diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:43 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:04:43 -0700 |
| commit | 146e5c764fa2b344866671a1e067b3ad82610d07 (patch) | |
| tree | 20457e6ed9800b37d6efda4868e9825dea4ea4d3 /45856-h | |
Diffstat (limited to '45856-h')
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/45856-h.htm | 8581 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/fp.jpg | bin | 0 -> 52268 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p102.jpg | bin | 0 -> 49811 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p104.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43491 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p106.jpg | bin | 0 -> 30281 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p110.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41304 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p112.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41005 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p114.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44126 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p12.jpg | bin | 0 -> 42058 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p136.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45448 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p144.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45456 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p156.jpg | bin | 0 -> 40578 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p158.jpg | bin | 0 -> 50441 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p16.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45886 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p168.jpg | bin | 0 -> 46967 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p170.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43203 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p174.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41945 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p184.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38593 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p214.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43824 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p222.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41814 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p228.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45589 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p234.jpg | bin | 0 -> 39192 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p40.jpg | bin | 0 -> 36581 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p46.jpg | bin | 0 -> 47339 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p48.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43755 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p54.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45980 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p56.jpg | bin | 0 -> 60065 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p64.jpg | bin | 0 -> 62051 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p66.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45760 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p76.jpg | bin | 0 -> 38461 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p78.jpg | bin | 0 -> 52593 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p82.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45036 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p84.jpg | bin | 0 -> 44237 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p86.jpg | bin | 0 -> 45954 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p92.jpg | bin | 0 -> 41962 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p96.jpg | bin | 0 -> 43298 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/p98.jpg | bin | 0 -> 48162 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 45856-h/images/tp.jpg | bin | 0 -> 12485 bytes |
38 files changed, 8581 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/45856-h/45856-h.htm b/45856-h/45856-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff27562 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/45856-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,8581 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Smugglers, by Charles G. Harper</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Smugglers, by Charles G. Harper, +Illustrated by Paul Hardy + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Smugglers + Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft + + +Author: Charles G. Harper + + + +Release Date: June 1, 2014 [eBook #45856] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SMUGGLERS*** +</pre> +<p>This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fp.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“The Gentlemen go by”" +title= +"“The Gentlemen go by”" +src="images/fp.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>THE SMUGGLERS</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><b>PICTURESQUE CHAPTERS IN +THE</b><br /> +<b>STORY OF AN ANCIENT CRAFT</b></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">BY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">CHARLES G. HARPER</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<span +class="smcap"><i>Smuggler</i></span>.—<i>A wretch who</i>, +<i>in defiance of</i><br /> +<i>the laws</i>, <i>imports or exports goods without</i><br /> +<i>payment of the customs</i>.”—<span +class="smcap">Dr. Johnson</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center">ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HARDY, BY THE +AUTHOR<br /> +AND FROM OLD PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tp.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Title page" +title= +"Title page" +src="images/tp.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">London</span>: +CHAPMAN & HALL, <span class="smcap">Ltd</span>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">1909</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageiv"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. iv</span><span class="GutSmall">PRINTED AND +BOUND BY</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,</span><br +/> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON AND AYLESBURY.</span></p> +<h2><a name="pagev"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +v</span>PREFACE</h2> +<p><span class="smcap"><i>Opinions</i></span><i> have ever been +divided on the question of the morality</i>, <i>or the +immorality</i>, <i>of smuggling</i>. <i>This is not</i>, +<i>in itself</i>, <i>remarkable</i>, <i>since that subject on +which all men think alike has not yet been discovered</i>; <i>but +whatever the views held upon the question of the rights and +wrongs of the</i> “<i>free-traders</i>’” +<i>craft</i>, <i>they have long since died down into abstract +academic discussion</i>. <i>Smuggling is</i>, +<i>indeed</i>, <i>not dead</i>, <i>but it is not the potent +factor it once was</i>, <i>and to what extent Governments are +justified in taxing or restricting in any way the export or the +import of goods will not again become a living question in this +country until the impending Tariff Reform becomes law</i>. +<i>There have been those who</i>, <i>reading the proofs of this +book</i>, <i>have variously found in it arguments for</i>, <i>and +others arguments against</i>, <i>Protection</i>; <i>but</i>, +<i>as a sheer matter of fact</i>, <i>there are in these pages no +studied arguments either way</i>, <i>and facts are here presented +just as they are retrieved from half-forgotten records</i>, +<i>with no other ulterior object than that of +entertainment</i>. <i>But if these pages also serve to show +with what little wisdom </i><a name="pagevi"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. vi</span><i>we are</i>, <i>and generally have +been</i>, <i>governed</i>, <i>they may not be without their +uses</i>. <i>England</i>, <i>it may surely be gathered</i>, +<i>here and elsewhere</i>, <i>is what she is by sheer force of +dogged middle-class character</i>, <i>and in spite of her +statesmen and lawgivers</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right"><i>CHARLES G. HARPER</i></p> +<p><span class="smcap"><i>Petersham</i></span>, <span +class="smcap"><i>Surrey</i></span>,<br /> + <i>July</i> 1909.</p> +<h2><a name="pagevii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +vii</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Introductory</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page1">1</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The “Owlers” of Romney +Marsh</span>, <span class="smcap">and the Ancient Export +Smuggling of Wool</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Growth of Tea and Tobacco Smuggling in +the Eighteenth Century</span>—<span +class="smcap">Repressive Laws a Failure</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Terrorising Bands of +Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">The Hawkhurst +Gang</span>—<span class="smcap">Organised Attack on +Goudhurst</span>—<span class="smcap">“The +Smugglers’ Song”</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The “Murders by Smugglers” +in Hampshire</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="pageviii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. viii</span>CHAPTER +V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The “Murders by +Smugglers”</span> <i>continued</i>—<span +class="smcap">Trial and Execution of the +Murderers</span>—<span class="smcap">Further Crimes by the +Hawkhurst Gang</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page60">60</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Outrage at Hastings by the Ruxley +Gang</span>—<span class="smcap">Battle on the +Whitstable-Canterbury Road</span>—<span +class="smcap">Church-Towers as Smugglers’ +Cellars</span>—<span class="smcap">The Drummer of +Herstmonceux</span>—<span class="smcap">Epitaph at +Tandridge</span>—<span class="smcap">Deplorable Affair at +Hastings</span>—<span class="smcap">The Incident of +“The Four Brothers”</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Fatal Affrays and Daring Encounters at +Rye</span>, <span class="smcap">Dymchurch</span>, <span +class="smcap">Eastbourne</span>, <span +class="smcap">Bo-Peep</span>, <span class="smcap">and +Fairlight</span>—<span class="smcap">The Smugglers’ +Route from Shoreham and Worthing into Surrey</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Miller’s Tomb</span>—<span +class="smcap">Langston Harbour</span>—<span +class="smcap">Bedhampton Mill</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">East Coast +Smuggling</span>—<span class="smcap">Outrage at +Beccles</span>—<span class="smcap">a Colchester +Raid</span>—<span class="smcap">Canvey +Island</span>—<span class="smcap">Bradwell +Quay</span>—<span class="smcap">The East Anglian +“Cart Gaps”</span>—<span class="smcap">A +Blakeney Story</span>—<span class="smcap">Tragical Epitaph +at Hustanton</span>—<span class="smcap">The Peddar’s +Way</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page111">111</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="pageix"></a><span class="pagenum">p. ix</span>CHAPTER +IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Dorset and Devon +Coasts</span>—<span class="smcap">Epitaphs at Kinson and +Wyke</span>—<span class="smcap">The “Wiltshire +Moon-Rakers”</span>—<span class="smcap">Epitaph at +Branscombe</span>—<span class="smcap">The Warren and +“Mount Pleasant” Inn</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER X</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Cornwall in Smuggling +Story</span>—<span class="smcap">Cruel +Coppinger</span>—<span class="smcap">Hawker’s +Sketch</span>—<span class="smcap">The Fowey +Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">Tom Potter</span>, +<span class="smcap">of Polperro</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Devils of Talland</span>—<span +class="smcap">Smugglers’ Epitaphs</span>—<span +class="smcap">Cave at Wendron</span>—<span +class="smcap">St. Ives</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page129">129</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Testimony to the Qualities of the +Seafaring Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">Adam Smith +on Smuggling</span>—<span class="smcap">A Clerical +Counterblast</span>—<span class="smcap">Biographical +Sketches of Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">Robert +Johnson</span>, <span class="smcap">Harry +Paulet</span>—<span class="smcap">William Gibson</span>, +<span class="smcap">A Converted Smuggler</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page151">151</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Carter Family</span>, <span +class="smcap">of Prussia Cove</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page165">165</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Jack Rattenbury</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page183">183</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="pagex"></a><span class="pagenum">p. x</span>CHAPTER XIV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Whisky Smugglers</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Some Smugglers’ Tricks and +Evasions</span>—<span class="smcap">Modern +Tobacco-Smuggling</span>—<span class="smcap">Silks and +Lace</span>—<span class="smcap">A Dog +Detective</span>—<span class="smcap">Leghorn +Hats</span>—<span class="smcap">Foreign Watches</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER XVI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Coast Blockade</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Preventive Water-Guard and the +Coastguard</span>—<span class="smcap">Official Return of +Seizures</span>—<span class="smcap">Estimated Loss to the +Revenue in</span> 1831—<span class="smcap">The Sham +Smuggler of the Seaside</span>—<span class="smcap">The +Modern Coastguard</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Index</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page249">249</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="pagexi"></a><span class="pagenum">p. xi</span>LIST +OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Gentlemen go by”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i>.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Owlers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Owlers chase the Customs Officers into Rye</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Goudhurst Church</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Cautious turned their Faces away while the +Freetraders passed”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page46">46</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Breaking open the Custom-house at Poole. <i>From an +old Print</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Red Lion,” Rake</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Sufferings of Daniel Chater. <i>From an old +Print</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page56">56</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Murder of Hawkins at the “Dog and +Partridge.” <i>From an old Print</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page64">64</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Dog and Partridge,” Slindon Common</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“For our Parson”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page76">76</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Chop-backs</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Drummer of Herstmonceux</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page82">82</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tandridge Church</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tombstone at Tandridge</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Run the Rascal through!”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page92">92</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Barham meets the Smugglers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A Landing at Bo-Peep</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Smugglers’ Tracks near Ewhurst</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Miller’s Tomb</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Langston Harbour</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page106">106</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="pagexii"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +xii</span>Bedhampton Mill</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The “Green Man,” Bradwell Quay</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page112">112</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Kitchen of the “Green Man”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“The Light of other Days”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page136">136</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>The Devils of Talland</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page144">144</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Escape of Johnson</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Johnson putting off from Brighton Beach</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page158">158</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>“Oft from yon bat-haunted tow’r”</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page168">168</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Prussia Cove</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page170">170</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>In a French Prison</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page174">174</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Jack Rattenbury. <i>From an old Print</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page184">184</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Smugglers hiding Goods in a Tomb</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page214">214</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Dragoons dispersing Smugglers</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page222">222</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Smugglers attacked. <i>From a mezzo-tint after Sir +Francis Bourgeois</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page228">228</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Smugglers defeated. <i>From a mezzotint after Sir +Francis Bourgeois</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page234">234</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>INTRODUCTORY</h2> +<p>Customs dues and embargoes on imports and exports are things +of immemorial antiquity, the inevitable accompaniments of +civilisation and luxury; and the smugglers, who paid no dues and +disregarded all prohibitions, are therefore of necessity equally +ancient. Carthage, the chief commercial community of the +ancient world, was probably as greatly troubled by the questions +of customs tariffs and smuggling as was the England of George the +Third. Without civilisation, and the consequent demand for +the products of other lands, the smuggler’s trade cannot +exist. In that highly organised condition of so-styled +civilisation which produces wars and race-hatreds and hostile +tariffs and swollen taxation, the smuggler becomes an important +person, a hateful figure to governments, but not infrequently a +beneficent being to the ill-provided—in all nations the +most numerous class—to whom he brought, at a reasonable +price, and with much daring and personal risk, those comforts +which, when they had paid <a name="page2"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 2</span>toll to the Chancellor of the +Exchequer, were all but unattainable.</p> +<p>The chief defence, on the score of morals, set up by those few +smugglers who ever were at pains to prove that smuggling could be +no crime, was that customs duties were originally imposed in the +time of Charles the Second to provide funds for the protection of +our coasts from the Algerine and Barbary pirates who then +occasionally adventured thus far from their piratical lurks in +the Mediterranean and ravaged the more remote villages of our +seaboard. When these dangers ceased, contended these +smugglers on their defence, the customs dues should automatically +have been taken off; but they were, on the contrary, greatly +increased.</p> +<p>This view, or excuse, or defence—call it how we +will—was, however, entirely without historical +foundation. It is true, indeed, that some ports had been +taxed, and that customs dues had been imposed for this purpose, +but customs charges were immemorially older than the seventeenth +century. There were probably such imposts in that lengthy +era when Britain was a Roman colony, and we certainly hear of +customs charges being levied in the reign of Ethelred, when a +toll of one halfpenny was charged upon every small boat arriving +at Billingsgate, and one penny upon larger boats, with sails.</p> +<p>These pages will show that not only import, but also export +smuggling was long continued in England, and not only so, but +that the export <a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>smuggling, notably that of wool, was for centuries the +most important, if not the only, kind. The prohibition of +sending wool out of the kingdom was, of course, introduced with +the object of fostering the cloth manufacture; but there are +always two sides to any question, and in this case the embargo +upon wool soon taught the cloth-workers that, in the matter of +prices, they had the wool-growers at their mercy. By law +they could not sell to foreign customers, or (later) only upon +paying heavy dues; and the cloth-workers could therefore +practically dictate their own terms. In this pitiful +resort—an example of the disastrous effect of government +interference with trade—there was nothing left but to set +the law at defiance, which the wool-growers and their allies, the +“owlers,” accordingly did, risking life and limb in +the wholesale exportation of wool. It is the duty of every +citizen to oppose bad laws, but this opposition to ill-conceived +enactments creates a furtive class of men, very Ishmaelites, who, +with their liberty, and even their lives, forfeit, are rendered +capable, in extremity, of any and every enormity. Hence +arose those reckless bands of smugglers who in the middle of the +eighteenth century became highly organised and all-powerful in +Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire, and, realising their power, +developed into criminals of the most ferocious type. They +were, properly regarded, the products of bad government, the +creatures brought into existence by a vicious system that took +its origin in the coming of William the Third, <a +name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>the +“Deliverer,” as history, tongue in cheek, styles +him.</p> +<p>The growth of customs dues in the last years of the +seventeenth century, and so onward, in a vicious progression +until the opening years of the nineteenth, was not in any way +owing to consideration for home traders, or to a desire for the +protection of British industries. They grew exactly in +proportion as the needs of the Government for revenue increased; +and were the direct results of that long-continued policy of +foreign alliances and aggressive interference in continental +politics—that “spirited foreign policy” +advocated even in our own times—which was introduced with +the coming of William the Third. We did well to depose +James the Second, but we might have done better than bring over +his son-in-law and make him king; and we might, still more, have +done better than raise the Elector of Hanover to the status of +British sovereign, as George the First. Then we should +probably have avoided foreign entanglements, at any rate, until +that later era when increased intercourse between the nations +rendered international politics inevitable.</p> +<p>Foreign wars, and the heavy duties levied to pay for them, +brought about the enormous growth of smuggling, and directly +caused all the miseries and the blood-stained incidents that make +the story of the smugglers so “romantic.” Glory +is very fine, and stirs the pulses in reading the pages of +history, but it is a commodity for which victorious nations, no +less than the <a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>defeated, are called upon to pay in blood, tears, and +privation.</p> +<p>With the great peace that, in 1815, succeeded the long and +harassing period of continual war, the people naturally looked +forward towards a time when the excessively heavy duties would be +reduced, and many articles altogether relieved from +taxation. As a matter of fact, some of these duties scarce +paid the cost of their collection, and simply helped to keep in +office a large and increasing horde of officials. But the +price of glory continues to be paid, long after the laurels have +faded; and not for many years to come were those imposts +reduced.</p> +<p>Sydney Smith, writing in 1820 on the subject of American +desire for a large navy, even then very manifest, warned the +people of the United States of the nemesis awaiting such +indulgence. “We can inform Jonathan,” he said, +“what are the inevitable consequences of being too fond of +glory: Taxes upon every article which enters into the mouth, or +covers the back, or is placed under the foot; taxes upon +everything which it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or +taste; taxes upon warmth, light, and locomotion; taxes on +everything on earth, and the waters under the earth; on +everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home; taxes on +the raw material, taxes on every fresh value that is added to it +by the industry of man; taxes on the sauce which pampers +man’s appetite and the drug that restores him to health; on +the ermine which decorates the <a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>judge and the rope which hangs the +criminal; on the poor man’s salt and the rich man’s +spice; on the brass nails of the coffin and the ribands of the +bride; at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay. +The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages +his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the +dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per +cent., into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent., flings +himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per +cent., makes his will on an eight-pound stamp, and expires in the +arms of an apothecary who has paid a licence of a hundred pounds +for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole +property is then immediately taxed from two to ten per +cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for +burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to +posterity on taxed marble; and he is then gathered to his +fathers—to be taxed no more.”</p> +<p>The real cost of military glory was aptly shown by a +caricaturist of this period, who illustrated the general rise of +prices consequent upon war in the following incident of an old +country-woman buying a halfpenny candle at a chandler’s +shop:</p> +<p>“Price has gone up,” said the shopkeeper curtly, +when she tendered the money.</p> +<p>“What’s that for, then?” asked the old +woman.</p> +<p>“On account of the war, ma’am.”</p> +<p>“Od rot ’em! do they fight by candlelight?” +she not unnaturally asked.</p> +<p><a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>Housekeepers of the present day may well +enter—although somewhat ruefully—into the humour of +this simple story, for in the great and continued rise of every +commodity since the great Boer War, it is most poignantly +illustrated for us. In short, the people who pay for the +glory see nothing of it, and derive nothing from it.</p> +<p>How entirely true were those witty phrases of Sydney Smith we +may easily guess from the mere rough statement that there were, +in 1787, no fewer than 1,425 articles liable to duty (very many +of them taxed at several times their market value), bringing in +£6,000,000 a year.</p> +<p>In 1797 the customs laws filled six large folio volumes. +The total number of Customs Acts prior to the accession of George +the Third was 800, but no fewer than 1,300 were added between the +years 1760 and 1813, and newer Acts, partly repealing and partly +adding to older enactments, were continually being added to this +vast mass of chaotic legislation down to the middle of the +Victorian era, until even experts were frequently baffled as to +the definite legal position of many given articles. +Finally—it is typical of our English amateur way of doing +things—in 1876, when so-called “Free Trade” had +come in, and few articles remained customable, the customs laws +were consolidated.</p> +<p>Many years before, at one swoop, Sir Robert Peel had removed +the duties from four hundred different dutiable articles, +leaving, however, many hundreds of others more or less heavily +assessed.</p> +<p><a name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>In +consequence of this relief from taxation, smuggling rapidly +decreased, and the Commissioners of Customs were enabled to +report: “With the reduction of duties, and the removal of +all needless and vexatious restrictions, smuggling has greatly +diminished, and the public sentiment with regard to it has +undergone a very considerable change. The smuggler is no +longer an object of general sympathy, as a hero of romance; and +people are beginning to awaken to a perception of the fact that +his offence is not only a fraud on the revenue, but a robbery of +the fair trader. Smuggling is now almost entirely confined +to tobacco, spirits, and watches.”</p> +<p>No fewer than four hundred and fifty other dutiable articles +were struck off the list in 1845, and the Cobdenite era of Free +Trade, to which, it was expected, all other nations would +speedily be converted, had opened.</p> +<p>“Free Trade,” we are told, “killed +smuggling.” It naturally killed smuggling so far as +duty-free articles were concerned; but this all-embracing term of +“Free Trade” is altogether a mockery and a +delusion. There has never been—there is not +now—complete Free Trade in this so-called free-trade +country. Wines and spirits, tobacco, tea and coffee, cocoa +and sugar, are not they in the forefront of the articles that +render regularly to the Chancellor of the Exchequer? There +have been, indeed, throughout all the years of the Free Trade +era, some forty articles scheduled for paying customs duty on +import into the United Kingdom. <a name="page9"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 9</span>They help the revenue to the extent of +about £27,000,000 per annum.</p> +<p>The romance of smuggling has very largely engaged the +attention of every description of writers, but we do not hear so +much of its commercial aspects, although it must be evident that +for men to dare so greatly as the smugglers did with winds and +waves and with the customs’ forces, the possible gains must +have been great. Time and again a cargo of tea or of +spirits would be seized, and yet the smugglers be prepared with +other ventures, knowing, as they did, that one entirely +successful run would pay for perhaps two failures. When tea +could be purchased in Holland at sevenpence a pound, and sold in +England at prices ranging from 3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to +5<i>s.</i>, and when tobacco, purchased at the same price, sold +at 2<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i>, it is evident that great possibilities +existed for the enterprising free-trader.</p> +<p>As regards spirits, if we take brandy as an example, we find +almost equal profits; for excellent cognac was shipped from +Roscoff, in Brittany, from Cherbourg, Dieppe, and other French +ports in tubs of four gallons each, which cost in France £1 +a tub, and sold in England at £4. One of the ordinary +smuggling luggers, generally built especially for this traffic, +on racing lines, would hold eighty tubs.</p> +<p>On such a cargo being brought, according to preconcerted plan, +within easy distance off-shore, generally at night, a lantern or +other signal shown from cliff or beach by confederates on land +would <a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span>indicate the precise spot where the goods were most +safely to be beached; and there would be assembled a sufficient +company of labourers engaged for the job. A cargo of eighty +tubs required forty men, who carried two each, slung by ropes +over chest and back. According to circumstances, they +marched in company on foot, inland; or, if the distance were +great, they went on horseback, each man with a led horse, +carrying three or four tubs in addition. These labourers, +although not finally interested in the safe running of the goods, +and not paid on any other basis than being hired for the heavy +job of carrying considerable weights throughout the night, were +quite ready and willing to fight any opponents that might be met, +as innumerable accounts of savage encounters tell us. +Besides these carriers, there were often, in case of opposition +to the landing being anticipated, numerous “batsmen,” +armed with heavy clubs, to protect the goods.</p> +<p>The pay of a labourer or carrier varied widely, of course, in +different places, at different times, and according to +circumstances. It ranged from five shillings to half a +sovereign a night, and generally included also a present of a +package of tea or a tub of brandy for so many successful +runs. It is recorded that the labourers engaged for riding +horseback, each with a led horse, from Sandwich, Deal, Dover, +Folkestone, or Romney, to Canterbury, a distance of some fifteen +miles, were paid seven shillings a night. The horses cost +the smugglers nothing, for they were commandeered, <a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>as a general +rule, from the neighbouring farmers, who did not usually offer +any objection, for it was not often that the gangs forgot to +leave a tub in payment. The method employed in thus +requisitioning horses was quite simple. An unsigned note +would be handed to a farmer stating that his horses were wanted, +for some purpose unnamed, on a certain night; and that he was +desired to leave his stables unlocked for those who would come +and fetch them. If he did not comply with this demand he +very soon had cause to regret it in the mysterious disasters that +would shortly afterwards overtake him: his outbuildings being +destroyed by fire, his farming implements smashed, or his cattle +mutilated.</p> +<p>The farmers, indeed, were somewhat seriously embarrassed by +the prevalence of smuggling. On the one hand, they had to +lend their horses for the smugglers’ purposes, and on the +other they discovered that the demand for carriers of tubs and +other goods shortened the supply of labour available for +agricultural purposes, and sent up the rate of wages. A +labourer in the pay of smugglers would often be out three nights +in the week, and, with the money he received and with additional +payment in kind, was in a very comfortable position.</p> +<h2><a name="page12"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +12</span>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The “Owlers” of Romney Marsh</span>, +<span class="smcap">and the Ancient Export Smuggling of +Wool</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> earliest conflicts of interests +between smugglers and the Government were concerned with the +export of goods, and not with imports. We are accustomed to +think only of the import smuggler, who brought from across +Channel, or from more distant shores, the spirits, wines, tea, +coffee, silks, laces, and tobacco that had never yielded to the +revenue of the country; but before him in point of time, if not +also in importance, was the “owler” who, defying all +prohibitions and penalties, even to those of bodily mutilation +and death, sold wool out of England and secretly shipped it at +night from the shores of Kent and Sussex.</p> +<p>English wool had from a very early date been greatly in demand +on the Continent. The England of those distant times was a +purely agricultural country, innocent of arts, industries, and +manufactures, except of the most primitive description. The +manufacturers then exercised their skilled trades largely in +France and the Low Countries; and, in especial, the cloth-weaving +industries were practised in Flanders.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p12.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Owlers" +title= +"The Owlers" +src="images/p12.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>So +early as the reign of Edward the First the illegal exportation of +wool engaged the attention of the authorities, and an export duty +of £3 a bag (in modern money) was imposed, soon after +1276. This was in 1298 increased to £6 a bag, then +lowered, and then again raised. English wool was then worth +1<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> a pound.</p> +<p>In the reign of Edward the Third a strenuous attempt was made +to introduce the weaving industries into England, and every +inducement was offered the Flemish weavers to settle here and to +bring their art with them. In support of this policy, the +export of wool was, in various years, subjected to further +restrictions, and at one time entirely forbidden. The royal +solicitude for the newly cradled English weaving industries also +in 1337 forbade the wearing of clothing made with cloth woven out +of the country; but it is hardly necessary to add that edicts of +this stringency were constantly broken; and in 1341 Winchelsea, +Chichester, and thirteen other ports were named, whence wool +might be exported, on payment of a duty of 50<i>s.</i> a sack of +twenty-six stone—<i>i.e.</i> 364 lb.</p> +<p>The interferences with the sale and export of wool continued, +and the duty was constantly being raised or lowered, according to +the supposed needs of the time; but nearly always with unforeseen +and disastrous effects. The wool staple was removed to the +then English possession of Calais in 1363, and the export of it +absolutely forbidden elsewhere. The natural result, in +spite <a name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>of +the great amount of smuggling carried on, was that in a long +series of years the value of wool steadily fell; the cloth-makers +taking advantage of the accumulation of stocks on the +growers’ hands to depress the price. In 1390 the +growers had from three to five seasons’ crops on hand, and +the state of the industry had become such that in the following +year permission to export generally, on payment of duty, was +conceded. This duty tended to become gradually heavier, +and, as it increased, so proportionably did the +“owling” trade.</p> +<p>The price of wool therefore declined again, and in 1454 it was +recorded as being not more than two-thirds of what it had been a +hundred and ten years earlier. The wool-growers, on the +brink of ruin, petitioned that wool, according to its various +grades, might not be sold under certain fixed prices; which were +accordingly fixed.</p> +<p>But to follow, <i>seriatim</i>, the movements in prices and +the complete reversals of Government policy regarding the export, +would be wearisome. We will, therefore, pass on to the +Restoration of the monarchy, in 1660, when the export of wool was +again entirely forbidden. Smuggling of it was in 1662 +again, by the reactionary laws of the period, made a felony, +punishable with death; yet the active smugglers, the rank and +file of the owling trade, who performed the hard manual labour +for wages, at the instigation of those financially interested, +continued to risk their necks for twelvepence a day. The +low price their <a name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +15</span>services commanded is alone sufficient to show us that +labour, in spite of the risks, was plentiful. Not only Kent +and Sussex, but Essex, and Ireland as well, largely entered into +this secret “stealing of wool out of the country,” as +the phrase ran; and “these caterpillars” had so many +evasions, and commanded so many combinations and interests among +those officials whose business it was to detect and punish, that +few dared interfere: hence the readiness of the labourers to +“risk their necks,” the risk being, under the +circumstances, small.</p> +<p>Indeed, readers of the adventures of these owling desperadoes +and of the customs officers who hunted them will, perhaps, come +to the conclusion that the risks on either side were pretty +evenly apportioned, and they will see that the hunters not seldom +became the hunted.</p> +<p>The experiences of one W. Carter, who appears to have been in +authority over the customs staff in the Romney Marsh district, +towards the close of the seventeenth century, were at times +singularly vivid. His particular “hour of crowded +life” came in 1688, while he was engaged in an attempt to +arrest a body of owlers who were shipping wool into some French +shallops between Folkestone and New Romney.