(pieces-of-eight – Spanish dollars
doubloon – Spanish gold coin)

To the Quillers and Carters, whose prizes carried wool and textiles, wood and brick, corn and iron nails, such goods would have been virtually unknown.

Billy V. boasts that 'his share of the prizes . . . was more than enough to buy the best farm in Morvah, aye, or in St Just' (p. 101). The Quillers also made substantial profits from their prizes, the only difference being that they were owners, venturers and captains, while Billy was just a ship's captain.

After Margaret Daniel or Vingoe left Tregaminion for Zennor, Matthew Thomas notices a 'stuffed crocodile mounted by a stuffed ape . . . presents from some old sailor friend' (ibid., p. 91), almost certainly Billy. The crocodile and ape indicate the 'Slave Coast' of Africa.

The evidence suggests that Billy V. is not just a privateer operating legally under a Letter of Marque, as with the Quillers and Carters, but a pirate or even a slave-trader whose purpose is quick wealth. Maybe Mr Daniel of Tregaminion has his own suspicions following the arrival of such articles.

When the 'aged seaman' who had been a member of the privateer's crew arrives at Margaret's dwelling in Zennor, relating Billy's activities after his exit from Falmouth, the true nature of Billy's character is laid bare – blackmail, plundering, and enslaving (ibid., p. 111).

There are two main occasions when the droll, as in Shakespeare's Macbeth, shows Billy's character influencing the natural world. First is the storm, accompanied by strange events in Arwenic [Arwenack] House, portending evil on the night of the marriage. The second is the 'apparition' and 'death-ship' seen by Matthew Thomas (pp. 105-7).

It is hardly surprising that William Bottrell wished to obscure Billy V.'s true identity. 

16. Non-rational material in the droll

One of the most problematic aspects of Bottrell's droll, as related by Jack Tregear, lies in the area of visions, apparitions, good and bad spirits and second sight, an area already alluded to in relation to the Quillers and Couches, although portrayed in a more overt and developed way.

The sources, even when Matthew Thomas is the unwilling recipient, are Margaret D. and Billy V.. Jack Tregear is not a recipient, hearing events through Matthew Thomas and possibly others. There can be no question that Matthew Thomas and Jack Tregear took the events seriously, even if they could not explain them.

1. The attack on Margaret's dwelling at Zennor (Ibid., pp. 90 & 91):

Margaret claims prior knowledge of the attack from 'the stars in their courses' but would employ 'more powerful spirits' to overcome the 'evil ones'.

2. The morning of Billy V.'s arrival at Tregaminion (pp. 100 & 101):

Margaret must have arranged the marriage earlier with Billy V. so that the idea of second sight is unnecessary. However, Matthew Thomas makes the general point that Margaret 'could never read her own fortune'.

3. The storm on the wedding night at Falmouth (pp. 102 & 103):

A portent of evil, as also found in Shakespeare's 'Macbeth'.

4. Matthew Thomas's 'apparition' of 'Billy V.' at Zennor on the day of Billy's death in the West Indies:

A very detailed account suggesting clear observation.

5. The 'apparition' of Billy V. claimed by Mary Polteer, (p.107):

This is an amusing foil to a genuine apparition.

6. Margaret's vision of Billy V.'s death (pp. 112 & 113):

This occurred at the time of Thomas's apparition. The account accords with the version delivered by the returning crew member.

7. The 'death-token' of Billy V. on Trevilly Cliff at the time of his death (p.113):

Statement of belief:

Neither of those who listened to Margaret's account of the death-token doubted the reality of the apparition, as everyone here believed that the dying appear to the absent, on whom their thoughts are centred at the moment the spirit leaves the body.

This parallels with what was believed by Dr Jonathan Couch of Polperro. It is also found in the writings of Hamilton Jenkin and Robert Hunt.

Points for discussion

Those who believe in rationalism, materialism and scientism will dismiss such statements as the product of primitive superstition, with working people seeing these things because they believed in them.

It is true that prior belief is evident, although the degree of belief is unclear. The 'apparitions' and 'visions' are not vague but remarkably detailed, often paralleling events elsewhere.

Dismissal invites the counter-claim that rationalists and materialists fail to experience such phenomena because they do not believe. In fact, what we experience is all too often not conditioned by what we believe. Belief systems such as rationalism, materialism and scientism cannot be empirically verified, any more than can apparitions and visions.

The Couch position of building on the rational while acknowledging but not adopting the non-rational seems to be the most sensible. 

It is rather revealing that while Thomas Hardy could express his understanding of reality in his fiction, when he came to expressing it in terms of current intellectual thought he could scarcely find the vocabulary of concepts to do so. As received intellectual opinion controls the intellectual agenda, its limitations are of a serious nature.

17. Jonathan Couch (1789-1870) of Polperro on the subject of apparitions

Material by Jonathan Couch can be found in The Life of Jonathan Couch by Bertha Couch, published 1891. Bertha Couch (1860-1942) was the oldest child of Jonathan Couch's third marriage to Sarah Lander Roose (1836-1923) in 1858.

The material relating to the Quillers of Polperro probably came to Jonathan from his second marriage to Jane Quiller (1790-1857) in 1815, or from members of the Quiller family. Jonathan must have passed it on directly to Bertha. Otherwise it came to Bertha from her mother after Jonathan's death in 1870. The material can be regarded as reliable.

Relevant information appertaining to the first marriage

In 1810, Jonathan Couch married Jane Prynn Rundle of Portallow or Porthallow farm in the parish of Talland. Jane died in childbirth in the same year.

Jane seems not to have had a Wesleyan experience of conversion. Jonathan was raked with 'uncertainty whether she had known her sins forgiven before her death' (Couch, B., p. 27). This led Jonathan to have concerns regarding her eternal state.

Some months later, in 1811, he says that:

I saw her standing by the bedside looking more radiant than ever I had seen her in real life, and in a voice as clear and distinct as possible, told me she was quite happy, happier than I could imagine

As Jonathan Couch regarded this as 'a special message from the Master', it is best defined as supernatural rather than non-rational. 

Relevant information appertaining to the second marriage

In 1815, Jonathan Couch married Jane Quiller, the daughter of Richard Quiller, and the granddaughter of John Quiller of Lansallos, generally regarded as the founder of the Quiller dynasty. Through Jane Jonathan seems to have accessed a body of material relevant to an understanding of Bottrell's droll. The Quillers possessed what Q saw as a 'sixth sense in nature' (Quiller-Couch & du Maurier, p. 44) to an abnormal degree. 

1796: in 1796, Jane's father and uncle, Richard and John Quiller, were drowned in a storm out of Roscoff having ignored a premonitory dream interpreted by his landlady, Mrs Magna, advising him 'not to go to sea again in this ship' (Couch. B., p. 31).

1810: Jane's brothers, Richard and John Quiller, were on one occasion, while carrying despatches for the government, taken prisoner by French privateers to be sold as slaves in Algiers. Algerian corsairs are mentioned in Bottrell's droll:

 Early one morning in 1810, Mrs Quiller, their mother, was confident she saw her son John enter as she lay . . . She called her two daughters and asked them when their brother came . . . on that very day . . . at that very hour, they had been taken by two French privateers and carried into Algiers' (ibid.,p. 32).

Local superstition, pp. 85 - 94

Bertha Couch probably obtained the information contained in this section from her father's notebooks: 'his note-books contain many allusions to superstitious beliefs . . . current around Polperro'. Many of these superstitions, such as the 'Dandy Dogs' and the idea of a witch turning into a hare, Jonathan was able to expose. Where Jonathan was the recipient of phenomena, exposure was more difficult.

