As an example of the risks which the Cornish smugglers, and doubtless those of Looe, were willing to run for the sake of the enormous profits realized when a successful “run” of a cargo was accomplished, it may be mentioned that frequently these bold and hardy seamen would cross to the hundred-mile distant French coast in open boats even in the depth of inclement winters. Not only would the daring character of the Cornishman seem to have qualified him especially for engaging in a species of enterprise in which were incurred such risks and dangers to life and limb, but the situation of Cornwall, lying as it does at the western extreme limit of England, and in the early days of the last century almost isolated from other parts of the kingdom, in itself was well adapted to the secrecy so necessary for the successful carrying out of smuggling enterprises on a large scale. No coast line on the south or west of England is more rugged or better supplied with creeks and harbours than that of Cornwall, and, indeed, had Nature been concerned with the provision of an ideal seaboard for the prosecution of contraband trade she could not have formed one better adapted for the purpose. And “to these natural advantages the Cornish smuggler brought in his own person an amount of skill, cunning, and enterprise which was scarcely equalled, and certainly was unsurpassed, elsewhere.” It was to the various circumstances to which we have referred that is mainly attributable the fact of Cornish smuggling having survived for a considerable period after “free trading” had been successfully put down along other portions of the south and west coasts. Roscoff, which, until the edict of the King of France of September 3, 1769, was but a tiny fishing hamlet, became (when made by that edict a free port) one of the places on the French coast most frequented by the Cornish smuggling fraternity, and rose to a position of great commercial importance. The action of the French Government was brought about by that of the English, who two years previously had passed an Order with relation to the Channel Islands--till then a smugglers’ paradise with an enormous trade in contraband spirits, lace, tea and tobacco--with the object of suppressing smuggling. And even during the French War with Napoleon the contraband trade with the coast of Brittany continued almost unabated. It should, however, be stated for the credit of the smugglers that they frequently afforded important information to the English naval authorities and the Government regarding the movements of the French fleets and operations of privateers, and for this reason, probably, the circumstances which led to such information being obtained were generally not very closely inquired into.