</p> +<p>Having procured the necessary warrants, he repaired to Romney, +where he seized eight or ten men who were carrying the wool on +their horses’ backs to be shipped, and desired the Mayor of +Romney to commit them, but, greatly to the <a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>surprise of +this zealous officer, who doubtless imagined he had at last laid +some of these desperate fellows securely by the heels, the Mayor +of Romney consented to the prisoners being admitted to +bail. Mr. Carter, to have been so ingenuously surprised, +must have been a singularly simple official, or quite new to the +business; for what Mayor of Romney in those days, when every one +on the Marsh smuggled, or was interested financially in the +success of smuggling, would dare not deal leniently with these +fellows! Nay, it was even abundantly probable that the +Mayor himself was financially committed in these ventures, and +perhaps even among the employers of Mr. Carter’s +captives.</p> +<p>Romney was no safe abiding-place for Carter and his underlings +when these men were enlarged; and they accordingly retired upon +Lydd. But if they had fondly expected peace and shelter +there they were woefully mistaken, for a Marshland cry of +vengeance was raised, and a howling mob of owlers, ululating more +savagely than those melancholy birds from whom they took their +name, violently attacked them in that little town, under cover of +night. The son of the Mayor of Lydd, well disposed to these +sadly persecuted revenue men, advised them to further retire upon +Rye, which they did the next morning, December 13th, pursued +hotly across the dyke-intersected marshes, as far as Camber +Point, by fifty furious men.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p16.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Owlers chase the Customs Officers into Rye" +title= +"The Owlers chase the Customs Officers into Rye" +src="images/p16.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>At Guilford Ferry the pursuers were so close upon their heels +that they had to hurriedly dismount <a name="page17"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 17</span>and tumble into some boats belonging +to ships lying near, leaving their horses behind; and so they +came safe, but breathless, into Rye town.</p> +<p>At this period Calais—then lost to England—alone +imported within two years 40,000 packs of wool from Kent and +Sussex; and the Romney Marsh men not only sold their own wool in +their illicit manner, but bought other from up-country, ten or +twenty miles inland, and impudently shipped it off.</p> +<p>In 1698, the severe laws of some thirty years earlier having +been thus brought into contempt, milder penal enactments were +introduced, but more stringent conditions than ever were imposed +upon the collection and export of this greatly vexed commodity, +and the civil deterrents of process and fine, aimed at the big +men in the trade, were strengthened. A law was enacted (9 +& 10 William the Third, c. 40, ss. 2 and 3) by which no +person living within fifteen miles of the sea in the counties of +Kent and Sussex should buy any wool before he became responsible +in a legal bond, with sureties, that none of the wool he should +buy should be sold by him to any persons within fifteen miles of +the sea; and growers of wool in those counties, within ten miles +of the coast, were obliged, within three days of shearing, to +account for the number of fleeces shorn, and to state where they +were stored.</p> +<p>The success of this new law was not at first very marked, for +the means of enforcing it had not been provided. To enact +repressive edicts, <a name="page18"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +18</span>and not to provide the means of their being respected, +was as unsatisfactory as fighting the wind. The Government, +viewing England as a whole, appointed under the new Act seventeen +surveyors for nineteen counties, with 299 riding-officers: a +force barely sufficient for Kent and Sussex alone. It cost +£20,000 a year, and never earned its keep.</p> +<p>Henry Baker, supervisor for Kent and Sussex, writing on April +25th, 1699, to his official chiefs, stated that there would be +shorn in Romney Marsh, quite apart from the adjacent levels of +Pett, Camber, Guilford, and Dunge Marsh, about 160,000 sheep, +whose fleeces would amount to some three thousand packs of wool, +“the greatest part whereof will immediately be sent off hot +into France—it being so designed, preparations in great +measure being already made for that purpose.”</p> +<p>In fact, the new law at first did nothing more than to give +the owlers some extra trouble and expense in cartage of their +packs; for, in order to legally evade the extra disabilities it +imposed, it was only necessary to cart them fifteen miles inland +and make fictitious sale and re-sale of them there; thence +shipping them as they pleased.</p> +<p>By this time the exportation of wool had become not only a +kingly concern—it had aroused the keen interest of the +nation at large, fast becoming an industrial and cloth-weaving +nation. For two centuries and more past the cloth-workers +had been growing numerous, wealthy, and powerful, <a +name="page19"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 19</span>and they +meant, as far as it was possible for them to do, to starve the +continental looms out of the trade, for sheer lack of +material. No one cared in the least about the actual grower +of the wool, whether he made a loss or a profit on his +business. It is obvious that if export of it could have +been wholly stopped, the cloth-workers, in the forced absence of +foreign buyers, would have held the unfortunate growers in the +hollow of their hands, and would have been able to dictate the +price of wool.</p> +<p>It is the inalienable right of every human being to fight +against unjust laws; only we must be sure they are unjust. +Perhaps the dividing-line, when self-interest is involved, is not +easily to be fixed. But there can be no doubt that the +wool-growers were labouring under injustice, and that they were +entirely justified in setting those laws at naught which menaced +their existence.</p> +<p>However, by December 1703, Mr. Baker was able to give his +superiors a more favourable report. He believed the neck of +the owling trade to have been broken and the spirit of the owlers +themselves to have been crushed, particularly in Romney +Marsh. There were not, at that time, he observed, +“many visible signs” of any quantities of wool being +exported: which seems to us rather to point to the perfected +organisation of the owling trade than to its being crushed out of +existence.</p> +<p>“But for fine goods,” continued the supervisor, +“as they call them (<i>viz.</i> silks, lace, etc.), I am +well assured that the trade goes on through <a +name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 20</span>both +counties, though not in such vast quantities as have been +formerly brought in—I mean in those days when (as a +gentleman of estate in one of the counties has within this twelve +months told me) he has been att once, besides at other times, at +the loading of a wagon with silks, laces, etc., till six oxen +could hardly move it out of the place. I doe not think that +the trade is now so carried on as ’twas then.”</p> +<p>Things being so promising in the purview of this simple +person, it seemed well to him to suggest to the Commissioners of +the Board of Customs that a reduction of the annual charge of +£4,500 for the preventive service along the coasts of Kent +and Sussex might be effected. At that time there were fifty +preventive officers patrolling over two hundred miles of +seaboard, each in receipt of £60 per annum, and each +provided with a servant and a horse, to help in night duty, at an +estimated annual cost of £30 for each officer.</p> +<p>We may here legitimately pause in surprise at the small pay +for which these men were ready to endure the dangers and +discomforts of such a service; very real perils and most +unmistakable disagreeables, in midst of an almost openly hostile +country-side.</p> +<p>Mr. Baker, sanguine man that he was, proposed to abolish the +annual allowance to each of these hard-worked men for servant and +horse, thus saving £1,500 a year, and to substitute for +them patrols of the Dragoon regiments at that time stationed in +Kent. These regiments had been <a name="page21"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 21</span>originally placed there in 1698 to +overawe the owlers and other smugglers, the soldiers being paid +twopence extra a day (which certainly did not err upon the side +of extravagance) and the officers in proportion: the annual cost +on that head amounting to £200 per annum. This +military stiffening of the civil force employed to prevent +clandestine export and import appears to have been discontinued +in 1701, after about two years’ experiment.</p> +<p>These revived patrols, at a cost of £200, the supervisor +calculated, would more efficiently and economically undertake the +work hitherto performed by the preventive officers’ horses +and men, still leaving a saving of £1,300 a year. +With this force, and a guard of cruisers offshore, he was quite +convinced that the smuggling of these parts would still be kept +under.</p> +<p>But alas for these calculations! The economy thus +effected on this scheme, approved of and put into being, was +altogether illusory. The owling trade, of which the +supervisor had supposed the neck to be broken, flourished more +impudently than before. The Dragoons formed a most +inefficient patrol, and worked ill with the revenue officers, +and, in short, the Revenue lost annually many more thousands of +pounds sterling than it saved hundreds. When sheriffs and +under-sheriffs could be, and were, continually bribed, it is not +to be supposed that Dragoons, thoroughly disliking such an +inglorious service as that of chasing smugglers along muddy lanes +and across country <a name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +22</span>intricately criss-crossed with broad dykes rarely to be +jumped, would be superior to secret advances that gave them much +more than their miserable twopence a day.</p> +<p>Transportation for wool-smugglers who did not pay the fines +awarded against them was enacted in 1717; ineffectually, for in +1720 it was found necessary to issue a proclamation, enforcing +the law; and in five successive years from 1731 the cloth-workers +are found petitioning for greater vigilance against the continued +clandestine exportation, alleging a great decay in the woollen +manufactures owing to this illegal export; 150,000 packs being +shipped yearly. “It is feared,” said these +petitioners, fighting for their own hand, regardless, of course, +of other interests, “that some gentlemen of no mean rank, +whose estates border on the sea-coast, are too much influenced by +a near, but false, prospect of gain”: to which the +gentlemen in question, being generally brought up on the dead +classic languages, might most fairly have replied, had they cared +to do so, with the easy Latinity of <i>Tu quoque</i>!</p> +<p>This renewed daring and enterprise of the Sussex smugglers led +to many encounters with the customs officers. Among these +was the desperate engagement between sixty armed smugglers and +customs men at Ferring, on June 21st, 1720, when William +Goldsmith, of the Customs, had his horse shot under him.</p> +<p>A humorous touch, so far at least as the modern reader of +these things is concerned, is <a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>found in the Treasury warrant issued +about this time, for the sum of £200, for supplying a +regiment with new boots and stockings; their usual allowance of +these indispensable articles having been “worn out in the +pursuit of smugglers.”</p> +<p>In spite of all attempts to suppress these illegal activities, +it had to be acknowledged, in the preamble of an Act passed in +1739, that the export of wool was “notoriously +continued.”</p> +<p>The old-established owling trade of Romney Marsh at length, +after many centuries, gave place to the clandestine import of +silks, tea, spirits, and tobacco; but it was only by slow and +insensible degrees that the owlers’ occupation dwindled +away, in the lessening foreign demand for English wool. The +last was not heard of this more than five-centuries-old question +of the export of wool, that had so severely exercised the minds +of some twenty generations, and had baffled the lawgivers in all +that space of time, until the concluding year of the final wars +with France at the beginning of the nineteenth century.</p> +<p>Many other articles were at the same time forbidden to be +exported; among them Fuller’s-earth, used in the +manufacture of cloth, and so, of course, subject to the same +interdict as wool. A comparatively late Exchequer trial for +the offence of exporting Fuller’s-earth was that of one +Edmund Warren, in 1693. Fortunately for the defendant, he +was able to show that what he had exported was not +Fuller’s-earth at all, but potter’s clay.</p> +<h2><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +24</span>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Growth of Tea and Tobacco Smuggling in the +Eighteenth Century</span>—<span class="smcap">Repressive +Laws a Failure</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Side</span> by side with the export +smuggling of wool, the import smuggling of tobacco and tea grew +and throve amazingly in later ages. Every one, knowingly or +unsuspectingly, smoked tobacco and drank tea that had paid no +duty.</p> +<p>“Great Anna” herself, who was among the earliest +to yield to the refining influence of tea—</p> + +<blockquote><p> Great +Anna, whom three realms obey,<br /> +Doth sometimes counsel take, and sometimes tay—</p> +</blockquote> +<p>in all probability often drank tea which had contributed +nothing to the revenue. Between them tea and tobacco, in +the illegal landing of the goods, found employment for hundreds +of hardy seafaring men and stalwart landsmen, and led to much +violence and bloodshed, beside which the long-drawn annals of the +owlers seem almost barren of incident.</p> +<p>Early in the eighteenth century, when continental wars of vast +magnitude were in progress, the list of dutiable articles began +to grow quickly, <a name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +25</span>and concurrently with the growth of this list the +already existing tariff was continually increased. The +smugglers’ trade grew with these growths, and for the first +time became a highly organised and widely distributed trade, +involving every class. The time had come at last when every +necessary of daily use was taxed heavily, often far above its +ordinary trading value; and an absurd, and indeed desperate, +condition of affairs had been reached, in which people of all +ranks were more or less faced with the degrading dilemma of being +unable to afford many articles generally consumed by persons of +their station in life, or of procuring them of the +smugglers—the “free traders,” as they rightly +styled themselves—often at a mere one-third of the cost to +which they would have been put had their illicit purchasers paid +duty.</p> +<p>The Government was, as we now perceive, in the mental +perspective afforded by lapse of time, in the clearly +indefensible position of heavily taxing the needs of the country, +and of making certain practices illegal that tended to supply +those needs at much lower rates than those thus artificially +created, and yet of being unable to provide adequate means by +which these generally detested laws could be enforced. It +was, and is, no defence to hold that the revenues thus hoped for +were a sufficient excuse. To create an artificial restraint +of trade, to elevate trading in spite of restraint into a crime, +and yet not to provide an overmastering force that shall secure +<a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>obedience, +if not in one sense respect, for those unnatural laws, was in +itself a course of action that any impartial historian might well +hold to be in itself criminal; for it led to continual +disturbances throughout the country, with appalling violence, and +great loss of life, in conflict, or in the darker way of secret +murder.</p> +<p>But no historian would, on weighing the evidence available, +feel altogether sure of so sweeping an indictment of the +eighteenth-century governance of England. It was corrupt, +it was self-seeking, it had no breadth of view; but the times +were well calculated to test the most Heaven-sent +statesmanship. The country, as were all other countries, +was governed for the classes; and governed, as one would conduct +a business, for revenue; whether the revenue was to be applied in +conducting foreign wars, or to find its way plentifully into the +pockets of placemen, does not greatly matter. This +misgovernment was a characteristic failing of the age; and it +must, moreover, be recognised that the historian, with his +comprehensive outlook upon the past, spread out, so to speak, +map-like to his gaze, has the advantage of seeing these things as +a whole, and of criticising them as such; while the givers and +administrators of laws were under the obvious disadvantages of +each planning and working for what they considered to be the +needs of their own particular period, with those of the future +unknown, and perhaps uncared for. That there were some few +among those in authority who <a name="page27"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 27</span>wrought according to their lights, +however feeble might be their illumination, must be conceded even +to that age.</p> +<p>At the opening of this era, when Marlborough’s great +victories were yet fresh, and when the cost of them and of other +military glories was wearing the country threadbare, the most +remarkable series of repressive Acts, directed against smuggling, +began. Vessels of very small tonnage and light draught, +being found peculiarly useful to smugglers, the use of such, even +in legalised importing, was strictly forbidden, and no craft of a +lesser burthen than fifteen tons was permitted. This +provision, it was fondly conceived, would strike a blow at +smuggling, by rendering it impossible to slip up narrow and +shallow waterways; but this pious expectation was doomed to +disappointment, and the limit was accordingly raised to thirty +tons; and again, in 1721, to forty tons. At the same time, +the severest restrictions were imposed upon boats, in order to +cope with the ten, or even twelve and fourteen-oared galleys, +rowed by determined “free-traders.”</p> +<p>To quote the text of one among these drastic ordinances:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Any boat built to row with more than four +oars, found upon land or water within the counties of Middlesex, +Surrey, Kent, or Sussex, or in the river Thames, or within the +limits of the ports of London, Sandwich, or Ipswich, or any boat +rowing with more than six oars found either upon land or water, +in any other port, or within <a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>two leagues of the coast of Great +Britain, shall be forfeited, and every person using or rowing in +such boat shall forfeit £40.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>These prohibitions were, in 1779, in respect of boats to row +with more than six oars, extended to all other English counties; +the port of Bristol only excepted.</p> +<p>As for smuggling craft captured with smuggled goods the way of +the revenue authorities with such was drastic. They were +sawn in three pieces, and then thoroughly broken up.</p> +<p>The futility of these extraordinary steps is emphasised by the +report of the Commissioners of Customs to the Treasury in 1733, +that immense smuggling operations were being conducted in Kent, +Sussex, Essex, and Suffolk. In twelve months, this report +declared, 54,000 lb. of tea and 123,000 gallons of brandy had +been seized, and still, in spite of these tremendous losses, the +spirit of the smugglers was unbroken, and smuggling was +increasing. An additional force of 106 Dragoons was asked +for, to stiffen that of 185 already patrolling those coasts.</p> +<p>It was clearly required, with the utmost urgency, for such a +mere handful of troops spread over this extended seaboard could +scarce be considered a sufficient backing for the civil force, in +view of the determined encounters continually taking place, in +which the recklessness and daring of the smugglers knew no +bounds. Thus, in June 1733, the officers of customs at +Newhaven, attempting to seize ten horses laden with tea, <a +name="page29"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 29</span>at Cuckmere, +were opposed by about thirty men, armed with pistols and +blunderbusses, who fired on the officers, took them prisoners, +and kept them under guard until the goods were safely carried +off.</p> +<p>In August of the same year the riding-officers, observing +upwards of twenty smugglers at Greenhay, most of them on +horseback, pluckily essayed to do their duty and seize the goods, +but the smugglers fell furiously upon them, and with clubs +knocked one off his horse, severely wounded him, and confined him +for an hour, while the run was completed. Of his companions +no more is heard. They probably—to phrase it +delicately—went for assistance.</p> +<p>In July 1735, customs officers of the port of Arundel, +watching the coast, expecting goods to be run from a hovering +smuggler craft, were discovered by a gang of more than twenty +armed smugglers, anxiously waiting for the landing, and not +disposed for an all-night trial of endurance in that waiting +game. They accordingly seized the officers and confined +them until some boatloads of contraband had been landed and +conveyed away on horseback. In the same month, at +Kingston-by-the-Sea, between Brighton and Shoreham, some +officers, primed with information of a forthcoming run of brandy, +and seeking it, found as well ten smugglers with pistols. +Although the smugglers were bold and menacing, the customs men on +this occasion had the better of it, for they seized and duly +impounded the brandy.</p> +<p><a name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>A more +complicated affair took place on December 6th of the same year, +when some customs officers of Newhaven met a large, well-armed +gang of smugglers, who surrounded them and held them prisoners +for an hour and a half. The same gang then fell in with +another party, consisting of three riding-officers and six +Dragoons, and were bold enough to attack them. Foolish +enough, we must also add; for they got the worst of the +encounter, and, fleeing in disorder, were pursued; +five—armed with pistols, swords, and cutlasses, and +provided with twelve horses—being captured.</p> +<p>A fatal encounter took place at Bulverhythe, between Hastings +and Bexhill, in March 1737. It is best read of in the +anonymous letter written to the Commissioners of Customs by a +person who, for fear of the smuggling gangs, was afraid to +disclose his real name, and subscribed himself +“Goring.” The letter—whose cold-blooded +informing, the work evidently of an educated, but cruel-minded +person, is calculated to make any reader of generous instincts +shiver—is to be found among the customs correspondence, in +the Treasury Papers.</p> +<blockquote><p>“May it please [your] Honours,—It is +not unknown to your Lordships of the late battle between the +Smuglers and Officers at Bulverhide; and in relation to that +Business, if your Honours but please to advise in the News +Papers, that this is expected off, I will send a List of the +names of <a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +31</span>the Persons that were at that Business, and the +places’ names where they are usually and mostly +resident. Cat (Morten’s man) fired first, Morten was +the second that fired; the soldiers fired and killed Collison, +wounded Pigon, who is since dead; William Weston was wounded, but +like to recover. Young Mr. Bowra was not there, but his men +and horses were; from your Honours’</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Dutifull and Most faithfull +servant,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“<span +class="smcap">Goring</span>.</p> +<p>“There was no foreign persons at this Business, but all +were Sussex men, and may easily be spoke with.</p> +<p>“This [is] the seventh time Morten’s people have +workt this winter, and have not lost anything but one +half-hundred [of tea] they gave to a Dragoon and one officer they +met with the first of this winter; and the Hoo company have lost +no goods, although they constantly work, and at home too, since +they lost the seventy hundred-weight. When once the +Smuglers are drove from home they will soon all be taken. +Note, that some say it was Gurr that fired first. You must +well secure Cat, or else your Honours will soon lose the man; the +best way will be to send for him up to London, for he knows the +whole Company, and hath been Morten’s servant two +years. There were several young Chaps with the Smuglers, +whom, when taken, will soon discover the whole Company. The +number was twenty-six men. Mack’s horses, +Morten’s, and Hoak’s, were killed, <a +name="page32"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 32</span>and they lost +not half their goods. They have sent for more goods, and +twenty-nine horses set out from Groombridge this day, about four +in the afternoon, and all the men well armed with long guns.</p> +<p>“And if I hear this is received, I will send your +Honours the Places names where your Honours will intercep the +Smuglers as they go to Market with their Goods, but it must be +done by Soldiers, for they go stronger now than ever. And +as for Mr. Gabriel Tompkin, Supervisor of Dartford, there can be +good reason given that Jacob Walter brought him Goods for three +years last past, and it is likewise no dispute of that matter +amongst allmost all the Smuglers. The Bruces and Jacob +fought about that matter and parted Company’s, and Mr. +Tompkin was allway, as most people know, a villain when a Smugler +and likewise Officer. He never was concern’d with any +Body but Jacob, and now Jacob has certainly done with +Smugling. I shall not trouble your Honours with any more +Letters if I do not hear from this, and I do assure your Honours +what I now write is truth.</p> +<p>“There are some Smuglers with a good sum of money, and +they may pay for taking; as Thomas Darby, Edward King, John +Mackdanie, and others that are rich.</p> +<p>“The Hoo Company might have been all ruined when they +lost their goods; the Officers and Soldiers knew them all, but +they were not prosecuted, as [they] was not at Groombridge, when +some time since a Custom House Officer <a name="page33"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 33</span>took some Tea and Arms too in +Bowra’s house at Groombridge.</p> +<p>“The first of this Winter, the Groombridge Smuglers were +forced to carry their goods allmost all up to Rushmore Hill and +Cester Mark, which some they do now, but Tea sells quick in +London now, and Chaps from London come down to Groombridge +allmost every day, as they used to do last Winter. When +once they come to be drove from home, they will be put to great +inconveniences, when they are from their friends and will lose +more Goods than they do now, and be at more Charges. Do but +take up some of the Servants, they will soon rout the Masters, +for the Servants are all poor.</p> +<p>“Young Bowra’s House cost £500 building, and +he will pay for looking up.</p> +<p>“Morten and Bowra sold, last Winter, some-ways, about +3,000 [lb.] weight a week.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>We hear nothing further of “Goring,” and there is +nothing to show who was the person whose cold malignance appears +horribly in every line of his communication. Any action +that may have been officially taken upon it is also hidden from +us. But we may at least gather from it that the master-men, +the employers of the actual smugglers of the goods, were in a +considerable way of business, and already making very large +profits. We see, too, that the smuggling industry was even +then well on towards being a powerful organisation.</p> +<p><a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 34</span>Still +sterner legislative methods were, accordingly, in the opinion of +the authorities, called for, and the Act of Indemnity of 1736 was +the first result. This was a peculiarly mean and despicable +measure, even for a Revenue Act. There is this +excuse—although a small one—for it; that the +Government was increasingly pressed for money, and that the +enormous leakage of customs dues might possibly in some degree be +lessened by stern and not very high-minded laws. By this +Act it was provided that smugglers who desired (whether on trial +or not) to obtain a free pardon for past offences, might do so by +fully disclosing them; at the same time giving the names of their +fellows. The especial iniquity of this lamentable example +of frantic legislation, striking as it did at the very +foundations of character in the creation of the informer and the +sneak, is a sad instance of the moral obliquity to which a +Government under stress of circumstances can descend.</p> +<p>The Act further proceeded to deal with backsliders who, having +purged themselves as above, again resumed their evil courses, and +it made the ways of transgressors very hard indeed; for, when +captured, they were charged with not only their present offence, +but also with that for which they had compounded with the +Dev— that is to say, with the law. And, being so +charged, and duly convicted, their case was desperate; for if the +previous offence had carried with it, on conviction, a sentence +of transportation (as many smuggling offences did: among them the +carrying <a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>of firearms by three, or more men, while engaged in +smuggling goods), the second brought a sentence of death.</p> +<p>With regard to the position of the pardoned smuggler who had +earned his pardon by thus peaching on his fellows, it is not too +much to say—certainly so far as the more ferocious +smuggling gangs of Kent and Sussex were concerned—that by +so doing he had already earned his capital sentence; for the +temper of these men was such, and the risks they were made to run +by these ferocious Acts were so great, that they would +not—and, in a way of looking at these things, could +not—suffer an informer to live.</p> +<p>Thus, even the additional inducements offered to informers by +statute—including a reward of £50 each for the +discovery and conviction of two or more accomplices—very +generally failed to obtain results.</p> +<p>Many other items of unexampled severity were included in this +Act, and in the yet more drastic measures of 1745 and the +following year. By these it was provided that persons found +loitering within five miles of the sea-coast, or any navigable +river, might be considered suspicious persons; and they ran the +risk of being taken before a magistrate, who was empowered, on +any such person being unable to give a satisfactory account of +himself, to commit him to the House of Correction, there to be +whipped and kept at hard labour for any period not exceeding one +month.</p> +<p><a name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>In +1746, assembling to run contraband goods was made a crime +punishable with death as a felon, and counties were made liable +for revenue losses. Smuggled goods seized and afterwards +rescued entailed a fine of £200 upon the county; a revenue +officer beaten by smugglers cost the county £40; or if +killed, £100; with the provision that the county should be +exempt if the offenders were convicted within six months.</p> +<p>As regards the offenders themselves, if they failed to +surrender within forty days and were afterwards captured, the +person who captured them was entitled to a reward of +£500.</p> +<p>Dr. Johnson’s definition of a smuggler appears on the +title-page of the present volume. It is not a flattering +testimonial to character; but, on the other hand, his opinion of +a Commissioner of Excise—and such were the sworn enemies of +smugglers—was much more unfavourable. Such an one was +bracketed by the doctor with a political pamphleteer, or what he +termed “a scribbler for a party,” as one of +“the two lowest of human beings.” Without the +context in which these judgments are now placed, it would be more +than a little difficult to trace their reasoning, which sounds as +little sensible as it would be to declare at one and the same +time a burglar to be a dangerous pest and a policeman a useless +ornament. But if smugglers can be proved from these pages +wicked and reckless men, so undoubtedly shall we find the +Commissioners of Excise and Customs, in their several spheres, +appealing to the <a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>basest of human instincts, and thus abundantly worthy of +Johnson’s censure.</p> +<p>The shifts and expedients of the Commissioners of Customs for +the suppression of smuggling were many and ingenious, and none +was more calculated to perform the maximum of service to the +Revenue with the minimum of cost than the commissioning of +privateers, authorised to search for, to chase, and to capture if +possible any smuggling craft. “Minimum of cost” +is indeed not the right expression for use here, for the cost and +risks to the customs establishment were <i>nil</i>. It +should be said here that, although the Acts of Parliament +directed against smuggling were of the utmost stringency, they +were not always applied with all the severity possible to be +used; and, on the other hand, customs officers and the commanders +of revenue cutters were well advised to guard against any excess +of zeal in carrying out their instructions. To chase and +capture a vessel that every one knew perfectly well to be a +smuggler, and then to find no contraband aboard, because, as a +matter of fact, it had been carefully sunk at some point where it +could easily be recovered at leisure, was not only not the way to +promotion as a zealous officer; but was, on the contrary, in the +absence of proof that contraband had been carried, a certain way +to official disfavour. And it was also, as many officers +found to their cost, the way into actions at law, with resultant +heavy damages not infrequently awarded against them. It +was, indeed, a scandal that <a name="page38"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 38</span>these public servants, who assuredly +rarely ever brought to, or overhauled, a vessel without +reasonable and probable cause, should have been subject to such +contingencies, without remedy of any kind.</p> +<p>The happy idea of licensing private adventurers to build and +equip vessels to make private war upon smuggling craft, and to +capture them and their cargoes, was an extension of the original +plan of issuing letters of marque to owners of vessels for the +purpose of inflicting loss upon an enemy’s commerce; but +persons intending to engage upon this private warfare against +smuggling had, in the first instance, to give security to the +Commissioners of a diligence in the cause thus undertaken, and to +enter into business details respecting the cargoes +captured. It was, however, not infrequently found, in +practice, that these privateers very often took to smuggling on +their own account, and that, under the protective cloak of their +ostensible affairs, they did a very excellent business; while, to +complete this picture of failure, those privateers that really +did keep to their licensed trade generally contrived to lose +money and to land their owners into bankruptcy.</p> +<h2><a name="page39"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +39</span>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Terrorising Bands of Smugglers</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Hawkhurst Gang</span>—<span +class="smcap">Organised Attack on Goudhurst</span>—<span +class="smcap">The “Smugglers’ Song</span>”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">But</span> the smugglers of Kent and +Sussex were by far the most formidable of all the +“free-traders” in England, and were not easily to be +suppressed. Smuggling, export and import, off those coasts +was naturally heavier than elsewhere, for there the Channel was +narrower, and runs more easily effected. The interests +involved were consequently much greater, and the organisation of +the smugglers, from the master-men to the labourers, more nearly +perfect. To interfere with any of the several confederacies +into which these men were banded for the furtherance of their +illicit trade was therefore a matter of considerable danger, and, +well knowing the terror into which they had thrown the +country-side, they presumed upon it, to extend their activities +into other, and even less reputable, doings. The intervals +between carrying tubs, and otherwise working for the +master-smugglers became filled, towards the middle of the +eighteenth century, with acts of highway <a +name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>robbery and +house-breaking, and, in the home counties, at any rate, smuggling +proved often to be only the first step in a career of crime.</p> +<p>Among these powerful and terrorising confederacies, the +Hawkhurst gang was pre-eminent. The constitution of it was, +necessarily, a matter of inexact information, for the officers +and the rank and file of such societies are mentioned by no +minute-books or reports. But one of its principals was, +without question, Arthur Gray, or Grey, who was one of those +“Sea Cocks” after whom Seacox Heath, near Hawkhurst, +in Kent, is supposed to be named. He was a man who did +things on, for those times, a grand scale, and was said to be +worth £10,000. He had built on that then lonely ridge +of ground, overlooking at a great height the Weald of Kent, large +store houses—a kind of illicit “bonded +warehouses”—for smuggled goods, and made the spot a +distributing centre. That all these facts should have been +contemporaneously known, and Gray’s store not have been +raided by the Revenue, points to an almost inconceivable state of +lawlessness. The buildings were in after years known as +“Gray’s Folly”; but it was left for modern +times to treat the spot in a truly sportive way: when Lord +Goschen, who built the modern mansion of Seacox Heath on the site +of the smuggler’s place of business, became Chancellor of +the Exchequer. If the unquiet ghosts of the old smugglers +ever revisit their old haunts, how weird must have been the +ironic laughter of Gray at finding this <a +name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 41</span>the home of +the chief financial functionary of the Government!</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p40.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Goudhurst Church" +title= +"Goudhurst Church" +src="images/p40.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In December 1744 the gang were responsible for the impudent +abduction of a customs officer and three men who had attempted to +seize a run of goods at Shoreham. They wounded the officer +and carried the four off to Hawkhurst, where they tied two of +them, who had formerly been smugglers and had ratted to the +customs service, to trees, whipped them almost to death, and then +took them down to the coast again and shipped them to +France. A reward of £50 was offered, but never +claimed.</p> +<p>To exhume yet another incident from the forgotten doings of +the time: In March 1745 a band of twelve or fourteen smugglers +assaulted three custom-house officers whom they found in an +alehouse at Grinstead Green, wounded them in a barbarous manner, +and robbed them of their watches and money.</p> +<p>In the same year a gang entered a farmhouse near Sheerness, in +Sheppey, and stole a great quantity of wool, valued at +£1,500. A week later £300 worth of wool, which +may or may not have been a portion of that stolen, was seized +upon a vessel engaged in smuggling it from Sheerness, and eight +men were secured.</p> +<p>The long immunity of the Hawkhurst Gang from serious +interference inevitably led to its operations being extended in +every direction, and the law-abiding populace of Kent and Sussex +eventually found themselves dominated by a great <a +name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 42</span>number of +fearless marauders, whose will for a time was a greater law than +the law of the land. None could take legal action against +them without going hourly in personal danger, or in fear of +house, crops, wheat-stacks, hay-ricks, or stock being burnt or +otherwise injured.