Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to flow and ebb in the hands of 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 man of law demurred, but Coppinger with an oath bade him take this or none.  The document bearing Coppinger’s name is still extant.  His signature is traced in stern bold characters, and under his autograph is the word “Thuro” (thorough) also in his own handwriting.

Long impunity increased Coppinger’s daring.  There were certain bridle roads along the fields over which he exercised exclusive control.  He issued orders that no man was to pass over them by night, and accordingly from that hour none ever did.  They were called “Coppinger’s Tracks.”  They all converged at a headland which had the name of Steeple Brink.  Here the cliff sheered off, and stood three hundred feet of perpendicular height, a precipice of smooth rock towards the beach, with an overhanging face one hundred feet down from the brow.  Under this was a cave, only reached by a cable ladder lowered from above, and made fast below on a projecting crag.  It received the name of “Coppinger’s Cave.”  Here sheep were tethered to the rock, and fed on stolen hay and corn till 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....

But the end arrived.  Money became scarce, and more than one armed king’s cutter was seen day and night hovering off the land.  So he “who came with the water went with the wind.”  His disappearance, like his arrival, was commemorated by a storm.

A wrecker who had gone to watch the shore, saw, as the sun went down, a full-rigged vessel standing off and on.  Coppinger came to the beach, put off in a boat to the vessel, and jumped on board.  She spread canvas, stood off shore, and with Coppinger in her was seen no more.  That night was one of storm.  Whether the vessel rode it out, or was lost, none knew.

* * * * *

In 1864 a large ship was seen in distress off the coast.  The Rev. A. Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton, at once drove to Morwenstow.  The vessel was riding at anchor a mile off shore, west of Hartland Race.  He found Mr. Hawker in the greatest excitement, pacing his room and shouting for some things he wanted to put in his greatcoat-pockets, and intensely impatient because his carriage was not round.  With him was the Rev. W. Valentine, rector of Whixley in Yorkshire, then resident at Chapel in the parish of Morwenstow.

“What are you going to do?” asked the rector of Kilkhampton:  “I shall drive at once to Bude for the lifeboat.”

“No good!” thundered the vicar, “no good comes out of the west.  You must go east.  I shall go to Clovelly, and then, if that fails, to Appledore.  I shall not stop till I have got a lifeboat to take those poor fellows off the wreck.”