Jonathan Couch was in the habit of visiting 'two orphan sisters, whose brother and only relative was at sea'. On one afternoon, 'he found the passage deluged with water . . . he found both sisters terribly affrighted . . . as he had opened the door their brother had passed through the passage dripping wet, the water from his clothes making all around in like condition'. At about that time the brother's ship had foundered with all hands(ibid., p. 89).

The story illustrates the difference between the privileged intellectual and political elite who controlled the national agenda, and the lives of working people who were unable to insulate themselves from poverty and tragedy but relied upon character and practical intelligence for survival.

Bertha Couch continues by relating the belief, also found in Bottrell's droll', and in Rowse's account of his uncle Edwin, that 'the spirit (on) leaving the body . . . appears to the nearest and dearest' (ibid., p. 89). Jonathan Couch is quoted as saying : 'I entertain no doubts on the subject of the truth of these things; but why, and how these things are, I meddle not with' (ibid., p. 90).

It is on the last point that Jonathan Couch diverged from John Stevens and Margaret D.. He acknowledged the non-rational but built his own thoughts on the basis of the rational. The account is followed by two others of a similar nature.

18. Dr A. L. Rowse

In A Cornish Childhood, the historian A. L. Rowse of St Austell, a town on the edge of the clay-country, provides an account of his uncle, Edwin (Cheelie) Rowse, who went to South Africa as a miner.

While holidaying at home, Edwin 'was for ever fiddling with an old-worn out clock that had stopped working . . . Some months later, at eight a.m., the clock suddenly struck "one" out loud'. 

The family learned three weeks later that the striking correlated with the moment of Edwin's death in a mine accident. The family took the strike 'as a "token", a sign of his death'(Rowse, p. 38).

19. Cornwall and the Cornish by A. K. Hamilton Jenkin

Originally published in1933 with an Introduction by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, it was also re-issued by Dent in 1945 in the collection Cornwall and Its People.

1933: The year of publication and its significance

In 1933, Q delivered some of the lectures contained in The Poet as Citizen (1934). He was fighting what appeared to be a losing battle for liberal and Christian values against a rising tide of Marxism at Oxbridge and Marxism and Fascism in European universities.

Reflections on William Bottrell's Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall

Hamilton Jenkin opens the chapter 'Folk-lore and Superstitions' from Cornwall and the Cornish with high praise for William Bottrell's Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall and Robert Hunt's Romances and Drolls of the West of England.

In section four, Hamilton Jenkin describes the practice of astrology by:

studious members of West Country families . . . drawing horoscopes, concocting drugs, and distilling strange compounds and cordials by the aid of which they were able to predict remarkable events (Jenkin, p. 273). 

Two are mentioned by name, William Allen of St Ives, who was still alive in 1849 and presumably knew Margaret Daniel, and John Stevens of Polperro, as recorded by Jonathan Couch in his History of Polperro. Both seem to have had their roots in the 18th century.

In sections seven and eight, the reader is introduced to one of Cornwall's most famous witches or 'pellars', Tamsin Blight of Helston, with her portrait included (ibid., facing p. 209). She is mentioned by Bottrell on a number of occasions, as Hamilton Jenkin indicates (ibid., fn p. 291).

Tamsin Blight is the 'Pellar of Helston' who is able to lift the curse laid on Katey the Kite's arm (Bottrell, 1870, p. 94). Matthew Thomas visits her each spring, along with a large crowd of people, including ships' captains, to have 'their protection renewed' (ibid., p. 115). One wonders whether Billy V. visited Tamsin Blight on his way from Madron church to Falmouth on Friday, July 31, 1795.

Jack Tregear's account is authentic because he accompanied Matthew Thomas. Tamsin Blight would not have been impressed by many modern productions of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Tregear's description of Margaret parallels Hamilton Jenkin's description of Tamsin Blight. 

The writings of Bottrell and Hamilton Jenkin cast a light on the curious position of the clergy, caught between an increasingly rationalistic intelligentsia and folk culture. In the 18th century, the Scottish philosophy of David Hume (1711-76) produced a critique of supernatural religion, with a complete dismissal of the miraculous. This was followed by writers such as Hegel, Auguste Comte, D. F. Strauss and Ernest Renan, resulting in a loss of faith in the historicity of the gospels, even to the point of denying the very existence of a Jesus of Nazareth.

In the 20th century, especially in Germany, a division began to appear between Jesus the Jew, the Jesus of history, about whom we can know nothing, and an existential Jesus, the Jesus of faith. This played very much into the hands of the National Socialists when Hitler came to power in 1933.

Academic historians have viewed the attack upon the New Testament as being as significant as Darwinian evolution in undermining Chistianity in the Victorian period. However, this top-down approach is hardly satisfactory.

Hamilton Jenkin includes a story of how the vicar of Breage had under protest 'taken a seriously sick woman to see Tamsin Blight. To his 'amazement' the woman was cured (Jenkin, p. 292).

Hamilton Jenkin is clear that it is difficult to find a 'rational explanation' for the phenomena, 'especially when the individuals concerned belong to the educated classes', with 'the results of practice . . . so well attested as to establish the existence of such a faculty beyond all doubt' (p. 303).

The problem the clergy had was an inability to do it themselves. They were trapped between the upper and the nether millstones. Academic historians, as in much else, fail to provide the complete picture, in part because it necessitates investigating material they find inconvenient.

20. Thomas Hardy of Dorset

Towards the end of Thomas Hardy's life, although they had been estranged by a review Q had written in 1896, Hardy and Q became reasonably close, especially as Q knew the area of north Cornwall where Hardy had courted his first wife (Seymour-Smith, pp. 821 & 827-9).

In 1899, Hardy defined his philosophical position to Charles Hooper, the Secretary of the Rationalist Press Association:

My own interest lies largely in non-rationalistic subjects, since non-rationality seems, so far as one can perceive, to be the principle of the universe. By which I do not mean foolishness, but rather a principle for which there is no exact name, lying at the indifference point between rationality and irrationality'(Ibid., p. 621).

Hardy positioned himself between rationality and irrationality, an area directly experienced but outside human control, scientific testing and human manipulation.

On Christmas Eve, 1919, he saw and spoke to an elderly man in 19th-century costume making his way into Stinsford Church, who he regarded as a ghost (ibid., p. 829).

There were two occasions when Hardy saw a 'death-token', both foretelling his own demise. On the first occasion a 'dark man' sat by Florence, his second wife, during a tea-party at Max Gate. Some years later the figure reappeared, and on October 27, 1927, reappeared again with the face clearly delineated (ibid., p. 862).

What is remarkable about the phenomena experienced by Hardy, Margaret Daniel and others previously mentioned is their clarity. The default position of rationalists, 'they believed they saw it', will not answer.

Hardy handles non-rational phenomena in a number of his novels and short stories, most obviously in 'A Superstitious Man's Story' and 'The Withered Arm'. What these stories contain parallels what is found in Cornish records. Conjuror Trendle in 'The Withered Arm' is similar in most respects to John Stevens of Polperro and in many respects to Margaret Daniel of Tregaminion. All clearly reflect the same folk culture and the same folk awareness even though Penwith and Dorset are over a hundred miles distant.

A detailed study of the above short stories can be found on this website in 'Hardy and Q: An Investigation of the South West Cultural Tradition'. 

21. Secular and religious culture at the time of the droll

Bottrell's droll provides an invaluable insight into why young working-class men left their occupations for smuggling and privateering activities despite the dangers involved. Billy V. probably leaves Falmouth in 1796 with a crew of about 50 men. Following his escape from the Spanish merchantmen, a couple of months afterwards, only 'six' were left alive.

When Jonathan Couch was apprenticed to the surgeon John Rice of East Looe, there were times when he would have had to rush down to the quayside to amputate the shattered limbs and bandage the gaping wounds of returning privateering crew men.

