Nor is it seldom that the voracious country people scuffle and
fight about the right to what they find, and that in a desperate
manner; so that this part of Cornwall may truly be said to be
inhabited by a fierce and ravenous people. For they are so greedy,
and eager for the prey, that they are charged with strange, bloody,
and cruel dealings, even sometimes with one another; but especially
with poor distressed seamen when they come on shore by force of a
tempest, and seek help for their lives, and where they find the
rooks themselves not more merciless than the people who range about
them for their prey.

Here, also, as a farther testimony of the immense riches which have
been lost at several times upon this coast, we found several
engineers and projectors--some with one sort of diving engine, and
some with another; some claiming such a wreck, and some such-and-
such others; where they alleged they were assured there were great
quantities of money; and strange unprecedented ways were used by
them to come at it: some, I say, with one kind of engine, and some
another; and though we thought several of them very strange
impracticable methods, yet I was assured by the country people that
they had done wonders with them under water, and that some of them
had taken up things of great weight and in a great depth of water.
Others had split open the wrecks they had found in a manner one
would have thought not possible to be done so far under water, and
had taken out things from the very holds of the ships. But we
could not learn that they had come at any pieces of eight, which
was the thing they seemed most to aim at and depend upon; at least,
they had not found any great quantity, as they said they expected.

However, we left them as busy as we found them, and far from being