Once again, about a century and a half later, in 1524, a noted French pirate named Claude D’Annebaut was descried approaching round Sconce Point, and although some sort of resistance seems to have been offered it was futile, for the bold sea rover landed his men, drove those of the inhabitants he did not butcher out of the town, which latter he promptly set about plundering and burning. He appears to have saved the lives of “some of the properest maids, and wives not too long wedded for his own good pleasure and that of the pirates with him,” in addition to which outrage D’Annebaut, who to do him justice was a “proper rogue and no respecter of God nor man,” burned down the church, took the altar vessels, and saw that nothing of portable value was left for the people of Yarmouth. It was then that the great castle builder, Henry VIII, came to the rescue, and in 1539 a blockhouse or round tower was built on the site of the destroyed church, and in it were mounted “a sufficiency of great cannon to keep at bay those bloody pyrates the French.” Of whatever size the “great cannons” may have been, they appear to have served their intended purpose most successfully, for although the French on several other subsequent occasions were seen off the coast at the back of the island and in the jaws of the Solent, they did not further trouble Yarmouth. So, on its peaceful way, went the little town, which one may imagine was very much what it is at the present time, consisting of a group of a few score of houses planted on the low-lying land at the mouth of the Yar. Notwithstanding the fact that few of the houses are of any great age, if one except the interesting George Inn, which was once the residence of Sir Robert Holmes, and had the honour of sheltering Charles II on his visit to the town in 1671, Yarmouth has that old-time air of sleepy indifference to modern ways and modern things which is not the least part of many an old-time seaport’s charm. Except in the summer, when hordes of excursionists from Lymington and Bournemouth invade its old-world street, the town appears to go to sleep, and dream of the time when some bold smuggler of the Hampshire coast used to run his cargoes here, and when tubs and bales on which no duty had been paid formed the contents of many an honest and upstanding man’s cellar. Only a few years ago, indeed, the pulling down of one of the old houses was frequently the means of bringing to light a forgotten or hidden “cache” in which tubs and bales of lace had long lain concealed. [Illustration: YARMOUTH, I.O.W.]