Harry Carter, smuggler, privateer and revivalist, was born on a small farm at Pengersick in 1749. His father, who was a miner by trade, eked out a livelihood, with the assistance of his sons and daughters, in farming a small plot of ground. Harry Carter tells us in his memoirs[58] that he was one of a family of eight sons and two daughters; that his eldest and youngest brothers received some scanty education at Germoe School, but that he and the rest of his family received no education beyond some crude home lessons in reading, given through the medium of the Bible. The problem of daily bread in the household of his parents was of much too pressing a nature to allow more than this in the way of education. As soon as strength permitted, the children had to go forth to work in the fields or the mines, that each might bring his share of daily bread to the common store. Though life was thus hard, the principles of religion were not neglected in the home, the children being taught to recite some prayers "after they were in bed" and to attend when possible the services at Germoe Church. His youth coincided with the strange stirrings in the religious life of the people brought about by the not infrequent peregrinations of John Wesley through the district. When Harry was eight years of age the soul of his brother Francis was touched at one of those wild scenes of religious revivalism, and as the two brothers slept together, the little lad of eight became strangely impressed and awed by the change in the demeanour of his brother. He tells us, however, that these impressions of awe gradually faded out of his youthful mind. At ten he was sent to work at the mines on the surface, and he continued there for seven years, when he went to join his elder brothers in a more adventurous and stirring life upon which they had entered at Porthleah, soon to change its name to Prussia Cove.