One of the Quillers, Richard Quiller, father of Jane Couch, was lost at sea aged 33. His son John was 44 when lost at sea, while his brother Richard Toms, who was lost with him, was 20. Yet the surviving Quillers continued seafaring until William, aged 33, and Thomas, aged 17, were lost in 1823. When Billy attempts to raise a crew on Sennen Green in 1796, he has to send many men away. Why, therefore, was the occupation so compelling?

The first reason must have been the insecurity of the times for the working population: famine and disease, industrial injury, impressment, legal, political and religious systems controlled by the rich and powerful, endemic poverty. Life expectancy was limited, necessitating quickly acquired wealth and the resulting enhanced status it . The second must have been the promise of action and excitement, and the possibility of the celebrity achieved by privateering captains like Richard Howett of Polperro and Billy V.. 

The lives of Billy V. and John Daniel reveal the characters of successful 'sea-rovers': high practical intelligence, bravery and utter ruthlessness. Both end up in the West Indies plundering, enslaving and extorting (Bottrell, 1870, p. 111). Zephaniah Job, Richard Rowett, the Carters and the Quillers differed in that they kept within the law, the Letter of Marque regulations, when privateering. Smuggling was another matter. 

In 18th-century secular and materialistic culture, with Anglicanism of peripheral interest, the conjuror, the wise woman or man, and the witch took the place of the priest, maybe increasingly so from the time of the Reformation. The supernatural element of the Catholic mass was transferred to them. Those seeking guidance, protection against evil, knowledge of the future, went for amulets, potions, talismans and astrological observations to Tamsin Blight of Helston, John Stevens of Polperro, the 'cunning man of Bodmin' and Margaret D. of Zennor. The visit of Matthew Thomas to Tamsin Blight is particularly instructive and almost certainly authentic (ibid., pp. 115-118).

Into this materialistic, hard-hitting society, in 1743, rode the Revs Charles and John Wesley, two former Oxford dons, whose lives had been changed by two similar religious experiences in May 1738. Both tended to High Anglicanism.

First came Charles Wesley on a preaching tour which took him to St Ives on July 15, where he quickly became aware of the violent presence of privateers. On July 20 and August 3 he preached at Zennor, on July 22 and 29 and August 5 at Morvah, 'a settlement of tinners', and on July 30 at St Just and Sennen.

In 1744, Charles Wesley arrived at Morvah on July 25 to find a Wesleyan Society house in the process of erection. Returning on July 29, he 'preached to a vast congregation', before riding on to Zennor.

On his third visit, in 1746, Charles Wesley became aware of the persecuting activities of Squire Stephen Usticke of Botallack, brother-in-law to the Rev. Drs William and Walter Borlase, who impressed Wesleyans. Wesley responded: 'The man who has troubled you today shall trouble you no more for ever'. Usticke died on December 3, 1746.

John Wesley first arrived at St Ives on August 30, 1743, going on to Morvah on September 2 and 6, and on September 7 preaching to 'two to three hundred people at Zennor . . .' On Saturday 10 he preached to 'a thousand' at St Just, before riding on to Sennen, then returning through St Just and Zennor, where large numbers had assembled, and on September 17 again at Morvah and Zennor.

It was on the first preaching tour that John Wesley met the Daniels of Morvah, namely Alice and John Daniel of Rosemergy. In a footnote to 'The Wesleys in Cornwall', John Pearce describes John Daniel as a miner and small farmer, but it was to Alice that John first spoke. According to tradition, 'she invited him in and gave him a meal of newly baked bread and the new honey. He talked to her as she'd never heard a parson talk before of truths "sweeter than honey or the honey comb"' (p. 77).

Wesleyanism was what John Wesley termed 'experimental religion', with the parish church as its focal point and the Society meeting house as its distinctive feature. Wesley divided his converts into 'classes' of ten or a dozen, meeting once a week under a class leader or spiritual guide.

John Daniel of Morvah, virtually all the 51 Methodist laymen who attended the meeting at Redruth following the death of John Wesley in 1791, along with Captain William Johns Senior and, later, Jonathan Couch at Polperro, would all have been class leaders: and many the leaders of the industrial revolution in Cornwall. 

The most famous was William Carvosso (1750-1833) of Mousehole in West Penwith and then Ponsanooth in Kerrier, whose autobiography provides a unique insight into early Wesleyanism. He had a profound influence on young Jonathan Couch through his visits to Polperro, while Jonathan Couch had a profound influence on Benjamin Carvosso, William's son. It is interesting that of all the distinguished and remarkable individuals thrown up by Cornish Wesleyanism, spiritually the most important was a man of virtually no formal education.

William Carvosso's life parallels that of Billy V., Margaret D., John D.  and Matthew Thomas. He might well have known or known of them. In his early years William and Walter Borlase were the dominating men of the area. When he removed to Ponsanooth, Tamsin Blight was holding court at nearby Helston.

His autobiography is significant in that it is personal, describes religious experience with simple directness and avoids the religious cliches, today ubiquitous, which invariably cloak a spiritual void.

The autobiography describes two experiences at the centre of 'experimental religion', conversion and sanctification, the first occurring on May 6, 1771, and the second on March 13, 1772. In form if not in content, one being theistic and the other not, there is a parallel with Zen enlightenment, namely a process culminating in a sudden awareness free from 'the intellect and sensuous infatuation' (Suzuki, p. 23).

John Daniel was soon hauled up before the Revd Dr William Borlase, JP, for being a Wesleyan. Alice and John Daniel, who were presumably close but poor relations of the Tregaminion Daniels, must have been instrumental in the building of the Society house in Morvah. On Sunday morning they would have all joined at service in the parish church – just as the Couches of Polperro continued to worship at Talland Parish Church until around 1814.

Alice Daniel died in 1769, 26 years after the first meeting with John Wesley. In 1768, John Wesley called her 'now decrepit' and housebound. This suggests her birth to have been around 1700. She was probably in her early forties when the first meeting took place. As the Daniels seemed to have leased and maybe to have built Rosemergy, the John Daniel of Morvah who made a will in 1749, as recorded in 'Cornish Wills', was probably Alice's husband.

When Margaret D. was born at Tregaminion, Alice was already dead and John long dead. As Mr. D. was elderly in 1795, he probably knew John and Alice of Rosemergy, to whom he was almost certainly closely related. He remained a parish Anglican, with Margaret reared as one.

As John Wesley preached in West Penwith during his last two missions, in 1787 and 1789, it is possible that Margaret and John Daniel heard him. If so he made little impression. Matthew Thomas could scarcely have avoided him, nor could Billy V., yet religion played no discernible part in their lives. With the Daniels we see a cultural world divided into two.

That two contradictory realities, secular and religious, existed in close proximity in a small area, for over one hundred years, with each retaining its integrity, is remarkable. If Jack Tregear, who shows no religious influence, died around 1870, then for well over one hundred years.

The 1870s seem to have been a watershed when the droll tradition and traditional Wesleyan revivalism both faded. Today, Squire Usticke's house at Botallack, the Daniel residences at Morvah and Rosemergy, Edward Pellew's cottage in Penzance, and the mansion of William Borlase at Castle Horneck are still visible but without the life and vitality of the 18th century.

22. A historical and literary chronology

1700
The Quillers were known residents of Lansallos/Polperro

1701
Robert Colliver of Looe, who is reputed to have stood trial in Madras, was probably a crew member of the Adventure, under Captain Kidd, a licenced privateer who turned to piracy and was hanged at Wapping in February 1701. Kidd's treasure was reputedly buried in Cuba. 