</p> +<p>The village of Goudhurst, a picturesque spot situated upon a +hill on the borders of Kent and Sussex, was the first place to +resent this ignoble subserviency. The villagers and the +farmers round about were wearied of having their horses +commandeered by mysterious strangers for the carrying of +contraband goods that did not concern them, and were determined +no longer to have their houses raided with violence for money or +anything else that took the fancy of these fellows.</p> +<p>They had at last found themselves faced with the alternatives, +almost incredible in a civilised country, of either deserting +their houses and leaving their property at the mercy of these +marauders, or of uniting to oppose by force their lawless +inroads. The second alternative was chosen; a paper +expressive of their abhorrence of the conduct of the smugglers, +and of the determination to oppose them was drawn up and +subscribed to by a considerable number of persons, who assumed +the style of the “Goudhurst Band of Militia.” +At their head was a young man named Sturt, who had recently been +a soldier. He it was who had persuaded the villagers to be +men, and make some spirited resistance.</p> +<p>News of this unexpected stand on the part of <a +name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>these +hitherto meek-spirited people soon reached the ears of the +dreaded Hawkhurst Gang, who contrived to waylay one of the +“Militia,” and, by means of torture and imprisonment, +extorted from him a full disclosure of the plans and intentions +of his colleagues. They swore the man not to take up arms +against them, and then let him go; telling him to inform the +Goudhurst people that they would, on a certain day named, attack +the place, murder every one in it, and then burn it to the +ground.</p> +<p>Sturt, on receiving this impudent message, assembled his +“Militia,” and, pointing out to them the danger of +the situation, employed them in earnest preparations. While +some were sent to collect firearms, others were set to casting +bullets and making cartridges, and to providing defences.</p> +<p>Punctually at the time appointed (a piece of very bad policy +on their part, by which they would appear to have been fools as +well as rogues) the gang appeared, headed by Thomas Kingsmill, +and fired a volley into the village, over the entrenchments +made. The embattled villagers replied, some from the houses +and roof-tops, and others from the leads of the church-tower; +when George Kingsmill, brother of the leading spirit in the +attack, was shot dead. He is alluded to in contemporary +accounts as the person who had killed a man at Hurst Green, a few +miles distant.</p> +<p>In the firing that for some time continued two others of the +smugglers, one Barnet Wollit <a name="page44"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 44</span>and a man whose name is not +mentioned, were killed and several wounded. The rest then +fled, pursued by the valorous “Militia,” who took a +few prisoners, afterwards handed over by them to the law, and +executed.</p> +<p>Surprisingly little is heard of this—as we, in these +more equable times, are prone to think it—extraordinary +incident. A stray paragraph or so in the chronicles of the +time is met with, and that is all. It was only one of the +usual lawless doings of the age.</p> +<p>But to-day the stranger in the village may chance, if he +inquires a little into the history of the place, to hear wild and +whirling accounts of this famous event; and, if he be at all +enterprising, will find in the parish registers of burials this +one piece of documentary evidence toward the execution done that +day:</p> +<blockquote><p>“1747, Ap. 20, George Kingsmill, Dux sclerum +glande plumbeo emisso, cecidit.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>All these things, moreover, are duly enshrined, amid much +fiction, in the pages of G. P. R. James’s novel, “The +Smuggler.”</p> +<p>And still the story of outrage continued. On August +14th, 1747, a band of twenty swaggering smugglers rode, +well-armed and reckless, into Rye and halted at the “Red +Lion” inn, where they remained drinking until they grew +rowdy and violent.</p> +<p>Coming into the street again, they discharged their pistols at +random, and, as the old account of these things concludes, +“observing James <a name="page45"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 45</span>Marshall, a young man, too curious of +their behaviour, carried him off, and he has not since been heard +of.”</p> +<p>History tells us nothing of the fate of that unfortunate young +man; but, from other accounts of the bloodthirsty characters of +these Kentish and Sussex malefactors, we imagine the very +worst.</p> +<p>Others, contemporary with them—if, indeed, they were not +the same men, as seems abundantly possible—captured two +revenue officers near Seaford, and, securely pinning them down to +the beach at low-water mark, so that they could not move, left +them there, so that, when the tide rose, they were drowned.</p> +<p>Again, on September 14th of this same year, 1747, a smuggler +named Austin, violently resisting arrest, shot a sergeant dead +with a blunderbuss at Maidstone.</p> +<p>In “The Smugglers’ Song” Mr. Rudyard Kipling +has vividly reconstructed those old times of dread, when, night +and day, the numerous and well-armed bodies of smugglers openly +traversed the country, terrorising every one. To look too +curiously at these high-handed ruffians was, as we have already +seen, an offence, and the most cautious among the rustics made +quite sure of not incurring their high displeasure—and +incidentally of not being called upon by the revenue authorities +as witnesses to the identity of any among their number—by +turning their faces the other way when the free-traders +passed. Mothers, <a name="page46"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 46</span>too, were careful to bid their little +ones on the Marshland roads, or in the very streets of New +Romney, to turn their faces to the hedge-side, or to the wall, +“when the gentlemen went by.” And—</p> +<blockquote><p>If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s +feet,<br /> +Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the +street;<br /> +Them that ask no questions isn’t told a lie,<br /> +Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.</p> +<p> Five and twenty ponies<br +/> + Trotting through the +dark—<br /> + Brandy for the parson;<br /> + ’Baccy for the clerk;<br /> + Laces for a lady; letters for a +spy,</p> +<p>And watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p46.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The cautious turned their faces away" +title= +"The cautious turned their faces away" +src="images/p46.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +47</span>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The “Murders by Smugglers” in +Hampshire</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> most outstanding chapter in the +whole history of smuggling is that of the cold-blooded +“Murders by Smugglers” which stained the annals of +the southern counties in the mid-eighteenth century with +peculiarly revolting deeds that have in them nothing of romance; +nothing but a long-drawn story of villainy and fiendish +cruelty. It is a story that long made dwellers in solitary +situations shiver with apprehension, especially if they owned +relatives connected in any way with the hated customs +officers.</p> +<p>This grim chapter of horrors, upon which the historian can +dwell only with loathing, and with pity for himself in being +brought to the telling of it, was the direct outcome of the +lawless and almost unchecked doings of the Hawkhurst Gang, whose +daring grew continually with their long-continued success in +terrorising the countryside.</p> +<p>The beginnings of this affair are found in an expedition +entered upon by a number of the gang in September 1747, in +Guernsey, where they purchased a considerable quantity of tea, <a +name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 48</span>for smuggling +into this country. Unfortunately for their enterprise, they +fell in with a revenue cutter, commanded by one Captain Johnson, +who pursued and captured their vessel, took it into the port of +Poole, and lodged the tea in the custom-house there.</p> +<p>The smugglers were equally incensed and dismayed at this +disaster, the loss being a very heavy one; and they resolved, +rather than submit to it, to go in an armed force and recover the +goods. Accordingly a mounted body of them, to the number of +sixty, well provided with firearms and other weapons, assembled +in what is described as “Charlton Forest,” probably +Chalton Downs, between Petersfield and Poole, and thence +proceeded on their desperate errand. Thirty of them, it was +agreed, should go to the attack, while the other thirty should +take up positions as scouts along the various roads, to watch for +riding-officers, or for any military force, and so alarm, or +actively assist, if needs were, the attacking party.</p> +<p>It was in the midnight between October 6th and 7th that this +advance party reached Poole, broke open the custom-house on the +quay, and removed all the captured tea—thirty-seven +hundredweight, valued at £500—except one bag of about +five pounds weight. They returned in the morning, in +leisurely fashion, through Fordingbridge; the affair apparently +so public that hundreds of people were assembled in the streets +of that little town to see these daring fellows pass.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p48.jpg"> +<img alt= +". . breaking open the Customs House at Poole" +title= +". . breaking open the Customs House at Poole" +src="images/p48.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page49"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 49</span>Among +these spectators was one Daniel Chater, a shoemaker, who +recognised among this cavalcade of smugglers a certain John +Diamond, with whom he had formerly worked in the harvest +field. Diamond shook hands with him as he passed, and threw +him a bag of tea.</p> +<p>It was not long before a proclamation was issued offering +rewards for the identification or apprehension of any persons +concerned in this impudent raid, and Diamond was in the meanwhile +arrested on suspicion at Chichester. Chater, who seems to +have been a foolish, gossiping fellow, saying he knew Diamond and +saw him go by with the gang, became an object of considerable +interest to his neighbours at Fordingbridge, who, having seen +that present of a bag of tea—a very considerable present as +the price of tea then ran—no doubt thought he knew more of +the affair than he cared to tell. At any rate, these things +came to the knowledge of the Collector of Customs at Southampton, +and the upshot of several interviews and some correspondence with +him was that Chater agreed to go in company with one William +Galley, an officer of excise, to Major Battin, a Justice of the +Peace and a Commissioner of Customs at Chichester, to be examined +as to his readiness and ability to identify Diamond, whose +punishment, on conviction, would be, under the savage laws of +that time, death.</p> +<p>Chater, in short, had offered himself as that detestable +thing, a hired informer: a creature <a name="page50"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 50</span>all right-minded men abhor, and whom +the smugglers of that age visited, whenever found, with +persecution and often with the same extremity to which the law +doomed themselves.</p> +<p>The ill-fated pair set out on Sunday, February 14th, on +horseback, and, calling on their way at Havant, were directed by +a friend of Chater’s at that place to go by way of +Stanstead, near Rowlands Castle. They soon, however, missed +their way, and calling at Leigh, at the “New Inn,” to +refresh and to inquire the road, met there three men, George and +Thomas Austin, and their brother-in-law, one Mr. Jenkes, who +accompanied them to Rowlands Castle, where they all drew rein at +the “White Hart” public-house, kept by a Mrs. +Elizabeth Payne, a widow, who had two sons in the village, +blacksmiths, and both reputed smugglers.</p> +<p>Some rum was called for, and was being drank, when Mrs. Payne, +taking George Austin aside, told him she was afraid these two +strangers were after no good; they had come, she suspected, with +intent to do some injury to the smugglers. Such was the +state of the rural districts in those times that the appearance +of two strangers was of itself a cause for distrust; but when, in +addition, there was the damning fact that one of them wore the +uniform of a riding-officer of excise, suspicion became almost a +certainty.</p> +<p>But to her remarks George Austin replied she need not be +alarmed, the strangers were <a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>only carrying a letter to Major +Battin, on some ordinary official business.</p> +<p>This explanation, however, served only to increase her +suspicions, for what more likely than that this business with a +man who was, among other things, a highly placed customs +official, was connected in some way with these recent notorious +happenings?</p> +<p>To make sure, Mrs. Payne sent privately one of her sons, who +was then in the house, for William Jackson and William Carter, +two men deeply involved with smuggling, who lived near at +hand. In the meanwhile Chater and Galley wanted to be gone +upon their journey, and asked for their horses. Mrs. Payne, +to keep them until Jackson and Carter should arrive, told them +the man who had the key of the stables was gone for a while, but +would return presently.</p> +<p>As the unsuspecting men waited, gossiping and drinking, the +two smugglers entered. Mrs. Payne drew them aside and +whispered her suspicions; at the same time advising Mr. George +Austin to go away, as she respected him, and was unwilling that +any harm should come to him.</p> +<p>It is thus sufficiently clear that, even at this early stage, +some very serious mischief was contemplated.</p> +<p>Mr. George Austin, being a prudent, if certainly not also an +honest, man, did as he was advised. Thomas Austin, his +brother, who does not appear to have in the same degree commanded +the landlady’s respect, was not warned, and <a +name="page52"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 52</span>remained, +together with his brother-in-law. To have won the +reader’s respect also, she should, at the very least of it, +have warned them as well. But as this was obviously not a +school of morals, we will not labour the point, and will bid Mr. +George Austin, with much relief, “goodbye.”</p> +<p>Mrs. Payne’s other son then entered, bringing with him +four more smugglers: William Steel, Samuel Downer, <i>alias</i> +Samuel Howard, <i>alias</i> “Little Sam,” Edmund +Richards, and Henry Sheerman, <i>alias</i> “Little +Harry.”</p> +<p>After a while Jackson took Chater aside into the yard, and +asked him after Diamond; whereupon the simple-minded man let fall +the object of his and his companion’s journey.</p> +<p>While they were talking, Galley, suspecting Chater would be in +some way indiscreet, came out and asked him to rejoin them; +whereupon Jackson, with a horrible oath, struck him a violent +blow in the face, knocking him down.</p> +<p>Galley then rushed into the house, Jackson following +him. “I am a King’s officer,” exclaimed +the unfortunate Galley, “and cannot put up with such +treatment.”</p> +<p>“You a King’s officer!” replied Jackson, +“I’ll make a King’s officer of you; and for a +quartern of gin I’ll serve you so again!”</p> +<p>The others interposed, one of the Paynes exclaiming, +“Don’t be such a fool; do you know what you are +doing?”</p> +<p>Galley and Chater grew very uneasy, and <a +name="page53"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 53</span>again wanted +to be going; but the company present, including Jackson, pressed +them to stay, Jackson declaring he was sorry for what had +passed. The entire party then sat down to more drink, until +Galley and Chater were overcome by drunkenness and were sent to +sleep in an adjoining room. Thomas Austin and Mr. Jenkes +were by this time also hopelessly drunk; but as they had no +concern with the smugglers, nor the smugglers with them, they +drop out of this narrative.</p> +<p>When Galley and Chater lay in their drunken sleep the +compromising letters in their pockets were found and read, and +the men present formed themselves into a kind of committee to +decide what should be done with their enemies, as they thought +them. John Race and Richard Kelly then came in, and Jackson +and Carter told them they had got the old rogue, the shoemaker of +Fordingbridge, who was going to give an information against John +Diamond the shepherd, then in custody at Chichester.</p> +<p>They then consulted what was best to be done to their two +prisoners, when William Steel proposed to take them both to a +well, a little way from the house, and to murder them and throw +them in. Less ferocious proposals were made—to send +them over to France; but when it became obvious that they would +return and give the evidence after all, the thoughts of the seven +men present reverted to murder. At this juncture the wives +of Jackson and Carter, <a name="page54"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 54</span>who had entered the house, cried, +“Hang the dogs, for they came here to hang us!”</p> +<p>Another proposition that was made—to imprison the two in +some safe place until they knew what would be Diamond’s +fate, and for each of the smugglers to subscribe threepence a +week for their keep—was immediately scouted; and instantly +the brutal fury of these ruffians was aroused by Jackson, who, +going into the room where the unfortunate men were lying, spurred +them on their foreheads with the heavy spurs of his riding-boots, +and, having thus effectually wakened them, whipped them into the +kitchen of the inn until they were streaming with blood. +Then, taking them outside, the gang lifted them on to a horse, +one behind the other, and, tying their hands and legs together, +lashed them with heavy whips along the road, crying, “Whip +them, cut them, slash them, damn them!” one of their +number, Edmund Richards, with cocked pistol in hand, swearing he +would shoot any person through the head who should mention +anything of what he saw or heard.</p> +<p>From Rowlands Castle, past Wood Ashes, Goodthorpe Deane, and +to Lady Holt Park, this scourging was continued through the +night, until the wretched men were three parts dead. At two +o’clock in the morning this gruesome procession reached the +Portsmouth Road at Rake, where the foremost members of the party +halted at what was then the “Red Lion” inn, long +since that time retired into private life, and now a <a +name="page55"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 55</span>humble +cottage. It was kept in those days by one Scardefield, who +was no stranger to their kind, nor unused to the purchase and +storing of smuggled spirits. Here they knocked and rattled +at the door until Scardefield was obliged to get out of bed and +open to them. Galley, still alive, was thrust into an +outhouse, while the band, having roused the landlord and procured +drink, caroused in the parlour of the inn. Chater they +carried in with them; and when Scardefield stood horrified at +seeing so ghastly a figure of a man, all bruised and broken, and +spattered with blood, they told him a specious tale of an +engagement they had had with the King’s officers: that here +was a comrade, wounded, and another, dead or dying, in his +brew-house.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p54.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “Red Lion,” Rake" +title= +"The “Red Lion,” Rake" +src="images/p54.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Chater they presently carried to an outhouse of the cottage of +a man named Mills, not far off, and then returned for more drink +and discussion of what was to be done with Galley, whom they +decided to bury in Harting Combe. So, while it was yet +dark, they carried him down from the ridge on which Rake stands, +into the valley, and, digging a grave in a fox-earth by the light +of a lantern, shovelled the dirt over him, without inquiring too +closely whether their victim were alive or dead. That he +was not dead at that time became evident when his body was +discovered eight months later, hands raised to his face, as +though to prevent the earth from suffocating him.</p> +<p><a name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>The +whole of the next day this evil company sat drinking in the +“Red Lion.” Richard Mills, son of the man in +whose turf-shed Chater lay chained by the leg, passing by, they +hailed him and told him of what they had done; whereupon he said +he would, if he had had the doing of it, have flung the man down +Harting Combe headlong and broken his neck.</p> +<p>On this Monday night they all returned home, lest their +continued absence might be remarked by the neighbours; agreeing +to meet again at Rake on the Wednesday evening, to consider how +they might best put an end to Chater.</p> +<p>When Wednesday night had come this council of murderers, +reinforced by others, and numbering in all fourteen, assembled +accordingly. Dropping into the “Red Lion” one +by one, it was late at night before they had all gathered.</p> +<p>They decided, after some argument, to dispatch him forthwith, +and, going down to the turf-shed where he had lain all this +while, suffering agonies from the cruel usage to which he had +been subjected, they unchained him. Richard Mills at first +had proposed to finish him there. “Let us,” +said he, “load a gun with two or three bullets, lay it upon +a stand with the muzzle of the piece levelled at his head, and, +after having tied a long string to the trigger, we will all go +off to the butt-end, and, each of us taking hold of the string, +pull it all together; thus we shall be all equally guilty of his +death, and it will be impossible for any one of us to charge the +rest with his murder, without <a name="page57"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 57</span>accusing himself of the same crime; +and none can pretend to lessen or to mitigate his guilt by saying +he was only an accessory, since all will be +principals.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p56.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Chater being kicked and cut" +title= +"Chater being kicked and cut" +src="images/p56.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Thus Richard Mills, according to the story of these things +told in horrid detail (together with a full report of the +subsequent trial) by the author of the contemporary +“Genuine History.” The phraseology of the +man’s coldly logical proposals is, of course, that of the +author himself; since it is not possible that a Sussex rustic of +over a hundred and sixty years ago would have spoken in literary +English.</p> +<p>Mills’s proposition was not accepted. It seemed to +the others too merciful and expeditious a method of putting an +end to Chater’s misery. They had grown as epicurean +in torture as the mediæval hell-hounds who racked and +pinched and burnt for Church and State. They were resolved +he should suffer as much and as long as they could eke out his +life, as a warning to all other informers.</p> +<p>The proposal that found most favour was that they should take +him to Harris’s Well, in Lady Holt Park, and throw him +in.</p> +<p>Tapner, one of the recruits to the gang, thereupon inaugurated +the new series of torments by pulling out a large clasp-knife, +and, with a fearful oath, exclaiming, “Down on your knees +and go to prayers, for with this knife I will be your +butcher.”</p> +<p>Chater, expecting every moment to be his last, knelt down as +he was ordered, and, while he <a name="page58"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 58</span>was thus praying, Cobby kicked him +from behind, while Tapner in front slashed his face.</p> +<p>The elder Mills, owner of the turf-shed, at this grew alarmed +for his own safety. “Take him away,” he said, +“and do not murder him here. Do it somewhere +else.”</p> +<p>They then mounted him on a horse and set out for Lady Holt +Park; Tapner, more cruel, if possible, than the rest, slashing +him with his knife, and whipping him with his whip, all the +way.</p> +<p>It was dead of night by the time they had come to the Park, +where there was a deep dry well. A wooden fence stretched +across the track leading to it, and over this, although it was in +places broken and could easily have been crawled through, they +made their victim climb. Tapner then pulled a rope out of +his pocket and tied it round Chater’s neck, and so pushed +him over the opening of the well, where he hung, slowly +strangling.</p> +<p>But by this time they were anxious to get home, and could +afford no more time for these luxuries of cruelty, so they +dropped him to the bottom of the well, imagining he would be +quite killed by the fall. Unfortunately for Chater, he was +remarkably tenacious of life, and was heard groaning there, where +he had fallen.</p> +<p>They dared not leave him thus, lest any one passing should +hear his cries, and went and roused a gardener, one William +Combleach, who lived a little way off, and borrowed a ladder, +telling him one of their companions had fallen into <a +name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +59</span>Harris’s Well. With this ladder they +intended to descend the well and finally dispatch Chater; but, +seeing they could not manage to lower the ladder, they were +reduced to finding some huge stones and two great gateposts, +which they then flung down, and so ended the unhappy man’s +martyrdom.</p> +<p>The problem that next faced the murderers was, how to dispose +of the two horses their victims had been riding. It was +first proposed to put them aboard the next smuggling vessel +returning to France, but that idea was abandoned, on account of +the risk of discovery. It was finally decided to slaughter +them and remove their skins, and this was accordingly done to the +grey that Galley had ridden, and his hide cut up into small +pieces and buried; but, when they came to look for the bay that +Chater had used, they could not find him.</p> +<h2><a name="page60"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +60</span>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The “Murders by Smugglers</span>” +<i>continued</i>—<span class="smcap">Trial and Execution of +the Murderers</span>—<span class="smcap">Further Crimes by +the Hawkhurst Gang</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Even</span> in those times two men, and +especially men who had set out upon official business, could not +disappear so utterly as Chater and Galley had done without +comment being aroused, and presently the whole country was +ringing with the news of this mysterious disappearance. The +condition of the country can at once be guessed when it is stated +that no one doubted the hands of the smugglers in this +business. The only question was, in what manner had they +spirited these two men away? Some thought they had been +carried over to France, while others thought, shrewdly enough, +they had been murdered.</p> +<p>But no tidings nor any trace of either Galley or Chater came +to satisfy public curiosity, or to allay official apprehensions, +until some seven months later, when an anonymous letter sent to +“a person of distinction,” and probably inspired by +the hope of ultimately earning the large reward offered by the +Government for information, hinted that “the body of one of +the unfortunate men mentioned in his Majesty’s proclamation +was <a name="page61"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 61</span>buried +in the sands in a certain place near Rake.” And, sure +enough, when search was made, the body of Galley was found +“standing almost upright, with his hands covering his +eyes.”</p> +<p>Another letter followed upon this discovery, implicating +William Steel in these doings, and he was immediately +arrested. To save himself, the prisoner turned King’s +evidence, and revealed the whole dreadful story. John Race, +among the others concerned, voluntarily surrendered, and was also +admitted as evidence.</p> +<p>One after another, seven of the murderers were arrested in +different parts of the counties of Hants and Surrey, and were +committed to the gaols of Horsham and Newgate, afterwards being +sent to Chichester, where a special Assize was held for the +purpose of overawing the smugglers of the district, and of +impressing them with the majesty and the power of the law, which, +it was desired to show them, would eventually overtake all +evil-doers.</p> +<p>We need not enter into the details of that trial, held on +January 18th, 1749, and reported with painful elaboration by the +author of the “Genuine History,” together with the +sermon preached in Chichester Cathedral by Dean Ashburnham, who +held forth in the obvious and conventional way of comfortably +beneficed clergy, then and now.</p> +<p>Let it be sufficient to say that all were found guilty, and +all sentenced to be hanged on the following day.</p> +<p><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>Six of +them were duly executed, William Jackson, the seventh, dying in +gaol. He had been for a considerable time in ill +health. He was a Roman Catholic and the greatest villain of +the gang, and, like all such, steeped in superstition. +Carefully sewed up in a linen purse in his waistcoat pocket was +found an amulet in French, which, translated, ran as follows:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Ye three Holy Kings,<br +/> +Gaspar, Melchior, Balthasar,<br /> +Pray for us now, and in the hour of death.</p> +<p>These papers have touched the three heads of the Holy Kings at +Cologne.</p> +<p>They are to preserve travellers from accidents on the road, +headaches, falling sickness, fevers, witchcraft, all kinds of +mischief, and sudden death.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>His body was thrown into a pit on the Broyle, at Chichester, +together with those of Richard Mills, the elder, and +younger. The body of William Carter was hanged in chains +upon the Portsmouth road, near Rake; that of Benjamin Tapner on +Rook’s Hill, near Chichester, and those of John Cobby and +John Hammond upon the sea-coast near Selsea Bill, so that they +might be seen for great distances by any contrabandists engaged +in running goods.</p> +<p>Another accomplice, Henry Shurman, or Sheerman, <i>alias</i> +“Little Harry,” was indicted and tried at East +Grinstead, and, being sentenced to death, was conveyed to Horsham +Gaol by a strong guard of soldiers and hanged at Rake, and +afterwards gibbeted.</p> +<p>In January 1749, a brutal murder was <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>committed at +the “Dog and Partridge” inn, on Slindon Common, near +Arundel, where Richard Hawkins was whipped and kicked to death on +suspicion of being concerned in stealing two bags of tea, +belonging to one Jerry Curtis. Hawkins was enticed away +from his work at Walberton, on some specious pretext, by Curtis +and John Mills, known as “Smoker,” and went on +horseback behind Mills to the “Dog and Partridge,” +where they joined a man named Robb: all these men being +well-known smugglers in that district. Having safely got +Hawkins thus far, they informed him that he was their prisoner, +and proceeded to put him under examination in the parlour of the +inn. There were also present Thomas Winter (afterwards a +witness for the prosecution), and James Reynolds, the +innkeeper.</p> +<p>Hawkins denied having stolen the tea, and said he knew nothing +of the matter, whereupon Curtis replied, “Damn you; you do +know, and if you do not confess I will whip you till you do; for, +damn you, I have whipped many a rogue and washed my hands in his +blood.”</p> +<p>Reynolds said, “Dick, you had better confess; it will be +better for you.” But his answer still was, “I +know nothing of it.”</p> +<p>Reynolds then went out, and Mills and Robb thereupon beat and +kicked Hawkins so ferociously that he cried out that the +Cockrels, his father-in-law, and brother-in-law, who kept an inn +at Yapton, were concerned in it. Curtis and Mills then took +their horses and said they would go <a name="page64"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 64</span>and fetch them. Going to the +younger Cockrel, Mills entered the house first and called for +some ale. Then Curtis came in and demanded his two bags of +tea, which he said Hawkins had accused him of having. +Cockrel denied having them, and then Curtis beat him with an oak +stick until he was tired. Curtis and Mills then forcibly +took him to where his father was, at Walberton, and thence, with +his father, behind them on their horses, towards Slindon.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, at the “Dog and Partridge,” Robb and +Winter placed the terribly injured man, Hawkins, in a chair by +the fire, where he died.</p> +<p>Robb and Winter then took their own horses and rode out +towards Yapton, meeting Curtis and Mills on the way, each with a +man behind him. The men, who were the Cockrels, were told +to get off, which they did, and the four others held a whispered +conversation, when Winter told them that Hawkins was dead, and +desired them to do no more mischief.</p> +<p>“By God!” exclaimed Curtis, “we will go +through it now.” Winter again urged them to be +content with what had already been done; and Curtis then bade the +two Cockrels return home.</p> +<p>Then they all four rode back to the “Dog and +Partridge,” where Reynolds was in despair, saying to +Curtis, “You have ruined me.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p64.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The whipping of Richard Rowland" +title= +"The whipping of Richard Rowland" +src="images/p64.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Curtis replied that he would make him amends; and they all +then consulted how to dispose of the body. The first +proposition was to bury it <a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>in a park close at hand, and to give +out that the smugglers had deported Hawkins to France. But +Reynolds objected. The spot, he said, was too near, and +would soon be found. In the end, they laid the body on a +horse and carried it to Parham Park, twelve miles away, where +they tied large stones to it, and sunk it in a pond.</p> +<p>This crime was in due course discovered, and a proclamation +issued, offering a pardon to any one, not himself concerned in +the murder, nor in the breaking open of the custom-house at +Poole, who should give information that would lead to the capture +and conviction of the offenders.</p> +<p>William Pring, an outlawed smuggler, who had heard some gossip +of this affair among his smuggling acquaintance, and was +apparently wishful of beginning a new life, determined to make a +bid for his pardon for past offences, and, we are told, +“applied to a great man in power,” informing him that +he knew Mills, and that if he could be assured of his pardon he +would endeavour to take him, for he was pretty certain to find +him either at Bristol or Bath, whither he knew he was gone, to +sell some run goods.</p> +<p>Being assured of his pardon, he set out accordingly, and found +not only Mills, but two brothers, Lawrence and Thomas Kemp, +themselves smugglers and highway robbers, and wanted for various +offences; Thomas Kemp being additionally in request for having +broken out of Newgate.</p> +<p>The informer, Pring, artfully talking matters <a +name="page66"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 66</span>over with +these three, and observing that the cases of all of them were +desperate, offered the advice that they should all accompany him +towards London, to his house at Beckenham, where they would +decide upon some plan for taking to highway robbery and +house-breaking, in the same manner as Gregory’s Gang <a +name="citation66"></a><a href="#footnote66" +class="citation">[66]</a> used to do.</p> +<p>This they all heartily agreed to, and confidentially, on the +journey up to Beckenham, spoke and bragged of their various +crimes.</p> +<p>Arrived at Beckenham, Pring made a plausible excuse to leave +them awhile at his house, while he fetched his mare, in exchange +for the very indifferent horse he had ridden. It would +never do, he said, when on their highway business, for one of the +company to be badly horsed.</p> +<p>He left the house and rode hurriedly to Horsham, whence he +returned with eight or nine mounted officers of excise. +They arrived at midnight, and found his three guests sitting down +to supper.</p> +<p>The two Kemps were easily secured, and tied by the arms; but +Mills would not so readily submit, and was slashed with a sword +before he would give in.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p66.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “Dog and Partridge,” Slindon Common" +title= +"The “Dog and Partridge,” Slindon Common" +src="images/p66.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>John Mills was a son of Richard Mills, and a brother of +Richard Mills the younger, executed at Chichester for the murder +of Chater and Galley, <a name="page67"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 67</span>as already detailed, and he also had +taken part in that business. Brought to trial at East +Grinstead, he said he had indeed been a very wicked liver, but he +bitterly complained of such of the witnesses against him as had +been smugglers and had turned King’s evidence. They +had, he declared, acted contrary from the solemn oaths and +engagements they had made and sworn to among themselves, and he +therefore wished they might all come to the same end, and be +hanged like him and damned afterwards.</p> +<p>He was found guilty and duly sentenced to death, and was +hanged and afterwards hung in chains on a gibbet erected for the +purpose on Slindon Common, near the “Dog and +Partridge.”</p> +<p>Curtis, an active partner in the same murder, fled the +country, and was said to have enlisted in the Irish Brigade of +the French Army. Robb was not taken, and Reynolds was +acquitted of the murder. He and his wife were tried at the +next Assizes, as accessories after the fact.</p> +<p>The “Dog and Partridge” has long ceased to be an +inn, but the house survives, a good deal altered, as a +cottage. In the garden may be seen a very capacious cellar, +excavated out of the soil and sandstone, and very much larger +than a small country inn could have ever required for ordinary +business purposes. It is known as the +“Smugglers’ Cellar.”</p> +<p>At the same sessions at which these bloodstained scoundrels +were convicted a further body of five men, Lawrence and Thomas +Kemp, John <a name="page68"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +68</span>Brown, Robert Fuller, and Richard Savage, were all tried +on charges of highway robbery, of housebreaking, and of stealing +goods from a wagon. They were all members of the notorious +Hawkhurst Gang, and had been smugglers for many years. All +were found guilty and sentenced to death, except Savage, who was +awarded transportation for life. The rest were executed at +Horsham on April 1st, 1749. One of them had at least once +already come near to being capitally convicted, but had been +rescued from Newgate by a party of fellow-smugglers before +justice could complete her processes.</p> +<p>These rescuers were in their turn arrested on other charges, +and brought to trial at Rochester Assizes, with other +malefactors, in March 1750. They were four notorious +smugglers, Stephen Diprose, James Bartlett, Thomas Potter, and +William Priggs, who were all executed on Penenden Heath, on March +30th.</p> +<p>Bartlett, pressed to declare, after sentence, if he had been +concerned in any murders, particularly in that of Mr. Castle, an +excise officer who had been shot on Selhurst Common by a gang of +smugglers, would not give a positive answer, and it was therefore +supposed he was concerned in it.</p> +<p>Potter described some of the doings of the gang, and told how, +fully armed, they would roam the country districts at night, +disguised, with blackened faces, and appear at lonely houses, +where they would seize and bind the <a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>people they found, and then proceed +to plunder at their leisure.</p> +<p>In the short interval that in those days was allowed between +sentence and execution Potter was very communicative, and +disclosed a long career of crime; but he declared that murder had +never been committed by him. He had, it was true, proposed +to murder the turnkey at Newgate at the time when he and his +companions rescued their friends languishing in that doleful +hold: but it had not, after all, been found necessary.