Smuggling in Cornwall

Saturday, August 17.--We found Mr. Hoskins, at Cubert (Cornwall), alive, but just tottering over the grave. I preached in the evening on II Corinthians 5:1-4, probably the last sermon he will hear from me. I was afterward inquiring if that scandal of Cornwall, the plundering of wrecked vessels, still subsisted. He said, "As much as ever; only the Methodists will have nothing to do with it. But three months since a vessel was wrecked on the south  coast, and the tinners presently seized on all the goods and even broke in pieces a new coach which was on board and carried every scrap of it away." But is there no way to prevent this shameful breach of all the laws both of religion and humanity? Indeed there is. The gentry of Cornwall may totally prevent it whenever they please. Let them only see that the laws be strictly executed upon the next plunderers; and after an example is made of ten of these, the next wreck will be unmolested. Nay, there is a milder way. Let them only agree together to discharge any tinner or laborer that is concerned in the plundering of a wreck and advertise his name that no Cornish gentleman may employ him any more; and neither tinner nor laborer will any more be concerned in that bad work.

Sunday, 18--The passage through the sands being bad for a chaise, I rode on horseback to St. Agnes, where the rain constrained me to preach in the house. As we rode back to Redruth, it poured down amain and found its way through all our clothes. I was tired when I came in; but after sleeping a quarter of an hour, all my weariness was gone.