Q: In Dead Man's Rock, Amos Trenoweth of Lantrig, a privateer turned pirate, knifes Ralph Colliver on Adan's Peak when searching for the Great Ruby of Ceylon. Ralph's son, Simon Colliver seeks revenge. Amos's son, Ezekiel Trenoweth, marries a Margery Freethy (see Wheeler, RIC, pp. 5-7) and before journeying to Ceylon hangs a 'great key' from a beam with instructions for it to remain until his return. This has been taken from the last journey of Richard Quiller (Q, Memories & Opinions, p. 4). 

1702
May: BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON FRANCE AND SPAIN.
Sidney Godolphin of Godolphin, near Helston, is made Lord Treasurer and Chief Minister.
Privateers probably work out of Fowey and Falmouth.

1707
First Parliament of the United Kingdom: 
Scotland, 45 MPs; Cornwall, 44 MPs, Looe, 4MPs, 2 for East and 2 for West.

1709
Darby of Coalbrookdale constructs a blast furnace using coke.

1710
Sidney Godolphin dismissed.

1711
Thomas Pitt, former Governor of Madras and grandfather of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, purchased Boconnoc estate, near Lostwithiel, using India money.

Q:For Lord Mohun of 'Bocconnoc' and the Battle of Braddock Down on the estate, see The Splendid Spur, chapter XII.
In Shining Ferry, p. 19, 'Damelioc' is Boconnoc.
In Lady-Good-For-Nothing, Henry Vyell, father of Captain Oliver Vyell, was Governor of the East India Company's Factory in Bengal, dying in 1728 with £400,000 to leave. Henry's brother, Roger Vyell, traded at Calcutta. Their sister, Francis Elizabeth Vyell, married a Pelham, presumably a Whig politician (p. 32).

1712
Q: Rachel Rosewarne claims Hall at Bodinnick from the Damelioc (Boconnoc) estate (p. 12).

1713
PEACE TREATY OF UTRECHT

1715
Robert Walpole constructs his first administration. Supported by the Borlases. THE FIRST JACOBITE RISING

1725
The opening of Guy's hospital in London where Jonathan Couch was to train, 1808-10.

1733
Walpole forced to withdraw his anti-smuggling Excise Bill

1737
Joseph Butler publishes Analogy of Religion in which he laments that educated opinion favours Deism rather than Christianity.

Q: In Lady-Good-For-Nothing, Captain Oliver Vyell becomes Collector to the Port of Boston, Massachusetts, through the patronage of the Duke of Newcastle, Thomas Pelham-Holles.

1739
April: birth of Richard Couch, father of Jonathan Couch, to Jonathan Couch (d. 1740) and Margaret Rowett (1711-1786). Baptised in Talland Parish Church. 

Officiating at Talland from 1713-1746 was the Rev. Richard Doidge (1653-1746), a 'powerful exorcist' (See History of Polperro. J. Couch, pp. 73-4; also Appendix E, 'The Spectral Coach', reproduced R. Hunt, Romances and Drolls, 1^st series, no. 102, p. 224).
October: THE WAR OF JENKIN'S EAR

1740
Cornwall a major exporter of tin, copper and fish.

1741
General Election: Cornwall turns aginst Walpole through the influence of the Pitts of Boconnoc.
September: John Quiller baptised at Lansallos parish church, probably by curate Robert Palk.
December: Three Newcomen engines working in Cornwall (Rowe p. 42)

1742
January: Robert Walpole resigns as prime minister.
John Carteret (1690-1763) becomes Secretary of State under Wilmington.
December: William Pitt, snr, attacks Carteret in the House of Commons.

1743
January: Allied victory over the French at Dettingen.
THE CORNISH JOURNALS OF JOHN AND CHARLES WESLEY COMMENCE? JULY & AUGUST.
On July 15, Charles Wesley and on August 29 John Wesley cross the River Tamar at Launceston and establish themselves at St Ives in western Cornwall.
Margaret Rowett/Couch/Freethy joins a Wesleyan Society in the Polperro area (Wheeler, p. 7), although the preaching place was on the Looe -Polperro road.

John and Alice Daniel of Rosemergy converted by John Wesley and join the Morvah Wesleyan Society.

August: Henry Pelham becomes Prime Minister. The cabinet includes the Duke of Newcastle and is dominated by John Carteret (O'Gorman, p. 87).

1744
March: By-election for a 'County Seat' in Cornwall. The Rev. Dr William Borlase (1696-1772) refuses to support Robert Carteret, son of Lord Carteret, the Secretary of State and heir to the Grenville estates in Cornwall (Pool, pp. 60-1).

April: FRANCE DECLARES WAR ON BRITAIN

French privateers in the English Channel disrupt the transport of Cornish tin to London (Rowe, p. 42). 
John Wesley faces concerted opposition from the Rev. Dr Walter Borlase (1694-1776), Whig JP and vicar of Madron, including Penzance, and from the local clergy and justices (Pearce, pp. 77-9).
July: Charles Wesley sees privateers at St Ives. He faces opposition from the Rev. Walter Borlase and Squire Stephen Usticke (1700-1740) of Botallack (Pearce, pp. 46-7).
November: John Carteret resigns from the government of Henry Pelham.
December: Britain allies with Austria and Holland against France.

1745
April: The allies defeated by French at Fontenoy.
July: Charles Edward, the 'Young Pretender', lands in Scotland. The Second Jacobite rising.
September: The Jacobites capture Edinburgh and invade England.
October: Walter Borlase describes the Rebellion as 'Popery against Protestantism, arbitary power against liberty and law' (Pool, p. 67).
December: The English Jacobites fail to rise and Charles Stewart returns to Scotland. 
Cornish china clay is recognised as marketable for porcelain manufacture.

1746
Henry Pelham and the Duke of Newcastle unite the Whigs in a 'Broad-bottom' administration (O'Gorman, p. 146).
May: William Pitt, snr, enters the government.
July: Charles Wesley informs local Wesleyans that Squire Usticke will trouble them no more for ever. See December. 
September: John Wesley dines but does not preach in Looe. By tradition he preached from a stone on the Looe-Polperro road, west of the borough boundary.
December: death of Squire Stephen Usticke.

1747
Q: Shining Ferry, Charles Rosewarne is converted by John Wesley, to the derision of his mother (p. 13). 
July: Henry Pelham secures his position at a General Election. The Whigs dominate Cornwall. William Pitt, snr, becomes Paymaster of the Forces. The Bullers replace the Trelawnys as the main political influence in the boroughs of East and West Looe (Lawrence, pp. 234 & 267).
O'Gorman: Anglicanism 'in political thrall to the Whig politicians' who see it as supporting their power with Deism as the 'rational religion' challenged only by Wesleyanism and Evangelicalism (p. 169-170).

1748
October: PEACE TREATY OF AIX-LA-CHAPELLE between Britain, France and Spain, with France renouncing Jacobitism.
David Hume publishes Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. The violent opposition to the Wesleys ceases. (Pearce, p. 17). Wesley believed this to have been through the influence of the King, a Lutheran.

1749
HARRY CARTER'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY STARTS IN 1749.
Harry Carter (1749-1829)
Harry Carter is born at Pengersick, Germoe, on Mounts Bay (p. 2).
The first experiment in exporting Cornish Tin to Chimna by the East India Company.

1750
January: Zephaniah Job is born at St Agnes in western Cornwall. (Johns, p. 8).

1754
March: Henry Pelham dies and is succeeded by his brother, the Duke of Newcastle.
Sampson Swayne establishes a copper smelting works at Ental, Camborne, western Cornwall. (Rowe, p. 52).
Rev. William Borlase publishes Observations on the Antiquities, Historical and Monumental, of the County of Cornwall.

