are sure, as the sailors call it, to run "bump ashore" upon Scilly, where
they find no quarter among the breakers, but are beat to pieces without
any possibility of escape.

One can hardly mention the Bishop and his Clerks, as they are called, or
the rocks of Scilly, without letting fall a tear to the memory of Sir
Cloudesley Shovel and all the gallant spirits that were with him, at one
blow and without a moment's warning dashed into a state of
immortality--the admiral, with three men-of-war, and all their men
(running upon these rocks right afore the wind, and in a dark night)
being lost there, and not a man saved. But all our annals and histories
are full of this, so I need say no more.

They tell us of eleven sail of merchant-ships homeward bound, and richly
laden from the southward, who had the like fate in the same place a great
many years ago; and that some of them coming from Spain, and having a
great quantity of bullion or pieces of eight on board, the money
frequently drives on shore still, and that in good quantities, especially
after stormy weather.

This may be the reason why, as we observed during our short stay here,
several mornings after it had blown something hard in the night, the
sands were covered with country people running to and fro to see if the
sea had cast up anything of value. This the seamen call "going
a-shoring;" and it seems they do often find good purchase. Sometimes
also dead bodies are cast up here, the consequence of shipwrecks among
those fatal rocks and islands; as also broken pieces of ships, casks,
chests, and almost everything that will float or roll on shore by the
surges of the sea.

Nor is it seldom that the voracious country people scuffle and fight
about the right to what they find, and that in a desperate manner; so
that this part of Cornwall may truly be said to be inhabited by a fierce
and ravenous people. For they are so greedy, and eager for the prey,
that they are charged with strange, bloody, and cruel dealings, even
sometimes with one another; but especially with poor distressed seamen
when they come on shore by force of a tempest, and seek help for their
lives, and where they find the rooks themselves not more merciless than
the people who range about them for their prey.

Here, also, as a farther testimony of the immense riches which have been
lost at several times upon this coast, we found several engineers and
projectors--some with one sort of diving eng