Part 1

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. Bold text is denoted by =equal signs=. Superscripts (eg S^r, Esq^{re}) are indicated by ^ and have not been expanded.

This book was published in two volumes, of which this is the first. The second volume was released as Project Gutenberg ebook #46530, available at https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46530.

Obvious typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources.

More detail can be found at the end of the book.

CORNISH WORTHIES:

_SKETCHES OF SOME EMINENT CORNISH MEN AND FAMILIES._

BY

WALTER H. TREGELLAS.

_IN TWO VOLUMES.--VOL. I._

'Cornubia fulsit Tot fœcunda viris.' JOSEPH OF EXETER (XIIIth century).

LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C. 1884.

I Dedicate

THESE SKETCHES OF SOME OF

MY NATIVE COUNTY'S WORTHIES

TO THE WORTHIEST OF WOMEN,--

MY WIFE.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

PAGE

PRELUDES vii

INTRODUCTION xi

RALPH ALLEN; THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST 1

JOHN ANSTIS; THE HERALD 27

THE ARUNDELLS OF LANHERNE, TRERICE AND TOLVERNE; ECCLESIASTICS AND WARRIORS 35

THE BASSETS OF TEHIDY 107

ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S. 137

THOMASINE BONAVENTURA (DAME THOMASINE PERCIVAL), LADY MAYORESS OF LONDON 149

HENRY BONE, R.A.; THE ENAMELIST 159

REV. DR. WILLIAM BORLASE, F.R.S.; THE ANTIQUARY 167

THE BOSCAWENS 189

DAVY; THE MAN OF SCIENCE 245

ADMIRAL VISCOUNT EXMOUTH 289

SAMUEL FOOTE; WIT AND DRAMATIST 309

THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN; STATESMEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES 337

PRELUDES.

'For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?'--_Job_ viii. 8-10.

'Let us now praise famous men, and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning. Such as did bear rule in their kingdoms, men renowned for their power, giving counsel by their understanding, and declaring prophecies: leaders of the people by their counsels, and by their knowledge of learning meet for the people: wise and eloquent in their instructions: such as found out musical tunes, and recited verses in writing: rich men furnished with ability, living peaceably in their habitations: all these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a name behind them, that their praises might be reported. And some there be, which have no memorial; who are perished, as though they had never been; and are become as though they had never been born; and their children after them. But these were merciful men, whose righteousness hath not been forgotten.'--_Ecclesiasticus_ xliv. 1-10.

'Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi: Quique sacerdotes casti, dum vita manebat: Quique pii vates et Phœbo digna locuti: Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes: Quique sui memores alios fecere merendo: Omnibus his nivea cinguntur tempora vitta.'

_Æneid_, vi.

'Patriots who perished for their country's right, Or nobly triumphed in the field of fight: There holy priests and sacred poets stood, Who sung with all the raptures of a god: Worthies, who life by useful arts refined, With those who leave a deathless name behind, Friends of the world, and fathers of mankind.'

PITT'S _Translation_.

'* * yf I have sayed a misse, I am content that any man amende it, or if I have sayd to lytle, any man that wyl to adde what hym pleaseth to it. My mind is, in profitynge and pleasynge every man, to hurte or displease no man.'

_Introduction to_ ROGER ASCHAM'S '_Toxophilus_.'

''Tis opportune to look back upon old times, and contemplate our forefathers. Great examples grow thin, and to be fetched from the passed world.'

SIR THOMAS BROWNE _to_ THOMAS LE GROS, _in the Epistle Dedicatory to the 'Hydriotaphia_.'

'It is a reverend thing to see an ancient castle or building not in decay; or to see a fair timber-tree sound and perfect;--how much more to behold an ancient noble family, which hath stood against the waves and weathers of time?'

BACON.

'THE LORD BACON'S JUDGMENT OF A WORK OF THIS NATURE.'

* * * * *

'I do much admire that these times have so little esteemed the vertues of the times, as that the writing of _Lives_ should be no more frequent. For although there be not many soveraign princes, or absolute commanders, and that states are most collected into monarchies; yet are there many worthy personages that deserve better than dispersed report, or barren elogies; for herein the invention of one of the late poets is proper, and doth well inrich the ancient fiction. For he faineth, that at the end of the thread or web of every man's life, there was a little medal containing the person's name; and that _Time_ waiteth upon the _Sheers_, and as soon as the thread was cut, caught the medals, and carried them to the river _Lethe_; and about the bank there were many birds flying up and down, and would get the medals, and carry them in their beak a little while, and then let them fall into the river. Onely there were a few _Swans_, which if they got a name, would carry it to a temple where it was consecrate.'

_In_ LLOYD'S _State Worthies_, vol. i.