1755
November: William Pitt leaves the government and Henry Fox rises to Prominence.

1756
May: THE 'SEVEN YEARS WAR' begins with Britain at war with France.
June: Harry Trelawny of Trelawne in south-east Cornwall is born.
November: The Duke of Newcastle is succeeded by the Duke of Devonshire.
December: William Pitt joins the government.

1757
April: William Pitt resigns from the Devonshire government.
June: The Duke of Newcastle forms a government with William Pitt snr as war leader.
July: The allies defeated by the French at Hastenbeck.

1758
May-June: British and American colonist forces advance north up the Hudson and east from Halifax, Newfoundland, into French Canada. Louisbourg captured and Fort Carillon or Ticonderago.
Q: Fort Amity, chapters 1,2 & 3.
July: William Borlase publishes the Natural History of Cornwall. 

1759
Harry Carter starts working in the Breage mining district where John Nancarrow is experimenting with high-pressure steam engines. (Carter, p. 3; Rowe, p. 52).
August: Allied Victory over the French at Minden.
Q: Harry Revel, ch. 15, p. 159.
September: the British capture Quebec from the French.
Q: Fort Amity, ch. XXI.

1760
September: Amherst captures Montreal and controls Canada.
Q: Fort Amity, ch. XXVI.
October: George III becomes King: the first Hanoverian Anglican.

1761
October: William Pitt resigns from the government.

1762
May: Bute succeeds Newcastle as prime minister.
Matthew Boulton establishes an engineering works in Birmingham.

1763
February: THE PEACE TREATY OF PARIS ends THE SEVEN YEARS WAR.
April: George Grenville is made prime minister. The national debt stands at £140 million. He imposes taxes.
Excise officials given powers of search with the Justices of the Peace as arbiters. (Watson, p. 91).
Roscoff records its highest export trade in smuggled goods. (Shore, section 'Roscoff').

1765
Richard Trevithick Senior is chief engineer of Dolcoath mine, a friend of John Wesley and experimenter in high-pressure steam engines.(Rowe, p. 53). Samuel Drew born at St Austell.
July: The Marquis of Rockingham succeeds Grenville as prime minister.

1766
John, Francis and Harry Carter leave the Breage mines to establish a fishing and smuggling enterprise at nearby Prussia Cove on Mounts Bay (Carter, p. 3). 
The first customs officer at Polperro. 

1767
January: The East India Company administers Bengal.

1768
John Wesley preaches at Polperro.

1769
James Watt patents a steam engine.
Alice Daniel of Rosemergy, Morvah, dies.

1770
Lord North forms a government.
'Billy V.' probably born at Sennen.
Zephaniah Job leaves St Agnes for Polperro (Johns, pp. 18-19).

1771
Q: Shining Ferry, Nicholas Rosewarne inherits Hall at Bodinnick, reputedly turning to piracy and wrecking (p. 14).

1772
Harry Trelawny inherits a baronetcy and the Trelawne Estate.
Boulton and Watt enter a partnership to develop steam power.
In Cornwall, there is over-production of tin and a decline in foreign markets.
Quantities of tin are smuggled to the Mediterranean, particularly Italy, by pilchard traders, with re-export to the Levant.(Rowe, p. 57, fn 1).
August: the 'Cornish Tin Company is established by figures such as Sir John Molesworth (1729-75) of Pencarrow, MP, whose grandson Sir William Molesworth was a distinguished politician of radical views but died young; Thomas Daniell of Truro, who attended the Wesleyan meeting at Redruth following the death of John Wesley in 1791, and was almost certainly related to the Daniells of Penzance; Philip Richards, a partner in the London banking house of Lubbock; note – 'Zephaniah Job Accounts: 1787-1805, (ZJ16 RIC, p. 32), Messrs F. Commerell Lubbock & Co of London'; (Johns, p. 162); Sir John St Aubyn, MP, (1758-1839) etc. (Rowe, pp. 59-60), following the effect of Banca Tin to try to control prices.
Copper purchased by the East India Company.

1773
The Stock Exchange established in London.
Samuel Drew, aged eight, works as an ore dresser near St Austell.

1774
Captain Harry Carter works: Sloop of 16-18 Cornish tons – 2 crew-member;
Owns: Sloop of 32 Cornish tons; Cutter of 50 Cornish tons – 10 crew (Carter, p. 3-4).
Quebec Act angers the American colonists. A military expedition prepared.

1775
An Act of Parliament secures the patent of Boulton and Watt until 1800.
Samuel Drew, aged ten is apprenticed to a cobbler at St Blazey.
December: the American expedition to Canada reaches Quebec but is repulsed. 
Q: see Fort Amity, chapter XXVII? p. 250).

1776
The American Declaration of Independence.
AMERICA AND BRITAIN AT WAR.
Rev. Dr Walter Borlase of Madron dies and is succeeded by the Rev. William Borlase his son.
Birth of Elizabeth Branwell in Penzance (Aunt Elizabeth).

1777
Captain Harry Carter owns a privateer cutter of 197 Cornish tons, crew 36, & carriage guns 16. (Carter, p. 5).
Close relations of Thomas Branwell – Thomas Branwell and Richard Woolcock – sail with Harry Carter.
December: Captain Harry Carter sails from Guernsey to St Malo.

1777-8
Margaret Daniel born at Tregaminion in Morvah.

1778
Q: Shining Ferry: the evil Nicholas Rosewarne dies in a thunderstorm, with a possible death-token. (p. 14). See Bottrell, wedding night of 'Billy V.'
Birth of Patrick Brontë in Ireland.
January: Harry Carter arrested for lacking certificates of identity. (Carter, p. 6).
February: TREATY BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND THE AMERICAN COLONISTS.
Zephaniah Job becomes the Polperro agent of Guilles of Guernsey (Johns, p. 31).
BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON FRANCE
The government passes a measure authorizing the Admiralty to grant commissions for privateers. (Carter xiii). Privateering commences in Polperro. (Johns, p. 8). 
March: the French port authorities enforce the embargo on all British ships in harbour (Carter, p. 6).
May: Harry Carter imprisoned at St Malo and Dinan for not having the required papers from the 'Governor' of Guernsey (Carter, p. 6).
June: John Carter, carrying the required 'Certificate' for Harry Carter, arrested(Carter, p. 8). 
SPAIN DECLARES WAR ON BRITAIN 
Zephaniah Job agrees to act as agent in Polperro for additional Guernsey smuggling companies (Johns, p. 33).
John Quiller owns or part owns the Swallow, Alert, & Brilliant privateers, working in association with Zephaniah Job (Johns, p. 35). From 1778 to 1804, Job deals with the Guernsey merchants:
Jersey and De Lisle, later De Lisle & Sons;
Carteret Priaulx;
N. Maingy & Bros.;
John Lukis & London merchant banks (Johns, p. 110).
December: 5 Boulton & Watt engines working in Cornwall, with eight ordered. (Rowe, p. 79).

1779 
November: Admiralty arranges to exchange John and Harry Carter for 2 Frenchmen (Carter, p. 9).
December: John Carter offered credit by Guernsey merchants to rebuild his business (Carter, p. 9) 

1780
Dunkirk privateers, including the Black Prince of 16 guns and 60 men, active in the English Channel (Carter, pp. 9 &11).

Harry Carter arrested as a pirate but freed on the orders of the Admiralty (Carter, p. 10).

Harry Carter purchases: 
smuggling and privateering cutter of 160 Cornish tons & 19 guns
smuggling lugger with 20 guns (Carter, p. 10).

November: BRITAIN DECLARES WAR ON HOLLAND.

Q: Shining Ferry, Nicholas Rosewarne II returns from the American war to Hall, marries and has one son, Martin Rosewarne (p. 15).

