conflicts.

Captain Pellew's quick discrimination is remarkably shown in thus
discovering the capabilities of a class of men, who had never before
been similarly tried, and with whom he could have had comparatively but
little acquaintance There were no mines in the immediate neighbourhood
of anyplace where he had lived; and as his professional habits were not
likely to give him an interest in the subject, he had probably never
held much intercourse with miners, except when he might have met them as
rioters. For at that period, the attention of the west countrymen was
devoted almost exclusively to their mines and fisheries, to the neglect
of agriculture; and the county being thus dependent upon importations,
famine was not uncommon. At such times, the poor tinners would come into
the towns, or wherever they had reason to believe that corn was stored,
with their bags, and their money, asking only barley-bread, and offering
the utmost they could give for it, but insisting that food should be
found for them at a price they could afford to pay. If the law must
condemn such risings, humanity would pity them for the cause, and
justice must admire the forbearance displayed in them. At one of these
seasons of distress, when there was a great quantity of corn in the
customhouse cellars at Falmouth, a strong body of miners came in to
insist that it should be sold. Mr. Pellew, the collector, met them in
the street, and explained to them the circumstances under which he was
entrusted with it, and which left him no power to sell. They were
famishing men, and the corn was in their power; but they had come to
buy, and famine itself, with the almost certainty of impunity, could not
tempt them to steal. They received his explanation, and left the town
peaceably.

About eighty miners entered for the _Nymphe_ and joined her at Spithead.