</p> +<p>This, it will be conceded, was sufficiently frank and +open. The official account of that rescue was that Thomas +Potter and three other smugglers came into the press-yard at +Newgate to visit two prisoners, Thomas Kemp and William Grey, +also of the Hawkhurst Gang, when they agreed at all hazards to +assist in getting them out. Accordingly the time was fixed +(Kemp having no irons, and Grey having his so managed as to be +able to let them fall off when he pleased), and Potter and the +other three went again to the press-yard and rang the bell for +the turnkey to come and let them in. When he came and +unlocked the door Potter immediately knocked him down with a +horse-pistol, and cut him terribly; and Kemp and Grey made their +escape, while Potter and his companions got clear away without +being discovered. Three other prisoners at the same time +broke loose, but were immediately recaptured, having irons +on.</p> +<p><a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 70</span>All +these men were, in fact, originally smugglers, and had, from +being marked down as criminals for that offence, and from being +“wanted” by the law, found themselves obliged to keep +in hiding from their homes. In default of being able to +take part in other runs of smuggled goods, and finding themselves +unable to get employment, they were driven to other, and more +serious, crimes.</p> +<p>On April 4th of the same year four other members of the +terrible Hawkhurst Gang—Kingsmill, Fairall, Perrin, and +Glover by name—were together brought to trial at the Old +Bailey, charged with being concerned in the Poole affair, the +breaking open of the custom-house, and the stealing of goods +therefrom. They had been betrayed to the Government by the +same two ex-smugglers who had turned King’s evidence at the +Chichester trial, and their evidence again secured a +conviction. Glover, recommended by the jury to the royal +mercy, was eventually pardoned; but the remaining three were +hanged. Fairall behaved most insolently at the trial, and +even threatened one of the witnesses. Glover displayed +penitence; and Kingsmill and Perrin insisted that they had not +been guilty of any robbery, because the goods they had taken were +their own.</p> +<p>Kingsmill had been leader in the ferocious attack on Goudhurst +in April 1747, and was an extremely dangerous ruffian, ready for +any extremity.</p> +<p><a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 71</span>Fairall +was proved to be a particularly desperate fellow. Two years +earlier he had been apprehended, as a smuggler, in Sussex, and, +being brought before Mr. Butler, a magistrate, at Lewes, was +remitted by him for trial in London.</p> +<p>Brought under escort overnight to the New Prison in the +Borough, Fairall found means to make a dash from the custody of +his guards, and, leaping upon a horse that was standing in +Blackman Street, rode away and escaped, within sight of numerous +people.</p> +<p>Returning to the gang, who were reasonably surprised at his +safe return from the jaws of death, he was filled with an +unreasoning hatred of Mr. Butler, the justice who, in the +ordinary course of his duty, had committed him. He proposed +a complete and terrible revenge: firstly, by destroying all the +deer in his park, and all his trees, which was readily agreed to +by the gang; and then, since those measures were not extreme +enough for them, the idea was discussed of setting fire to his +house and burning him alive in it. Some of the +conspirators, however, thought this too extreme a step, and they +parted without coming to any decision. Fairall, Kingsmill, +and others, however, determined not to be baulked, then each +procured a brace of pistols, and waited for the magistrate, near +his own park wall, to shoot him when he returned home that night +from a journey to Horsham.</p> +<p>Fortunately for him, some accident kept him from returning, +and the party of would-be <a name="page72"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 72</span>assassins, tired of waiting, at last +said to one another, “Damn him, he will not come home +to-night! Let us be gone about our business.” +They then dispersed, swearing they would watch for a month +together, but they would have him; and that they would make an +example of all who should dare to obstruct them.</p> +<p>Perrin’s body was directed to be given to his friends, +instead of being hanged in chains, and he was pitying the +misfortunes of his two companions, who were not only, like +himself, to be hanged, but whose bodies were afterwards to be +gibbeted, when Fairall said, “<i>We</i> shall be hanging up +in the sweet air when <i>you</i> are rotting in your +grave.”</p> +<p>Fairall kept a bold front to the very last. The night +before the execution, he smoked continually with his friends, +until ordered by the warder to go to his cell; when he exclaimed, +“Why in such a hurry? Cannot you let me stay a little +longer with my friends? I shall not be able to drink with +them to-morrow night.”</p> +<p>But perhaps there was more self-pity in those apparently +careless words and in that indifferent demeanour than those +thought who heard them.</p> +<p>Kingsmill was but twenty-eight years of age, and Fairall +twenty-five, at the time of their execution, which took place at +Tyburn on April 26th, 1749. Fairall’s body was hanged +in chains on Horsenden Green, and that of Kingsmill on Goudhurst +Gore, appropriately near the frighted village whose inhabitants +he had <a name="page73"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +73</span>promised the vengeance of himself and his reckless +band.</p> +<p>When G. P. R. James wrote his romance, “The +Smuggler,” about the middle of the nineteenth century, +reminiscences of the smuggling age were yet fresh, and many an +one who had passed his youth and middle age in the art was still +in a hale and hearty eld, ready to tell wonderful stories of +bygone years. James therefore heard at first hand all the +ins and outs of this shy business; and although his story deals +with the exploits of the Ransley Gang (whom he styles +“Ramley”) of a much earlier period, the circumstances +of smuggling, and the conditions prevailing in Kent and Sussex, +remained much the same in the experiences of the elderly +ex-smugglers he met. What he has to say is therefore of +more than common value.</p> +<p>Scarcely any one of the maritime counties, he tells us, was +without its gang of smugglers; for if France was not opposite, +Holland was not far off; and if brandy was not the object, nor +silk, nor wine, yet tea and cinnamon, and hollands, and various +East India goods, were duly estimated by the British public, +especially when they could be obtained without the payment of +custom-house dues.</p> +<p>As there are land-sharks and water-sharks, so there were +land-smugglers and water-smugglers. The latter brought the +objects of their commerce either from foreign countries or from +foreign vessels, and landed them on the coast—and a <a +name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>bold, daring, +reckless body of men they were; the former, in gangs, consisting +frequently of many hundreds, generally well-mounted and armed, +conveyed the commodities so landed into the interior and +distributed them to others, who retailed them as occasion +required. Nor were these gentry one whit less fearless, +enterprising, and lawless than their brethren of the sea.</p> +<p>The ramifications of this vast and magnificent league extended +themselves to almost every class of society. Each tradesman +smuggled, or dealt in smuggled goods; each public-house was +supported by smugglers, and gave them in return every facility +possible; each country gentleman on the coast dabbled a little in +the interesting traffic; almost every magistrate shared in the +proceeds, or partook of the commodities. Scarcely a house +but had its place of concealment, which would accommodate either +kegs or bales, or human beings, as the case might be; and many +streets in seaport towns had private passages from one house to +another, so that the gentleman inquired for by the officers at +No. 1 was often walking quietly out of No. 20, while they were +searching for him in vain. The back of one street had +always excellent means of communication with the front of +another, and the gardens gave exit to the country with as little +delay as possible.</p> +<p>Of all counties, however, the most favoured by nature and art +for the very pleasant and exciting sport of smuggling was the +county of <a name="page75"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +75</span>Kent. Its geographical position, its local +features, its variety of coast, all afforded it the greatest +advantages, and the daring character of the natives on the shores +of the Channel was sure to turn those advantages to the purposes +in question. Sussex, indeed, was not without its share of +facilities, nor did the Sussex men fail to improve them; but they +were so much farther off from the opposite coast that the chief +commerce—the regular trade—was not in any degree at +Hastings, Rye, or Winchelsea to be compared with that carried on +from the North Foreland to Romney Hoy. At one time the fine +level of the Marsh, a dark night, and a fair wind, afforded a +delightful opportunity for landing a cargo and carrying it +rapidly into the interior; at another, Sandwich Flats and +Pevensey Bay presented harbours of refuge and places of repose +for kegs innumerable and bales of great value; at another, the +cliffs round Folkestone and near the South Foreland saw spirits +travelling up by paths which seemed inaccessible to mortal foot; +and at another, the wild and broken ground at the back of +Sandgate was traversed by long trains of horses, escorting or +carrying every description of contraband articles.</p> +<p>The interior of the county was not less favourable to the +traffic than the coast: large masses of wood, numerous +gentlemen’s parks, hills and dales tossed about in wild +confusion; roads such as nothing but horses could travel, or men +on foot, often constructed with felled <a name="page76"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 76</span>trees or broad stones laid side by +side; wide tracts of ground, partly copse and partly moor, called +in that county “minnises,” and a long extent of the +Weald of Kent, through which no highway existed, and where such a +thing as coach or carriage was never seen, offered the +land-smugglers opportunities of carrying on their transactions +with a degree of secrecy and safety no other county +afforded. Their numbers, too, were so great, their boldness +and violence so notorious, their powers of injuring or annoying +so various, that even those who took no part in their operations +were glad to connive at their proceedings, and at times to aid in +concealing their persons or their goods. Not a park, not a +wood, not a barn, that did not at some period afford them a +refuge when pursued, or become a depository for their +commodities, and many a man, on visiting his stables or his +cart-shed early in the morning, found it tenanted by anything but +horses or wagons. The churchyards were frequently crowded +at night by other spirits than those of the dead, and not even +the church was exempted from such visitations.</p> +<p>None of the people of the county took notice of, or opposed +these proceedings. The peasantry laughed at, or aided, and +very often got a good day’s work, or, at all events, a jug +of genuine hollands, from the friendly smugglers; the clerk and +the sexton willingly aided and abetted, and opened the door of +vault, or vestry, or church for the reception of the passing +goods; the clergyman <a name="page77"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 77</span>shut his eyes if he saw tubs or jars +in his way; and it is remarkable what good brandy-punch was +generally to be found at the house of the village pastor. +The magistrates of the county, when called upon to aid in pursuit +of the smugglers, looked grave and swore in constables very +slowly, dispatched servants on horseback to see what was going +on, and ordered the steward or the butler to “send the +sheep to the wood”: an intimation not lost upon those for +whom it was intended. The magistrates and officers of +seaport towns were in general so deeply implicated in the trade +themselves that smuggling had a fairer chance than the law, in +any case that came before them; and never was a more hopeless +enterprise undertaken, in ordinary circumstances, than that of +convicting a smuggler, unless captured <i>in flagrante +delicto</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p76.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“For our Parson”" +title= +"“For our Parson”" +src="images/p76.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +78</span>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Outrage at Hastings by the Ruxley +Gang</span>—<span class="smcap">Battle on the +Whitstable-Canterbury Road</span>—<span +class="smcap">Church-Towers as Smugglers’ +Cellars</span>—<span class="smcap">The Drummer of +Herstmonceux</span>—<span class="smcap">Epitaph at +Tandridge</span>—<span class="smcap">Deplorable Affair at +Hastings</span>—<span class="smcap">The Incident of +“The Four Brothers</span>”</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Sussex</span> was again the scene of a +barbarous incident, in 1768; and on this occasion seafaring men +were the malefactors.</p> +<p>It is still an article of faith with the writers of +guide-books who do not make their own inquiries, and thus +perpetuate obsolete things, that to call a Hastings fisherman a +“Chop-back” will rouse him to fury. But when a +modern visitor, primed with such romance as this, timidly +approaches one of these broad-shouldered and amply-paunched +fisherfolk and suggests “Chop-backs” as a subject of +inquiry, I give you my word they only look upon you with a +puzzled expression, and don’t understand in the least your +meaning.</p> +<p>But in an earlier generation this was a term of great offence +to the Hastingers. It arose, according to tradition, from +the supposed descent <a name="page79"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 79</span>of these fisherfolk from the Norse +rovers who used the axe, and cleaved their enemies with them from +skull to chine. But the true facts of the case are laid to +the account of some of the notorious Ruxley Gang, who in 1768 +boarded a Dutch hoy, the <i>Three Sisters</i>, in mid-channel, on +pretence of trading, and chopped the master, Peter Bootes, down +the back with a hatchet. This horrid deed might never have +come to light had not these ruffians betrayed themselves by +bragging to one another of their cleverness, and dwelling upon +the way in which the Dutchman wriggled when they had slashed him +on the backbone.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p78.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Chop-Backs" +title= +"The Chop-Backs" +src="images/p78.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The Government in November of that year sent a detachment of +two hundred Inniskilling Dragoons to Hastings, to arrest the men +implicated, and a man-o’-war and cutter lay off shore to +receive them when they had been taken prisoners. The +soldiers had strict orders to keep their mission secret, but the +day after their arrival they were called out to arrest rioters +who had violently assaulted the Mayor, whom they suspected of +laying information against the murderers. The secret of the +reason for the soldiers’ coming had evidently in some +manner leaked out. Several arrests of rioters were made, +and the men implicated in the outrage on the Dutch boat were duly +taken into custody.</p> +<p>The whole affair was so closely interwoven with smuggling that +it was by many suspected that the men who had been seized were +held for that offence as well; and persons in the higher <a +name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 80</span>walks of the +smuggling business, namely, those who financed it, and those +others who largely purchased the goods, grew seriously alarmed +for their own liberty. In the panic that thus laid hold of +the town a well-to-do shopkeeper absconded altogether.</p> +<p>Thirteen men were indicted in the Admiralty Court on October +30th, 1769, for piracy and murder on the high seas; namely, +Thomas Phillips, elder and younger, William and George Phillips, +Mark Chatfield, Robert Webb, Thomas and Samuel Ailsbury, James +and Richard Hyde, William Geary, <i>alias</i> Justice, +<i>alias</i> George Wood, Thomas Knight, and William Wenham, and +were capitally convicted. Of these, four, Thomas Ailsbury, +William Geary, William Wenham, and Richard Hyde, were hanged at +Execution Dock, November 27th.</p> +<p>The next most outstanding incident, a bloody affray which +occurred on February 26th, 1780, belongs to Kent.</p> +<p>As Mr. Joseph Nicholson, supervisor of excise, was removing to +Canterbury a large seizure of geneva he had made at Whitstable, a +numerous body of smugglers followed him and his escort of a +corporal and eight troopers of the 4th Dragoons. Fifty of +the smugglers had firearms, and, coming up with the escort, +opened fire without warning or demanding their goods. Two +Dragoons were killed on the spot, and two others dangerously +wounded. The smugglers then loaded up the goods and +disappeared. A reward of £100 was at <a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>once offered +by the Commissioners of Excise, with a pardon, for informers; and +Lieutenant-Colonel Hugonin, of the 4th Dragoons, offered another +£50. John Knight, of Whitstable, was shortly +afterwards arrested, on information received, and was tried and +convicted at Maidstone Assizes. He was hanged on Penenden +Heath and his body afterwards gibbeted on Borstal Hill, the spot +where the attack had been made.</p> +<p>The south held unquestioned pre-eminence, as long as smuggling +activities lasted, and the records of bloodshed and hard-fought +encounters are fullest along the coasts of Kent and Sussex. +Sometimes, but not often, they are varied by a touch of +humour.</p> +<p>The convenience afforded by churches for the storing of +smuggled goods is a commonplace of the history of smuggling; and +there is scarce a seaboard church of which some like tale is not +told, while not a few inland church-towers and churchyards enjoy +the same reputation. Asked to account for this almost +universal choice of a hiding-place by the smugglers, a parish +clerk of that age supposed, truly enough, that it was because no +one was ever likely to go near a church, except on Sundays. +This casts an instructive side-light upon the Church of England +and religion at any time from two hundred to seventy or eighty +years ago.</p> +<p>But a tale of more than common humour was told of the old +church at Hove, near Brighton, many years ago. It seems +that this ancient <a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +82</span>building had been greatly injured by fire in the middle +of the seventeenth century, but that the population was so small +and so little disposed to increase that a mere patching up of the +ruins was sufficient for local needs. Moreover, the +spiritual needs of the place were considered to be so small that +Hove and Preston parishes were ecclesiastically united, and were +served by one clergyman, who conducted service at each parish +church on alternate Sundays. At a later period, indeed, +Hove church was used only once in six weeks.</p> +<p>But in the alternate Sunday period the smugglers of this then +lonely shore found the half-ruined church of Hove peculiarly +useful for their trade; hence the following story.</p> +<p>One “Hove Sunday” the vicar, duly robed, appeared +here to take the duty, and found, greatly to his surprise, that +no bell was ringing to call the faithful to worship. +“Why is the bell not ringing?” demanded the +vicar.</p> +<p>“Preston Sunday, sir,” returned the sexton +shortly.</p> +<p>“No, no,” replied the vicar.</p> +<p>“Indeed, then, sir, ’tis.”</p> +<p>But the vicar was not to be argued out of his own plain +conviction that he had taken Preston last Sunday, and desired the +sexton to start the bell-ringing at once.</p> +<p>“’Taint no good, then, sir,” said the +sexton, beaten back into his last ditch of defence; “you +can’t preach to-day.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p82.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Drummer of Herstmonceux" +title= +"The Drummer of Herstmonceux" +src="images/p82.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +83</span>“<i>Can’t</i>, fellow?” angrily +responded the vicar; “what do you mean by +‘can’t’?”</p> +<p>“Well, then, sir,” said the sexton, “if you +must know, the church is full of tubs, and the pulpit’s +full of tea.”</p> +<p>An especially impudent smuggling incident was reported from +Hove on Sunday, October 16th, 1819, in the following words:</p> +<p>“A suspected smuggling boat being seen off Hove by some +of the custom-house officers, they, with two of the crew of the +<i>Hound</i> revenue cutter, gave chase in a galley. On +coming up with the boat their suspicions were confirmed, and they +at once boarded her; but while intent on securing their prize, +nine of the smugglers leapt into the <i>Hound’s</i> galley +and escaped. Landing at Hove, seven of them got away at +once, two being taken prisoners by some officers who were waiting +for them. Upon this a large company of smugglers assembled, +at once commenced a desperate attack upon the officers, and, +having overpowered them, assaulted them with stones and large +sticks, knocked them down, and cut the belts of the chief +officer’s arms, which they took away, and thereby enabled +the two prisoners to escape.”</p> +<p>A reward of £200 was offered, but without result. +The cargo of the smugglers consisted of 225 tubs of gin, 52 tubs +of brandy, and one bag of tobacco.</p> +<p>Many of the ghost-stories of a hundred years and more ago +originated in the smugglers’ <a name="page84"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 84</span>midnight escapades. It was, of +course, entirely to their advantage that superstitious people who +heard unaccountable sounds and saw indescribable sights should go +off with the notion that supernatural beings were about, and +resolve thenceforward to go those haunted ways no more. The +mysterious “ghostly drummer” of Herstmonceux, who was +often heard and seen by terrified rustics whose way led them past +the ruined castle at night, was a confederate of the Hastings and +Eastbourne smugglers, to whom those roofless walls and the hoary +tombs of the adjoining churchyard were valuable +storehouses. Rubbed with a little phosphorus, and parading +those spots once in a way with his drum, they soon became +shunned. The tombstones in Herstmonceux churchyard, mostly +of the kind known as “altar-tombs,” had slabs which +the smugglers easily made to turn on swivels; and from them +issued at times spirits indeed, but not such as would frighten +many men. The haunted character of Herstmonceux ceased with +the establishment of the coastguard in 1831, and the drummer was +heard to drum no more.</p> +<p>The churchyards of the Sussex coast and its neighbourhood +still bear witness to the fatal affrays between excisemen and +smugglers that marked those times; and even far inland may be +found epitaphs on those who fell, breathing curses and Divine +vengeance on the persons who brought them to an untimely +end. Thus at Tandridge, Surrey, near Godstone, may be seen +a tall <a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>tombstone beside the south porch of the church, to one +Thomas Todman, aged thirty-one years, who was shot dead in a +smuggling affray in 1781. Here follow the lamentable +verses, oddities of grammar, spelling, and punctuation duly +preserved:</p> +<blockquote><p>Thou Shall do no Murder, nor Shalt thou Steal<br +/> +are the Commands Jehovah did Reveal<br /> +but thou O Wretch, Without fear or dread<br /> +of Thy Tremendous Maker Shot me dead<br /> +Amidst my strength my sins forgive<br /> +As I through Boundless Mercy<br /> +hope to live.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The prudery of some conscientious objector to the word +“wretch” has caused it to be almost obliterated.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p84.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Tandridge church" +title= +"Tandridge church" +src="images/p84.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>At Patcham, near Brighton, the weatherworn epitaph on the +north side of the church to Daniel Scales may still with +difficulty be deciphered:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Sacred to the memory of +<span class="smcap">Daniel Scales</span><br /> +who was unfortunately shot on Thursday evening,<br /> +November 7th 1796</p> +<p>Alas! swift flew the fatal lead,<br /> +Which piercèd through the young man’s head<br /> +He instant fell, resigned his breath,<br /> +And closed his languid eyes in death.<br /> +All you who do this stone draw near,<br /> +Oh! pray let fall the pitying tear.<br /> +From this sad instance may we all,<br /> +Prepare to meet Jehovah’s call.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Daniel Scales was one of a desperate smuggling gang, who had +had many narrow escapes, but was at last shot through the +head.</p> +<p><a name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>Again, +at Westfield, Sussex, not far from Rye, may be found an old +stone, rapidly going to decay, bearing some lines to the memory +of a smuggler named Moon:</p> +<blockquote><p>“In Memory of John Moon, who was deprived of +life by a base man, on the 20th of June 1809, in the 28th year of +his age.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">’Tis mine to-day to moulder +in the earth. . . .”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The rest is not now readable.</p> +<p>Among the many tragical incidents of the smuggling era was the +affray aboard a fishing-smack off Hastings in March 1821, in +which a fisherman named Joseph Swain, supposed by the blockading +officers of the preventive force to be a smuggler, was +killed. Fishing-boats and their crews were, as a matter of +course, searched by these officials; but the boat boarded by them +on this occasion belonged to Swain, who denied having any +contraband goods aboard and refused to permit the search. +So strenuous a refusal as Swain offered would seem, in those +times, of itself sufficient evidence of the presence of smuggled +articles, and the boarders persisted. A sailor among them, +George England by name, pressed forward to the attack, and Swain +seized his cutlass and tore it out of his hand; whereupon England +drew a pistol and fired at Swain, who instantly fell dead.</p> +<p>An epitaph in the churchyard of All Saints, Hastings, bears +witness to this incident:</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p86.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Tombstone at Tandridge" +title= +"Tombstone at Tandridge" +src="images/p86.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>This Stone<br +/> +Sacred to the memory of<br /> +<span class="smcap">Joseph Swain</span>, Fisherman<br /> +was erected at the expence of<br /> +the members of the friendly<br /> +Society of Hastings</p> +<p>in commiseration of his cruel and<br /> +untimely death and as a record of<br /> +the public indignation at the need-<br /> +lefs and sanguinary violence of<br /> +which he was the unoffending Victim<br /> +He was shot by Geo. England, one<br /> +of the Sailors employ’d in the Coast<br /> +blockade service in open day on the<br /> +13th March 1821 and almost instantly<br /> +expir’d, in the twenty ninth Year of<br /> +his age, leaving a Widow and five<br /> +small children to lament his lofs.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>England was subsequently put on his trial for wilful murder at +Horsham, and was sentenced to death, but afterwards pardoned.</p> +<p>In short, in one way and another, much good blood and a great +quantity of the most excellent spirits were spilt and let run to +waste, along the coasts.</p> +<p>The affair of the <i>Badger</i> revenue cutter and the <i>Vre +Brodiers</i>, or <i>Four Brothers</i>, smuggling lugger was the +next exciting event. It happened on January 13th, 1823, and +attracted a great deal of attention at the time, not only on +account of the severe encounter at sea, but from the subsequent +trial of the crew of the smuggler. The <i>Four Brothers</i> +was a Folkestone boat, and her crew of twenty-six were chiefly +Folkestone men. She was a considerable vessel, having once +been a <a name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +88</span>French privateer, and was, as a privateer had need to +be, a smart, easily handled craft, capable of giving the go-by to +most other vessels. She carried four six-pound +carronades. In constant commission, her crew pouched a +pound a week wages, with an additional ten guineas for each +successful run.</p> +<p>On January 12th, of this momentous voyage, she sailed from +Flushing with over one hundred tons of leaf-tobacco aboard, +snugly packed for convenience of carriage in bales of 60 lb., and +carried also a small consignment of brandy and gin, contained in +50 half-ankers, and 13 chests of tea—all destined for the +south of Ireland. Ship and cargo were worth some +£11,000; so it is sufficiently evident that her owners were +in a considerable way of business of the contraband kind.</p> +<p>At daybreak on the morning of January 13th, when off Dieppe +and sailing very slowly, in a light wind, the crew of the <i>Four +Brothers</i> found themselves almost upon what they at first took +to be French fishing-boats, and held unsuspiciously on her +course. Suddenly, however, one of them ran a flag smartly +up her halliards and fired a gun across the bows of the <i>Four +Brothers</i>, as a signal to bring her to. It was the +revenue cutter <i>Badger</i>.</p> +<p>Unfortunately for the smuggler, she was carrying a newly +stepped mainmast, and under small sail only, and accordingly, in +disobeying the summons and attempting to get away, she was +speedily outsailed.</p> +<p><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>The +smuggler, unable to get away, hoisted the Dutch colours and +opened the fight that took place by firing upon the +<i>Badger</i>, which immediately returned it. For two hours +this exchange of shots was maintained. Early in the +encounter William Cullum, seaman, was killed aboard the +<i>Badger</i>, and Lieutenant Nazer, in command, received a shot +from a musket in the left shoulder. One man of the <i>Four +Brothers</i> was killed outright, and nine wounded, but the fight +would have continued had not the <i>Badger</i> sailed into the +starboard quarter of the smuggler, driving her bowsprit clean +through her adversary’s mainsail. Even then the +smuggler’s crew endeavoured to fire one of her guns, but +failed.</p> +<p>The commander of the <i>Badger</i> thereupon called upon the +<i>Four Brothers</i> to surrender; or, according to his own +version, the smugglers themselves called for quarter; and the +mate and some of the cutter’s men went in a boat and +received their submission, and sent them prisoners aboard the +<i>Badger</i>. The smugglers claimed that they had +surrendered only on condition that they should have their boats +and personal belongings and be allowed to go ashore; but it seems +scarce likely the Lieutenant could have promised so much. +The <i>Four Brothers</i> was then taken into Dover Harbour and +her crew sent aboard the <i>Severn</i> man-o’-war and kept +in irons in the cockpit. Three of her wounded died +there. The others, after a short interval, were again put +aboard the <i>Badger</i> and taken up the Thames to <a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>imprisonment +on the Tower tender for a further three or four days. +Thence they were removed, all handcuffed and chained, in a barge +and committed to the King’s Bench Prison. At Bow +Street, on the following day, they were all formally committed +for trial, and then remitted to the King’s Bench Prison for +eleven weeks, before the case came on.</p> +<p>On Friday, April 25th, 1823, the twenty-two prisoners were +arraigned in the High Court of Admiralty; Marinel Krans, master +of the <i>Four Brothers</i>, and his crew, nearly all of whom +bore Dutch names, being charged with wilfully and feloniously +firing on the revenue cutter <i>Badger</i>, on January 13th, +1823, on the high seas, about eight miles off Dungeness, within +the jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty of England.</p> +<p>Mr. Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, defended, the defence +being that the <i>Four Brothers</i> was a Dutch vessel, owned at +Flushing, and her crew Dutchmen. A great deal of very hard +swearing went towards this ingenious defence, for the crew, it is +hardly necessary to say, were almost all English. At least +one witness for the prosecution was afraid to appear in +consequence of threats made by prisoners’ friends, and an +affidavit was put in to that effect. It appeared, in the +evidence given by the commander of the <i>Badger</i> and other +witnesses for the prosecution, that the prisoners all spoke +excellent English at the time of the capture, and afterwards; but +they, singularly enough, understood little or none <a +name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>when in +court, and had to be communicated with through the agency of an +interpreter.</p> +<p>In summing up, Mr. Justice Parke said the crime for which the +prisoners were tried was not murder, but was a capital +offence. Two things, if found by the jury, would suffice to +acquit the prisoners. The first was that no part of the +vessel which they navigated belonged to any subject of His +Majesty; the other that one half of the crew were not His +Majesty’s subjects. For if neither of these facts +existed, His Majesty’s ship had no right to fire at their +vessel. But if the jury believed that any part of the +vessel was British property, or that one half of her crew were +British subjects, then His Majesty’s ship <i>Badger</i>, +under the circumstances that had been proved, being on her duty, +and having her proper colours flying, was justified in boarding +their vessel; and their making resistance by firing at the +<i>Badger</i> was a capital offence. The reason for the +evidence respecting the distance of the vessels from the French +coast being given was that, by the law of nations, ships of war +were not, in time of peace, permitted to molest any vessel within +one league of the coast of any other power.</p> +<p>The jury, after deliberating for two hours, returned a verdict +of “Not Guilty” for all the prisoners, finding that +the ship and cargo were wholly foreign property, and that more +than one half the crew were foreigners. They were, +accordingly, at once liberated, and returned to <a +name="page92"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 92</span>Folkestone in +midst of great popular rejoicings. The <i>Four Brothers</i> +was also released, and the commander of the <i>Badger</i> had the +mortification of being obliged to escort her out of Dover +harbour.</p> +<p>Dover town was, about this time, the scene of stirring +events. One Lieutenant Lilburn, in command of a revenue +cutter, had captured a smuggler, and had placed the crew in Dover +gaol. As they had not offered armed resistance to the +capture, their offence was not capital, but they were liable to +service on board a man-o’-war—a fate they were most +anxious to avoid. These imprisoned men were largely natives +of Folkestone and Sandgate, and their relatives determined to +march over the ten miles between those places and Dover, and, if +possible, liberate them. When they arrived in Dover, and +their intention became known, a crowd of fisherfolk and longshore +people swarmed out of the Dover alley-ways and reinforced +them. Prominent among them were the women, who, as ever in +cases of popular tumult, proved themselves the most violent and +destructive among the mob. Nothing less than the +destruction of the gaol was decided upon, and the more active +spirits, leaving others to batter in the walls, doors, and +windows, climbed upon the roof, and from that vantage-point +showered bricks and tiles upon the Mayor and the soldiers who had +been called out. The Mayor, beset with tooth and claw by +screeching women, who tore the Riot Act out of his hand, fled, +and Lieutenant Lilburn exhorted the officer <a +name="page93"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 93</span>in charge of +the military to fire upon the crowd, but he declined; and +meanwhile the tradespeople and respectable inhabitants busied +themselves in barricading their shops and houses.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p92.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“Run the Rascals through!”" +title= +"“Run the Rascals through!”" +src="images/p92.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The prisoners were triumphantly liberated, taken to a +blacksmith’s, where their irons were knocked off, and then +driven off in post chaises to Folkestone, whence they dispersed +to their several hiding-places.</p> +<p>Romney was, about this time, the scene of another desperate +affair, when an attempted seizure of contraband brought all the +smugglers’ friends and relations out, in violent contest +with the excise and a small party of marines in command of which +was one Lieutenant Peat. A magistrate was sent for, who, +amid a shower of stones, read the Riot Act. The Lieutenant +hesitated to resort to extreme force, but one of the smugglers +was eventually killed by him, in response to the +magistrate’s order, in respect of one of the most violent +of the crowd: Secure your prisoner, sir. Run the rascal +through!</p> +<h2><a name="page94"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +94</span>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Fatal Affrays and Daring Encounters at Rye</span>, +<span class="smcap">Dymchurch</span>, <span +class="smcap">Eastbourne</span>, <span +class="smcap">Bo-Peep</span>, <span class="smcap">and +Fairlight</span>—<span class="smcap">The Smugglers’ +Route from Shoreham and Worthing into Surrey</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Miller’s Tomb-Langston +Harbour</span>—<span class="smcap">Bedhampton +Mill</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> ’twenties of the +nineteenth century formed a period especially rich in smuggling +incidents, or perhaps seem so to do, because, with the growth of +country newspapers, they were more fully reported, instead of +being left merely the subject of local legend.</p> +<p>A desperate affray took place in Rye Harbour so late as May +1826, when a ten-oared smuggling galley, chased by a revenue +guard-boat, ran ashore. The smugglers, abandoning their +oars, opened fire upon the guard, but the blockade-men from the +watch-house at Camber then arrived upon the scene and seized one +of the smugglers; whereupon a gang of not fewer than two hundred +armed smugglers, who had until that moment been acting as a +concealed reserve, rushed violently from behind the sandhills, +and commenced firing on the blockade-men, killing <a +name="page95"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 95</span>one and +wounding another. They were, however, ultimately driven +off, with the capture of their galley, but managed to carry off +their wounded.</p> +<p>On another occasion, four or five smugglers were drowned +whilst swimming the Military Canal, with tubs slung on their +backs, at a point on Pett Level called “Pett +Horse-race.” They had, in the dark, missed the spot +where it was fordable. Romney Marsh, and the wide-spreading +levels of Pett, Camber, Guilford, and Dunge Marsh had—as we +have already seen, in the account of the owlers given in earlier +pages—ever been the smugglers’ Alsatia.</p> +<p>The Rev. Richard Harris Barham, author of the “Ingoldsby +Legends,” has placed upon record some of his meetings with +smugglers in “this recondite region,” as he was +pleased to style it; and his son, in the life he wrote of his +father, adds to them. Barham, ordained in 1813, and given +the curacy of Westwell, near Ashford, had not long to wait before +being brought into touch with the lawless doings here. One +of the desperate smugglers of the Marsh had been shot through the +body in an encounter with the riding-officers, and fatally +wounded. As he lay dying, Barham was brought to convey to +him the last consolations of religion, and was startled when the +smuggler declared there was no crime of which he had not been +guilty.</p> +<p>“Murder is not to be reckoned among them, I hope,” +exclaimed the not easily shocked clergyman.</p> +<p><a name="page96"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +96</span>“Too many of them!” was the startling +response of the dying man.