Dartmouth Castle stood low down on a point of land on the seashore, and had two towers, the circular one having been built in the time of Henry VIII.  Immediately adjoining it was a very small church of a much earlier date than the castle, dedicated to St. Petrox, a British saint of the sixth century.  Behind the castle and the church was a hill called Gallants’ Bower, formerly used as a beacon station, the hollow on the summit having been formed to protect the fire from the wind.  This rock partly overhung the water and served to protect both the church and the castle.  Kingswear Castle, on the opposite side of the water, was built in the fourteenth century, and had only one tower, the space between the two castles being known as the “Narrows.”  They were intended to protect the entrance to the magnificent harbour inland; but there were other defences, as an Italian spy in 1599, soon after the time of the Spanish Armada, reported as follows: 

Dartmouth is not walled—­the mountains are its walls.  Deep water is everywhere, and at the entrance five yards deep at low water.  Bastion of earth at entrance with six or eight pieces of artillery; farther in is a castle with 24 pieces and 50 men, and then another earth bastion with six pieces.

The harbour was at one time large enough to hold the whole British navy, and was considered very safe, as the entrance could be so easily defended, but its only representative now appeared to be an enormous three-decker wooden ship, named the Britannia, used as a training-ship for naval officers.  It seemed almost out of place there, and quite dwarfed the smaller boats in the harbour, one deck rising above another, and all painted black and white.  We heard afterwards that the real Britannia, which carried the Admiral’s flag in the Black Sea early in the Crimean War, had been broken up in 1870, the year before our visit, having done duty at Dartmouth as a training-ship since 1863.  The ship we now saw was in reality the Prince of Wales, also a three-decker, and the largest and last built of “England’s wooden walls,” carrying 128 guns.  She had been brought round to Dartmouth in 1869 and rechristened Britannia, forming the fifth ship of that name in the British navy.

[Illustration:  H.M.S. BRITANNIA AND HINDUSTANI AT THE MOUTH OF THE DART.]

It was in that harbour that the ships were assembled in 1190 during the Crusades, to join Richard Coeur-de-Lion at Messina.  In his absence Dartmouth was stormed by the French, and for two centuries alternate warlike visits were made to the sea-coasts of England and France.

In 1338 the Dartmouth sailors captured five French ships, and murdered all their crews except nine men; and in 1347, when the large armament sailed under Edward III to the siege of Calais, the people of Dartmouth, who in turn had suffered much from the French, contributed the large number of 31 ships and 757 mariners to the King’s Fleet, the largest number from any port, except Fowey and London.