1781
THE EARLIEST SURVIVING JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS OF HELSTON, 1781 to 1783 (ABK, no 91).

Summer: John Quiller, Zephaniah Job, William Quiller and others hold shares in the Swallow privateer, an armed lugger carrying 16 carriage guns and a crew of 50; Good Interest, Captain Sharrock Jenkins, carrying 28 carriage guns and a crew of 70 (Johns, p. 35).

July: First recorded meeting of Christopher Wallis and Charles Carter (ABK, 91). 

Swallow, captained by Thomas Effard sails for Lisbon – trade and privateering. (Johns, p. 39).

December: Harry Carter sails from Guernsey to Mounts Bay. The Collector of Customs at Penzance requests Harry Carter to intercept the Black Prince, a French privateer which is subsequently sunk off Padstow (Carter, p. 11).

1782
The Polperro smuggling companies, such as the Quillers, who deal through Zephaniah Job, buy on credit and remit directly to the Guernsey merchant houses or indirectly through London banks. (Johns, pp. 110-111).

Spring: A government 'Proclamation' against smuggling with a concession – a pardon if two men are provided for the navy (ABK, no 91). 

March: Christopher Wallis in London. (ABK, no 91).

Christopher Wallis opens a bank in Helston (ABK, 91). It is supported by Sir Francis Bassett & Co. (1757-1835).

May: Christopher Wallis has a meeting with Coppinger and John, Francis and Thomas Carter (ABK, 91).

August: Christopher Wallis meets with Charles Carter, brother (?), and William Gluyas of Marazion over the cargo of a wreck or prize (ABK, 91).

Seine fishing and the export of pilchards commences at Polperro (Johns, p. 93).

Richard Couch was a fish merchant.

December: Christopher Wallis in London on smuggling and maritime matters (ABK, 91).

Samuel Drew lives as a cobbler and a smugglers' 'landsman' on the Rame peninsula.

1783

Henry Cort perfects the 'puddling' of iron.

March: The sale at the New Inn, Polperro, of five French and Spanish 'prizes' taken by the Swallow, owners including John Quiller and Zephaniah Job. (Johns, p. 43).

April: Christopher Wallis meets with Sir Harry Trelawny regarding the manor of Carminow. (ABK, 91).

The Swallow, captained by William Johns, taken by HMS Beaver near Lundy.

May/June: with the prospect of peace, Guernsey merchants arrive in Cornwall to settle accounts.

Christopher Wallis meets with Mr Clansie, and Francis, John, Robert and Thomas Carter. (ABK, 91). For a Mr Clansie see Carter's autobiography from 1793, p. 70 onwards.

CHRISTOPHER WALLIS'S 1ST JOURNAL ENDS AUGUST 11, 1783.

September: TREATY OF VERSAILLES. American Independence recognised and peace made with France and Spain.

December: William Pitt becomes Prime Minister.

1784

March: A raid on Polperro by the Revenue officials with the cellars of Richard Rowett as one destination (Johns, p. 71-2)

Q: In the Polperro stories, Richard Rowett is Captain Dick Hewett.

April: William Pitt Junior, wins a general election. John Buller is one member for East Looe.

May: A second raid on Polperro with John Langmaid eventually arrested (Johns, p. 71).

June: Commutation Act, to increase revenues and decrease smuggling.

1. Decreased duty on tea from 112% to 25% and on spirits.

2. A graded window tax, hitting the wealthy like Sir Harry Trelawny. (Johns, p. 58).

3. Owners of smugglismuggling-typeto hold Admiralty licences – hence the need to employ individuals like Job and Wallis.

4. New Revenue cutters built.

5. Later, The Hovering Act against inshore operations.

Pitt's revenue increased by £3 million, largely from the Customs, to the detriment of the smugglers (Watson, pp. 288-292; Johns, p. 112).

October: Langmaid found guilty of assaulting a Revenue Official and sentenced to death. Job secures the support of Charles Rashleigh, MP, High Sheriff of Cornwall and Ralph Allen Daniell, merchant and mine adventurer, of Truro, in petitioning the Home Secretary, the Duke of Portland, for a Royal Pardon. Successful, in spite of opposition from the Revenue and in spite of government policy (Johns, pp. 103, 108, 131, etc.) 

c.1785
Aged 15, 'Billy V.' of Sennen signs aboard an East Indiaman.

Michaelmas: Christopher Wallis sells Bochym to Sir Harry Trelawny (ABK, 96).

Samuel Drew comes under the influence of Dr Adam Clarke. 

1786
John Opie paints 'Gentleman and Miner', Thomas Daniell of Truro and Captain Morcom of Wheal Towan (RIC).

April: Harry Carter marries Elizabeth Flindel of Helford (Carter, 13).

Zephaniah Job takes on the stewardship of the Trelawne estate.

July/August: Sir Harry Trelawny departs for the Hotel de Luxembourg in Paris. 

Zephaniah Job arranges for house-steward, William Wills, to travel to Paris, via Roscoff with a credit note for the Guernsey merchants Maingy & Brother (Johns, ch. 5).

Lead ore discovered at Herodsfoot on the Trelawne estate.

Zephaniah Job calls himself 'Steward and Attorney' to Sir Harry Trelawny (Johns, ch. 5).

Q: Poison Island, in which the Puerto Bello treasure hidden by the crew of the Roseway of Marblehead, on the island of Mortallone in the Gulf of Honduras (p. 150).

The East India Company set up a base on Penang Island.

1787
Zephaniah Job holds the sole commission with 8 of the 9 Guernsey merchant companies and a number of London banking houses (Johns, p. 101).

November: Harry Carter owns a smuggling lugger of 140 Cornish or 45 English tons, with 16 carriage guns (Carter, p. 13).

1788
January: Harry Carter severely wounded landing contraband at Cawsand on Rame Head when intercepted by a man-of-war. He hides at Acton Castle, Marazion, with a £300 price on his head (Carter, p. 14-19).

June-July: Sir Harry Trelawny returns from Paris to Trelawne (Johns, p.54).

An engine draws water from Herodsfoot lead mine (Johns, p. 52).

September: Richard Couch one of the first seine fishing owners (RIC, 14).

October: Sir Harry Trelawny leaves for Lake Geneva (Johns, p. 54).

According to Rowe, a 'considerable amount of tin' was being smuggled to the Mediterranean by the pilchard traders, first to Italy and then on to the Levant (fn. p. 57).

December: Harry Carter escapes to Italy, arriving at Leghorn (Carter, p. 23).

Richard Couch marries Philippa Minards, parents of Jonathan Couch.

Richard Couch and Zebedee Minards construct the first Wesleyan Society house in Polperro (RIC, (7)). Q: see Delectable Duchy, 'Parents and Children'.

1789
January-April: Harry Carter sails from Leghorn to New York, meeting leading Wesleyans Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury (Carter, pp. 25-50).

March: Jonathan Couch born in Polperro.

July 14: Fall of the Bastille in Paris and the start of the French Revolution.

September: Directors of the East India Company show an interest in Cornish Tin for China (Rowe, pp. 171-2).

1790
THE JOURNALS OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS RECOMMENCE FOR JANUARY AND RECOMMENCE AGAIN FOR 1792 JUNE TO DECEMBER.
July: 1,200 tons of tin supplied to the East India Company. (Rowe, pp. 173-5)

August: Harry Carter sails from New York to Dunkirk and Breage, arr. October 10.

September: Best pilchard season to date. Exports to Italy buoyant. 

Q: Poison Island, Daniel Coffin employed by British slave merchants exchanging gun-powder and muskets for slaves, ivory etc. on West African Coast, at Whydah (pp. 139, 148 & 152). Bottrell – was this the trade of Billy V. from 1792 to 1795?