</p> +<p>In 1817 Barham was collated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to +the adjoining livings of Warehorne and Snargate, the first-named +situated on the verge of the marsh; the second situated, moist +and forbidding, in the marsh itself. The winding road +between these two villages crossed the then newly made Royal +Military Canal by a bridge. Often, as the clergyman was +returning, late at night, to his comfortable parsonage at +Warehorne, he was met and stopped by some mysterious horsemen; +but when he mentioned his name he was invariably allowed to +proceed, and, as he did so, a long and silent company of mounted +smugglers defiled past, each man with his led horse laden with +tubs. The grey tower of Snargate church he frequently +found, by the aroma of tobacco it often exhaled, instead of its +customary and natural mustiness, to have been recently used as a +store for smuggled bales of that highly taxed article.</p> +<p>The <i>Cinque Ports Herald</i> of 1826 records the landing on +a night in May, or in the early hours of the morning, of a +considerable cargo of contraband hereabouts:</p> +<blockquote><p>“A large party of smugglers had assembled in +the neighbourhood of Dymchurch, and a boat laden (as is supposed) +with tubs of spirits, being observed to approach the shore nearly +opposite to Dymchurch, the smugglers instantly commenced +cheering, and rushed upon the coast, <a name="page97"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 97</span>threatening defiance to the sentinels +of the blockade; who, perceiving such an overwhelming force, gave +the alarm, when a party of marines, coming to their assistance, a +general firing took place. The smugglers retreated into the +marshes, followed by the blockade-men, and, from their knowledge +of the ground, were indebted for their ultimate escape. We +regret to state two of the blockade seamen were wounded; one +severely in the arm, which must cause amputation, and the other +in the face, by slug shots. There can be no doubt but that +some of the smugglers must have been wounded, if not +killed. One of their muskets was picked up +loaded—abandoned, no doubt, by the bearer of it, on account +of wounds. The boat, with her cargo, was obliged to put to +sea again, without effecting a landing, and, notwithstanding the +vigilance of Lieutenants Westbrook, Mudge, and McLeod, who were +afloat in their galleys on the spot, from the darkness of the +night, effected its escape. We have also heard that a run +of five hundred tubs took place on the Sussex coast last week, +not far from Hastings, the smugglers losing only eleven +tubs. This was also effected by force, and with such a +superiority in number that they completely overpowered the +blockade force.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p96.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Barham meets the Smugglers" +title= +"Barham meets the Smugglers" +src="images/p96.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The <i>Brighton Gazette</i>, of a few days later, contained +the following:</p> +<blockquote><p>“We have been favoured with some particulars +of another recent attempt to work contraband goods a few miles +eastward of Eastbourne, <a name="page98"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 98</span>when it appears the coast blockade +succeeded in taking a large boat and upwards of two hundred +tubs. We are sorry to add much mischief has occurred, as on +the following morning blood was observed near the spot. Two +men, it is said, belonging to the boat are taken prisoners, and +two of the blockade are reported to be much bruised and beaten, +and it is also suspected some of the smugglers are seriously, if +not mortally, wounded. The blockade in this instance +behaved in the most humane manner, having received a regular +volley from their opponents before their officers gave directions +for them to fire. We have just heard that five smugglers +were killed in the affray.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On a Sunday night towards the end of July 1826, during a run +of smuggled goods at Dover, the smugglers shot dead a seaman of +the preventive force named Morgan, for which no one was ever +convicted.</p> +<p>A determined and blood-stained struggle took place at Bo-Peep +at midnight of January 3rd, 1828. Bo-Peep was the name of a +desolate spot situated midway between Hastings and Bexhill. +The place is the same as that westernmost extension of St. +Leonards now known by the eminently respectable—not to say +imposing—name of “West Marina”; but in those +times it was a shore, not indeed lonely (better for its +reputation had it been so) but marked by an evil-looking inn, to +which were attached still more evil-looking “Pleasure +Gardens.” If throats were not, in fact, <a +name="page99"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 99</span>commonly cut +in those times at Bo-Beep, the inn and its deplorable +“Pleasure Gardens” certainly looked no fit, or safe, +resort for any innocent young man with a pocketful of money +jingling as he walked.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p98.jpg"> +<img alt= +"A Landing at Bo-Peep" +title= +"A Landing at Bo-Peep" +src="images/p98.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>On this occasion a lugger came in view off shore, when a party +of smugglers armed, as usual, with “bats,” +<i>i.e.</i> stout ash-poles, some six feet in length, rushed to +the beach, landed the cargo, and made off with it, by various +means, inland a distance of some three miles to Sidley +Green. Here the coast blockade-men, some forty in number, +came up with them.</p> +<p>The smugglers drew up in regular line-formation, and a +desperate fight resulted. The smugglers fought with such +determination and courage that the blockade-men were repulsed and +one, Quartermaster Collins, killed. In the first volley +fired by the blockade an old smuggler named Smithurst was killed; +his body was found next morning, with his “bat” still +grasped in his hands, the stout staff almost hacked to pieces by +the cutlasses and bayonets of the blockade-men.</p> +<p>At the Spring Assizes held at Horsham, Spencer Whiteman, of +Udimore, Thomas Miller, Henry Miller, John Spray, Edward +Shoesmith, William Bennett, John Ford, and Stephen Stubberfield +were indicted for assembling, armed, for purposes of smuggling, +and were removed for trial to the Old Bailey, where, on April +10th, they all pleaded guilty; as did Whiteman, Thomas Miller, +Spray, Bennett, and Ford, together with <a +name="page100"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 100</span>Thomas +Maynard and William Plumb, for a like offence on January 23rd, +1828, at Eastbourne. Sentence of death was passed on all, +but was commuted to transportation. With three exceptions, +they were young men, under thirty years of age.</p> +<p>Again, in broad daylight, in 1828, a lugger landed a heavy +cargo of kegs on the open beach at Bo-Peep. No fewer than +three hundred rustic labourers, who had been hired by the job, in +the usual course, by the smugglers bold, assembled on the beach, +and formed up two lines of guards while the landing of the tubs, +and their loading into carts, on horses, or on men’s +shoulders, was proceeding. If the preventive officers knew +anything of what was toward that busy day they did not, at any +rate, interfere; and small blame to them for the very elementary +discretion they displayed. They had, as already shown, been +too seriously mauled at an earlier date for them to push matters +again to extremity.</p> +<p>On January 3rd, 1831, in Fairlight Glen, two miles east of +Hastings, two smugglers, William Cruttenden and Joseph Harrod, +were shot dead, and on February 22nd, 1832, at Worthing, when +between two and three hundred smugglers had assembled on the +beach, William Cowardson was shot dead, and several others were +carried away wounded.</p> +<p>Still the tale was continued, for during a landing on January +23rd, 1833, at Eastbourne, the smugglers, who had assembled in +large numbers, <a name="page101"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +101</span>killed George Pett, chief boatman of the local +preventive station, and ran their cargo safely. Several of +both sides were wounded on this occasion, but no one among the +smugglers was ever arrested.</p> +<p>The last fatal happening in this way along the Sussex coast +appears to have been in the marshes at Camber Castle, on April +1st, 1838, when a poor fiddler of Winchelsea, named Thomas Monk, +was shot in the course of a dispute over run goods, by the +coastguard.</p> +<p>But we may quite easily have a surfeit of these brutal +affrays, and it is better to dwell on a lighter note, to +contemplate the audacity, and to admire the ingenuity and the +resource often displayed by the smugglers in concealing their +movements.</p> +<p>To especially single out any particular line of coast for +pre-eminence in smuggling would be impossible. When every +one smuggled, and every one else—owing to that +well-understood human foible of buying in the cheapest +market—supported smuggling by purchasing smuggled goods, +every foreshore that did not actually present physical +difficulties, or that was not exceptionally under excise and +customs surveillance, was a free port, in a very special +signification. The thickly peopled coast-line of Kent, +Sussex, and Hampshire of our own time was then sparsely +populated, and those shores that are now but thinly settled were +in that age the merest aching wildernesses, where not only towns, +but even villages and hamlets, were few and far apart. A +coast-line such as <a name="page102"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +102</span>that at Brighton would seem to us to present certain +obvious difficulties to the smuggler, but close at hand was the +low-lying land of Shoreham, with its lagoon-like harbour, a very +shy, secretive kind of place, to this day; while away to +Worthing, and beyond it, stretched a waste of shingle-beach, +running up to solitary pasture-lands that reached to the foot of +the noble rampart of the South Downs. On these shores the +free-traders landed their illegal imports with little +interference, and their shore-going allies received the goods and +took them inland, to London or to their intermediate storehouses +in the country-side, very much at their leisure. Avoiding +the much-travelled high-roads, and traversing the chalk-downs by +unfrequented bridle-tracks, they went across the level Weald and +past the Surrey border into that still lonely district running +east and west for many miles, on the line of Leith Hill, Ewhurst, +and Hindhead. There, along those wooded heights, whose +solitary ways still astonish, with their remote aspect, the +Londoner who by any chance comes to them, although but from +thirty to thirty-five miles from the Bank of England in the City +of London, you may still track, amid the pine-trees on the +shoulders of the gorsy hills, or among the oaks that grow so +luxuriantly in the Wealden clay, the “soft roads,” as +the country folk call them, along which the smugglers, +unmolested, carried their merchandise. On Ewhurst Hill +stands a windmill, to which in those times the smugglers’ +ways converged; and <a name="page103"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 103</span>near by, boldly perched on a height, +along the sylvan road that leads from Shere to Ewhurst village, +stood the “Windmill,” once the “New” inn, +which had a double roof, utilised as a storehouse for clandestine +kegs. A “Windmill” inn stands on the spot +to-day, but it is a new building, the old house having +unfortunately been burned down some two years since. +Surveying the country from this spot, you have, on the one hand, +almost precipitous hill-peaks, gorsy to their summits, and on the +other a lovely dale, deeply embosomed in woods. The +sub-soil here is a soft yellow sandstone, streaked with white +sand, breaking out along the often hollow paths into miniature +cliffs, in which the smugglers and their allies were not slow to +scoop caverns and store part of their stock. We have +already learnt how terrible these men could be to those who +informed against them or made away with any of their property, +and by direct consequence the goods thus stored were generally +safe, either from the authorities or from the rustics, who had a +very wholesome and well-founded dread of the smuggling +bands. But they had a way of their own of letting these +justly dreaded folk see that their stores were evident to some, +and that silence was supposed to have a certain market +value. Their way was just a delicate hint, which consisted +in marking a tub or two with a chalk cross; and, sure enough, +when the stock was removed, those chalk-marked tubs were left +behind, with possibly, if the country-folk had been modest and +the <a name="page104"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +104</span>smugglers were generous, a few others to keep them +company.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p102.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Smuggler’s tracks near Ewhurst" +title= +"Smuggler’s tracks near Ewhurst" +src="images/p102.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>An old brick-and-tile-hung farm, down below Ewhurst Hill, +older than it looks, known as Barhatch, was in those times in +possession of the Ticknor family; and still, in what was the old +living-room, may be seen the inglenook, with its iron crane, +marked “John Ticknor, 1755.” The Barhatch woods +were often used by smugglers, and the Ticknors never had any +occasion to purchase spirits, because, at not infrequent +intervals, when the household arose, and the front door was +opened in the morning, a keg would be found deposited on the +steps: a complimentary keg, for the use of the Ticknor property +and the discretion of the Ticknor tongue.</p> +<p>One of the choicest landing-places along the Sussex coast must +undoubtedly have been just westward of Worthing, by Goring, where +the shore is yet secluded, and is even now not readily come at by +good roads. In a line with it is Highdown Hill, a rounded +hump of the Downs, rising to a height of two hundred and +ninety-nine feet, two miles inland; a spot famed in all guidebook +lore of this neighbourhood as the site of the +“Miller’s Tomb.” This miller, whose real +business of grinding corn seems to have been supplemented by +participation in the stern joys of illegal importation, was one +John Olliver. His mill was situated on this hill-top: a +very remote spot, even now, arrived at only along lanes in which +mud and water plentifully await the explorer’s <a +name="page105"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 105</span>cautious +foot, and where brambles and intrudant twigs, currycomb his +whiskers, if he have such.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p104.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Miller’s Tomb" +title= +"The Miller’s Tomb" +src="images/p104.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>John Olliver, miller, was an eighteenth-century eccentric, +whose morbid fancy for having his coffin made early in life, and +wheeled under his bed every night, was not satisfied until he had +also built himself a tomb on the hill-top, on a twelve-foot +square plot of ground granted him by the landowner, one W. W. +Richardson, in 1766: a tomb on which he could with satisfaction +look every day. Yet he was not the dull, dispirited man one +might for these things suppose; and Pennant, in his <i>Tour in +Sussex</i>, is found saying, “I am told he is a stout, +active, cheerful man.” And then comes this +significant passage. “Besides his proper trade he +carries on a very considerable one in smuggled +goods.” Let us pause a moment to reflect upon the +impudent public manner in which John Olliver must have carried on +his smuggling activities. To this impudence he added also +figures on his house-top, representing a miller filling a sack +and a smuggler chased by an exciseman with a drawn sword; after +the exciseman coming a woman with a broom, belabouring him about +the head. The tomb the miller had built for eventual +occupation by his body was in the meanwhile generally occupied by +spirits—not the spirits of the dead, but such <i>eaux de +vie</i> as hollands and cognac; and he himself was not laid here +for many years, for he lived to be eighty-four years of age, and +died in 1793. He had long been widely known as an +eccentric, <a name="page106"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +106</span>and thousands came to his funeral on the unconsecrated +spot. Here the tomb, of the altar-tomb type, stands to this +day, kept in excellent repair, and the lengthy inscriptions +repainted; at whose costs and charges I know not. A small +grove of trees almost entirely encircles it. At one end is +a gruesome little sculpture representing Death, as a skeleton, +laying a hand upon an affrighted person, and asking him, +“Whither away so fast?” and at the other end are the +following lines:</p> +<blockquote><p>Why fhould my fancy anyone offend<br /> +Whofe good or ill does not on it depend<br /> +(A generous gift) on which my Tomb doth ftand<br /> +This is the only fpot that I have chofe<br /> +Wherein to take my lafting long repofe<br /> +Here in the drift my body lieth down<br /> +You’ll fay it is not confecrated ground,<br /> +I grant y<sup>e</sup> fame; but where shall we e’er find<br +/> +The fpot that e’er can purify the mind?<br /> +Nor to the body any luftre give.<br /> +This more depends on what a life we live<br /> +For when y<sup>e</sup> trumpet fhall begin to found<br /> +’Twill not avail where’er y<sup>e</sup> Body’s +found.<br /> +Blefsed are they and all who in the Lord the Saviour die<br /> +Their bodief wait Redemption day,<br /> +And fleep in peace where’er they lay.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>On the upper slab are a number of texts and highly moral +reflections.</p> +<p>As for the Selsey Peninsula, and the district of flat lands +and oozy creeks south of Chichester and on to Portsmouth, Nature +would seem almost to have constructed the entire surroundings +with the especial objects of securing the smugglers and <a +name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 107</span>confounding +the customs. Here Sussex merges into Hampshire.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p106.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Langston Harbour" +title= +"Langston Harbour" +src="images/p106.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Among the many smuggling nooks along the Hampshire coast, +Langston Harbour was prominent, forming, as it does, an almost +landlocked lagoon, with creeks ramifying toward Portsea Island on +one side and Hayling Island on the other. There still +stands on a quay by the waterside at Langston the old +“Royal Oak” inn, which was a favourite +gathering-place of the “free-traders” of these parts, +neighboured by a ruined windmill of romantic aspect, to which no +stories particularly attach, but whose lowering, secretive +appearance aptly accentuates the queer reputation of the +spot.</p> +<p>The reputation of Langston Harbour was such that an ancient +disused brig, the <i>Griper</i>, was permanently stationed here, +with the coastguard housed aboard, to keep watch upon the very +questionable goings and comings of the sailor-folk and fishermen +of the locality. And not only these watery folk needed +watching, but also the people of Havant and the oyster-fishers of +Emsworth. Here, too, just outside Havant, at the village of +Bedhampton, upon the very margin of the mud, stands an +eighteenth-century mill. It would have been profitable for +the coastguard to keep an eye upon this huge old corn-milling +establishment, if the legends be at all true that are told of +it. A little stream, issuant from the Forest of Bere, at +this point runs briskly into the creek, after having been penned +up and made <a name="page108"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +108</span>to form a mill-leat. It runs firstly, moat-like, +in front of a charming old house, formerly the miller’s +residence, and then to the great waterwheel, and the mill itself, +a tall, four-square building of red brick, not at all beautiful, +but with a certain air of reserve all the more apparent, of +course, because it is now deserted, bolted, and barred: steam +flour-mills of more modern construction having, it may be +supposed, successfully competed with its antiquated ways. +But at no time, if we are to believe local legend, did Bedhampton +Mill depend greatly upon its milling for prosperity. It was +rather a smugglers’ storehouse, and the grinding of corn +was, if not altogether an affectation, something of a +by-product. You may readily understand the working of the +contraband business, under these specious pretences, beneath the +very noses of coastguard and excise; how goods brought up the +creek and stored in this capacious hold could, without suspicion +incurred, be taken out of store, loaded in among the flour-sacks +in the miller’s wagons, and delivered wherever +desired. Of course, that being the mill’s staple +business, it is quite readily understood that when the business +of smuggling declined such milling as went forward here did by no +means suffice to keep the great building going.</p> +<p>The house, which appears now to be let as a country residence +for the summer to persons who neither know nor care anything +about the story of the place, has an odd inscription on its +gable:</p> +<blockquote><p><a name="page109"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +109</span>The gift of Mr. George<br /> +Judge at Stubbington<br /> +Farm at Portsea Hard, in<br /> +Memory of his very good Friend,<br /> +Mr. George Champ,<br /> +Senr. 1742.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>That sporadic cases of smuggling long continued in these +districts, as elsewhere, after the smuggling era was really +ended, we may see from one of the annual reports issued by the +Commissioners of Customs. The following incident occurred +in 1873, and is thus officially described:</p> +<p>“On the top of a bank rising directly from +highwater-mark in one of the muddy creeks of Southampton Water +stands a wooden hut commanding a full view of it, and surrounded +by an ill-cultivated garden. There are houses near, but the +hut does not belong to them, and appears to have been built for +no obvious purpose. An old smuggler was traced to this hut, +and from that time, for nearly two months, the place was watched +with great precaution, until at midnight, on May 28th, two men +employed by us being on watch, a boat was observed coming from a +small vessel about a mile from the shore. The boat, +containing four men, stopped opposite the hut, landed one man and +some bags, while the remainder of the crew took her some two +hundred yards off, hauled her up, and then proceeded to the +hut. One of our men was instantly despatched for +assistance, while the other remained, watching. On his +return with three policemen, the whole party went to the hut, +where they found <a name="page110"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +110</span>two men on watch outside and four inside, asleep. +A horse and cart were also found in waiting, the cart having a +false bottom. The six men were secured and sent to the +police-station; a boat was then procured, the vessel whence the +men had come was boarded, and found to be laden with tobacco and +spirits. The result was that the vessel, a smack of about +fifteen tons, with eighty-five bales of leaf-tobacco, six boxes +of Cavendish, with some cigars and spirits, was seized, and four +of the persons concerned in the transaction convicted of the +offence.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p110.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bedhampton Mill" +title= +"Bedhampton Mill" +src="images/p110.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h2><a name="page111"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +111</span>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">East Coast Smuggling</span>—<span +class="smcap">Outrage at Beccles</span>—<span +class="smcap">A Colchester Raid</span>—<span +class="smcap">Canvey Island</span>—<span +class="smcap">Bradwell Quay</span>—<span class="smcap">The +East Anglian “Cart Gaps”</span>—<span +class="smcap">A Blakeney Story</span>—<span +class="smcap">Tragical Epitaph at Hunstanton</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Peddar’s Way</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> doings of the Kentish and +Sussex gangs entirely overshadow the annals of smuggling in other +counties; and altogether, to the general reader, those two +seaboards and the coasts of Devon and Cornwall stand out as +typical scenes. But no part of our shores was immune; +although the longer sea-passages to be made elsewhere of course +stood greatly in the way of the “free-traders” of +those less favoured regions. After Kent and Sussex, the +east coast was probably the most favourable for smuggling. +The distance across the North Sea might be greater and the +passage often rough, but the low muddy shores and ramifying +creeks of Essex and the sandy coastwise warrens of Suffolk, +Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, very sparsely inhabited, offered their +own peculiar facilities for the shy and secretive trade.</p> +<p>Nor did the East Anglian smugglers display <a +name="page112"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 112</span>much less +ferocity when their interests were threatened, or their goods +seized, than was shown by the yokels of those other +counties. The stolid, ox-like rustics of the country-side +there, as along the margin of the English Channel, were roused to +almost incredible acts of brutality which do not seem to have +been repeated in the West.</p> +<p>We do not find the hardy seafaring smugglers often behaving +with the cold-blooded cruelty displayed, as a usual phenomenon, +by the generally unemotional men of ploughed fields and rustic +communities who took up the running and carried the goods inland +from the water’s edge whither those sea-dogs had brought +them. In the being of the men who dared tempestuous winds +and waves there existed, as a rule, a more sportsmanlike and +generous spirit. Something of the traditional heartiness +inseparable from sea-life impelled them to give and take without +the black blood that seethed evilly in the veins of the +landsmen. The seamen, it seemed, realised that smuggling +was a risk; something in the nature of any game of skill, into +which they entered, with the various officers of the law +naturally opposed to them; and when either side won, that was +incidental to the game, and no enmity followed as the matter of +course it was with their shore-going partners.</p> +<p>Perhaps these considerations, as greatly as the difference in +racial characters, show us why the land-smugglers of the Home +Counties should have been so criminal, while from the Devon <a +name="page113"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 113</span>and Cornish +contrabandists we hear mostly of humorous passages.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p112.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The “Green Man,” Bradwell Quay" +title= +"The “Green Man,” Bradwell Quay" +src="images/p112.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>At Beccles, in Suffolk, for example, we find the record, in +1744, of an incident that smacks rather of the Hawkhurst type of +outrage. Smugglers there pulled a man out of bed, whipped +him, tied him naked on a horse, and rode away with their +prisoner, who was never again heard of, although a reward of +£50 was offered.</p> +<p>Colchester was the scene, on April 16th, 1847, of as bold an +act as the breaking open of the custom-house at Poole. At +two o’clock in the morning two men arrived at the quay at +Hythe, by Colchester, and, with the story that they were revenue +officers come to lodge a seizure of captured goods, asked to be +shown the way to the custom-house. They had no sooner been +shown it than there followed thirty smugglers, well armed with +blunderbusses and pistols, who, with a heavy blacksmith’s +hammer and a crowbar, broke open the warehouse, in which a large +quantity of dutiable goods was stored. They were not +molested in their raid, and went off with sixty oil-bags, +containing 1514 lb. of tea that had been seized near Woodbridge +Haven. No one dared interfere with them, and by six +o’clock that morning they had proceeded as far as Hadleigh, +from which point all trace of them was lost.</p> +<p>Canvey Island, in the estuary of the Thames, off Benfleet, +with its quaint old Dutch houses, relics of the seventeenth and +eighteenth-century <a name="page114"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +114</span>Hollanders who settled there and carried on a more than +questionable business, was reputedly a nest of smugglers. +The “Lobster Smack,” a quaint old weatherboarded inn +built just within the old earthen sea-wall for which those +Dutchmen were responsible, and standing somewhat below the level +of high water, has legends of smuggling that naturally do not +lose by age or repetition.</p> +<p>The Blackwater estuary, running up from the Essex coast to +Maldon, offered peculiar facilities for smuggling; and that, +perhaps, is why a coastguard vessel is still stationed at +Stansgate, half way along its length, opposite Osea Island. +At the mouth of the Blackwater there branch other creeks and +estuaries leading past Mersea Island to Colchester; and here, +looking out upon a melancholy sea, and greatly resembling a barn, +stands the ancient chapel of St. Peter-upon-the-Wall, situated in +one of the most lonely spots conceivable, on what were, ages ago, +the ramparts of the Roman station of <i>Othona</i>. It has +long been used as a barn, and was in smuggling times a frequent +rendezvous of the night-birds who waged ceaseless war with the +Customs.</p> +<p>Two miles onward, along sea and river-bank, Bradwell Quay is +reached, where the “Green Man” inn in these times +turns a hospitable face to the wayfarer, but was in the +“once upon a time” apt to distrust the casual +stranger, for it was a house “ower sib” with the +free-traders, and Pewit Island, just off the quay, a desolate +islet almost awash, formed an admirable emergency <a +name="page115"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +115</span>store. The old stone-floored kitchen of the +“Green Man,” nowadays a cool and refreshing place in +which to take a modest quencher on a summer’s day, still +remains very much what it was of old; and the quaint fireplace +round which the sly longshore men of these Essex creeks +foregathered on those winter nights when work was before them +keeps its old-time pot-racks and hooks.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p114.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Kitchen of the “Green Man”" +title= +"Kitchen of the “Green Man”" +src="images/p114.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Among the very numerous accounts of smuggling affrays we may +exhume from the musty files of old newspapers, we read of the +desperate encounter in which Mr. Toby, Supervisor of Excise, lost +an eye in contending with a gang of smugglers at Caister, near +Yarmouth, in April 1816; which shows—if we had occasion to +show—that the East Anglian could on occasion be as +ferocious as the rustics of the south.</p> +<p>The shores of East Anglia we have already noted to be largely +composed of wide-spreading sandy flats, in whose wastes the +tracks of wild birds and animals—to say nothing of the +deeply indented footmarks of heavily-laden men—are easily +distinguished; and the chief problem of the free-traders of those +parts was therefore often how to cover up the tracks they left so +numerously in their passage across to the hard roads. In +this resort the shepherds were their mainstay, and for the usual +consideration, <i>i.e.</i> a keg of the “right +stuff,” would presently, after the gang had passed, come +driving their flocks along in the sandy trail they had left: +completely <a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>obliterating all evidences of a run of contraband goods +having been successfully brought off.</p> +<p>Blakeney, on the Norfolk coast, is associated with one of the +best, and most convincing, tales ever told of smuggling. +This coast is rich in what are known as “cart gaps”: +dips in the low cliffs, where horses and carts may readily gain +access to the sea. These places were, of course, especially +well watched by the preventive men, who often made a rich haul +out of the innocent-looking farm-carts, laden with seaweed for +manure, that were often to be observed being driven landwards at +untimeous hours of night and early morn. Beneath the +seaweed were, of course, numerous kegs. Sometimes the +preventive men confiscated horses and carts, as well as their +loads, and all were put up for sale. On one of these +painful occasions the local custom-house officer, who knew a +great deal more of the sea and its ways than he did of horses, +was completely taken in by a farmer-confederate of the smugglers +whose horses had been seized. The farmer went to make an +offer for the animals, and was taken to see them. The +season of the year was the spring, when, as the poet observes, +“a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of +love”—and when horses shed their coats. Up went +the farmer to the nearest horse, and easily, of course, pulled +out a handful of hair. “Why,” said he, in the +East Anglian way, “th’ poor brute hey gotten t’ +mange, and all tudderuns ’ull ketch it, of yow baint +keerful.” And then he <a name="page117"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 117</span>examined “tudderuns,” +and behold! each <i>had</i> caught it: and so he bought the lot +for five pounds. That same night every horse was back in +its own stable.</p> +<p>Searching in graveyards is not perhaps the most exhilarating +of pastimes or employments, but it, at any rate, is likely to +bring, on occasion, curious local history to light. Not +infrequently, in the old churchyards of seaboard parishes, +epitaphs bearing upon the story of smuggling may be found.</p> +<p>Among these often quaint and curious, as well as tragical, +relics, that in Hunstanton churchyard, on the coast of Norfolk, +is pre-eminent, both for its grotesquely ungrammatical character +and for the history that attaches to the affair:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">In Memory of William +Webb, late of the 15th Lt. D’ns,<br /> +who was shot from his Horse by a party of Smugglers<br /> +on the 26 of Sepr. 1784.</p> +<p>I am not dead, but sleepeth here,<br /> +And when the Trumpet Sound I will appear.<br /> +Four balls thro’ me Pearced there way:<br /> +Hard it was. I’d no time to pray</p> +<p>This stone that here you Do see<br /> +My Comerades erected for the sake of me.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Two smugglers, William Kemble and Andrew Gunton, were +arraigned for the murder of this dragoon and an excise +officer. The jury, much to the surprise of every one, for +the guilt of the prisoners was undoubted, brought in a verdict of +“Not guilty”; whereupon Mr. Murphy, counsel for the +prosecution, moved for a new trial, observing that if a Norfolk +jury were <a name="page118"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +118</span>determined not to convict persons guilty of the most +obvious crimes, simply because, as smugglers, they commanded the +sympathy of the country people, there was an end of all +justice.</p> +<p>A second jury was forthwith empanelled and the evidence +repeated, and after three hours’ deliberation the prisoners +were again found “Not guilty,” and were, in +accordance with that finding, acquitted and liberated.</p> +<p>It is abundantly possible that the foregoing incident had some +connection with that locally favourite smugglers’ route +from the Norfolk coast inland, the Peddar’s Way, which runs +a long and lonely course from Holme, near Hunstanton, right +through Norfolk into Suffolk, and is for the greater part of its +length a broad, grassy track, romantically lined and overhung +with fine trees. Such ancient ways, including the many old +drove-roads in the north, never turnpiked, made capital soft +going, and, rarely touching villages or hamlets, were of a highly +desirable, secretive nature. The origin of the +Peddar’s, or Padder’s, Way is still in dispute among +antiquaries, some seeing in it a Roman road, others conceiving it +to be a prehistoric track; but the broad, straight character of +it seems to point to this long route having been Romanised. +Its great age is evident on many accounts, not least among them +being that the little town of Watton, near but not on it, is +named from this prehistoric road, “Way-town,” while +that county division, the hundred, is the Hundred of Wayland.</p> +<h2><a name="page119"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +119</span>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The Dorset and Devon Coasts</span>—<span +class="smcap">Epitaphs at Kinson and Wyke</span>—<span +class="smcap">The “Wiltshire +Moon-Rakers”</span>—<span class="smcap">Epitaph at +Branscombe</span>—<span class="smcap">The Warren and +“Mount Pleasant” Inn</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Not</span> so much smuggling incident as +might be expected is found along the coasts of Dorset and Devon, +but that is less on account of any lack of smuggling encounters +in those parts than because less careful record has been kept of +them. An early epitaph on a smuggler, to be seen in the +churchyard of Kinson, just within the Dorset boundary, in an +out-of-the-way situation at the back of Bournemouth, in a +district formerly of almost trackless heaths, will sufficiently +show that smuggling was active here:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">To the memory of Robert +Trotman, late of Rowd, in<br /> +the county of Wilts, who was barbarously murdered<br /> +on the shore near Poole, the 24th March, 1765.</p> +<p>A little tea, one leaf I did not steal,<br /> +For guiltless bloodshed I to God appeal;<br /> +Put tea in one scale, human blood in t’other<br /> +And think what ’tis to slay a harmless brother.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This man was shot in an encounter with the revenue +officers. He was one of a gang that used <a +name="page120"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 120</span>the church +here as a hiding-place. The upper stage of the tower and an +old altar-tomb were the favourite receptacles for their +“free-trade” merchandise.</p> +<p>Trotman, it will be observed, was of Rowd, or Rowde, in +Wiltshire, two miles from Devizes, and was thus one of the +“Wiltshire Moonrakers,” whose descriptive title is +due to smuggling history. Among the nicknames conferred +upon the natives of our various shires and counties none is +complimentary. They figure forth undesirable physical +attributes, as when the Lincolnshire folk, dwellers among the +fens, are styled “Yellow-bellies,” <i>i.e.</i> frogs; +or stupidity, <i>e.g.</i> “Silly Suffolk”; or +humbug—for example, “Devonshire +Crawlers.” “Wiltshire Moonrakers” is +generally considered to be a term of contempt for Wilts rustic +stupidity; but, rightly considered, it is nothing of the +kind. It all depends how you take the story which gave rise +to it. The usual version tells us how a party of +travellers, crossing a bridge in Wiltshire by night when the +harvest moon was shining, observed a group of rustics raking in +the stream, in which the great yellow disc of the moon was +reflected. The travellers had the curiosity to ask them +what it was they raked for in such a place and at so untimeous an +hour; and were told they were trying to get “that +cheese”—the moon—out of the water. The +travellers went on their way amused with the simplicity of these +“naturals,” and spread the story far and wide.</p> +<p><a name="page121"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 121</span>But +these apparently idiotic clod-hoppers were wiser in their +generation than commonly supposed, and were, in fact, smugglers +surprised in the act of raking up a number of spirit-kegs that +had been sunk in the bed of the stream until the arrival of a +convenient season when they could with safety be removed. +The travellers, properly considered, were really revenue +officers, scouring the neighbourhood. This version of the +story fairly throws the accusation of innocence and +dunderheadedness back upon them, and clears the Wiltshire rural +character from contempt. It should, however, be said that +the first version of the story is generally told at the expense +of the villagers of Bishop’s Cannings, near Devizes, who +have long writhed under a load of ancient satirical narratives, +reflecting upon a lack of common sense alleged to be their chief +characteristic.