There is no thriving on ill-gotten goods, says the proverb, and this was exemplified in the case of the Cook or Coke family of Trerice, in S. Allen.

According to Hals, John Coke, attorney-at-law, came into these parts of Cornwall in the reign of Queen Elizabeth from Ottery S. Mary, in Devon, "without money or goods, and placed himself a servant or steward under Sir Francis Godolphin, Knight, where he began from, and with, his ink-horn and pen, to turn all things that he touched into gold, and that by indirect art and practices as tradition saith." This Cook or Coke derived from a Henry Cooke, a citizen of Exeter, who married the sister and heiress of Roger Thorne, in Ottery S. Mary; and the eldest branch of the family remained at Thorne till the end of the seventeenth century, when it became extinct.

Sir Francis Godolphin, finding John Coke a clever business man, left in his hands the management of his estate and his tin mines.

Coke took care that all the tin of his master's mines should be run into blocks and stamped with the dolphin, to show whence they came and whose they were. But after a while, as he saw that he was not specially overlooked, and that opportunity was afforded him for peculation, he had a considerable share of the block tin produced at the blowing-houses of Sir Francis for himself, and to distinguish it from that of his master's had it stamped with the figure of a cat, as cats are on the Coke arms; and this he disposed of to his own advantage, and eventually it was found that from the Godolphin mines more tin was produced and sold marked with the cat than was with the dolphin.

Hals says: "Sir Francis's lady being informed of his ill practices, and resolving by the next coinage to be better instructed in this mystery, at such time as Godolphin blowing-house was at work, privately, with one of her maids, in a morning, on foot went to that place, where according, as common fame reported, she found many more blocks or slabs of tin marked with the cat than there were with the dolphin; the one part pertaining to Sir Francis, the other to Mr. Coke. Whereupon, abundantly satisfied, she returned to Godolphin House, but could not be there timely enough against dinner; whereat Sir Francis was greatly distasted, having at that time several strangers to dine with him. At length the lady being arrived, she asked all their pardons for her absence, and told them it did not proceed from any neglect or want of respect, but from an absolute necessity of seeing a strange and unheard-of piece of curiosity, which could not be seen at any other time; viz. to see a cat eat the dolphin. And then gave an account of the premises, to their great wonder and admiration; whereupon, soon after, Sir Francis dismissed him from his service. But by that time he had gotten so much riches that forthwith he purchased the little barton and manor of Trerice, in S. Allen, and made that place his habitation till he purchased the barton and manor of Tregasa, and seated himself there, where, by parsimony and the inferior practice of the law, he accumulated a very considerable estate in those parts. But maugre all his thrift and conduct in providing wealth for himself and posterity, his grandson, Thomas Coke, succeeding to his estate, upon the issueless decease of his elder brother, Christopher Coke, and buying in his widow's jointure at a dear rate, and also undertaking the building of the present new and finely contrived house at Tregasa, though never finished, yet the said fabric was so costly and chargeable to him, together with the vain extravagance of his wife Lance, that he was necessitated to sell divers parcels of lands in order to raise money for his necessary occasions, and finally to mortgage the manor and barton of Tregasa and all his other lands that were before unsold, for about fourteen thousand pounds, to Hugh Boscawen, of Tregothnan, Esq.; and lastly, for that consideration and others, did, by lease and release, fine and proclamation, convey the same to the said Hugh Boscawen, his heirs and assigns, for ever. Soon after this fact Mr. Coke fell into great want and distress, together with his wife and children, and died suddenly by a slip of his foot into a shallow pit, wherein he was searching for tin, out of a conceited opinion he had that he should at last raise his fortune by tin, as his grandfather before him had done."

What Hals has omitted to state is that John Coke married a Godolphin, Prudence, daughter of William Godolphin, of Trewarveneth, by whom he had three sons—John, Edward, and Francis. Thomas Coke, who came to such grief, the sins of the grandfather visited on the grandchild, was Sheriff of Cornwall in the year 1651 under the Commonwealth.