This happened on November 5th, the date for landing doubtless having
been arranged to coincide with the anniversary of the attempt of Guy
Fawkes to blow up the Houses of Parliament with gunpowder eighty-three
years before, so that bonfire day served afterwards to celebrate the two
occasions. The house where William stayed that night was still pointed
out in Brixham.
In 1690 James II, who had been dethroned and exiled to France, told
Tourville, the French Admiral, that if he would take his fleet to the
South of England he would find all the people there ready to receive him
back again, so he brought his ships off Torbay. Instead of a friendly
reception here, he found the people decidedly hostile to James's cause,
so he detached two or three of his galleys to Teignmouth, quite a
defenceless place, where they committed great ravages and practically
destroyed the town. These galleys were a class of boat common in the
Mediterranean, where they had been employed ever since the warlike times
of the Greeks and Romans. In addition to sails, they were propelled with
oars manned by slaves; and a similar class of ship worked by convicts
was used by the French down to the middle of the eighteenth century.
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