five his age was, according to the plate on
it; but, of course, the business had come to an end long before.

Everybody calls it Prussia Cove in these days. The visitors ask for
Prussia Cove, and go and crane their heads over. You know the place?--
just east of Cuddan Point. It's three coves really; Pisky's Cove,
Bessie's Cove, and Prussia. The first has no good landing, but plenty
of good caves; east of that comes Bessie's, where the Kiddlywink stood,
with a harbour cut in the solid rock, and a roadway, and more caves; and
east of that, with a point and a small island dividing them, comes
Prussia, where John Carter had his house. Before his time it was called
Porthleah, but he got the nickname "King o' Prussia" as a boy, and it
stuck to him, and now it sticks to the old place. The visitors crane
their heads over (for you must do that to count the vessels in the
harbour right underneath you), and ask foolish questions, and get
answered with a pack of lies. There's an old tale for one, about a
fellow who heard that the real King of Prussia had been defeated by
Napoleon Bonaparte. "Ah," says he, "I'm sorry for that man.
Misfortunes never come single; not more'n six weeks ago he lost three
hundred keg of brandy, by information, so I'm told." All nonsense!
Porthleah never lost but one keg in all John Carter's time, and that was
a leaky one in a pool at Pisky's which the custom-house fellows sniffed
as they went by. To be sure, one day when the King was away from home,
the collector came round from Penzance, seized a cargo, and carried it
off to the Custom House store. What did Carter do when he came home and
heard about it? He had agreed to deliver the goods by a certain day,
his character for honest business was at stake and he wasn't going to
disappoint his customers. So he rode into Penzance that night, broke
open the Custom House store, and rode back with all his kegs; nothing
else, mind you. When the officers next morning discovered what had
happened, they allowed at once this was Carter's work, because he was an
honest man and wouldn't take anything that didn't belong to him.

But the tale they tell oftenest is about the battery he kept on Enys
Point, and how he opened fire with it upon His Majesty's vessel; and I
want you to have the rights of _that_ as I had it from Captain Will
Richards himself. To hear folks speak you would think the King just
opened fire and blazed away for the fun of it; whereas,