1791
April: Warned of possible arrest Harry Carter sails for Roscoff.  

The Pitt administration introduced stringent regulations relating to boats, loitering and vehicles of transportation to stop smuggling (Watson, p. 288).

Q: Harry Revel, penalty of £100 for 'showing a coast-light without authority (Ch. XII), (Johns, p. 38).

1791-3: Problems mount for smugglers (Johns, p. 37-8).

Customs House at Fowey: 12 staff, including a searcher of salt, which is cheaper in France. (Shore, pp. 3 & 84).

1792
July: Christopher Wallis at 'Great Works' mine with Richard Trevithick, jnr, Edward Bull, the engineer, and Mr Gluyas (ABK, 96). 

October: Christopher Wallis goes to Looe.

November: Christopher Wallis meets Sir Harry Trelawny's solicitor, Mr Wills. 

'Attended Mr Job . . . attended undersheriff Bond'. 

Wrote to undersheriff Mr Bond. This is Thomas Bond of Looe. (ABK, 96). 

'Billy V.' commences 'privateering' (?). See Q, Poison Island, ch. XIX.

1793
THE JOURNALS OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS CONTINUE no. 96 & 107.

Dunkin and Charles Carter in a defence of Suit in Chancery (no. 96 ABK). 

Harry Carter in Roscoff (Carter, p. 71). 

Christopher Wallis dines with Sir Harry Trelawny and four (French) priests at Bochym (ABK, 96). 

January: Charles Carter in 'Exchequer prosecution' and 'petition' to the Commissioners of Excise.

February: Prosecution in London.

February 1: WAR WITH FRANCE

2: Embargo on all British vessels.

Christopher Wallis 'examining admiralty papers etc.' Smuggling boats converted.

March: Harry Carter in Morlaix as a prisoner, with Mr Clancie etc. (Carter, p. 72).

? Sir Harry Trelawny sailed from Leghorn to Polperro aboard the pilchard boat, Richard and Mary.

Pilchard industry severely hit by the salt tax (Johns, p. 82).

June: Christopher Wallis in London for Bull v. Boulton & Watt, petitions involving E. Bull, R. Trevithick, Hornblower. Trial June 26 (ABK, no. 96).

The Lively puts to sea under Richard Quiller. *

July: Christopher Wallis meets Mr Clansie.

November: Christopher Wallis writes to Zephaniah Job about the wreck of the Three Brothers bound for Naples. (ABK, 96).

* John Quiller, the Guernsey merchant house of Nicholas Maingy and Zephaniah Job fitted out the sloop Lively for privateering. John Quiller commanded the Brilliant (Johns, p. 81).

1794
THE JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS for 1794, no. 109.

January: Harry Carter imprisoned in Brittany with Carmelite nuns (Carter, p. 83). 

April: Britain allies with Prussia and Holland against France. 

June: France defeats Austria at Fleurus and Belgium is lost to France.

Harry Carter lodged with Carmelite nuns near St Pauls or St Pol (Carter, p. 86).

July: the execution of Robespierre on 28^th. The 'Terror' ends.

The Convention decrees: 'Prisoners and other persons under accusation should have the right to demand some "Writ of accusation" and see clearly what they are accused of'. Many prisoners released ( Carter, p. 93, fn.)

November: Christopher Wallis in correspondence with 'Mr Job of Looe about the Three Brothers of Looe, wrecked with pilchards for Naples (ABK, no. 109).

December: France invades Holland. Jonathan Couch remembered this event.

1795
January 1795. 'the great frost' of 1795, 'by means of which the French were able to overrun Holland' (B. Couch, p. 13).

Job exports pilchards to Leghorn, near Pisa, aboard the Richard and Mary (Johns, p. 93).

January: Harry Carter and Mr Clansie liberated into the care of Mr Diot, who owns a tobacco factory. Carter, p. 94).

Harry Carter returns to Cornwall from Brittany.(Carter, pp. 92-102)

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF HARRY CARTER CONCLUDES

October: Zephaniah Job opens accounts with London bankers Pybus Call & Co. of Old Bond Street and Sir James Esdaile & Co. of Lombard Street, London. He also has Guernsey agents, Perchard and Brock, later Brock and Lemesurier, and Commerell Lubock & Co (Johns, p. 101).

1796
THE JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS FOR 1796, ABK no. 115.

Richard Quiller lost at sea aboard the Lively. (Johns, pp. 81 & 153). A different account can be found in Bertha Couch's Life, p. 31.

April: Sir Harry Trelawny, JP, purchases spirits from William Johns, smuggler. See Johns, p. 60.

Napoleon opens his Italian campaign. 

May: Christopher Wallis attends Richard Trevithick Junior and Bull, working at Ding Dong mine, between Madron and Morvah, about patent matters relating to Boulton & Watt (ABK, no. 115).

'Billy V.' and 'Margaret D.' marry in Falmouth.

'Billy V.' leaves Falmouth to intercept a dispersed Spanish Merchant Fleet. 

October: Spain declares war on Britain. Privateering against Spain included on 'Letters of Marque'.

December: Rumours of invasion and a run on provincial banks.

1797
THE JOURNAL OF CHRISTOPHER WALLIS FOR 1797, ABK, no. 118.

January: Shortage of seamen leads to press-gangs raiding coastal communities and merchant ships.  

June: Christopher Wallis attended Robert Carter of Crowan whose son had been committed to Exeter jail for obstruction of customs and excise (ABK, no. 115).

September: Christopher Wallis advises Thomas Branwell of Penzance (ABK, no. 115).

Captain Gabriel Bray of the Revenue raids the cellars of Richard Rowett (Johns, p. 77). 

October: Napoleon imposes the peace of Campo-Formio on Austria.

1798
April: Captain Gabriel Bray leads a raid to intercept contraband belonging to William Minards and Richard Rowett. Warrants issued but not proceeded with (in 1799) (Johns, p. 77).

May: Napoleon's Egyptian campaign.

December: The 'Lottery Incident' off Rame Head (Johns, ch.12).

1799
January: Christopher Wallis 'attended 12 Exchequer cases v. Attorney General involving Richard, Robert, Robert Junior, Thomas, Francis and William Carter. Trial in May (ABK, no. 125). 

May: Captain Gabriel Bray leads a raid on Polperro. Possibly witnessed by twelve year old Jonathan Couch. See Q, Haunted Dragoon.

September: Revenue boat chases the Unity into Polperro (Johns, p. 132).

September-November: Christopher Wallis attends Francis Cater and Henry Carter of Breage and Charles Carter about family accounts (ABK, p. 125).

October-November: Napoleon returns from Egypt, overthrows the Directory and establishes the Consulate.

1800
Q: Shining Ferry, Martin Rosewarne of Hall invests a legacy in privateering companies and grows rich (pp. 16-17).

Royal Institution established in London. Humphry Davy lectures from 1801.

End of the Boulton and Watt patent.

June: Napoleon defeats the Austrians at Marengo.

August: John Quiller lends Sir Harry Trelawny £1,300 (Johns, p. 100).

December: Tom Potter hanged at Execution Dock in London for the murder of a Customs crewman. The body could be used for medical research.

1801
February: William Pitt resigns and is replaced by Addington, an Evangelical.

October: Peace negotiations begin between Britain and France.

Privateers refit for smuggling. 

December: Richard Trevithick's steam carriage.

First Preventive boat stationed at Polperro (Johns, pp. 67-9).

1802
THE TREATY OF AMIENS BETWEEN BRITAIN AND FRANCE

The government enacts anti-smuggling legislation for Guernsey and the mainland. For instance, signalling out to sea. Q: Harry Revel, ch. 12.

Patrick Brontë arrives at St John's College, Cambridge, from Ireland.

