Seeing that the guns removed at that date were chiefly salvage from the wreck of the “Colossus,” lost near the western rocks in 1777, and had been lying under water for fifty-four years before they were placed on the batteries, it is perhaps just as well that they were never required for active service! Within recent times the Government decided to make of Scilly a naval base, but after spending five years and a quarter of a million of money in constructing new batteries they discovered in 1905 that the firing of the guns would bring down the houses of Hugh Town. So again the fortifications have been abandoned, and the history of Scilly as a centre of warfare appears to have come to an end. Peace has reigned there since the days of Cromwell, but it has not always been peace with plenty as it is nowadays. The islanders have passed through hard times before arriving at their present state of prosperity; the history of these vicissitudes, however, belongs to another chapter. III FORMER INDUSTRIES For many years the condition of the people of Scilly was not an enviable one. Their isolated situation, without any regular communication with the mainland, threw them for long periods upon their own resources, which were very limited. They lived by agriculture, fishing, “kelping,” and piloting, with some admixture of smuggling; but sometimes their services as pilots would not be required for months together; their crops, their kelp, and their fishing would fail, and their smuggling ventures miscarry, and then they would be in a sorry plight, and in danger of famine. Under these circumstances we cannot wonder at an Order of the Council, issued in 1740, forbidding the exportation of corn; for the islanders used to sell everything they could to passing ships, and not keep enough for themselves. Another order is more puzzling. It prohibited all masters of ships or boats “to import any stranger to settle here, or to carry any person from the islands” under penalty of a fine of ten pounds. It is easy to understand why strangers might not be imported; but since Scilly was supposed to be over-populated at that time, why were the islanders not allowed to leave? This was indeed turning the islands into a prison, and giving a real ground for Heath’s quaint supposition:-- “Here is no prison,” he writes, “for the confinement of offenders, which shows that the people live upright enough not to require any, _or that the place is a Confinement of itself_.”