It was here, with the little island forming a natural breakwater to the cove, that young Carter spent his youthful days, probably planning the deeds which afterwards caused his name to be a household word in the district. He was probably equally well versed from his youth in the ways of the smuggling fraternity, and took to the trade himself as naturally as the proverbial duck does to water. In those days a “likely” spot was not often overlooked by the Cornish smugglers, and doubtless Prussia or Bessie’s Cove was used for illicit purposes long ere John Carter was of sufficient age to make the place notorious from Plymouth to Penzance. A writer of the period does not give the people of the coast just above here an enviable character, for after accusing them of wrecking and murdering (when necessary) the unfortunate seamen washed ashore, he goes on to say that their chief occupations were drinking, fighting, smuggling, and all kinds of other wickedness. [Illustration: A BREEZE OFF THE LIZARD] Long before Carter reached his majority, he--and his brother Harry, who, from a diary which has been preserved, appears to have possessed a somewhat sanctimonious soul--began to play his part in the local smuggling enterprises. And it was not long before he became recognized as a leader on account of his masterful character and his resource in daring expeditions planned to defraud the Customs. The nick-name of “the King of Prussia,” by which his fame has been handed down to posterity was bestowed upon him by his playmates in boyhood’s days; and was doubtless traceable to the interest which the doings of Frederick the Great were just then arousing throughout the civilized world. The house in which “the King” lived is still by happy chance standing to form a link with the old days of romance, which are so rapidly passing even out of recollection. It is just a typical, low, two-storied thatched cottage with a small fore-garden, and rising ground at the back. When Carter came to live here first is not clear, but it is evident that it was whilst he was quite a young man. He soon set to work to make the Cove, over which he had set up a kind of sovereignty, as perfect as could be for the daring enterprises in which he intended to become engaged. He cut away the rocks at the entrance, deepened and improved the fairway and approach to the beach; and rendered the numerous existing caves more convenient for the stowage of smuggled goods. In addition to all this, a good path was cut in the cliffs connecting up the caves and beach, and road inland. But, perhaps, the most astonishing part of Carter’s work was the fort which he erected on the point to the westward of the entrance to the cove, for the purpose of defending his goods. The remains of it can still be plainly traced, though it is nearly a century and a quarter since it was dismantled.