g's
reply was 'on a sudden' to walk to the landing-steps, get into his
pinnace, and start for Mount Edgcumbe. The Mayor in great dismay,
followed by the Aldermen, who had come in their robes in state to attend
on the King, hurried down to the water's edge and taking possession of a
wherry, they started off as fast as they could in pursuit. It is
satisfactory to know that by the time they succeeded in catching up the
King he had quite recovered his usual good-humour.

Plymouth was to some degree affected by the Revocation of the Edict of
Nantes, for it had always been a refuge for the Huguenots--the
Rochellers, as they are often called in sixteenth-century
chronicles--and now many of them fled to this shelter. The first party
of about fifty people crossed the Channel in an open boat, and their
flight was followed by a great number of refugees. These settled in the
town, and many of their descendants married English people, and the
little colony became absorbed into the general population. A curious
glimpse of the original refugees is given in a letter written in 1762 by
Mr Pentecost Barker, of Plymouth, to the Rev. Samuel Merivale. He says:
'Those, of whom I remember many scores, who came from France in 1685-6,
etc., are mostly dead, and their offspring are more English than French,
and will go to the English Church, though some few may come to us. What
an alteration Time makes! There was ... a French Calvinist Church and a
Church of England French Church here, besides a Church at Stonehouse.
Many women in wooden shoes--very poor, but very industrious--living on
limpets, snails, garlick, and mushrooms.'

In the latter half of the eighteenth century Plymouth vibrated with the
excitement of fights and victories at sea, several engagements being
fought at a short distance off the coast. Many prizes and some of our
own disabled ships were brought into the harbour, 'dismasted and riddled
French battleships,' sometimes even with 'their decks blackened with
powder and coursed by the blood of the victims.' Unless the local annals
are closely studied, it is almost impossible to realize the rapid
succession of these events, and the effect they must have produced on
the townspeople. A sarcastic picture has been drawn of a student
attempting to work in the midst of the bursts of enthusiasm that
perpetually thrilled the town. He is first interrupted by 'a shout in
the street, and the servant rushed in to announce that the enemy had