'It is a melancholy reflection to look back on so many great families as have formerly adorned the county of Cornwall, and are now no more: the Grenvilles, the Arundells, Carminows, Champernons, Bodrugans, Mohuns, Killegrews, Bevilles, Trevarions, which had great sway and possessions in these parts. The most lasting families have only their seasons, more or less, of a certain constitutional strength. They have their spring and summer sunshine glare, their wane, decline, and death: they flourish and shine perhaps for ages;--at last they sicken; their light grows pale, and, at a crisis when the off-sets are withered and the old stock is blasted, the whole tribe disappears, and leave the world as they have done Cornwall. There are limits ordained to everything under the sun: _man will not abide in honour_.'

DR. BORLASE (_as quoted by_ LYSONS _in 'Magna Britannia,'_ vol. iii.--_Cornwall_, p. clxxiv.).

'Every man in the degree in which he has wit and culture finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes of living and thinking of other men.'

EMERSON'S '_Essay on Intellect_.'

'"The biographical part of literature," said Dr. Johnson, "is what I love the best"; and his remark is echoed daily in the hearts, if not in the words, of hundreds of readers: * * * and though for the last half-century pure fiction has been in the ascendant, the popularity of biography, if not relatively, yet absolutely, seems to be continually increasing.'

_Quarterly Review_, No. 313, _January, 1884_.

INTRODUCTION.

The question has often been asked, 'Why is there for Cornwall no companion-book to Prince's "Worthies of Devon"?' Fuller, it is true, in his 'Worthies,' allots a section to Cornwall; but the notices, though pregnant with shrewd humour, are slight and incomplete; and Fuller, of course, is now out of date: indeed, most of the Cornishmen whose names will be found in the following pages lived since his time. The Rev. R. Polwhele, of Polwhele, one of the historians of his native county, has certainly left us some amusing notices in his 'Biographical Sketches;' but out of the sixty names that he enumerates, 'all-eating Time hath left us but a little morsel (for manners) of their memories;' and some half-dozen only seem to be sufficiently distinguished to require any further perpetuation of their fame than has been already conferred upon them by Polwhele's now scarce little work. Besides which, Polwhele, of course, had not access to the great Libraries and Collections which are now available in London, nor to the Transactions of many metropolitan and local Archæological Societies; he was, moreover, apt to be dazzled by the nearness of the effulgence of some of his characters:--and he, too, is now sixty or seventy years behind the time. Lastly, neither Fuller nor Polwhele had the advantage of the labours of those indefatigable pioneers in Cornish literature--the authors of the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis.'[1] Another recent work, invaluable to the would-be biographer of Cornwall's Worthies is the admirable history of Exeter College, Oxford, contained in the Register of the Rectors, Fellows, etc., by my old schoolfellow, the Rev. C. W. Boase, Fellow and Tutor of that College (Oxford, 1879). If it should be said that copious and complete biographies of one or two of my characters have already been written, I would venture to observe in reply, that these are _monograph_ accounts only; in some cases consisting of two or three volumes, and now either out of print, or, from their bulk and cost, not generally accessible. May I allege another and a chief reason for writing this work? It is, that I thought those persons were right who considered the celebrities of my native county had not received the notice which they deserved. And yet, 'class for class,' says a writer in the _Times_, 28th March, 1882, 'they will beat all England.' Indeed (and I confess it with no little shame) some of those whose lives I have endeavoured to describe in the following pages, I did not myself, at one time, know to have been Cornishmen! And this although, as a Cornishman, I ought not to be altogether without the _genius loci_ of our southernmost and westernmost county: yet--

'Semper honos, nomenque horum, laudesque manebunt.'

As regards the principle on which the lives have been selected of those who, amongst others, have been worthiest 'in arms, in arts, in song,' I may say that I have endeavoured to find such names as would be, in the first place, of sufficient importance to warrant their claims to notice being brought before the public; secondly, to make the selection as varied in character as possible; and, thirdly, to choose such as were likely to prove interesting to the general reader: for even biography itself--said by Librarians to be one of the most popular branches of the _belles lettres_--must prove uninteresting if dull subjects are dully treated. I earnestly trust that I have not fallen into this fatal error.

It might have been interesting to have said something of many mighty names of the past; even though numbers of them are scarcely more than legendary. Amongst others, of St. Ursula in the fourth century, 'daughter of the Cornish King Dionutus,' and Directress of the celebrated expedition of the 'eleven thousand virgins' to Cologne; of King Arthur himself; of Walter de Constantiis, Chancellor of England, and Chief Justice, in the twelfth century; of Thomas, and St. George, and Richard, and Godfrey, of Cornwall; of Odo de Tregarrick in Roche; of Simon de Thurway; of John de Trevisa,[2] the fourteenth-century scholar and divine, who was supposed to have translated part of the Bible into English; ('a daring work,' as Fuller says, 'for a private person in that age without particular command from Pope or Public Council'); and of that Syr Roger Wallyoborow, of Buryan, who, in the time of Henry VIII., 'miraculously brought home from the Holy Land a piece of the true Cross.' There are, besides, many others of later date, whose names I should have liked, but for the reasons already given, to include; such as the Bonythons;[3] the Carews; Sir John Eliot, the Patriot; Dean Miller; the Molesworths; the Edgcumbes of Mount Edgcumbe; Noy, Charles I.'s Attorney-General; Dean Prideaux; the Rashleighs; the Robarteses; the Trelawnys; the Tremaynes; and the Trevanions;--beside those whose loss to Cornwall Dr. Borlase lamented; and many others.

