In 1643 there was a Scottish priest, Gilbert Blakhal, confessor in Paris
to the Lady Isabelle Hay, Lord Errol's daughter, who in the course of a
journey to his native land visited Holy Island, and in the account of
his travels he makes mention of the ways of the island's inhabitants,
and of their prayer when a vessel was seen to be in danger. "They al sit
downe upon their knees and hold up their handes, and say very devotely,
'Lord, send her to us. God, send her to us.' You, seeing them upon
their knees, and their handes joyned, do think that they are praying for
your sauvetie; but their myndes are far from that. They pray, not God to
sauve you, or send you to the porte, but to send you to them by
ship-wrack, that they may gette the spoile of her. And to showe that
this is their meaning, if the ship come wel to the porte, or eschew
naufrage (shipwreck), they gette up in anger, crying: 'The Devil stick
her; she is away from us.'" Father Blakhal does not pretend that with
his own ears he heard the Holy Islanders so pray. It was told to him by
the Governor of the island. But, then, this Governor, Robin Rugg by
name, was "a notable good fellow, as his great read nose, full of
pimples, did give testimony." Perhaps he exaggerated, or it was but one
of his "merry discourses." Yet I think he told the truth in this
instance. To "wreck" was the habit of the day, and by all coastal
peoples the spoil of wrecks was regarded as not less their just due than
was the actual food obtained by them from the sea. On our own coasts and
in our islands until quite recent times such was undoubtedly the case,
just as in savage lands it continues to be the case to this day; and the
distinction is a fine-drawn one between doing nothing to prevent a
vessel from running into danger which would result in profit to the
spectators, and the doing of a something, greater or less--say the
showing of a light, or the burning of a beacon--which may make it
certain that the same vessel shall go where she may be of "the greatest