The Inhabitants of Morwenstow in 1834—Cruel Coppinger—Whips the Parson of Kilkhampton—Gives Tom Tape a Ride—Tristam Pentire—Parminter and his Dog Satan—The Gauger’s Pocket—Wrecking—The Wrecker and the Ravens—The Loss of the _Margaret Quail_—The Wreck of the _Ben Coolan_—“A Croon on Hennacliff”—Letters concerning Wrecks—The Donkeys and the Copper Ore—The Ship _Morwenna_—Flotsam and Jetsam—Wrecks on 14th Nov., 1875—Bodies in Poundstock Church—The Loss of the _Caledonia_—The Wreck of the _Phœnix_ and of the _Alonzo_. WHEN the Rev. R. S. Hawker came to Morwenstow in 1834, he found that he had much to contend with, not only in the external condition of church and vicarage, but also in that which is of greater importance. A writer in the _John Bull_ says: “He found a manse in ruins, and partly used as a barn; a parish peopled with wreckers, smugglers and Dissenting Bryanites; and a venerable church, deserted and ill-cared for, amidst a heap of weeds and nettles. Desolate as was the situation of the grey old sanctuary and tower, standing out upon the rugged incline that shelves down a descent of 300 feet to the beach, it was not more barren of external comfort than was the internal state of those who had been confided to his pastoral care. “The farmers of the parish were simple-hearted and respectable; but the denizens of the hamlet, after receiving the wages of the harvest time, eked out a precarious existence in the winter, and watched eagerly and expectantly for the shipwrecks that were certain to happen, and upon the plunder of which they surely calculated for the scant provision of their families. The wrecked goods supplied them with the necessaries of life, and the rended planks of the dismembered vessel contributed to the warmth of the hovel hearthstone. “When Mr. Hawker came to Morwenstow, ‘the cruel and covetous natives of the strand, the wreckers of the seas and rocks for flotsam and jetsam,’ held as an axiom and an injunction to be strictly obeyed:— Save a stranger from the sea, And he’ll turn your enemy! “The Morwenstow wreckers allowed a fainting brother to perish in the sea before their eyes without extending a hand of safety—nay, more, for the egotistical canons of a shipwreck, superstitiously obeyed, permitted and absolved the crime of murder by ’shoving the drowning man into the sea,’ to be swallowed by the waves. Cain! Cain! where is thy brother? And the wrecker of Morwenstow answered and pleaded in excuse, as in the case of undiluted brandy after meals, ‘It is Cornish custom’. The illicit spirit of Cornish custom was supplied by the smuggler, and the gold of the wreck paid him for the cursed abomination of drink.”