Many English ships traveled in convoy with an armed Naval vessel on their journey around the English coast. In May 1781 a French Privateer, an armed Lugger "Defiance" under the command of Lieutenant Louis Le Ture with 45 men onboard was chased from Mullion Island by a Naval Vessel, under the charge of a Captain Curlyon placed there for the purpose by the Admiralty. The chase lasted for 14 hours before it was captured. The Privateer had sailed from St Malo two days earlier on a mission to capture ships off the Cornish Coast. Many of the French crew would have been placed on captured prize ships and returned them to France. In some storms here convoys could lose their armed escort and become easy targets for the Privateers. Witnesses onshore at Marazion could supply no help and could only watch as two Privateers took two unnamed large sailing ships, a schooner from St Ives and a brig from Swansea in one day in February 1746.