But there were few reliable materials for the first-named group: authentic accounts of the deeds of the legendary ancients have faded away into the 'dark backward and abysm of time;' and mere legends it was hardly worth while to perpetuate. Nor did it seem desirable to include a bare list of names, or repetitions of lives of a generally similar character; in which case the actors' names would often have been the chief variations in what was intended to be a readable, fireside book. In short, I have aimed at making my list representative rather than exhaustive.

With the object of not wearying the general reader, I have refrained from clouding my pages with minute references to authorities,--except when some special reason seemed to occur for doing so. I trust this will not be considered a defect, when I state that, for some of the lives which follow, the lists of authorities consulted would have occupied nearly one fourth of the space allotted to the lives themselves. As an instance, the number of entries given in the 'Bibliotheca Cornubiensis' for the Killigrews is 450; and one of these entries alone comprises nearly fifty items.

A most pleasing task remains to be discharged; namely, to record my heartfelt obligations to my friends, the Rev. F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, M.A., and Mr. H. Michell Whitley, C.E., for their very valuable assistance in seeing the following pages through the press.

I will only add, in the words of that delightful biographer, Izaak Walton, in his 'Life of George Herbert':

'I have used very great diligence to inform myself, that I might inform my reader of the truth of what follows; and, though I cannot adorn it with eloquence, yet I will do it with sincerity.'

W. H. T.

MORLAH LODGE, 16, TREGUNTER ROAD, LONDON, S. W.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Let me say here, once for all, that had that monument of accurate research, and labour of love, the work of Mr. W. P. Courtney and Mr. G. C. Boase, not appeared, the following essays could never have been attempted by me, in the midst of many other and harassing occupations; the 'Bibliotheca,' however, not only rendered such a task comparatively easy, but positively invited the pen, even of one who is no ready scribe. In fact I feel, as Oliver Wendell Holmes well puts it, 'that I have ascended the stream whilst others have tugged at the oar.'

[2] His works are among the earliest printed books in the British Museum: one of them (his translation of 'Bartholomeus de Proprietatibus Rerum') is believed to be the first book printed on paper of English manufacture.

[3] I am informed by Mr. J. Langdon Bonython, of Adelaide, South Australia, that Longfellow, the American poet, was descended from a member of this family--Captain Richard Bonython.

_RALPH ALLEN_,

THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST.

_RALPH ALLEN_,

THE MAN OF BUSINESS AND PHILANTHROPIST.

'Let humble[4] Allen, with an awkward shame, Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame.'

POPE: _Epilogue to the Satires of Horace_.

St. Blazey Highway has a clear title to being the birthplace of Ralph Allen; but his parentage is doubtful, owing to his name not appearing in the baptismal register, and to the obscurity caused by the two following entries in the Register of Marriages:

1686.

William All----, and Grace ----, was mar---- 24th August (entry imperfect).

1687.

John Allen, of parish of St. Blazey, and Mary Elliott,[5] of the parish of St. Austell, were married the 10th of February.

Ralph was born about 1694. His father kept a small inn called 'The Duke William'--sometimes 'The Old Duke'--(the site of which is now occupied by three or four dwelling-houses), and he seems to have been a man of good common-sense and sturdy disposition, judging from one or two slight anecdotes of him which have come down to us: doubtless he gave his boy Ralph good advice, if not much literary instruction. But the youngster primarily owed most of his remarkable success in life to the fact of his happening to be staying with his grandmother, who kept the St. Columb Post-office, when the Government Inspector came his rounds. This officer seems to have at once recognised the shrewdness and neat-handedness of the lad; and an appointment in the Post-office at Bath, to which place young Ralph was brought under the care of Sir John Trevelyan, was, before long, offered to him. Here he soon distinguished himself by detecting a plot to introduce into Bath illegally, in connexion with the Jacobite rising of 1715, a quantity of arms. This discovery he forthwith communicated to General Wade, who thereupon became his friend and patron, and whose natural daughter--so Pierce Egan tells us--a Miss Earl, became Allen's first wife. His first wife, but not his first love: her he magnanimously portioned, and yielded up to another man, with whom he thought she might be happier; and hence, probably, the reason why the basso-relievo of Scipio's resignation of his captive was selected as one of the principal decorations of the Hall at Prior Park. Farington thus refers to Allen's discovery of the Jacobite plot: 'When the rebellion burst out, a numerous junto in Bath took most active measures to aid the insurrection in the West of England; and Mr. Carte, the minister of the Abbey Church, _when Allen detected the plot_, was glad to escape from the constables by leaping from a window in full canonicals.'

