Strange vessels began to appear at regular intervals on the coast, and signals were flashed from the headlands, to lead them into the safest creek or cove. Amongst these, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became ominously conspicuous. She was for long the terror of those shores, and her name was the _Black Prince_. Once, with Coppinger aboard, she led a revenue cutter into an intricate channel near the Bull Rock, where, from knowledge of the bearings, the _Black Prince_ escaped scathless, while the King’s vessel perished with all on board. In those times, if any landsman became obnoxious to Coppinger’s men, he was seized and carried aboard the _Black Prince_, and obliged to save his life by enrolling himself as one of the crew.
Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to accrue to Coppinger. At one time he had enough money to purchase a freehold farm bordering on the sea. When the day of transfer came, he and one of his followers appeared before the lawyer and paid the money in dollars, ducats, doubloons, and pistoles. The lawyer objected, but Coppinger, with an oath, bade him take that or none.
Long impunity increased Coppinger’s daring. Over certain bridle-paths along the fields he exercised exclusive control, and issued orders that no man was to pass over them by night. They were known as “Coppinger’s Tracks,” and all converged at a cliff called “Steeple Brink.” Here the precipice fell sheer to the sea, 300 feet, with overhanging eaves a hundred feet from the summit. Under this part was a cave, only to be reached by a rope-ladder from above. This was “Coppinger’s Cave.” Here sheep were tethered to the rock and fed on stolen hay and corn until slaughtered. Kegs of brandy and hollands were piled around; chests of tea, and iron-bound sea-chests contained the chattels and revenues of the Coppinger royalty of the sea.
The terror linked with Coppinger’s name throughout the north coasts of Cornwall and Devon was so extreme that the people themselves, wild and lawless though they were, submitted to his sway as though he had been lord of the soil, and they his vassals. Such a household as his was, of course, far from happy or calm. Although, when his father-in-law died, he had insensibly acquired possession of the stock and farm, there remained in the hands of the widow a considerable amount of money. This he obtained from the helpless woman by instalments, and by force. He would fasten his wife to the pillar of her oak bedstead, and call her mother into the room, and assure her he would flog Dinah with a cat-o’-nine-tails till her mother had transferred to him what he wanted. This act of brutal cruelty he repeated until he had utterly exhausted the widow’s store.