I mentioned a farmer, a tenant of mine, who professed to have been cured by “Old Snow,” of Tiverton.
Nine years after this I wrote the article on our Devonshire White Witches in the Daily Graphic. This was transferred to one or two Plymouth papers. Shortly after that, at our harvest festival, the farmer turned up. He had left my farm and taken another elsewhere; but he had a hankering after Lew Trenchard, and at our festival he appeared, robust and hearty. He came to me and said, “Why, sir, you have been putting me in the papers.” “Well, old friend,” said I, “I said in it nothing but what was true.” “True, aye, aye, sir, true as gospel. The doctors in Plymouth and Mr. Budd, of North Tawton, gave me up, but Old Snow cured me. I met him on the platform of Tiverton station, and told him my case. He looked me hard in the eye, and said some words, and bade me go home and I was cured. Well, sir, from that day I mended. You see now what I am.”
A friend wrote to me: “In 1891, my head man had an attack of influenza, and this fell on his nerves, and convinced that he had been ill-wished, he consulted a White Witch at Callington, who informed him that he had been ‘overlooked’ by one of his own profession, and that he had applied too late for a cure to be effected.”
Now the person who exhorted him to have recourse to the White Witch was his daughter, who was mistress at the school of the parish.
The man eventually recovered, but not through the aid of the White Witch.
I know a farmer, a God-fearing, sensible man, and thriving in his farm and piling up money, to whom recourse is continually had to stanch wounds, and to cure abscesses, by striking the place and reciting certain mystic sentences.
A witch, white or black, must communicate the secret of power to one of an opposite sex before he or she can die – that is well known.
That in many cases the imagination acting on the nervous system acts curatively “goes without saying.” It is that which really operates in the faith cures and in the Lourdes miracles. What a bad time witches, white or black, must have had when the short way with any one suspected was to throw her into a pond! If she sank, why she sank and was drowned, but had the satisfaction of being aware that her character was cleared, whereas if she floated, she was a convicted witch and was burnt.
I am not, however, sure that we are not too lenient with the professional White Witch nowadays, as the following incident will show. I do not name the locality, certainly not the persons, for nothing was proved.
A certain cattle-dealer three years ago was much troubled because his daughter who had had influenza did not rally, but was rather strange in her head. He went to the county capital to consult the White Witch. The latter showed him a glass of water, and said that the person who had overlooked his child was fair-haired and stout. Further, that she had never been inside his doors, but that she would enter them on the following Saturday.
The cattle-jobber looking into the glass of water thought he saw a face – it was that of a woman who lived not far from him. What he really saw was, of course, his own reflected, but with the words of the witch ringing in his ears and guided by his imagination he conceived that he saw a neighbour.
He returned home full of conviction and wrath. Next night the husband of the fair-haired, stout woman woke after midnight, and heard a strange crackling sound. He hastily dressed, and went outside his door, when he saw that the thatch of his house was in flames. He hastened to rouse his wife and family, there were six who slept in the house, and he had barely drawn them outside, before the roof fell in and the cottage was converted into one great bonfire. By the merest accident it was that six persons were not burned in their beds. Next morning the police, who investigated the matter, found evidence that the house had been wilfully and deliberately set fire to. Some one had stepped on to a hedge, and had lighted three lucifer matches, and in drawing them from his pocket had drawn out and dropped at the same time two halfpenny stamps. The first two matches had failed. The third took effect. Who had been the incendiary was not discovered.
Of course the circumstance first mentioned may be entirely unconnected with the second. But there can be no doubt that bitter animosities are bred by the charges of “ill-wishing” and “overlooking” which are made by the White Witches. They are far too shrewd to name names, but they contrive to kindle and direct suspicions in their dupes which may lead to serious results.
It is very difficult to bring these cases home, and on this immunity they trade. But it is devoutly to be hoped that some day certain of these gentry will be tripped up, and then, though magistrates can no more send them to the stake, they will send them to cool their heels in gaol, and richly they will deserve the punishment.
MANLY PEEKE
The pirates of Algiers had for some years been very troublesome, not in the Mediterranean only, but also along the European coasts of the Atlantic. Several English vessels trading to Smyrna had been plundered, and the corsairs had even made descents on the coasts of England and Ireland and had swept away people into slavery. James I proposed that the different Christian powers should unite to destroy Algiers, the principal port of these pirates. Spain, whose subjects suffered most, engaged to co-operate, but withdrew at the last moment. Sir Robert Mansell was placed in command of the English fleet, but provided with an inefficient force, and given strict orders from the timid and parsimonious James not on any account to endanger his vessels.
On 24 May, 1621, Sir Thomas sailed into the harbour of Algiers and set fire to the Moorish ships and galleys; but had scarcely retired – unwilling to follow up the advantage – when “a great cataract of rain” hindered the spread of the fire; and the Algerines succeeded in recovering all their ships with the exception of two, which burnt to the water’s edge. The enemy brought their artillery to bear on the English fleet, mounted batteries on the mole, and threw booms across the mouth of the harbour. Mansell, hampered by his instructions, dared not expose his vessels further and withdrew, having lost only eight men; and returned to England. Among those who had sailed with him was Richard Peeke, of Tavistock, who returned home much disgusted, “My Body more wasted and weather-beaten, but my purse never the fuller nor my pockets thicker lyned.”
Charles I came to the throne in 1625; and one of his first acts was to organize and start an expedition against the Spanish. It was devised for the sake of plunder. His treasury was empty; he was obliged to borrow £3000 to procure provisions for his own table. Plate ships, heavy-laden argosies, were arriving in the port of Spain from the New World, and Buckingham suggested to him to fill his empty coffers by the capture of these vessels. The English fleet counted eighty sail; the Dutch contributed a squadron of sixteen sail; it was the greatest joint naval power that had ever spread sail upon salt water – and this made the world abroad wonder what the purpose was for which it was assembled. Ten thousand men were embarked on the English vessels, and the command of both fleet and army was given to Sir Edward Cecil, now created Lord Wimbledon, a general who had served with very little success in the Palatinate and the Low Countries. This appointment of a mere landsman surprised and vexed the seamen. The position belonged to Sir Robert Mansell, Vice-Admiral of England, in case the Admiral did not go; but Buckingham had made the choice and persisted in it. The fleet set sail in the month of October, and shaped its course for the coast of Spain.
Richard Peeke had remained in Tavistock after his return from Algiers till October, 1625, when – “The Drumbe beating up for a New Expedition in which many noble Gentlemen, and Heroical Spirits, were to venture their Honors, Lives and Fortunes: Cables could not hold me, for away I would, and along I vowed to goe, and did so.” Peeke entered as sailor on board the Convertine, under Captain Thomas Porter.
In the Bay of Biscay the ships were damaged and in part scattered by a storm. One vessel foundered with a hundred and seventy men on board. This was the beginning of misadventure. The confusion of orders was such that the officers and soldiers scarcely knew who were in command and whom they were to order about. When Wimbledon got
