One of the most stirring incidents of Teignmouth history occurred in 1340, about Lammastide, when a body of French--called in those times pirates, rightly or wrongly, as one happened to regard retaliatory measures of the foe across the water--entered the harbour and sailing up the river set fire to the town and sacked it, besides “barbarously putting to the sword sundry of its inhabitants.” But whatever may have been the extent of the damage effected, the place made a satisfactory recovery in a very short time, for seven years afterwards we find the port and inhabitants contributing seven ships and 120 seamen towards the fleet that Edward III was gathering together for the siege of Calais. It is not presuming too much to imagine that Teignmouth men, like most of their kind along fair Devon’s coast, set out with some alacrity to avenge the deeds of the “pirates” of seven years before, and saw the tree-crowned Ness which marks the western side of the harbour entrance dip beneath the blue water astern, with mingled feelings of regret and exultation. So in order that the town might not in the future fall an entirely unresisting victim to “pirates” and marauders, bulwarks of timber and rubble were thrown up, the proper maintenance of which devolved upon the two parishes jointly. The life of Teignmouth during the next century was probably much as that of other small coast towns of Devon, where the harbour, however suitable for trade and commercial growth, had unfortunately insufficient depth of water to permit of the entrance of vessels of any very considerable tonnage. Indeed, it is probably owing to this deficiency--and to the fact that in former times there were few means of adequately deepening or keeping harbours and harbour mouths clear, that Teignmouth, admirably situated as it is as a port and for commerce, has never risen to any great commercial eminence. In the past its chief industries were fishing, fish curing, and salt making; and in pursuit of these it took its uneventful course. Leland casts an informing eye over the place during the marvellous journey which he undertook, and crystallized in his _Itinerary_, reaching Teignmouth sometime during the thirties of the sixteenth century. Of the place he says, referring to the ground upon which East Teignmouth is built and the “Den” stands, “The Est-Point of the Haven is callid the Poles ... a low sandy Ground other cast out by the Spring of Sands out of the Teign or els throuen up from the Shores by rage of Wynd and Water, and thys Sand occupieth now a greate Quantitie of Ground bytwene Teignmouth Towne, where the Grounde mounteth and Teignmouth Haven.”