1803
The East India Company becomes a major purchaser of Cornish copper and tin, while providing saltpetre for explosives (Rowe, pp. 55, 119 & 120).

May: Britain imposes an embargo on French and Dutch ships in British ports.

May 18: THE END OF THE PEACE OF AMIENS.

At Polperro Zephaniah Job prepares the cutter Industry with 10 carriage guns and a crew of 36. It is commanded by William Johns, jnr and can stay at sea for 3 months. Looe is its harbour. For 'Letter of Marque' etc., Job goes through London agents at Admiralty Court, Brock and Lemesurier of Throgmorton Street (Johns, p. 85).

1804
February or March: Jonathan Couch becomes a pupil of medical practitioner John Rice of East Looe (B. Couch, p. 16).

February: Richard Trevithick demonstrates a steam-locomotive in Glamorgan.

May: William Pitt heads a new government.

Napoleon declares himself Emperor of the French.

November: Death at sea of John Quiller.

1805
The Unity is commanded by Richard Rowett (1770-1848).
The Pheasant is commanded by William Quiller (1765-1815) (Johns, p. 87).

Anti-smuggling legislation is extended to the Channel Islands, with a Custom House constructed at St Peter Port (Johns, p. 117). 

April: Carteret Priaulx in Polperro checking accounts (Johns, p. 117).

1806
Patrick Brontë graduates at Cambridge and is ordained in the Church of England.

Zephaniah Job obtains a banking licence underwritten by Christopher Smith, Son & Co. merchant bank of London (Johns, p. 106).

Christopher Smith fails to get elected MP at East Looe.

1^st rail line opens in Cornwall, Dolcoath to Portreath (Rowe, p. 117).

November: Napoleon's Berlin Decrees aim to stifle British trade with the continent. Roscoff is not affected.

The East and West Looe Voluntary Artillery formed under Captain Thomas Bond, with Jonathan Couch as second lieutenant.

1807
Further anti-smuggling legislation from the government.

1808
September-October: Jonathan Couch travels to the united medical school of Guy's and St Thomas' in London for medical training. Finance transmitted by Zephaniah Job through Brock and Mesurier (Johns, p. 153, fn.).

Q: Poison Island, Major James Brooks served under Lord William Bentinck and Sir John Moore in the Peninsula campaign, the retreat to and the battle of Corunna.

1809
January: John Quiller, commander of the lugger Black Joke, writes to his mother (B. Couch, pp. 126-7).

December: Harry Carter commences his autobiography at the invitation of Mr Wormsley and Geoffrey Carter of Helston, his nephew.

1810
John Quiller appears in the bedroom of his mother, Mary Quiller, at the point of his capture off Algiers (B. Couch, pp. 30-5).

Jonathan Couch qualifies at Guy's and St Thomas' and leaves for Polperro.

1812
Richard and John Quiller, sons of the late Richard Quiller, are lost at sea in an armed merchantman off Tenerife (Johns, p. 68).

January: William Pengelly born at East Looe, his father a coastal trader and his uncle a smuggler.

Patrick Brontë marries Maria Branwell. 

1814
Spring: the 'Great Revival' starts at Redruth and is felt as far east as Polperro. Wesleyan chapels are built in Penzance, where the Branwells are active, and Polperro, where Jonathan Couch is a leader. 

1815
'Billy V.' dies on an island in the West Indies or the Gulf of Honduras. 

Matthew Thomas has an apparition, 'Margaret D.' sees a vision and a death-token is observed at Trevilly Cliff. John Daniel remains on the island. Margaret is tortured by the spectacle of a dark woman bending over her husband when he is expiring, fearing his unfaithfulness.

1815
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

1816
The birth of Richard Quiller Couch at Polperro.

1817
The Goon Act, 'Coast Blockade for Prevention of Smuggling' along the Channel coast (Johns, p. 151).

1818
July 30th: the birth of Emily Brontë.

1819
January 17th: the birth of Anne Brontë.

1821
The death of Maria Brontë at Haworth. Elizabeth Branwell or Aunt Elizabeth takes over the household duties.

1822
The death of Zephaniah Job at Kellow and the destruction of his records except those in the loft of Crumplehorn Mill.

1823
William and Thomas Quiller drown at sea: this is effectively the end of the Quiller commercial dynasty.

1824
William Pengelly becomes a crew member aboard his father's coastal trader.

Charlotte Brontë enters Roe Head school.

1824/5: One of 'Billy V's' crew returns, arriving at Zennor to inform Margaret of the subsequent history of her husband. He informs her that the 'dark lady' was the wife of John Daniel. Billy had been faithful. This relieves Margaret's mind. Shortly afterwards she moves from Zennor to Escalls.

1826
The birth of Thomas Quiller Couch at Polperro.

1828
William Pengelly leaves the sea.

1829
Harry Carter dies at Rinsey.

1832
The Great Reform Act in which Looe loses all its MPs. 

The death of William Carne, the 'Father of Cornish Methodism'. His burial is at Gulval Parish Church.

1833
Samuel Drew dies.

1835
The last violent confrontation between the Revenue and smugglers happens at Lantic Bay (Shore, pp. 19-31). 

Jonathan Couch helps the Wesleyan Reform Association establish itself - a schism from Wesleyanism.

1836
The Primitive Methodists build a chapel at Haworth.

1840
Smuggling from Roscoff is in terminal decline.

1842
Charlotte and Emily Brontë arrive in Brussels.

1846
The Brontë poems published.

1847
Charlotte Brontë publishes Jane Eyre.

Emily Brontë publishes Wuthering Heights.

1849
Anne Brontë dies of T.B.

Emily Brontë dies of T.B.

1854
Charlotte Brontë marries.

1855
Charlotte Brontë dies.

23. Conclusion

The folklorist writings of Hunt, Bottrell and Jonathan Couch were looking back at a world no longer in existence, except in fragments.

William Bottrell's 'The White Witch, or Charmer of Zennor' enables us to access the working class culture of the Quiller period, when the industrial revolution was changing the landscape of a Cornwall whose ancient traditions still existed.

No positive dates are provided for the droll, but mention of the 'India Service', and of 'Pellew' and the 'Nymph' (Bottrell, 1870, p.97), without any mention of the Cornish language, suggest a time after 1750, with earlier elements arbitrarily added.

The main actors in the droll have personalities appropriate to the area, speaking according to their character and level of education.

The present writer has little doubt that wat we have is oral history, providing a cultural context for the Quillers and supplementing what is found in Jonathan Couch's History of Polperro.

Today we are looking back...

24. The novels and short stories of Q which centre on or include material on smuggling, privateering and venturing in Cornwall

All the works can be found in the Duchy Edition of Q's fictional writings: The Duchy Edition of Tales and Romances by Q. J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London & Toronto. E. P. Dutton & Co., New York.

Key: n. novel ss. short story

1. Dead Man's Rock, n., 1892

2. I Saw Three Ships, ss., 1892
'I Saw Three Ships' – little direct reference
'Mortallone'

3. Wandering Heath, ss., 1895
'The Looe Die-hards'

4. Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts, ss., 1900
'The Singular Adventure of a Small Free Trader'
'The Mystery of Joseph Laquedem'

5. The Laird's Luck and other Fireside Tales, ss., 1901
'Captain Dick and Captain Jacka'

6. The White Wolf and Other Fireside Tales, ss., 1902
'The Capture of the "Burgomeister Van Der Werf"'
'King O'Prussia'

7. The Adventures of Harry Revel, n., 1903

8. Shining Ferry, n., 1905

9. The Mayor of Troy, n., 1906

10. Poison Island, n., 1907

11. News from the Duchy, ss., 1913
'Cask Ashore'

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