Brixham men are “characters.” Centuries of traffic upon the great waters has given them those features and idiosyncrasies which usually distinguish fisherfolk and seamen at large. But to these must be added a certain element of swaggering independence, which has doubtless come down to them from ancestors engaged in periodical struggles with the French privateers, and the hardy race of smugglers for which the coast was notorious less than a century ago. The town is just one of those irregularly built picturesque congregations of houses--few of them large--which one finds in the West Country, where the water runs up into the land, and a fishing industry has been created. Many of the buildings have little flights of steps running up to them, rendered necessary by the different levels at which dwellings are placed even in the same street; whilst the fish cellars are everywhere, and the odour of fish is triumphant over the fresh winds from the sea, as well as the perfumed breezes which sometimes fall upon the town from the heights of Guzzle Down. There are other industries, however, besides the capture of fish (“the best fish along the coast,” as all Brixham men asseverate with unnecessary strength of language), for there is boat building on a considerable scale, net making, and not a few of the womenfolk of the place are employed in knitting the heavy woollen jerseys which seem the staple garments of the fishermen of the coasts. Though much of the history of Brixham is obscure, the town has, nevertheless, played an important part in at least two events of historical importance. It was into Brixham that the Elizabethan sea-dog, Sir Francis Drake, sent the first of the galleons captured from Spain when the Armada was skurrying up Channel amid the constant boom of cannon and the smoke of burning vessels, with the bull dogs of Drake, Howard, and Hawkins hanging on its flanks. And it was in Brixham fishing boats (the name of one, the _Roebuck_, has come down to us), of whose fleetness Drake had doubtless heard, that he sent the priceless powder taken from the galleon’s magazine to the English ships, which were keeping up that eight days’ running fight, July 21-29, 1588, upon the ultimate result of which the fate of England depended. It was to Brixham, just a hundred and one years later, that William of Orange came, when, on the morning of the fifth of November, 1688, his fleet appeared in the offing off the coasts of Devon. A contemporary account tells us how the morning was foggy, with a thick sea haze, but that later in the day (as though for a good omen) “the sun dissipated the fog, insomuch that it proved a very pleasant day.”