In 1775 a man was sentenced to be transported for seven years to the Mewstone, a barren rock off Plymouth Harbour in Devon. When he had served his sentence he took the tenancy of Looe Island in Cornwall. His family prospered through their involvement in the flourishing trade of smuggling into Cornwall from the Channel Islands and France. This is the story of how a convicted felon was able to take over a fertile and prosperous living and bring up his family over three generations. It is a novel, based on a scattered and incomplete trail of true events