prevent the 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