</p> +<p>Many of the western smuggling stories are of a humorous cast, +rather than of the dreadful blood-boltered kind that disgraces +the history of the home counties. Here is a case in +point. On the evening of Sunday, July 10th, 1825, as two +preventive men were on the look-out for smugglers, near Lulworth +in Dorset, the smugglers, to the number of sixty or seventy, +curiously enough, found them instead, and immediately taking away +their swords and pistols, carried them to the edge of the cliff +and placed them with their heads hanging over the precipice; with +the comfortable assurance that if they made the least noise, or +gave alarm, they should be immediately thrown over. <a +name="page122"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 122</span>In the +interval a smuggling vessel landed a “crop” of one +hundred casks, which the shore-gang placed on their horses and +triumphantly carried away. The prisoners were then removed +from their perilous position, and taken into an adjoining field, +where they were bound hand and foot, and left overnight. +They were found the next morning by their comrades, searching for +them.</p> +<p>There are several points in this true tale that suggest it to +have been the original whence Mr. Thomas Hardy obtained the chief +motive of his short story, <i>The Distracted Preacher</i>.</p> +<p>We do not find consecutive accounts of smuggling on this wild +coast of Dorset; but when the veil is occasionally lifted and we +obtain a passing glimpse, it is a picturesque scene that is +disclosed. Thus, a furious encounter took place under St. +Aldhelm’s Head, in 1827, between an armed band of some +seventy or eighty smugglers and the local preventive men, who +numbered only ten, but gave a good account of themselves, two +smugglers being reported killed on the spot, and many others +wounded, while some of the preventive force, during the progress +of the fight, quietly slipped to where the smugglers’ boats +had been left and made off with the goods stored in them.</p> +<p>“The smugglers are armed,” says a report of this +affair, “with swingels, like flails, with which they can +knock people’s brains out”; and proceeds to say that +weapons of this kind, often <a name="page123"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 123</span>delivering blows from unexpected +quarters, are extremely difficult to fight against.</p> +<p>The captain of this gang was a man named Lucas, who kept an +inn called the “Ship,” at Woolbridge; and, +information being laid, Captain Jackson, the local inspector of +customs, went with an assistant and a police officer from London +to his house at two o’clock in the morning and roused +him.</p> +<p>“Who’s there?” asked Lucas.</p> +<p>“Only I, Mrs. Smith’s little girl. I want a +drop of brandy for mother,” returned the inspector, in a +piping voice.</p> +<p>“Very well, my dear,” said the landlord, and +opened the door; to find himself in the grasp of the +police-officer. Henry Fooks, of Knowle, and three others of +the gang, were then arrested; and the whole five committed to +Dorchester gaol.</p> +<p>The wild coast of Dorset, if we except Poole Harbour and the +cliffs of Purbeck, yields little to the inquirer in this sort, +although there can be no doubt of smuggling having been in full +operation here. Jack Rattenbury, whose story is told on +another page, could doubtless have rubricated this shore of many +cliffs and remote hamlets with striking instances; and not a +cliff-top but must have frequently exhibited lights to +“flash the lugger off,” what time the preventive men +were on the prowl; and no lonely strand but must have witnessed +the smugglers, when the coast was again clear, rowing out <a +name="page124"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 124</span>and +“creeping for the crop” that had been sunk and +buoyed, or “put in the collar,” as the saying +went.</p> +<p>A relic of these for the most part unrecorded and forgotten +incidents is found in the epitaph at Wyke, near Weymouth, on one +William Lewis:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">Sacred to the memory<br +/> +of<br /> +WILLIAM LEWIS,</p> +<p style="text-align: center">who was killed by a shot<br /> +from the <i>Pigmy</i> Schooner<br /> +21st April 1822, aged 53 years.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p>Of life bereft (by fell design),<br /> + I mingle with my fellow clay,<br /> +On God’s protection I recline<br /> + To save me on the Judgment-day.<br /> +There shall each blood-stain’d soul appear,<br /> + Repent, all, ere it be too late,<br /> +Or Else a dreadful doom you’ll hear,<br /> + For God will sure avenge my fate.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">This Stone is Erected +by his Wife<br /> +as the last mark of respect to an<br /> +Affectionate Husband.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The inscription is surmounted by a representation, carved in +low relief, of the <i>Pigmy</i> schooner chasing the smuggling +vessel.</p> +<p>Old folk, now gone from the scene of their reminiscences, used +to tell of this tragedy, and of the landing of the body of the +unfortunate Lewis on the rocks of Sandsfoot Castle, where the +ragged, roofless walls of that old seaward fortress impend over +the waves, and the great bulk of Portland isle glooms in mid +distance upon the bay. They tell, too, how the inscription +was long <a name="page125"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +125</span>kept gilded by his relatives; but the last trace of it +has long since vanished.</p> +<p>Many miles intervene, and another county must be entered, +before another tragical epitaph bearing upon smuggling is +found. If you go to Seaton, in South Devon, and walk inland +from the modern developments of that now rapidly growing town to +the old church, you may see there a tablet recording the sad fate +of William Henry Paulson, midshipman of H.M.S. <i>Queen +Charlotte</i>, and eight seamen, who all perished in a gale of +wind off Sidmouth, while cruising in a galley after smugglers, in +the year 1816.</p> +<p>A few miles westward, through Beer to Branscombe, the country +is of a very wild and lonely kind. In the weird, eerie +churchyard of Branscombe, in which astonishing epitaphs of all +kinds abound, is a variant upon the smugglers’ violent +ends, in the inscription to one “Mr. John Harley, Custom +House Officer of this parish.” It proceeds to narrate +how, “as he was endeavouring to extinguish some Fire made +between Beer and Seaton as a signal to a Smuggling Boat then off +at sea, he fell by some means or other from the top of the cliff +to the bottom, by which he was unfortunately killed. This +unhappy accident happened the 9th day of August in the year of +our Lord 1755, <i>ætatis suæ</i> 45. He was an +active and diligent officer and very inoffensive in his life and +conversation.”</p> +<p>So here was another martyr to the conditions created by bad +government.</p> +<p><a name="page126"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 126</span>The +estuary of the Exe, between Exmouth and Starcross, was for many +years greatly favoured by smugglers, for, as may readily be +perceived to this day, there lay in the two-miles-broad channel, +where sea and river mingle, a wide, wild stretch of sand, almost +awash at high water, heaped up in towans overgrown with tussocks +of coarse, sour grasses, or sinking into hollows full of brackish +water: pleasant in daytime, but a dangerous place at night. +Here, in this islanded waste, there were no roads nor tracks at +all, and few were those who ever came to disturb the curlews or +the seabirds that nested, unafraid. In these +twentieth-century times of ours the Warren—for such is the +name of this curiously amphibious place—has become a place +of picnic parties on summer afternoons, largely by favour of the +Great Western Railway having provided, midway between the +stations of Starcross and Dawlish, a little platform called the +“Warren Halt.” But in those times before +railways, when the Warren was not easily come at, the smugglers +found it a highly convenient place for their business. +Beside it, under the lee of Langston Point, there is a sheltered +strand, and, at such times when it was considered quite safe, the +sturdy free-traders quietly ran their boats ashore here, on the +yellow sands, and conveyed their contents to the “Mount +Pleasant” inn, which is an unassuming—and was in +those times a still more unassuming—house, perched +picturesquely on the crest of a red sandstone bluff which rises +inland, sheer from the <a name="page127"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 127</span>marshy meadows. It was a very +convenient receiving-house and signal-station for all of this +trade, for it owned caverns hollowed out of the red sandstone in +places inaccessible to the authorities, and from its isolated +height, overlooking the flats, could easily communicate +encouragement or warning to friends anxiously riding at anchor +out at sea. The lights that flashed on dark and tempestuous +nights from its high-hung rustic balcony were significant. +The only man who could have told much of the smugglers’ +secrets here was the unfortunate Lieutenant Palk, who lay wait +one such night upon the Warren. But dead men tell no tales; +and that ill-starred officer was found in the morning, drowned, +face downwards, in a shallow pool, whether by accident or design +there was nothing to show. As already remarked, the Warren +was a dangerous place to wander in after dark.</p> +<p>It is quite vain nowadays to seek for the smugglers’ +caves at Mount Pleasant. They were long ago filled up.</p> +<p>In these times the holiday-maker, searching for shells, is the +only feature of the sands that fringe the seaward edge of the +Warren. It is a fruitful hunting-ground for such, +especially after rough weather. But the day following a +storm was, in those times, the opportunity of the local revenue +men, who, forming a strong party, were used to take boat and pull +down here and thoroughly search the foreshore; for at such times +any spirit-tubs that might have been sunk out at sea and <a +name="page128"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 128</span>carefully +buoyed by the smugglers, awaiting a favourable time for landing, +were apt to break loose and drift in-shore. There was +always, at such times, a sporting chance of a good haul. +But, on the other hand, some of the many tubs that had been sunk +months before, and lost, would on these occasions come to hand, +and they were worth just nothing at all: long immersion in salt +water having spoiled their contents, with the result that what +had been right good hollands or cognac had become a peculiarly +ill-savoured liquid, which smelt to heaven when it was +broached. The revenue people called this abominable stuff, +which, as Shakespeare might say, had “suffered a sea-change +into something new and strange,” by the appropriate name of +“stinkibus.”</p> +<h2><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +129</span>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Cornwall in Smuggling Story</span>—<span +class="smcap">Cruel Coppinger</span>—<span +class="smcap">Hawker’s Sketch</span>—<span +class="smcap">The Fowey Smugglers</span>—<span +class="smcap">Tom Potter</span>, <span class="smcap">of +Polperro</span>—<span class="smcap">The Devils of +Talland</span>—<span class="smcap">Smugglers’ +Epitaphs</span>—<span class="smcap">Cave at +Wendron</span>—<span class="smcap">St. Ives</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Cornwall</span> is the region of romance: +the last corner of England in which legend and imagination had +full play, while matter-of-fact already sat enthroned over the +rest of the land. At a time when newspapers almost +everywhere had already long been busily recording facts, legends +were still in the making throughout this westernmost part of the +island. We may, in our innocence, style Cornwall a part of +England; but the Cornish do not think of it as such, and when +they cross the Tamar into Devonshire will still often speak of +“going into England.” They are historically +correct in doing so, for this is the unconquered land of the +Cornu-Welsh, never assimilated by the Saxon kingdoms. +Historically and ethnologically, the Cornish are a people +apart.</p> +<p>The Coppinger legend is a case in point, illustrating the +growth of wild stories out of meagre facts. “Cruel +Coppinger” is a <a name="page130"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 130</span>half-satanic, semi-viking character +in the tales of North Cornwall and North Devon, of whom no +visitor is likely to remain ignorant, for not only was he a dread +figure of local folklore from about the first quarter of the +nineteenth century, but he was written up in 1866 by the Reverend +R. S. Hawker, Vicar of Morwenstow, who not only collated those +floating stories, but added very much of his own, for Hawker was +a man—and a not very scrupulous man—of +imagination. Hawker’s presentment of “Cruel +Coppinger” was published in a popular magazine, and then +the legend became full-blown.</p> +<p>The advent of Coppinger upon the coast at Welcombe Mouth, near +where Devon and Cornwall join, was dramatic. The story +tells how a strange vessel went to pieces on the reefs and how +only one person escaped with his life, in the midst of a howling +tempest. This was the skipper, a Dane named +Coppinger. On the beach, on foot and on horseback, was a +crowd, waiting, in the usual Cornish way, for any wreck of the +sea that might be thrown up. Into the midst of them, like +some sea-monster, dashed this sole survivor, and bounded suddenly +upon the crupper of a young damsel who had ridden to the shore to +see the sight. He grasped her bridle, and, shouting in a +foreign tongue, urged the doubly-laden animal to full speed, and +the horse naturally took his usual way home. The damsel was +Miss Dinah Hamlyn. The stranger descended at her +father’s door and lifted her off her saddle. He <a +name="page131"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 131</span>then +announced himself as a Dane, named Coppinger, and took his place +at the family board and there remained until he had secured the +affections and hand of Dinah. The father died, and +Coppinger succeeded to the management and control of the house, +which thenceforward became the refuge of every lawless character +along the coast. All kinds of wild uproar and reckless +revelry appalled the neighbourhood, night and day. It was +discovered that an organised band of smugglers, wreckers, and +poachers made this house their rendezvous, and that “Cruel +Coppinger” was their captain. In those times no +revenue officer durst exercise vigilance west of the Tamar, and, +to put an end at once to all such surveillance, the head of a +gauger was chopped off by one of Coppinger’s gang, on the +gunwale of a boat.</p> +<p>Strange vessels began to appear at regular intervals on the +coast, and signals were flashed from the headlands, to lead them +into the safest creek or cove. Amongst these, one, a +full-rigged schooner, soon became ominously conspicuous. +She was for long the terror of those shores, and her name was the +<i>Black Prince</i>. Once, with Coppinger aboard, she led a +revenue cutter into an intricate channel near the Bull Rock, +where, from knowledge of the bearings, the <i>Black Prince</i> +escaped scathless, while the King’s vessel perished with +all on board. In those times, if any landsman became +obnoxious to Coppinger’s men, he was seized and carried +aboard the <i>Black Prince</i>, <a name="page132"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 132</span>and obliged to save his life by +enrolling himself as one of the crew.</p> +<p>Amid such practices, ill-gotten gold began to accrue to +Coppinger. At one time he had enough money to purchase a +freehold farm bordering on the sea. When the day of +transfer came, he and one of his followers appeared before the +lawyer and paid the money in dollars, ducats, doubloons, and +pistoles. The lawyer objected, but Coppinger, with an oath, +bade him take that or none.</p> +<p>Long impunity increased Coppinger’s daring. Over +certain bridle-paths along the fields he exercised exclusive +control, and issued orders that no man was to pass over them by +night. They were known as “Coppinger’s +Tracks,” and all converged at a cliff called “Steeple +Brink.” Here the precipice fell sheer to the sea, 300 +feet, with overhanging eaves a hundred feet from the +summit. Under this part was a cave, only to be reached by a +rope-ladder from above. This was “Coppinger’s +Cave.” Here sheep were tethered to the rock and fed +on stolen hay and corn until slaughtered. Kegs of brandy +and hollands were piled around; chests of tea, and iron-bound +sea-chests contained the chattels and revenues of the Coppinger +royalty of the sea.</p> +<p>The terror linked with Coppinger’s name throughout the +north coasts of Cornwall and Devon was so extreme that the people +themselves, wild and lawless though they were, submitted to his +sway as though he had been lord of the soil, and they his +vassals. Such a household as his was, <a +name="page133"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 133</span>of course, +far from happy or calm. Although, when his father-in-law +died, he had insensibly acquired possession of the stock and +farm, there remained in the hands of the widow a considerable +amount of money. This he obtained from the helpless woman +by instalments, and by force. He would fasten his wife to +the pillar of her oak bedstead, and call her mother into the +room, and assure her he would flog Dinah with a +cat-o’-nine-tails till her mother had transferred to him +what he wanted. This act of brutal cruelty he repeated +until he had utterly exhausted the widow’s store.</p> +<p>There was but one child of Coppinger’s marriage. +It was a boy, and deaf and dumb, but mischievous and +ungovernable, delighting in cruelty to other children, animals, +or birds. When he was but six years of age, he was found +one day, hugging himself with delight, and pointing down from the +brink of a cliff to the beach, where the body of a +neighbour’s child was found and it was believed that little +Coppinger had flung him over. It was a saying in the +district that, as a judgment on his father’s cruelty, the +child had been born without a human soul.</p> +<p>But the end arrived. Money became scarce, and more than +one armed King’s cutter was seen, day and night, hovering +off the land. And at last Coppinger, “who came with +the water, went with the wind.” A wrecker, watching +the shore, saw, as the sun went down, a full-rigged vessel +standing off and on. Coppinger came to <a +name="page134"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 134</span>the beach, +put off in a boat to the vessel, and jumped aboard. She +spread canvas, and was seen no more. That night was one of +storm, and whether the vessel rode it out or not, none ever +knew.</p> +<p>It is hardly necessary to add that the Coppinger of these and +other rumbustious stories is a strictly unhistorical Coppinger; +and that, in short, they are mainly efforts of Hawker’s own +imagination, built upon very slight folklore traditions.</p> +<p>Who and what, however, was the real Coppinger? Very +little exact information is available, but what we have entirely +demolishes the legendary half-man, half-monster of those +remarkable exploits.</p> +<p>Daniel Herbert Copinger, or Coppinger, was wrecked at Welcombe +Mouth on December 23rd, 1792, and was given shelter beneath the +roof of Mr. William Arthur, yeoman farmer, at Golden Park, +Hartland, where for many years afterwards his name might have +been seen, scratched on a window-pane:</p> +<blockquote><p>D. H. Coppinger, shipwrecked December 23 1792, +kindly received by Mr. Wm. Arthur.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There is not the slightest authority for the story of his +sensational leap on to the saddle of Miss Dinah Hamlyn; but it is +true enough that the next year he married a Miss Hamlyn—her +Christian name was Ann—elder of the two daughters of +Ackland Hamlyn, of Galsham, in Hartland, and in the registers of +Hartland church <a name="page135"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +135</span>may be found this entry: “Daniel Herbert +Coppinger, of the King’s Royal Navy, and Ann Hamlyn mard. +(by licence) 3 Aug.” The “damsel” of the +story also turns out, by the cold, calm evidence of this entry, +to have been of the mature age of forty-two.</p> +<p>Mrs. Hamlyn, Coppinger’s mother-in-law, died in 1800, +and was buried in the chancel of Hartland church. It is, of +course, quite possible that his married life was stormy and that +he, more or less by force, extracted money from Mrs. Hamlyn, and +he was certainly more or less involved in smuggling. But +that he, or any of his associates, chopped off the head of an +excise officer is not to be credited. Tales are told of +revenue officers searching at Galsham for contraband, and of Mrs. +Coppinger hurriedly hiding a quantity of valuable silks in the +kitchen oven, while her husband engaged their attention in +permitting them to find a number of spirit-kegs, which they +presently found, much to their disgust, to be empty; and, +moreover, empty so long that scarce the ghost of even a smell of +the departed spirit could be traced. But the flurried Mrs. +Coppinger had in her haste done a disastrous thing, for the oven +was in baking trim, and the valuable silks were baked to a +cinder.</p> +<p>Little else is known of Coppinger, and nothing whatever of his +alleged connection with the Navy. He became bankrupt in +1802, and was then a prisoner in the King’s Bench +Prison. With him was one Richard Copinger, said to have +been a <a name="page136"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +136</span>merchant in Martinique. Nothing is known of him +after this date, but rumour told how he was living apart from his +wife, at Barnstaple, and subsisting on an allowance from her.</p> +<p>Mrs. Coppinger herself, in after years, resided at Barnstaple, +and died there on August 31st, 1833. She lies buried in the +chancel of Hartland church beside her mother.</p> +<p>According to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Coppinger was not +really a Dane, but an Irishman, and had a wife at Trewhiddle near +St. Austell. He, on the same authority, is said to have +done extremely well as a smuggler, and had not only a farm at +Trewhiddle, but another at Roscoff, in Brittany. A +daughter, says Mr. Baring-Gould, married a Trefusis, son of Lord +Clinton, and Coppinger gave her £40,000 as a dowry. A +son married the daughter of Sir John Murray, Bart., of +Stanhope. The source of this interesting information is not +stated. It appears wildly improbable.</p> +<p>Hawker very cleverly embodied the smuggling sentiment of +Cornwall in a sketch he wrote, styled “The Light of Other +Days.”</p> +<p>“It was full six in the evening of an autumn day when a +traveller arrived where the road ran along by a sandy beach just +above high-water mark. The stranger, who was a native of +some inland town, and utterly unacquainted with Cornwall and its +ways, had reached the brink of the tide just as a +‘landing’ was coming off. It was a scene not +only to instruct a townsman, but to dazzle and surprise. At +sea, just beyond <a name="page137"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +137</span>the billows, lay the vessel, well moored with anchors +at stem and stern. Between the ship and the shore, boats, +laden to the gunwale, passed to and fro. Crowds assembled +on the beach to help the cargo ashore. On one hand a +boisterous group surrounded a keg with the head knocked in, for +simplicity of access to the good cognac, into which they dipped +whatsoever vessel came first to hand; one man had filled his +shoe. On the other side they fought and wrestled, cursed +and swore. Horrified at what he saw, the stranger lost all +self-command, and, oblivious of personal danger, he began to +shout, ‘What a horrible sight! Have you no +shame? Is there no magistrate at hand? Cannot any +justice of the peace be found in this fearful country?’</p> +<p>“‘No; thanks be to God,’ answered a gruff, +hoarse voice. ‘None within eight miles.’</p> +<p>“‘Well, then,’ screamed the stranger, +‘is there no clergyman hereabout? Does no minister of +the parish live among you on this coast?’</p> +<p>“‘Aye, to be sure there is,’ said the same +deep voice.</p> +<p>“‘Well, how far off does he live? Where is +he?’</p> +<p>“‘That’s he, yonder, sir, with the +lantern.’</p> +<p>“And, sure enough, there he stood on a rock, and poured, +with pastoral diligence, ‘the light of other days’ on +a busy congregation.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p136.jpg"> +<img alt= +"“The Light of other Days”" +title= +"“The Light of other Days”" +src="images/p136.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The complete, true story of smuggling along the Cornish coast +will never be told. Those who could have contributed +illuminating chapters to <a name="page138"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 138</span>it, and would not, are dead, and +those who now would are reduced to seeking details and finding +only scraps. But some of these scraps are not +unpalatable.</p> +<p>Thus we have the story of that Vicar of Maker whose church was +used as a smugglers’ store. The Vicar was not a party +to these proceedings, as may well be judged by his inviting his +rural dean to ascend to the roof of the church-tower with him, +for sake of the view: the view disclosing not only a lovely +expanse of sea and wooded foreshore, but also a heap of +twenty-three spirit-kegs, reposing in the gutters between the +roofs of nave and aisle.</p> +<p>The “Fowey Gallants,” as the townsfolk of that +little seaport delighted to call themselves,—the title +having descended from Elizabethan and even earlier times, when +the “Gallants” in question were, in plain speech, +nothing less than turbulent seafaring rowdies and +pirates—were not behind other Cornish folk in their +smuggling enterprises. That prime authority on this part of +the Cornish coast, Jonathan Couch, historian of Polperro, tells +us of an exciting incident at Fowey, in the smuggling way. +On one occasion, the custom-house officers heard of an important +run that had taken place overnight, and accordingly sent out +scouts in every direction to locate the stuff, if possible. +At Landaviddy one of these parties met a farm-labourer whom they +suspected of having taken part in the run. They taxed him +with it, and tried him all ways; <a name="page139"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 139</span>without effect, until they +threatened to impress him for service in the Navy unless he +revealed the hiding-place of the cognac. His resolution +broke down at that, and he told how the kegs had been hidden in a +large cave at Yellow Rock, which the officers then instructed him +to mark with a chalk cross.</p> +<p>The revenue men then went off for reinforcements, and, +returning, met an armed band of smugglers, who had taken up a +strong position at New Quay Head. They were armed with +sticks, cutlasses, and muskets, and had brought a loaded gun upon +the scene, which they trained upon the cave; while a man with +flaring portfire stood by and dared the officers to remove the +goods. Official prudence counselled the revenue men to +retire for further support; but when they had again returned the +smugglers had disappeared, and the kegs with them.</p> +<p>Fowey’s trade in “moonshine,” <i>i.e.</i> +contraband spirits, was, like that of the Cornish coast in +general, with Roscoff, in Brittany; and a regular service was +maintained for years. As late as 1832 the luggers +<i>Eagle</i>, thirty-five tons; <i>Rose</i>, eleven tons; and +<i>Dove</i>, of the same burthen, were well known in the +trade. Among the smuggling craft belonging to Polperro, the +<i>Unity</i> was said to have made upwards of five hundred +entirely successful trips.</p> +<p>The story of Tom Potter is even yet told by oldsters at +Polperro, who, not themselves old enough to recollect the +circumstances, have it <a name="page140"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 140</span>from their parents and +grandparents. Jonathan Couch tells the story, but he forgot +the exact year.</p> +<p>It seems, then, that one morning a lugger was observed by a +revenue cutter lying becalmed in Whitesand Bay. Through +their glasses the revenue men made it out to be the +<i>Lottery</i>, of Polperro, well known for her fast-sailing +qualities, as well as for the hardihood of her crew. With +the springing up of the breeze, there was little doubt but that +she would put to sea, and thus add yet another opportunity to the +many already existing for sneering at the stupidity of the local +preventive force.</p> +<p>Accordingly, the chief officer, with all despatch, manned two +or three boats and put off, before a breeze could spring up, +making sure of an easy capture. The smugglers, however, +observed these movements of their watchful enemies, and commenced +to make preparations for resistance, whereupon the revenue boats +opened fire; but it was not until they had approached closely +that the smugglers returned their volleys, and then the firing +grew very heavy, and when within a few yards of the expected +prize, Ambrose Bowden, who pulled bow-oar in one of the attacking +boats, fell mortally wounded.</p> +<p>It was plain that the Polperro men had come to a determination +not to surrender their fine craft, or the valuable cargo it +carried; and the commander of the revenue men thought it, under +the circumstances, the wisest thing to withdraw <a +name="page141"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 141</span>and to +allow the <i>Lottery</i> to proceed to sea, which she did, at the +earliest opportunity. But the names of those who formed the +crew were sufficiently well known to the authorities, and the +smugglers accordingly found themselves in a very difficult +position; not indeed on account of smuggling, but for the +resistance they had offered to authority, resulting in what was +technically murder. They all scattered and went into +hiding, and, secreted by friends, relatives, and sympathisers in +out-of-the-way places, long baffled the efforts of the revenue +officers, aided by searching parties of dragoons, to find +them. The authorities no sooner had learnt, on reliable +information, where they lay hidden, than they were found to have +been spirited away elsewhere.</p> +<p>But all this skulking about, with its enforced idleness and +waste of time, grew wearisome to the skulkers, and at length one +of the crew of the <i>Lottery</i>, Roger Toms by name, more weary +than his fellows of hiding, and perhaps also thinking that his +services would be handsomely rewarded, offered himself as +King’s evidence.</p> +<p>According to his showing, it was a man named Tom Potter who +fired the shot that killed Bowden. The search then +concentrated upon Potter. The fury of Toms’s +fellow-smugglers, and the entire population of Polperro, against +the informer, Toms, may readily be imagined. To in any way +aid these natural enemies of the people was of itself the +unforgiveable sin, and to further go and offer evidence that +would result in the forfeit <a name="page142"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 142</span>of the life of one of his own +comrades disclosed an even deeper depth of infamy.</p> +<p>Toms was therefore obliged to go into hiding again, and, this +time, from his old associates. It was some considerable +time before they captured him, and they did it, even then, only +by stratagem. His wife, and others, knowing the intense +feeling aroused, not unnaturally supposed his life to be in +danger; but the smugglers assured her that they only wanted to +secure him and hold him prisoner until after the trial of Bowden, +and would not otherwise harm him. They added, mysteriously, +that things might go worse with Toms if he continued to hide +away; for they would be certain sooner or later to find +him. The greatly alarmed woman at last arranged that they +should capture him when accompanying her across the moors in the +direction of Polruan, and they accordingly seized the informer +when in her company, on Lantock Downs. They hid him for +awhile close by, and then smuggled him, a close prisoner, over to +that then noted smugglers’ Alsatia, Guernsey, with the idea +of eventually shipping him to America. But while at +Guernsey he escaped and made his way to London.</p> +<p>The evidence he gave was to the effect that, during the +firing, he went down into the cabin of the <i>Lottery</i>, and +there saw Potter with a gun. Potter said “Damn +them! I have just done for one of them.”</p> +<p>Potter was convicted and hanged. Toms, of course, never +dared to again return to Polperro, <a name="page143"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 143</span>and was given a small post as +under-turnkey at Newgate, where he lived the remainder of his +life.</p> +<p>Talland, midway between Polperro and Looe, was a favourite +spot with these daring Polperro fellows. It offered better +opportunities than those given by Polperro itself for unobserved +landings; for it was—and it still is—a weird, lonely +place, overhanging the sea, with a solitary ancient church well +within sound of the waves that beat heavily upon the little +sands. It was an easy matter to store kegs in the +churchyard itself, and to take them inland, or into Polperro by +the country roads, when opportunity offered, hidden in carts +taking seaweed for manure to the fields.</p> +<p>At one time Talland owned a shuddery reputation in all this +country-side, and people in the farmhouses told, with many a +fearful glance over their shoulders, of the uncanny creatures +that nightly haunted the churchyard. Devils, wraiths, and +fearful apparitions made the spot a kind of satanic parliament; +and we may be amply sure that these horrid stories lost no accent +or detail of terror by constant repetition in those inglenooks on +winter evenings. This is not to say that other places round +about were innocent of things supernatural; for those were times +when every Cornish glen, moor, stream, and hill had their +bukkadhus, their piskies, and gnomes of sorts, good and evil; but +the infernal company that consorted together in Talland <a +name="page144"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 144</span>churchyard +was entirely beside these old-established creatures. They +were <i>hors concours</i>, as the French would say: they formed a +class by themselves; and, in the expressive slang of to-day, they +were “the Limit,” the <i>ne plus ultra</i> of +militant ghostdom. People rash enough to take the +church-path through Talland after night had fallen were sure to +hear and see strange semi-luminous figures; and they bethought +them then of the at once evil and beneficent reputation owned and +really enjoyed by Parson Dodge, the eccentric clergyman of +Talland, who was reputed an exorcist of the first quality. +He it was who, doughty wrestler with the most obstinate spectres, +found himself greatly in demand in a wide geographical area for +the banishing of troublesome ghosts for a long term of years to +the Red Sea; but it was whispered, on the other hand, that he +kept a numerous band of diabolic familiars believed by the simple +folk of that age to resort nightly to the vicarage for their +orders, and then to do his bidding. These were the spiteful +creatures, thought the country people, who, to revenge themselves +for this servitude, lurked in the churchyard, and got even with +mankind by pinching and smacking and playing all manner of scurvy +tricks upon those who dared pass this way under cover of +night. Uncle Zack Chowne even got a black eye by favour of +these inimical agencies, one exceptionally dark night when, +coming home-along this way, under the influence of spirits not of +supernatural origin, he met a <a name="page145"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 145</span>posse of fiends, and, in the amiable +manner of the completely intoxicated, insisted upon their +adjourning with him to the nearest inn, “jush for shake of +ole timesh.” In fact, he made the sad mistake of +taking the fiends in question for friends, and addressed them by +name: with the result that he got a sledge-hammer blow in what +the prize-fighting brotherhood used to call “the +peeper.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p144.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Devils of Talland" +title= +"The Devils of Talland" +src="images/p144.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>If he had adopted the proper method to be observed when +meeting spirits, <i>i.e.</i> if he had stood up and “said +his Nummy Dummy,” all would doubtless have been well; this +form of exorcism being in Cornwall of great repute and never +known to fail: being nothing less, indeed, than the Latin <i>In +Nomine Domine</i> in disguise.</p> +<p>But the real truth of the matter, as the readers of these +lines who can see further through a brick wall than others may +readily perceive, was that those savage spooks and mischievous, +Puck-like shapes, were really youthful local smugglers in +disguise, engaged at one and the same time in a highly profitable +nocturnal business, and in taking the welcome opportunity thus +offered in an otherwise dull circle of establishing a glorious +“rag.”</p> +<p>Parson Dodge himself was something more than suspected of +being “ower sib” to these at once commercial and +rollicking dogs, and Talland was in fact the scene of many a +successful run that could scarce have been successful had not +this easy-going cleric amiably permitted.</p> +<p>It is thus peculiarly appropriate that we find <a +name="page146"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 146</span>to-day in +this lonely churchyard an epitaph upon a smuggler of those +times. It is a tragical enough epitaph, its tragedy perhaps +disguised at the first glance by the grotesquely comic little +cherubs carved upon the tombstone, and representing the local +high-water mark of mortuary sculpture a hundred years or so +ago. They are pursy cherubs, of oleaginous appearance and +of this-worldly, rather than of other-worldly paunch and +deportment. In general, Talland churchyard is rich in such +carvings; death’s-heads of appalling ugliness to be seen in +company with middle-aged, double-chinned angels wearing what look +suspiciously like chest-protectors and pyjamas, and they +decorate, with weirdly humorous aspect, the monuments and ledger +stones, and grin familiarly from the pavement with the +half-obliterated grins of many generations back. One of +them points with a claw, intended for a hand, to an object +somewhat resembling a crumpled dress-tie set up on end, probably +designed to represent an hour-glass.</p> +<p>Such is the mortuary art of these lonesome parishes in far +Cornwall: naïve, uninstructed, home-made. It sufficed +the simple folk for whom it was wrought; and now that more +conventional and pretentious memorials have taken its place, to +serve the turn of folk less simple, there are those who would +abolish its uncouth manifestations. But that way—with +the urbanities of the world—goes old Cornwall, never to be +replaced.</p> +<p><a name="page147"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 147</span>Here +is the epitaph to the smuggler, one—</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">ROBERT MARK;</p> +<p style="text-align: center">late of Polperro, who +Unfortunately<br /> +was <i>shot at Sea</i> the 24th day of Jan<sup>y</sup>.<br /> +in the year of our Lord <span class="smcap">God</span><br /> +1802, in the 40th Year of His <span class="smcap">Age</span></p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p>In prime of Life most suddenly,<br /> + Sad tidings to relate;<br /> +Here view My utter destiny,<br /> + And pity, My sad state:<br /> +I by a shot, which Rapid flew,<br /> + Was instantly struck dead;<br /> +<span class="smcap">Lord</span> pardon the Offender who<br /> + My precious blood did shed.<br /> +Grant Him to rest, and forgive Me,<br /> + All I have done amiss;<br /> +And that I may Rewarded be<br /> + With Everlasting Bliss.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Robert Mark was at the helm of a boat which had been obliged +to run before a revenue cutter. It was at the point of +escaping when the cutter’s crew opened fire upon the +fugitive, killing the helmsman on the spot. Let us trust he +has duly won to that everlasting bliss that not even smugglers +are denied. The mild and forgiving terms of the epitaph are +to be noted with astonishment; the usual run of sentiment to be +observed on the very considerable number of these memorials to +smugglers cut off suddenly in the plenitude of their youth and +beauty, being particularly revengeful and bloodthirsty, or at the +best, bitterly reproachful.