taking the two merchant-ships. Yet we observed that the English
captains managed their fight so well, and their seamen behaved so
briskly, that in about three hours both the Frenchmen stood off,
and, being sufficiently banged, let us see that they had no more
stomach to fight; after which the English–having damage enough,
too, no doubt–stood away to the eastward, as we supposed, to
refit.
This point of the Lizard, which runs out to the southward, and the
other promontory mentioned above, make the two angles–or horns, as
they are called–from whence it is supposed this county received
its first name of Cornwall, or, as Mr. Camden says, CORNUBIA in the
Latin, and in the British “Kernaw,” as running out in two vastly
extended horns. And indeed it seems as if Nature had formed this
situation for the direction of mariners, as foreknowing of what
importance it should be, and how in future ages these seas should
be thus thronged with merchant-ships, the protection of whose
wealth, and the safety of the people navigating them, was so much
her early care that she stretched out the land so very many ways,
and extended the points and promontories so far and in so many
different places into the sea, that the land might be more easily
discovered at a due distance, which way soever the ships should
come.
Nor is the Lizard Point less useful (though not so far west) than
the other, which is more properly called the Land’s End; but if we
may credit our mariners, it is more frequently first discovered
from the sea. For as our mariners, knowing by the soundings when
they are in the mouth of the Channel, do then most naturally stand
to the southward, to avoid mistaking the Channel, and to shun the
Severn Sea or Bristol Channel, but still more to avoid running upon
Scilly and the rocks about it, as is observed before–I say, as
they carefully keep to the southward till they think they are fair
with the Channel, and then stand to the northward again, or north-
east, to make the land, this is the reason why the Lizard is,
generally speaking, the first land they make, and not the Land’s
End.
Then having made the Lizard, they either (first) run in for
Falmouth, which is the next port, if they are taken short with
easterly winds, or are in want of provisions and refreshment, or
have anything out of order, so that they care not to keep the sea;
or (secondly) stand away for the Ram Head and Plymouth Sound; or
(thirdly) keep an offing to run up the Channel.
So that the Lizard is the general guide, and of more use in these
cases than the other point, and is therefore the land which the
ships choose to make first; for then also they are sure that they
are past Scilly and all the dangers of that part of the island.
Nature has fortified this part of the island of Britain in a
strange manner, and so, as is worth a traveller’s observation, as
if she knew the force and violence of the mighty ocean which beats
upon it; and which, indeed, if the land was not made firm in
proportion, could not withstand, but would have been washed away
long ago.
First, there are the islands of Scilly and the rocks about them;
these are placed like out-works to resist the first assaults of
this enemy, and so break the force of it, as the piles (or
starlings, as they are called) are placed before the solid
stonework of London Bridge to fence off the force either of the
water or ice, or anything else that might be dangerous to the work.
Then there are a vast number of sunk rocks (so the seamen call
them), besides such as are visible and above water, which gradually
lessen the quantity of water that would otherwise lie with an
infinite weight and force upon the land. It is observed that these
rocks lie under water for a great way off into the sea on every
side the said two horns or points of land, so breaking the force of