The peninsula west of the Mount’s Bay, little frequented in former ages, and scarcely accessible to strangers, abounded, as all similar districts have been found to do, with long settled possessors of landed property; who, content with the small fortunes transmitted from their ancestors, lived on in succession the protectors, the benefactors, and the paternal governors of their neighbourhoods. Such were the Boscawens, Vyvyans, Levelas, Trevilians, Noyes, and perhaps Usticks, Davieses, Kegwins, and some others, all inhabitants for centuries of this remote portion of Cornwall, and all arranged on similar scales of property and influence. The Boscawens however emerged in the fourteenth century, and pursued with great perseverance and success the only path then leading to advancement in the world. They married heiress after heiress, and acquired extensive properties in various parts of the county. The Boscawens were among the few Cornish gentlemen in the western division, who took what may now be called the liberal side in the Civil War, and they continued to oppose the arbitrary principles of the faction, having at its head the two last brothers of the house of Stuart――and assisted in the glorious Revolution which secured us from civil and religious despotism, by placing the Prince of Orange on our vacant throne. Hugh Boscawen married Margaret Clinton, eventually coheiress of the Earl of Lincoln, by whom he had a numerous family, all of whom died before him, with the exception of Bridget, married to Hugh Fortescue, ancestor of Earl Fortescue; and with this lady, Mr. Hals states that Mr. Boscawen gave lands and money to the value of a hundred thousand pounds; he died in 1701, and was succeeded by his relation of the same name. This gentleman is understood to have possessed very considerable talents, and powers of exerting them. He continued ably to support the Revolution government, and brought to it a powerful aid arising from the peculiar feature which distinguished Cornwall up to the year 1832. In 1714, on the German accession, hopes, fears, expectation, and party violence, burst forth with all the fury that had driven them into action thirty years before. Vigorous proceedings were therefore demanded, and may be justified by the exhortation at Salamis, Νυν ὑπερ παντων Αγων. Yet in moments of cool reflection, and at the distance of a hundred and twenty years from this agitated period, one cannot refrain from thinking that Mr. Boscawen was carried beyond the limits of duty to his country, or zeal for his associates embarked in the same cause, when he undertook and executed the task of arresting his countrymen, and probably his former friends, on the suspicion of their entertaining opinions more favourable than his own to monarchical power, and to what in modern phrase might perhaps be termed conservative principles.