</p> +<p>Among these many epitaphs on smugglers <a +name="page148"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 148</span>to be met +with in the churchyards of seaboard parishes is the following, to +be found in the waterside parish of Mylor, near Falmouth. +Details of the incident in which this “Cus-toms house +officer” (spelled here exactly as the old lettering on the +tombstone has it) shot and mortally wounded Thomas James appear +to have been altogether lost:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">We have not a moment we +can call our own.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p>In Memory of Thomas James, aged 35 years, who<br +/> +on the evening of the 7th Dec. 1814, on his returning<br /> +to Flushing from St. Mawes in a boat was shot by a<br /> +Cus-toms house officer and expired a few days after.</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p>Officious zeal in luckless hour laid wait<br /> +And wilful sent the murderous ball of fate:<br /> +James to his home, which late in health he left,<br /> +Wounded returned—of life is soon bereft.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This is quite a mild and academic example, and obviously the +work of some passionless hireling, paid for his verses. He +would have written not less affectingly for poor dog Tray.</p> +<p>Prussia Cove, the most famous smuggling centre in Cornwall, +finds mention in another chapter. Little else remains to be +said, authentically at any rate. Invention, however, could +readily people every cove with desperate men and hair-raising +encounters, and there could nowadays be none who should be able +to deny the truth of them. But we will leave all that to +the novelists, merely pointing out that facts continually prove +themselves at least as strange as fiction. Thus at Wendron, +five miles inland from Helston, <a name="page149"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 149</span>two caves, or underground chambers, +were discovered in 1905 during some alterations and rebuildings, +close to the churchyard. Local opinion declared them to be +smugglers’ hiding-holes.</p> +<p>There stands in St. Ives town a ruined old mansion in one of +the narrow alley-ways. It is known as Hicks’ Court, +and must have been a considerable place, in its day. Also +the owners of it must have been uncommonly fond of good liquors, +for it has a “secret” cellar, so called no doubt +because, like the “secret” drawers of bureaus, its +existence was perfectly obvious. Locally it is known as a +“smugglers’ store.”</p> +<p>In such a place as St. Ives, on a coast of old so notorious +for smuggling, we naturally look for much history in this sort, +but research fails to reward even the most diligent; and we have +to be content with the meagre suspicions (for they were nothing +more) of the honesty of John Knill, a famous native and resident +of the town in the second half of the eighteenth century, who was +Collector of Customs in that port, and in 1767 was chosen +Mayor. His action in equipping some small craft to serve as +privateers against smugglers was wilfully misconstrued; and, at +any rate, it does not seem at all fitting that he, as an official +of the customs service, should have been concerned in such +private ventures. These “privateers,” it was +said locally, were themselves actively employed in smuggling.</p> +<p>He was also, according to rumour, responsible, <a +name="page150"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 150</span>together +with one Praed, of Trevetho, for a ship which was driven ashore +in St. Ives Bay, and, when boarded by Roger Wearne, customs +officer, was found to be deserted by captain and crew, who had +been careful to remove all the ship’s papers, so that her +owners remained unknown. The vessel was found to be full of +contraband goods, including a great quantity of china, some of it +of excellent quality. Wearne conceived the brilliant idea +of taking some samples of the best for his own personal use, and +filled out the baggy breeches he was wearing with them, before he +made to rejoin the boat that had put him aboard. This +uncovenanted cargo made his movements, as he came over the side, +so slow that one of his impatient boatmen smartly whacked him +with the flat of his oar, calling, “Look sharp, +Wearne,” and was dismayed when, in place of the thud that +might have been expected, there came a crash like the falling of +a trayful of crockery, followed by a cry of dismay and +anguish.</p> +<h2><a name="page151"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +151</span>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Testimony to the Qualities of the Seafaring +Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">Adam Smith on +Smuggling</span>—<span class="smcap">A Clerical +Counterblast</span>—<span class="smcap">Biographical +Sketches of Smugglers</span>—<span class="smcap">Robert +Johnson</span>, <span class="smcap">Harry +Paulet</span>—<span class="smcap">William Gibson</span>, +<span class="smcap">A Converted Smuggler</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">Care</span> has already been taken to +discriminate between the hardy, hearty, and daring fellows who +brought their duty-free goods across the sea and those others +who, daring also, but often cruel and criminal, handled the goods +ashore. We now come to close quarters with the seafaring +smugglers, in a few biographical sketches: premising them with +some striking testimony to their qualities as seamen.</p> +<p>Captain Brenton, in his “History of the Royal +Navy,” pays a very high, but not extravagant, compliment to +these daring fellows: “These men,” he says, +“are as remarkable for their skill in seamanship as for +their audacity in the hour of danger; their local knowledge has +been highly advantageous to the Navy, into which, however, they +never enter, unless sent on board ships of war as a punishment +for some crime <a name="page152"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +152</span>committed against the revenue laws. They are +hardy, sober, and faithful to each other, beyond the generality +of seamen; and, when shipwreck occurs, have been known to perform +deeds not exceeded in any country in the world; probably +unequalled in the annals of other maritime powers.”</p> +<p>Such men as these, besides being, in the rustic opinion, very +much of heroes, engaged in an unequal warfare, against heavy +odds, with a hateful, ogreish abstraction called “the +Government,” which existed only for the purpose of taxing +and suppressing the poor, for the benefit of the rich, were +regarded as benefactors; for they supplied the downtrodden, +overtaxed people with better articles, at lower prices, than +could be obtained in the legitimate way of traders who had paid +excise duties.</p> +<p>There was probably a considerable basis of truth to support +this view, for there is no doubt that duty-paid goods were +largely adulterated. To adulterate his spirits, his tea, +and his tobacco was the nearest road to any considerable profit +that the tradesman could then make.</p> +<p>Things being of this complexion, it would have been the +sheerest pedantry to refuse to purchase the goods the +free-traders supplied at such alluringly low prices, and of such +indubitably excellent quality; and to give retail publicans and +shopkeepers and private consumers their due, as sensible folk, +untroubled by supersensitive consciences, they rarely did +refuse.</p> +<p><a name="page153"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 153</span>Adam +Smith, in the course of his writings on political economy, nearly +a century and a half ago, stated the popular view about smuggling +and the purchase of smuggled goods:</p> +<blockquote><p>“To pretend to have any scruple about buying +smuggled goods, though a manifest encouragement to the violation +of the revenue laws, and to the perjury which almost always +attends it, would in most countries be regarded as one of those +pedantic pieces of hypocrisy which, instead of gaining credit +with anybody, seems only to expose the person who affects to +practise it to the suspicion of being a greater knave than most +of his neighbours.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>From even the most charitable point of view, that person who +was so eccentric as to refuse to take advantage of any favourable +opportunity of purchasing cheaply such good stuff as might be +offered to him, and had not paid toll to the Revenue, was a +prig.</p> +<p>Smith himself looked upon the smuggler with a great deal of +sympathy, and regarded him as “a person who, though no +doubt blamable for violating the laws of his country, is +frequently incapable of violating those of natural justice, and +would have been in every respect an excellent citizen had not the +laws of his country made that a crime which nature never meant to +be so.”</p> +<p>Very few, indeed, were those voices raised against the +practice of smuggling. Among them, however, was that of +John Wesley, perhaps the <a name="page154"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 154</span>most influential of all, especially +in the West of England. The clergy in general might rail +against the smugglers, but there were few among them who did not +enjoy the right sort of spirits which, singularly enough, could +only commonly be obtained from these shy sources; and there was a +certain malignant satisfaction to any properly constituted +smuggler in using the tower, or perhaps even the pulpit, of a +parish church as temporary spirit-cellar, and in undermining the +parson’s honesty by the present of a tub. Few were +those reverend persons who repudiated this sly suggestion of +co-partnery, and those few who felt inclined so to do were +generally silenced by the worldly wisdom of their parish clerks, +who, forming as it were a connecting link between things sacred +and profane, could on occasion inform a clergyman that his most +respected churchwarden was financially interested in the success +of some famous run of goods just notoriously brought off.</p> +<p>Among those few clergy who actively disapproved of these +things we must include the Rev. Robert Hardy, somewhat +multitudinously beneficed in Sussex and elsewhere in the +beginning of the nineteenth century. He published in 1818 a +solemn pamphlet entitled: “Serious Cautions and Advice to +all concerned in Smuggling; setting forth the Mischiefs attendant +upon that Traffic; together with some exhortations to Patience +and Contentment under the Difficulties and Trials of Life. +<a name="page155"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 155</span>By +Robert Hardy, A.M., Vicar of the united parishes of Walberton and +Yapton, and of Stoughton, in Sussex; and Chaplain to H.R.H. the +Prince Regent.”</p> +<p>The author did not by any means blink the difficulties or +dangers, but was, it will be conceded, far too sanguine when he +wrote the following passage, in the hope of his words suppressing +the trade:</p> +<p>“The calamities with which the Smuggler is now +perpetually visited, by Informations and Fines, and Seizures, and +Imprisonments, will, I trust, if properly considered, prevail +upon the rich to discountenance, and upon the poor to forbear +from, a traffic which, <i>in addition to the sin of it</i>, +carries in its train so many evils, and mischiefs, and +sorrows.”</p> +<p>His voice we may easily learn, in perusing the history of +smuggling at and after the date of his pamphlet, was as that of +one crying in the wilderness. Its sound may have pleased +himself, but it was absolutely wasted upon those who smuggled, +and those who purchased smuggled goods.</p> +<p>“Smugglers,” he said, “are of three +descriptions:</p> +<p>“1. Those who employ their capital in the +trade;</p> +<p>“2. Those who do the work;</p> +<p>“3. Those who deal in Smuggled Articles, either as +Sellers or as Buyers.</p> +<p>“All these are involved <i>in the guilt</i> of this +unlawful traffic; but its <i>moral injuries</i> fall principally +upon the <i>second</i> class.</p> +<p><a name="page156"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +156</span>“Smuggling,” he then proceeds to say, +“has not been confined to the lower orders of people; but, +from what I have heard, I apprehend that it has very generally +been encouraged by their superiors, for whom no manner of excuse, +that I know of, can be offered. I was once asked by an +inhabitant of a village near the sea whether I thought there was +any harm in smuggling. Upon my replying that I not only +thought there was a <i>great deal of harm</i> in it, but a +<i>great deal of sin</i>, he exclaimed, ‘Then the Lord have +mercy upon the county of Sussex, for who is there that has not +had a tub?’”</p> +<p>Among the ascertained careers of notable smugglers, that of +Thomas Johnson affords some exciting episodes. This worthy, +who appears to have been born in 1772 and to have died in 1839, +doubled the parts of smuggler and pilot. He was known +pretty generally as “the famous Hampshire +smuggler.”</p> +<p>As a captured and convicted smuggler he was imprisoned in the +New Prison in the Borough, in 1798, but made his escape, not +without suspicion of connivance on the part of the warders. +That the possession of him was ardently desired by the +authorities seems sufficiently evident by the fact of their +offering a reward of £500 for his apprehension; but he +countered this by offering his services the following year as +pilot to the British forces sent to Holland. This offer was +duly accepted, and Johnson acquitted himself so greatly to the +satisfaction of <a name="page157"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +157</span>Sir Ralph Abercromby, commanding, that he was fully +pardoned.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p156.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Escape of Johnson" +title= +"The Escape of Johnson" +src="images/p156.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>He then plunged into extravagant living, and finally found +himself involved in heavy debts, stated (but not altogether +credibly) to have totalled £11,000. Resuming his old +occupation of smuggling, he was sufficiently wary not to be +captured again by the revenue officers; but what they found it +impossible to achieve was with little difficulty accomplished by +the bailiffs, who arrested him for debt and flung him into the +debtors’ prison of the Fleet, in 1802. Once there, +the Inland Revenue were upon him with smuggling charges, and the +situation seemed so black that he determined on again making a +venture for freedom. Waiting an exceptionally dark night, +he, on November 29th, stealthily crossed the yard and climbed the +tall enclosing wall that separated the prison from the outer +world. Sitting on the summit of this wall, he let himself +down slowly by the full length of his arms, just over the place +where a lamp was bracketed out over the pathway, far +beneath. He then let himself drop so that he would fall on +to the bracket, which he calculated would admirably break the too +deep drop from the summit of the wall to the ground. +Unfortunately for him, an unexpected piece of projecting ironwork +caught him and ripped up the entire length of his thigh. At +that moment the slowly approaching footsteps of the watchman were +heard, and Johnson, with agonised apprehension, saw him coming +along, swinging his lantern. <a name="page158"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 158</span>There was nothing for it but to lie +along the bracket, bleeding profusely the while, until the +watchman should have passed.</p> +<p>He did so, and, as soon as seemed safe, dropped to the ground +and crawled to a hackney-coach, hired by his friends, that had +been waiting that night and several nights earlier, near by.</p> +<p>Safely away from the neighbourhood of the prison, his friends +procured him a post-chaise and four; and thus he travelled +post-haste to the Sussex coast at Brighton. On the beach a +small sailing-vessel was waiting to convey him across +Channel. He landed at Calais and thence made for Flushing, +where he was promptly flung into prison by the agents of +Napoleon, who was at that time seriously menacing our shores with +invasion from Boulogne, where his flotilla for the transport of +troops then lay.</p> +<p>Johnson and others were, in the opening years of the +nineteenth century, very busily employed in smuggling gold out of +the country into France. Ever since the troubles of the +Revolution in that country, and all through the wars that had +been waged with the rise of Napoleon, gold had been +dwindling. People, terrified at the unrest of the times, +and nervous of fresh troubles to come, secreted coin, and +consequently the premium on gold rose to an extraordinary height, +not only on the Continent but in England as well. A guinea +would then fetch as much as twenty-seven shillings, and was worth +a good deal more on the other side of the Channel. +Patriotism was not proof against <a name="page159"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 159</span>the prospects of profits to be +earned by the export of gold, and not a few otherwise respectable +banking-houses embarked in the trade. Finance has no +conscience.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p158.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Johnson putting off from Brighton Beach" +title= +"Johnson putting off from Brighton Beach" +src="images/p158.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It is obvious that only thoroughly dependable and responsible +men could be employed on this business, for shipments of gold +varied from £20,000 to £50,000.</p> +<p>Eight and ten-oared galleys were as a rule used for the +traffic; the money slung in long leather purses around the +oarsmen’s bodies.</p> +<p>Napoleon is said to have offered Johnson a very large reward +if he would consent, as pilot, to aid his scheme of invasion, and +we are told that Johnson hotly refused.</p> +<p>“I am a smuggler,” said he, “but a true +lover of my country, and no traitor.”</p> +<p>Napoleon was no sportsman. He kept Johnson closely +confined in a noisome dungeon for nine months. How much +longer he proposed to hold him does not appear, for the smuggler, +long watching a suitable opportunity, at last broke away, and, +ignorant that a pardon was awaiting him in England, escaped to +America.</p> +<p>Returning from that “land of the brave and the +free,” we find him in 1806 with the fleet commanded by Lord +St. Vincent, off Brest. Precisely what services, beside the +obvious one of acting as pilot, he was then rendering our Navy +cannot be said, for the materials toward a life of this somewhat +heroic and picturesque figure are very scanty. But that he +had some plan for the <a name="page160"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 160</span>destruction of the French fleet +seems obvious from the correspondence of Lord St. Vincent, who, +writing on August 8th, 1806, to Viscount Howick, remarks, +“The vigilance of the enemy alone prevented Tom Johnstone +[sic] from doing what he professed.” What he +professed is, unfortunately, hidden from us.</p> +<p>After this mysterious incident we lose sight for a while of +our evasive hero, and may readily enough assume that he returned +again to his smuggling enterprises; for it is on record that in +1809, when the unhappy Walcheren expedition was about to be +despatched, at enormous cost, from England to the malarial shores +of Holland, he once more offered his services as pilot, and they +were again accepted, with the promise of another pardon for +lately-accrued offences.</p> +<p>He duly piloted the expedition, to the entire satisfaction of +the Government, and received his pardon and a pension of +£100 a year. He fully deserved both, for he signally +distinguished himself in the course of the operations by swimming +to the ramparts of a fort, with a rope, by which in some +unexplained manner a tremendous and disastrous explosion was +effected.</p> +<p>He was further appointed to the command of the revenue cruiser +<i>Fox</i>, at the conclusion of the war, and thus set to prey +upon his ancient allies; who, in their turn, made things so +uncomfortable for the “scurvy rat,” as they were +pleased picturesquely to style him, that he rarely dared venture +out of port. So it would appear that he <a +name="page161"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 161</span>did not for +any great length of time hold that command.</p> +<p>But the reputation for daring and resourcefulness that he +enjoyed did not seem to be clouded by this incident, for he was +approached by the powerful friends of Napoleon, exiled at St. +Helena, to aid them in a desperate attempt to rescue the fallen +Emperor. It was said that they offered him the sum of +£40,000 down, and a further very large sum, if the attempt +were successful. The patriotic hero of some years earlier +seems to have been successfully tempted. “Every +man,” says the cynic, “has his price”; and +£40,000 and a generous refresher formed his. For +personal gain he was prepared to let loose once more the scourge +of Europe.</p> +<p>Plans were actively afoot for the construction of a submarine +boat (there is nothing new under the sun!) for the purpose of +secretly conveying the distinguished exile away, when he +inconsiderately died; and thus vanished Johnson’s dreams of +wealth.</p> +<p>Some years later Johnson built a submarine boat to the order +of the Spanish Government, and ran trials with it in the Thames, +between London Bridge and Blackwall. On one occasion it +became entangled in a cable of one of the vessels lying in the +Pool, and for a time it seemed scarce possible the boat could +easily be freed.</p> +<p>“We have but two and a half minutes to live,” said +he, consulting his watch calmly, “unless we get clear of +that cable.”</p> +<p><a name="page162"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +162</span>“Captain” Johnson, as he was generally +styled, lived in quiet for many years, finally dying at the age +of sixty-seven, in March 1839, in the unromantic surroundings of +the Vauxhall Bridge Road.</p> +<p>Another smuggler of considerable reputation, of whom, however, +we know all too little, was Harry Paulet. This person, who +appears in some manner to have become a prisoner aboard a French +man-o’-war, made his escape and took with him a bag of the +enemy’s despatches, which he handed over to the English +naval authorities.</p> +<p>A greater deed was that when, sailing with a cargo of smuggled +brandy, he came in view of the French fleet (we being then, as +usual, at war with France), Paulet immediately went on a new tack +and carried the news of the enemy’s whereabouts to Lord +Hawke, who promised to hang him if the news were not true.</p> +<p>A somewhat interesting and curious account of the conversion +of a youthful smuggler may be found in an old volume of <i>The +Bible Christian Magazine</i>. The incident belongs to the +Scilly Isles.</p> +<p>William Gibson, the smuggler in question, was a bold, daring +young man, and he, with others, had crossed over to France more +than once in a small open boat, a distance of 150 miles, rowing +there and back, running great risks to bring home a cargo of +brandy.</p> +<p>In 1820, the time when William was at his best in these +smuggling enterprises, St. Mary’s was visited by a pious, +simple-minded young woman, <a name="page163"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 163</span>Mary Ann Werry by name, the first +representative of the Bible Christian connexion to land on the +island. The congregation were in the throes of a revival, +and eager for more and more preaching, but the minister upon whom +they principally relied was commercially minded, and demanded +£2 for his services. The members refused to give +it. “There is a woman here,” said they, +“we will have her to preach to us”; and, being asked, +she consented, and preached from 1 Tim. iv. 8, “For bodily +exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable unto all +things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which +is to come.”</p> +<p>We have the well-known ruling of Dr. Johnson upon the +preaching of women, that it in a manner resembles a dog walking +on its hind-legs: it is not done well; you only marvel that it is +done at all. [N.B.—Dr. Johnson would not have +favoured, or been favoured by, modern Women’s +Leagues.] But, at any rate, Miss Werry seems to have been a +notable exception. She was eloquent and persuasive, and +played upon the sensibilities of those rugged Scillonians what +tune she would.</p> +<p>Tears of penitence rolled down the cheeks of many a stalwart +man (to say nothing of the hoary sinners) that day. Among +the number thus affected was William Gibson, of St. +Martin’s, who from that hour became a changed person. +No longer did he refuse to render unto Cæsar (otherwise +King George) that which was Cæsar’s (or King +George’s). He gave up the contraband <a +name="page164"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 164</span>trade, and, +forswearing his old companions’ ways, turned to those of +the righteous and the law-abiding, and became a burning and a +shining light, and, as “Brother Gibson,” a painful +preacher in the Bible Christian communion. And thus, and in +lawful fishing, with some little piloting, he continued +steadfast, until his death in 1877, in his eighty-third year.</p> +<h2><a name="page165"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +165</span>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The Carter Family</span>, <span class="smcap">of +Prussia Cove</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> the west of Cornwall, on the +south coast of the narrow neck of land which forms the beginning +of that final westerly region known as +“Penwithstart,” is situated Prussia Cove, originally +named Porth Leah, or King’s Cove. It lies just +eastwardly of the low dark promontory known as Cuddan Point, and +is even at this day a secluded place, lying remote from the dull +high-road that runs between Helston, Marazion, and +Penzance. In the days of the smugglers Porth Leah, or +Prussia Cove, was something more than secluded, and those who had +any business at all with the place came to it much more easily by +sea than by land. This disability was, however, not so +serious as at first sight it would seem to be, for the +inhabitants of Prussia Cove were few, and were all, without +exception, fishermen and smugglers, who were much more at home +upon the sea than on land, and desired nothing so little as good +roads and easy communication with the world. An interesting +and authoritative sidelight upon the then condition of this +district of West Cornwall is afforded by <i>The Gentleman’s +Magazine</i> of 1754, in which the <a name="page166"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 166</span>entire absence of roads of any kind +is commented upon. Bridle-paths there were, worn doubtless +in the first instance by the remote original inhabitants of this +region, trodden by the Phoenician traders of hoary antiquity, and +unaltered in all the intervening ages. They then remained, +says <i>The Gentleman’s Magazine</i>, “as the Deluge +left them, and dangerous to travel over.” That time +of writing was the era when these conditions were coming to an +end, for the road from Penryn to Marazion was shortly afterwards +constructed, much to the alarm and disgust of the people of West +Cornwall in general, and of those of Penzance in +particular. Penzance required no roads, and in 1760 its +Corporation petitioned, but unsuccessfully, against the extension +of the turnpike road then proposed, from Marazion. That was +the time when there was but one cart in the town, and when +wheeled traffic was impossible outside it: pack-horses and the +sledge-like contrivances known as “truckamucks” being +the only methods of conveying such few goods as were +required.</p> +<p>Under these interesting social conditions the ancient +semi-independence of Western Cornwall remained, little +impaired. Many still spoke the older Cornish language; the +majority of folk referred to Devonshire and the country in +general beyond the Tamar as “England”—the +inference being, of course, that Cornwall itself was <i>not</i> +England—and smuggling was as usual an industry as tin and +copper-mining, fishing, or farming. Indeed the distances in +Western <a name="page167"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +167</span>Cornwall between sea and sea are so narrow that any man +was commonly as excellent at farming as he was at fishing, and as +expert at smuggling as at either of those more legitimate +occupations. This amphibious race, wholly Celtic, +adventurous, and enthusiastic, was not readily amenable to the +restrictions upon trade imposed by that shadowy, distant, and +impersonal abstraction called “the Government,” +supported by visible forces, in the way of occasional soldiers or +infrequent revenue cruisers, wherewith to make the collectors of +customs at Penzance, Falmouth, or St. Ives, respected.</p> +<p>“The coasts here swarm with smugglers,” wrote +George Borlase, of Penzance, agent to Lieut.-General Onslow, in +1750. Many letters by the same hand, printed in the +publications of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, under the +title of the “Lanisley Letters,” reiterate this +statement, the writer of them urging the establishment of a +military force at Helston, for “just on that neighbourhood +lye the smugglers and wreckers, more than about us (at Penzance), +tho’ there are too many in all parts of the +country.”</p> +<p>The Cornish of that time were an unregenerate race, in the +fullest sense of that term, and indulged in all the evil excesses +to which the Celtic nature, untouched by religion, and wallowing +in ancient superstitions, is prone. They drank to excess, +fought brutally, and were shameless wreckers, who did not +hesitate to lure ships upon the rocks and so bring about their +destruction and <a name="page168"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +168</span>incidentally their own enrichment by the cargo and +other valuables washed ashore. Murder was a not unusual +corollary of the wreckers’ fearful trade, partly because of +the olden superstition that, if you saved the life of a castaway, +that person whom you had preserved would afterwards bring about +your own destruction. Therefore it was merely the instinct +of self-preservation, and not sheer ferocity, that prompted the +knocking on the head of such waifs and strays. If, at the +same time, the wrecker went over the pockets of the deceased, or +cut off his or her fingers, for the sake of any rings, that must +not, of course, be accounted mere vulgar robbery: it was simply +the frugal nature of the people, unwilling to waste anything.</p> +<p>Upon these simple children of nature, imbued with many of the +fearful beliefs current among the savages of the South Sea +islands, the Reverend John Wesley descended, in 1743. They +were then, he says, a people “who neither feared God nor +regarded man.” Yet, so impressionable is the Celtic +nature, so childlike and easily led for good or for evil, that +his preaching within a marvellously short space of time entirely +changed the habits of these folk. In every village and +hamlet there sprang up, as by magic, Wesleyan Methodist +meeting-houses; and these and other chapels of dissent from the +Church of England are to this day the most outstanding features +of the Cornish landscape. They are, architecturally +speaking, without exception, hideous eyesores, but morally <a +name="page169"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 169</span>they are +things of beauty. It is one of the bitterest indictments +possible to be framed against the Church of England in the west +that, in all its existence, it has never commanded the +affections, nor exercised the spiritual influence, won by Wesley +in a few short years.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p168.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Smugglers using Church Tower for Storage" +title= +"Smugglers using Church Tower for Storage" +src="images/p168.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>It was about this period of Wesley’s first visits to +Cornwall that the Carter family of Prussia Cove were born. +Their father, Francis Carter, who was a miner, and had, in +addition, a small farm at Pengersick, traditionally came of a +Shropshire family, and died in 1784. He had eight sons and +two daughters, John Carter, the “King of Prussia,” +being the eldest. Among the others, Francis, born 1745, +Henry, born 1749, and Charles, 1757, were also actively engaged +in smuggling; but John, both in respect of being the eldest, and +by force of character, was chief of them. He and his +brethren were all, to outward seeming, small farmers and +fisherfolk, tilling the ungrateful land in the neighbourhood of +Porth Leah, but in reality busily employed in bringing over +cargoes of spirits from Roscoff, Cherbourg, and St. Malo. +The origin of the nickname, “King of Prussia,” borne +by John Carter, is said to lie in the boyish games of the +“king of the castle” kind, of himself and his +brothers, in which he was always the “King of +Prussia”—<i>i.e.</i> Frederick the Great, the popular +hero of that age. Overlooking the cove of Porth Leah, at +that time still bearing that name, he built about 1770 a large +and substantial stone house, which stood <a +name="page170"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 170</span>a prominent +feature in the scene, until it was demolished in 1906. This +he appears to have kept partly as an inn, licensed or unlicensed, +which became known by his own nickname, the “King of +Prussia,” and in it he lived until 1807.</p> +<p>“Prussia Cove” is, in fact, two coves, formed by +the interposition of a rocky ledge, at whose extremity is a +rock-islet called the “Eneys”—<i>i.e.</i> +“ynys,” ancient Cornish for island. The western +portion of these inlets is “Bessie’s Cove,” +which takes its name from one Bessie Burrow, who kept an inn on +the cliff-top, known as the “Kidleywink.” The +easterly inlet was the site of the “King of +Prussia’s” house. Both these rocky channels had +the advantage of being tucked away by nature in recesses of the +coast, and so overhung by the low cliffs that no stranger could +in the least perceive what harboured there until he was actually +come to the cliff’s edge, and peering over them; while no +passing vessel out in the Channel could detect the presence of +any craft, which could not be located from the sea until the cove +itself was approached.</p> +<p>Thus snugly seated, the Carter family throve. Of John +Carter, although chief of the clan, we have few details, always +excepting the one great incident of his career; and of that the +account is but meagre. It seems that he had actually been +impudent enough to construct a battery, mounted with some small +cannon, beside his house, and had the temerity to unmask it and +open fire upon the <i>Fairy</i> revenue sloop, which one day +chased a <a name="page171"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +171</span>smuggling craft into this lair, and had sent in a boat +party. The boat withdrew before this unexpected reception, +and, notice having been sent round to Penzance, a party of +mounted soldiers appeared the following morning and let loose +their muskets upon the smugglers, who were still holding the +fort, but soon vacated it upon thus being taken in the rear, +retreating to the “Kidleywink.” What would next +have happened had the soldiers pursued their advantage we can +only surmise; but they appear to have been content with this +demonstration, and to have returned whence they came, while of +the revenue sloop we hear no more. Nor does Carter ever +appear to have been called to account for his defiance. But +if a guess may be hazarded where information does not exist, it +may be assumed that Carter’s line of defence would be that +his fort was constructed and armed against French raids, and that +he mistook the revenue vessel for a foreign privateer.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p170.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Prussia Cove" +title= +"Prussia Cove" +src="images/p170.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>John Carter, and indeed all his brothers with him, was highly +respected, as the following story will show. The excise +officers of Penzance, hearing on one occasion that he was away +from home, descended upon the cove with a party, and searched the +place. They found a quantity of spirits lately landed, and, +securing all the kegs, carried them off to Penzance and duly +locked them up in the custom-house. The anger of the +“King of Prussia” upon his return was great; not so +great, it seems, on account of the actual loss <a +name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 172</span>of the +goods as for the breaking of faith with his customers it +involved. The spirits had been ordered by some of the +gentlefolk around, and a good deal of them had been paid +for. Should he be disgraced by failing to keep his +engagements as an honest tradesman? Never! And so he +and his set off to Penzance overnight, and, raiding the +custom-house, brought away all his tubs, from among a number of +others. When morning came, and the custom-house was +unlocked, the excisemen knew whose handiwork this had been, +because Carter was such an honourable man, and none other than +himself would have been so scrupulous as to take back only his +own. Yet he was also the hero of the next incident. +The revenue officers once paid him a surprise visit, and +overhauled his outhouses, in search of contraband. The +search, on this occasion, was fruitless. But there yet +remained one other shed, and this, suspiciously enough, was +locked. He refused to hand over the key, whereupon the door +was burst open, revealing only domestic articles. The +broken door remained open throughout the night, and by morning +all the contents of the shed had vanished. Carter +successfully sued for the value of the property he had +“lost,” but he had removed it himself!</p> +<p>We learn something of the Carter family business from the +autobiography written by Henry Carter, an account of his life +from 1749 until 1795. Much else is found in a memoir +printed in <i>The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine</i>, 1831. <a +name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>“Captain Harry” lived until 1829, farming +in a small way at the neighbouring hamlet of Rinsey. He had +long relinquished smuggling, having been converted in 1789, and +living as a burning and a shining light in the Wesleyan communion +thereafter, preaching with fervour and unction. He tells +us, in his rough, unvarnished autobiography <a +name="citation173"></a><a href="#footnote173" +class="citation">[173]</a> that he first went smuggling and +fishing with his brothers when seventeen years of age, having +already worked in the mines. At twenty-five years of age he +went regularly smuggling in a ten-ton sloop, with two men to help +him; and was so successful that he soon had a sloop, nearly twice +as large, especially built for him. Successful again, +“rather beyond common,” he (or “we,” as +he says) bought a cutter of some thirty tons, and employed a crew +of ten men. “I saild in her one year, and I suppose +made more safe voyages than have been ever made, since or before, +with any single person.” All this while, he tells us, +he was under conviction of sin, but went on, nevertheless, for +years, sinning and repenting. “Well, then,” he +continues, “in the cource of these few years, as we card a +large trade with other vessels allso, we gained a large sum of +money, and being a speculating family, was not satisfied with +small things.” A new cutter was accordingly built, of +about sixty tons burthen, and Captain Harry took her to sea in +December 1777. Putting <a name="page174"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 174</span>into St. Malo, to repair a sprung +bowsprit, his fine new cutter, with its sixteen guns, was taken +by the French, and himself and his crew of thirty-six men flung +into prison, difficulties having again sprung up between England +and France, and an embargo being laid upon all English shipping +in French ports. In prison he was presently joined by his +brother John; both being shortly afterwards sent on parole to +Josselin. In November 1779 they were liberated, in exchange +for two French gentlemen, prisoners of war. The family, +Captain Harry remarks, they found alive and well on their return +home after this two years’ absence, but in a low state, the +“business” not having been managed well in their +enforced absence.