Bella Bathurst - The Wreckers: A Story of Killing Seas, False Lights and Plundered Ships
Bella Bathurst - The Wreckers: A Story of Killing Seas, False Lights and Plundered Ships
2006 | ISBN: 0007170335 | English | 320 pages | EPUB, MOBI | 13 MB
2006 | ISBN: 0007170335 | English | 320 pages | EPUB, MOBI | 13 MB
From the bestselling author of ‘The Lighthouse Stevensons’, a gripping history of the drama and danger of wrecking since the 18th-century – and the often grisly ingenuity of British wreckers, scavengers of the sea.
A fine wreck has always represented sport, pleasure, treasure, and in many cases, the difference between living well and just getting by. The Cornish were supposedly so ferocious that notices of shipwrecks were given out during morning service by the minister, whilst the congregation concocted elaborate theological justifications for drowning the survivors. Treeless islanders relied on the harvest of storms to furnish themselves with rafters, boat hulls, fence-posts and floors. In other places, false lights were set up with grisly ingenuity along the coast to lure boats to destruction.