Upon A Former Accidental Journey Into This Part Of The Country,
During The War With France, It Was With A
Mixture of pleasure and
horror that we saw from the hills at the Lizard, which is the
southern-most point
Of this land, an obstinate fight between three
French men-of-war and two English, with a privateer and three
merchant-ships in their company. The English had the misfortune,
not only to be fewer ships of war in number, but of less force; so
that while the two biggest French ships engaged the English, the
third in the meantime took the two merchant-ships and went off with
them. As to the picaroon or privateer, she was able to do little
in the matter, not daring to come so near the men-of-war as to take
a broadside, which her thin sides would not have been able to bear,
but would have sent her to the bottom at once; so that the English
men-of-war had no assistance from her, nor could she 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.
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