On his becoming Deputy Postmaster at Bath, the anomalies and inconveniences attendant upon the postal system, as it was then worked, engaged Allen's serious attention. It will scarcely be believed that in those days a letter from Cheltenham or Bath to Worcester or Birmingham was actually sent first to London! To remedy this state of things Allen by degrees perfected that scheme of cross-posts throughout England and Wales with which his name will always be associated, and for which he was himself the contractor for many years; viz. from 1720 to 1764.[6] Accounts differ as to the profits which accrued to him under this contract, which was from time to time renewed; but there is no reason to doubt the story that ultimately he cleared by it no less a sum than half a million sterling.

In 1644, by a Resolution of the House of Commons, Edmund Prideaux, a Member of the House, was constituted Master of the Post Messengers and Carriers, and in 1649 he established a weekly conveyance to every part of the kingdom, in lieu of the former practice under which letters were sent by special messengers whose duty it was to supply relays of horses at a certain mileage. In 1658 Cromwell made Prideaux one of his Baronets; and he acquired great wealth. It is said that his emoluments in connexion with the Post Office were not less than £15,000 a year. (Maclean's Trigg Minor, vol. ii. pp. 210-11.) Thus, whilst to one West-countryman, who, if not indeed a Cornishman by birth (for the Prideauxes were lords of Prideaux, close to Allen's birth-place), was at least of Cornish extraction--Postmaster-General Edmund Prideaux, Attorney-General--we owe in a great measure the regular efficient establishment of the Post Office and its first becoming a source of revenue--to another Cornishman, the subject of these remarks, we are indebted for the important improvements referred to above.

In the Home Office Papers, 1761 (2nd and 5th December, Post Office Pl. 5, 385--'By-way and Cross-road Posts'), will be found 'a narrative of Mr. Allen's transactions with the Government for the better management of the by-way and cross-road posts from the year 1720 to the year 1762, whereby it will be seen how much he has been the instrument of increasing the revenue and encouraging the commerce of this kingdom during the whole of that long interval. Dated 2nd December, 1761.' The narrative shows that in 1710 the country postmasters collected quantities of 'by or way letters,' and clandestinely conveyed them. Correspondence was perpetually interrupted. 'The by and way letters were thrown promiscuously together into one large bag, which was to be opened at every stage by the deputy, or any inferior servant of the house, to pick out of the whole heap what might belong to his own delivery, and the rest put back again into this large bag with such by-letters as he should have to send to distant places from his own stage.' Traders resorted to clandestine conveyance for speed. Surveyors were, however, appointed to make reports on the Post Office at the beginning of the reign of George I., but their reports did not touch these by-letters. Mr. Allen, having contrived checks which detected considerable frauds, next formed the plan for the conveyance of these letters in 1710. His offer to advance the revenue of the Post Office from £4,000 to £6,000 a year was accepted; but false and malicious representations were made against his proposal. On an inquiry as to the revenue from these letters, it was found that for seven years it had sunk £900 a year. He then made another proposal to farm the postage for seven years at the sum which they then yielded, taking any such surplus as he could make them produce, and an 'explanatory contract' was then agreed to. On an examination into the account of the country letters, it had increased £7,835 2s. 7d., which Mr. Allen would have been entitled to if the 'explanatory contract' had only been executed. The country letters increased to £17,464 4s. 11d. per annum at the end of fourteen years. He now appointed surveyors, and stated his plans for suppressing irregularities. Lord Lovell and Mr. Carteret having expressed their approval of these plans, etc., he agreed to another contract for seven years, and proposed an extension and quickening of the correspondence in 1741 by an 'every-day post' to several places; this contract was renewed in 1748, 1755, and 1760. It details the communications by cross-roads, etc.; and it was found that the revenue, by computation, had increased one and a half millions.

Some fine quarries on Combe Down, from which most of the best houses in Bath were built, having become his property, Allen invented an ingenious contrivance for conveying the huge blocks of stone from the quarries on the hill down to the canal which runs by the city. In his capacity of quarry-owner he amassed still more wealth, became a large employer of labour, and a man of such influence in Bath, that although he was mayor once only (in 1742), he practically guided the affairs of that city as it pleased him best, a circumstance which gave rise to a caricature, long popular at Bath, entitled 'The One-headed Corporation.' It need hardly be added whose head that was. A bust of him in the Drawing-room or Council Chamber of the Guildhall commemorates the year of his mayoralty, and there is also a portrait of him in the Mayor's Room.