</p> +<p>It is impossible to resist the strong suspicion, in all this +and other talk in the autobiography, of buying and building newer +and larger vessels, that the Carters were financed by some +wealthy and influential person, or persons, as undoubtedly many +smugglers were, the profits of the smuggling trade, when +conducted on a large scale and attended by a run of luck, being +very large and amply recouping the partners for the incidental +losses. But the loss of the fine new cutter, on her first +voyage, at St. Malo, must have been a very serious business.</p> +<p>After another interval of success with the smaller cutter they +had earlier used, with spells ashore, “riding about the +country getting freights, collecting money for the company, etc., +etc.,” <a name="page175"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +175</span>another fifty-ton cutter was purchased, mounting +nineteen guns. That venture, too, was highly successful, +and “the company accordingly had a new lugger built, +mounting twenty guns.” Horrible to relate, Captain +Harry, “being exposed to more company and sailors of all +descriptions, larned to swear at times.” This is bad +hearing.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p174.jpg"> +<img alt= +"In a French prison" +title= +"In a French prison" +src="images/p174.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Obviously in those times there was a good deal of give and +take going on between the Customs and those smugglers who +smuggled on a large scale, and the Carters’ vessels must in +some unofficial way have ranked as privateers. Hence, +possibly, the considerable armament they carried. The +Customs, and the Admiralty too, were prepared to wink at +smuggling when services against the foreign foe could be +invoked. Thus we find Captain Harry, in his autobiography, +narrating how the Collector of Customs at Penzance sent him a +message to the effect that the <i>Black Prince</i> privateer, +from Dunkirk, was off the coast, near St. Ives, and desiring him +to pursue her. “It was not,” frankly says +Captain Harry, “a very agreeable business”; but, +being afraid of offending the Collector, he obeyed, and went in +pursuit, with two vessels. Coming up with the enemy, after +a running fight of three or four hours, the lugger received a +shot that obliged her to bear up, in a sinking condition; and so +her consort stood by her, and the chase was of necessity +abandoned. Presently the lugger sank, fourteen of her crew +of thirty-one being drowned.</p> +<p><a name="page176"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 176</span>In +January 1788 he went with a cargo of contraband in a +forty-five-ton lugger to Cawsand Bay, near Plymouth, and there +met with the most serious reverse of his smuggling career, two +man-o’-war’s boats boarding the vessel and seizing it +and its contents. He was so knocked about over the head +with cutlasses that he was felled to the deck, and left there for +dead.</p> +<p>“I suppose I might have been there aboute a quarter of +an hour, until they had secured my people below, and after found +me lying on the deck. One of them said, ‘Here is one +of the poor fellows dead.’ Another made answer, +‘Put the man below.’ He answered again, saying, +‘What use is it to put a dead man below?’ and so past +on. Aboute this time the vessel struck aground, the wind +being about east-south-east, very hard, right on the shore. +So their I laid very quiet for near the space of two hours, +hearing their discourse as they walked by me, the night being +very dark on the 30 Jany. 1788. When some of them saw me +lying there, said, ‘Here lays one of the fellows +dead,’ one of them answered as before, ‘Put him +below.’ Another said, ‘The man is +dead.’ The commanding officer gave orders for a +lantern and candle to be brought, so they took up one of my legs, +as I was lying upon my belly; he let it go, and it fell as dead +down on the deck. He likewayse put his hand up under my +clothes, between my shirt and my skin, and then examined my head, +saying, ‘This man is so warm now as he was two hours <a +name="page177"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 177</span>back, but +his head is all to atoms.’ I have thought hundreds of +times since what a miracle it was I neither sneezed, coughed, nor +drew breath that they perceived in all this time, I suppose not +less than ten or fifteen minutes. The water being ebbing, +the vessel making a great heel towards the shore, so that in the +course of a very little time after, as their two boats were made +fast alongside, one of them broke adrift. Immediately there +was orders given to man the other boat, in order to fetch her; so +that when I saw them in the state of confusion, their gard +broken, I thought it was my time to make my escape; so I crept on +my belly on the deck, and got over a large raft just before the +mainmast, close by one of the men’s heels, as he was +standing there handing the trysail. When I got over the +lee-side I thought I should be able to swim on shore in a stroke +or two. I took hold of the burtons of the mast, and, as I +was lifting myself over the side, I was taken with the cramp in +one of my thighs. So then I thought I should be drowned, +but still willing to risk it, so that I let myself over the side +very easily by a rope into the water, fearing my enemies would +hear me, and then let go. As I was very near the shore, I +thought to swim on shore in the course of a stroke or two, as I +used to swim so well, but soon found out my mistake. I was +sinking almost like a stone, and hauling astarn in deeper water, +when I gave up all hopes of life, and began to swallow some +water. I found a rope <a name="page178"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 178</span>under my breast, so that I had not +lost all my senses. I hauled upon it, and soon found one +end fast to the side, just where I went overboard, which gave me +a little hope of life. So that when I got there, could not +tell which was best, to call to the man-of-war’s men to +take me in, or to stay there and die, for my life and strength +were allmoste exhausted; but whilst I was thinking of this, +touched bottom with my feet. Hope then sprung up, and I +soon found another rope, leading towards the head of the vessel +in shoaler water, so that I veered upon one and hauled upon the +other that brought me under the bowsprit, and then at times upon +the send of the sea, my feete were allmoste dry. I thought +then I would soon be out of their way. Left go the rope, +but as soon as I attempted to run, fell down, and as I fell, +looking round aboute me, saw three men standing close by +me. I knew they were the man-of-war’s men seeing for +the boat, so I lyed there quiet for some little time, and then +creeped upon my belly I suppose aboute the distance of fifty +yards; and as the ground was scuddy, some flat rock mixt with +channels of sand, I saw before me a channel of white sand, and +for fear to be seen creeping over it, which would take some time, +not knowing there was anything the matter with me, made the +second attempt to run, and fell in the same manner as +before. My brother Charles being there, looking out for the +vessel, desired some Cawsand men to go down to see if they could +<a name="page179"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 179</span>pick up +any of the men, dead or alive, not expecting to see me ever any +more, allmoste sure I was ither shot or drowned. One of +them saw me fall, ran to my assistance, and, taking hold of me +under the arm, says, ‘Who are you?’ So as I +thought him to be an enemy, made no answer. He said, +‘Fear not, I am a friend; come with me.’ And by +that time, forth was two more come, which took me under both +arms, and the other pushed me in the back, and so dragged me up +to the town. I suppose it might have been about the +distance of the fifth part of a mile. My strength was +allmoste exhausted; my breath, nay, my life, was allmoste +gone. They took me into a room where there were seven or +eight of Cawsand men and my brother Charles, and when he saw me, +knew me by my great coat, and cryed with joy, ‘This is my +brother!’ So then they immediately slipt off my wet +clothes, and one of them pulled off his shirt from off him and +put on me, sent for a doctor, and put me to bed. Well, +then, I have thought many a time since what a wonder it +was. The bone of my nose cut right in two, nothing but a +bit of skin holding it, and two very large cuts on my head, that +two or three pieces of my skull worked out afterwards.”</p> +<p>The difficulty before Captain Harry’s friends was how to +hide him away, for they were convinced that a reward would be +offered for his apprehension. He was, in the first +instance, taken to the house of his brother Charles, and stayed +<a name="page180"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 180</span>there +six or seven days, until an advertisement appeared in the +newspapers, offering a reward of three hundred pounds for him, +within three months. He was then taken to the house of a +gentleman at Marazion, and there remained close upon three weeks, +removing thence to the mansion called Acton Castle, near Cuddan +Point, then quite newly built by one Mr. John Stackhouse. +He was moved to and fro, between Acton Castle and Marazion, and +so great did his brothers think the need of precaution that the +doctor who attended to his hurts was blindfolded on the +way. And so matters progressed until October, when he was +shipped from Mount’s Bay to Leghorn, and thence, in 1789, +sailed for New York. It was in New York that the Lord +strove mightily with him, and he was converted and became a +member of the Wesleyan Methodist communion. After some +considerable trials, he sailed for England, and finally reached +home again in October 1790, to his brother Charles’s house +at Kenneggey. His reception was enthusiastic, and he became +in great request as a preacher in all that countryside. But +in April 1791 he tells us he was sent for “by a great man +of this neighbourhood” (probably one of those whom we have +already suspected of being sleeping-partners in the +Carters’ business), and warned that three gentlemen had +been in his company one day at Helston, when one said, looking +out of window, “There goes a Methodist preacher”; +whereupon another answered, “I wonder how Harry Carter goes +<a name="page181"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 181</span>about so +publicly, preaching, and the law against him. I wonder he +is not apprehended.” The great man warned him that it +might be a wise course to return to America. +“And,” continues Captain Harry, “as the gent +was well acquainted with our family, I dined with him, and he +brought me about a mile in my way home; so I parted with him, +fully determining in my own mind to soon see my dear friends in +New York again. So I told my brothers what the news was, +and that I was meaning to take the gent’s advice. +They answered, ‘If you go to America, we never shall see +you no more. We are meaning to car on a little trade in +Roscoff, in the brandy and gin way, and if you go there +you’ll be as safe there as in America; likewayse we shal +pay you for your comision, and you car on a little business for +yourself, if you please.’ So,” continues this +simple soul, “with prayer and supplication I made my +request known unto God.” And as there appeared no +divine interdict upon smuggling, he accepted the agency and went +to reside at Roscoff, sending over many a consignment of ardent +liquors that were never intended to—and never did—pay +tribute to the Revenue. All went well until, in the +troubles that attended the French Revolution, he was, in company +with other English, arrested and flung into prison in 1793. +And in prison he remained during that Reign of Terror in which +English prisoners were declared by the Convention to rank with +the “aristocrats” and the “suspects,” and +were <a name="page182"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +182</span>therefore in hourly danger of the guillotine. +This immediate terror passed when Robespierre was executed, July +28th, 1794, but it was not until August 1795 that Harry Carter +was released. He reached home on August 22nd, and appears +ever after to have settled down to tilling a modest farm and +leaving smuggling to brothers John and Charles.</p> +<h2><a name="page183"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +183</span>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Jack Rattenbury</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">We</span> do not expect of smugglers that +they should be either literary or devout. The doings of the +Hawkhurst Gang, and of other desperate and bloody-minded +associations of free-traders, seem more in key with the business +than either the sitting at a desk, nibbling a pen and rolling a +frenzied eye, in search of a telling phrase, or the singing of +Methodist psalms. Yet we have, in the “Memoirs of a +Smuggler,” published at Sidmouth in 1837, the career of +Jack Rattenbury, smuggler, of Beer, in Devonshire, told by +himself; and in the diary of Henry Carter, of Prussia Cove, and +later of Rinsey, we have learned how he found peace and walked +with the saints, after a not uneventful career in robbing the +King’s Revenue of a goodly portion of its dues as by law +enacted. With the eminent Mr. Henry Carter and his +interesting brothers we have already dealt, reserving this +chapter for the still more eminent Rattenbury, “commonly +called,” as he says on his own title-page (in the manner of +one who knows his own worth), “The Rob Roy of the +West.”</p> +<p>We need not be so simple as to suppose that <a +name="page184"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 184</span>Rattenbury +himself actually wrote, with his own hand, this interesting +account of his adventures. The son of a village cobbler in +South Devon, born in 1778, and taking to a seafaring life when +nine years of age, would scarce be capable, in years of eld, of +writing the conventionally “elegant” English of which +his “Autobiography” is composed. But nothing +“transpires” (as the actual writer of the book might +say) as to whom Rattenbury recounted his moving tale, or by whose +hand it was really set down. Bating, however, the +conventional language, the book has the unmistakable forthright +first-hand character of a personal narrative.</p> +<p>Before the future smuggler was born, as he tells us, his +shoemaker, or cobbler, father disappeared from Beer in a manner +in those days not unusual. He went on board a +man-o’-war, and was never again heard of. Whether he +actually “went,” or was taken by a press-gang, we are +left to conjecture. But they were sturdy, self-reliant +people in those days, and Mrs. Rattenbury earned a livelihood in +this bereavement by selling fish, “without receiving the +least assistance from the parish, or any of her +friends.”</p> +<p>When Jack Rattenbury was nine years of age he was introduced +to the sea by means of his uncle’s fishing-boat, but +dropped the family connection upon being lustily +rope’s-ended by the uncle, as a reward for losing the +boat’s rudder. He then went apprentice to a Brixham +fisherman, but, being the younger among several <a +name="page185"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +185</span>apprentices, was accordingly bullied, and left; +returning to Beer, where he found his uncle busily engaging a +privateer’s crew, war having again broken out between +England and France, and merchantmen being a likely prey.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p184.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Jack Rattenbury" +title= +"Jack Rattenbury" +src="images/p184.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>So behold our bold privateer setting forth, keen for loot and +distinction; the hearts of men and boys alike beating high in +hope of such glory as might attach to capturing some defenceless +trader, and in anticipation of the prize-money to be obtained by +robbing him. But see the irony of the gods in their high +heavens! After seven weeks’ fruitless and expensive +cruising at sea, they espied a likely vessel, and bore down upon +her, with the horrible result that she proved to be an armed +Frenchman of twenty-six guns, who promptly captured the +privateer, without even the pretence of a fight: the privateering +crew being sent, ironed, down below hatches aboard the Frenchman, +which then set sail for Bordeaux. There those more or less +gallant souls were flung into prison, whence Rattenbury managed +to escape to an American ship lying in the harbour. It +continued to lie there, in consequence of an embargo upon all +shipping, for twelve months: an anxious time for the boy. +At last, the interdict being removed, they sailed, and Rattenbury +landed at New York. From that port he returned to France in +another American ship, landing at Havre; and at last, after a +variety of transhipments, came home again to Beer, by way of +Guernsey.</p> +<p><a name="page186"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 186</span>He +was by this time about sixteen years of age. For six months +he remained at home engaged in fishing; but this he found a very +dull occupation after his late roving life, and, as smuggling was +then very active in the neighbourhood, and promised both profit +and excitement, he accordingly engaged in a small vessel that +plied between Lyme Regis and the Channel Islands, chiefly in the +cognac-smuggling business. This interlude likewise soon +came to an end, and he then joined a small vessel called <i>The +Friends</i>, lying at Bridport. On his first voyage, in the +entirely honest business of sailing to Tenby for a cargo of culm, +this ship was unlucky enough to be captured by a French +privateer; but Rattenbury escaped by a clever ruse, off Swanage, +and, swimming ashore, secured the intervention of the +<i>Nancy</i>, revenue cutter, which recaptured <i>The +Friends</i>, and brought her into Cowes that same night: a very +smart piece of work, as will be readily conceded. Those +were times of quick and surprising changes, and Rattenbury had +not been again aboard <i>The Friends</i> more than two days when +he was forcibly enlisted in the Navy, by the press-gang. +Escaping from the more or less glorious service of his country at +the end of a fortnight, he then prudently went on a long +cod-fishing cruise off Newfoundland; but on the return voyage the +ship was captured by a Spanish privateer and taken to Vigo. +Escaping thence, he again reached home, to be captured by the +bright eyes of one of the buxom maids of Beer, where he was +married, <a name="page187"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +187</span>April 17th, 1801, proceeding then to live at Lyme +Regis. Privateering to the west coast of Africa then +occupied his activities for a time, but that business was never a +profitable one, as far as Rattenbury was concerned, and they +caught nothing; but, on the other hand, were nearly impressed, +ship and ship’s company too, by the <i>Alert</i>, +King’s cutter. Piloting, rather than privateering, +then engaged his attention, and it was while occupied in that +trade that he was again impressed and again escaped.</p> +<p>He then returned to Beer, and embarked upon a series of +smuggling ventures, varied by attempts on the part of the +press-gang to lay hold of him, and by some other (and always +barren) privateering voyages. Ostensibly engaged in +fishing, he landed many boat-loads of contraband at Beer, +bringing them from quiet spots on the coasts of Dorset and +Hampshire, where the goods had been hidden. Christchurch +was one of these smugglers’ warehouses, and from the creeks +of that flat shore he and his fellows brought many a load, in +open boats. On one of these occasions he fell in with the +<i>Roebuck</i> revenue tender, which chased and fired upon him: +the man who fired doing the damage to himself, for the gun burst +and blew off his arm. But Rattenbury and his companions +were captured, and their boat-load of gin was impounded. +Rattenbury surely was a very Puck among smugglers: a tricksy +sprite, at once impudent and astonishingly fortunate. He +hid <a name="page188"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +188</span>himself in the bottom of the enemy’s own boat, +and by some magical dexterity escaped when it touched shore: +while his companions were held prisoners. Nay, more. +When night was come, he was impudent enough, and successful +enough, to go and release his friends, and at the same time to +bring away three of the captured gin-kegs. In that same +winter of 1805 he made seven trips in a new-built smuggling +vessel. Five of these were successful ventures, and two +were failures. In the spring of 1806 his crew and cargo of +spirit-tubs were captured, on returning from Alderney, by the +<i>Duke of York</i> cutter. He was taken to Dartmouth, and, +with his companions, fined and given the alternative of +imprisonment or serving aboard a man-o’-war. After a +very short experience of gaol, they chose to serve their country, +chiefly because it was much easier to desert that service than to +break prison; and they were then shipped in Dartmouth roads, +whence Rattenbury escaped from the navy tender while the officers +were all drunk; coming ashore in a fisherman’s boat, and +thence making his way home by walking and riding horseback to +Brixham, and from that port by fishing-smack.</p> +<p>Soon after this adventure he purchased a share in a galley, +and, with some companions, made several successful trips in the +cognac-smuggling between Beer and Alderney. At last the +galley was lost in a storm, and in rowing an open boat across +Channel Rattenbury and <a name="page189"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 189</span>another were captured by the +<i>Humber</i> sloop, and taken for trial to Falmouth and +committed to Bodmin gaol, to which they were consigned in two +post-chaises, in company with two constables. Travellers +were thirsty folk in those days, and at every inn between +Falmouth and Bodmin the chaises were halted, so that the +constables could refresh themselves. Evening was come +before they had reached Bodmin, and while the now half-seas-over +constables were taking another dram at the lonely wayside inn +called the “Indian Queens,” Rattenbury and his +companions conspired to escape. Behold them, then, when +ordered by the constables to resume their places, refusing, and +entering into a desperate struggle with those officers of the +law. A pistol was fired, the shot passing close to +Rattenbury’s head. He and his companion then downed +the constables and escaped across the moors; where, meeting with +another party of smugglers, they were sheltered at Newquay. +Next morning they travelled horseback, in company with the host +who had sheltered them, to Mevagissey, whence they hired a boat +to Budleigh Salterton, and thence walked home again to Beer.</p> +<p>Next year Rattenbury was appointed captain of a smuggling +vessel called the <i>Trafalgar</i>, and after five fortunate +voyages had the misfortune to lose her in heavy weather off +Alderney. He and some associates then bought a vessel +called the <i>Lively</i>, but she was chased by a French <a +name="page190"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 190</span>privateer +and the helmsman shot. The privateer’s captain was so +overcome by this incidental killing that he relinquished his +prize. After a few more trips, the <i>Lively</i> proved +unseaworthy, and the confederates then purchased the +<i>Neptune</i>, which was wrecked after three successful voyages +had been made. But Rattenbury tells us, with some pride, +that he saved the cargo. In the meanwhile, however, the +<i>Lively</i> having been repaired, had put to sea in the +smuggling interest again, and had been captured and confiscated +by the revenue officers. Rattenbury lost £160 by that +business. Soon afterwards he took a share in a twelve-oared +galley, and was one of those who went in it to Alderney for a +cargo. On the return they were unfortunate enough to fall +in with two revenue cutters: the <i>Stork</i> and the +<i>Swallow</i>, that had been especially detailed to capture +them; and accordingly did execute that commission, in as thorough +and workmanlike fashion as possible, seizing the tubs and +securing the persons of Rattenbury and two others; although the +nine other oarsmen escaped. Captain Emys, of the +<i>Stork</i>, took Rattenbury aboard his vessel, and treated him +well, inviting him to his cabin and to eat and drink with +him. Next day the smugglers were landed at Cowes.</p> +<p>“Rattenbury,” said the genial captain, “I am +going to send you aboard a man-o’-war, and you must get +clear how you can.” To this the saucy Rattenbury +replied, “Sir, you have been giving me roast meat ever +since I have been <a name="page191"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +191</span>aboard, and now you have run the spit into +me.” He was then put aboard the <i>Royal William</i>, +on which he found a great many other smuggler prisoners. +Thence, in the course of a fortnight, he and the others were +drafted to the <i>Resistance</i> frigate, and sent to Cork. +Arrived there, our slippery Rattenbury duly escaped in course of +the following day, and was home again in six days more.</p> +<p>The activities of the smugglers were at times exceedingly +unpatriotic, in other ways than merely cheating the Revenue, and +Rattenbury was no whit better than his fellows. He had not +long returned home when he made arrangements, for the substantial +consideration of one hundred pounds, to embark across the Channel +four French officers, prisoners of war, who had escaped from +captivity at Tiverton. Receiving them on arrival at Beer, +and concealing them in a house near the beach, their presence was +soon detected and warrants were issued for the arrest of +Rattenbury and five others concerned. Rattenbury adopted +the safest course and surrendered voluntarily, and was acquitted, +with a magisterial caution not to do it again.</p> +<p>Every now and again Rattenbury found himself arrested, or in +danger of being arrested, as a deserter from the Navy. +Returning on one of many occasions from a successful smuggling +trip to Alderney, and drinking at an inn, he found himself in +company with a sergeant and several privates of the South Devon +Militia. Presently <a name="page192"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 192</span>the sergeant, advancing towards him, +said, “You are my prisoner. You are a deserter, and +must go along with me.”</p> +<p>Must! what meaning was there in that imperative word for the +bold smuggler of old? None. But Rattenbury’s +first method was suavity, especially as the militia had armed +themselves with swords and muskets, and as such weapons are +exceptionally dangerous things in the hands of militiamen. +“Sergeant,” said he (or says his author for him, in +that English which surely Rattenbury himself never employed) +“you are surely labouring under an error. I have done +nothing that can authorise you in taking me up, or detaining me; +you must certainly have mistaken me for some other +person.”</p> +<p>He then describes how he drew the sergeant into a parley, and +how, in course of it, he jumped into the cellar, and, throwing +off jacket and shirt, to prevent any one holding him, armed +himself with a reaphook and bade defiance to all who should +attempt to take him.</p> +<p>The situation was relieved at last by the artful women of Beer +rushing in with an entirely fictitious story of a shipwreck and +attracting the soldiers’ attention. In midst of this +diversion, Rattenbury jumped out, and, dashing down to the beach, +got aboard his vessel. After this incident he kept out of +Beer as much as possible; and shortly afterwards was successful +in piloting the <i>Linskill</i> transport through a storm that +was likely to have wrecked her, and so safely into <a +name="page193"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 193</span>the +Solent. He earned twenty guineas by this; and received the +advice of the captain to get a handbill printed, detailing the +circumstances of this service, by way of set-off against the +various desertions for which he was liable to be at any time +called to account.</p> +<p>Soon after this, Lord and Lady Rolle visited Beer, and +Rattenbury’s wife took occasion to present his lordship +with one of the bills that had been struck off. “I am +sorry,” observed Lord Rolle, reading it, “that I +cannot do anything for your husband, as I am told he was the man +who threatened to cut my sergeant’s guts out.” +Such, you see, was the execution Rattenbury, at bay in the +cellar, had proposed with his reaphook upon the military.</p> +<p>Hearing this, and learning that Lady Rolle was also in the +village, he ran after her, and overtaking her carriage, fell upon +his knees and presented one of his handbills, entreating her +ladyship to use her influence on his behalf, so that the +authorities might not be allowed to take him. It is a +ridiculous picture, but Rattenbury makes no shame in presenting +it. “She then said,” he tells us, “you +ought to go back on board a man-o’-war, and be equal to +Lord Nelson; you have such spirits for fighting. If you do +so, you may depend I will take care you shall not be +hurt.” To which he replied; “My lady, I have +ever had an aversion to [sic] the Navy. I wish to remain +with my wife and family, and to support them in a creditable <a +name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 194</span>manner, <a +name="citation194"></a><a href="#footnote194" +class="citation">[194]</a> and therefore can never think of +returning.”</p> +<p>Her ladyship then said, “I will consider about +it,” and turned off. About a week afterwards, the +soldiers were ordered away from Beer, through the influence of +her ladyship, as I conjecture, and the humanity of Lord +Rolle.</p> +<p>And so Rattenbury was left in peace. He tells us that he +would have now entered upon a new course of life, but found +himself “engaged in difficulties from which I was unable to +escape, and bound by a chain of circumstances whose links I was +unable to break. . . . I seriously resolved to abandon the +trade of smuggling; to take a public-house, and to employ my +leisure hours in fishing, etc. At first the house appeared +to answer pretty well, but after being in it for two years, I +found that I was considerably gone back in the world; for that my +circumstances, instead of improving, were daily getting worse, +for all the money I could get by fishing and piloting went to the +brewer.” Thus, he says, he was obliged to return to +smuggling; but we cannot help suspecting that Rattenbury is here +not quite honest with us, and that smuggling offered just that +alluring admixture of gain and adventure he found himself +incapable of resisting.</p> +<p>Adventures, it has been truly said, are to the adventurous; +and Rattenbury’s career offered no exception to the +rule. There was, perhaps, <a name="page195"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 195</span>never so unlucky a smuggler as +he. Returning to the trade in November 1812, and returning +with a cargo of spirits from Alderney, his vessel fell in with +the brig <i>Catherine</i>, and was pursued, heavily fired upon, +and finally captured. The captain of the <i>Catherine</i>, +raging at them, declared they should all be sent aboard a +man-o’-war; but a search of the smuggling craft revealed +nothing except one solitary pint of gin in a bottle: the cargo +having presumably been put over the side. The crew were, +however, taken prisoners aboard the <i>Catherine</i>, and their +vessel was taken to Brixham. Rattenbury and his men were +kept aboard the <i>Catherine</i> for a week, cruising in the +Channel, and then the brig put in again to Brixham, where the +wives of the prisoners were anxiously waiting. Next +morning, in the absence of the captain and chief officer ashore, +the women came off in a boat, and were helped aboard the brig; +when Rattenbury and three of his men jumped into the boat and +pushed off. The second mate, who was in charge of the +vessel, caught hold of the oar Rattenbury was using, and broke +the blade of it, and the smuggler then threw the remaining part +at him. The mate then fired; whereupon Rattenbury’s +wife knocked the firearm out of his hand. Picking it up, he +fired again, but the boat’s sail was up, and the fugitives +were well on the way to shore, and made good their escape, amid a +shower of bullets. They then dispersed, two of them being +afterwards re-taken and sent aboard a man-o’-war bound for +the West <a name="page196"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +196</span>Indies; but Rattenbury made his way safely home again +and was presently joined there by his wife.</p> +<p>The public-house was closed in November 1813, smuggling was +for a time in a bad way, owing to the Channel being closely +patrolled; and Rattenbury, now with a wife and four children, +made but a scanty subsistence on fishing and a little +piloting. In September 1814 he ventured again in the +smuggling way, making a successful run to and from Cherbourg, but +in November another run was quite spoilt, in the first instance +by a gale, which obliged the smugglers to sink their kegs, and in +the second by the revenue officers seizing the boats. +Finally, on the next day a custom-house boat ran over their buoy +marking the spot where the kegs had been sunk, and seized them +all—over a hundred. “This,” says +Rattenbury, with the conciseness of a resigned victim, “was +a severe loss.”</p> +<p>The succeeding years were more fortunate for him. In +1816 he bought the sloop <i>Elizabeth and Kitty</i>, cheap, +having been awarded a substantial sum as salvage, for having +rescued her when deserted by her crew; and all that year did very +well in smuggling spirits from Cherbourg. Successes and +failures, arrests, escapes, or releases, then followed in +plentiful succession until the close of 1825, when the most +serious happening of his adventurous career occurred. He +was captured off Dawlish, on December 18th, returning from a +smuggling expedition, and detained at <a name="page197"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 197</span>Budleigh Salterton watch-house until +January 2nd, when he was taken before the magistrates at Exeter, +and committed to gaol. There he remained until April 5th, +1827. In 1829 he says he “made an application” +to Lord Rolle, who gave him a letter to the Admiral at +Portsmouth, and went aboard the <i>Tartar</i> cutter. In +January 1830 he took his discharge, received his pay at the +custom-house, and went home.</p> +<p>Very slyly does he withhold from us the subject of that +application, and the nature of the <i>Tartar’s</i> +commission; and it is left for us to discover that the bold +smuggler had taken service at last with the revenue and customs +authorities, and for a time placed his knowledge of the ins and +outs of smuggling at the command of those whose duty it was to +defeat the free-traders. It was perhaps the discovery that +the work of spying and betraying was irksome, or perhaps the +ready threats of his old associates, that caused him to +relinquish the work.</p> +<p>However that may be, he was soon at smuggling again, carried +on in between genuine trading enterprises; and in November 1831 +was unlucky enough to be chased and captured by the Beer +preventive boat. As usual, the cargo was carefully sunk +before the capture was actually made, and although the preventive +men strenuously grappled for it, they found nothing but a piece +of rope, about one fathom long. On the very slight +presumptive evidence of that length of rope, Rattenbury and his +eldest son and two men <a name="page198"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 198</span>were found guilty on their trial at +Lyme Regis, and were committed to Dorchester gaol. There +they remained until February 1833.</p> +<p>Rattenbury’s last smuggling experience was a shoregoing +one, in the month of January 1836, at Torquay, where he was +engaged with another man in carting a load of twenty tubs of +brandy. They had got about a mile out of Newton Abbot, at +ten o’clock at night, when a party of riding-officers came +up and seized the consignment “in the King’s +name.” Rattenbury escaped, being as eel-like and +evasive as ever, but his companion was arrested.</p> +<p>Thus, before he was quite fifty-eight years of age, he quitted +an exceptionally chequered career; but his wonted fires lived in +his son, who continued the tradition, even though the great days +of smuggling were by now done.</p> +<p>That son was charged, at Exeter Assizes, in March 1836, with +having on the night of December 1st, 1835, taken part with others +in assaulting two custom-house officers at Budleigh +Salterton. Numerous witnesses swore to his having been at +Beer that night, sixteen miles away, but he was found guilty and +sentenced to seven years’ transportation; the Court being +quite used to this abundant evidence, and quite convinced, Bible +oaths to the contrary notwithstanding, that he was at Budleigh +Salterton, and did in fact take part in maltreating His +Majesty’s officers.</p> +<p>Jack Rattenbury was on this occasion <a +name="page199"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +199</span>cross-examined by the celebrated Mr. Serjeant Bompas, +in which he declared he had brought up that son in a proper way, +and “larnt him the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the +Ten Commandments.” (Perhaps also that important +Eleventh Commandment, “Thou shalt not be found +out!”)</p> +<p>“You don’t find there, ‘Thou shalt not +smuggle?’” asked Mr. Serjeant Bompas.</p> +<p>“No,” replied Rattenbury the ready, “but I +find there, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy +neighbour.’”</p> +<p>The injured innocent, like to be transported for his +country’s good, was granted a Royal Pardon, as the result +of several petitions sent to Lord John Russell.</p> +<p>The village of Beer, deep down in one of the most romantic +rocky coves of South Devon, is nowadays a very different kind of +place from what it was in Rattenbury’s time. Then the +home of fishermen daring alike in fishing and in smuggling, a +village to which strangers came but rarely, it is now very much +of a favourite seaside resort, and full of boarding-houses that +have almost entirely abolished the ancient thatched +cottages. A few of these yet linger on, together with one +or two of the curious old stone water-conduits and some stretches +of the primitive cobbled pavements, but they will not long +survive. The sole characteristic industry of Beer that is +left, besides the fishing and the stone-quarrying that has been +in progress from the very earliest <a name="page200"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 200</span>times, is the lace-making, nowadays +experiencing a revival.</p> +<p>But the knowing ones will show you still the smugglers’ +caves: deep crannies in the chalk cliffs of Beer, that at this +place so curiously alternate with the more characteristic red +sandstone of South Devon.</p> +<h2><a name="page201"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +201</span>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">The Whisky Smugglers</span></p> +<p>A <span class="smcap">modern</span> form of smuggling little +suspected by the average Englishman is found in the illicit +whisky-distilling yet carried on in the Highlands of Scotland and +the wilds of Ireland, as the records of Inland Revenue +prosecutions still annually prove. The sportsman, or the +more adventurous among those tourists who roam far from the +beaten track, are still likely to discover in rugged and remote +situations the ruins of rough stone and turf huts of no +antiquity, situated in lonely rifts in the mountain-sides, always +with a stream running by. If the stranger is at all +inquisitive on the subject of these solitary ruins, he will +easily discover that not only are they not old, but that they +have, in many cases, only recently been vacated. They are, +in fact, the temporary bothies built from the abundant materials +of those wild spots by the ingenious crofters and other +peasantry, for the purpose of distilling whisky that shall not, +between its manufacture and its almost immediate consumption, pay +duty to the revenue authorities.</p> +<p><a name="page202"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 202</span>This +illegal production of what is now thought to be the +“national drink” of Scotland and Ireland, is not of +any considerable antiquity, for whisky itself did not grow +popular until comparatively recent times. Robert Burns, who +may not unfairly be considered the poet-laureate of whisky, and +styles it “whisky, drink divine,” would have had +neither the possibility of that inspiration, nor have filled the +official post of exciseman, had he flourished but a few +generations earlier; but he was born in that era when +whisky-smuggling and dram-drinking were at their height, and he +took an active part in both the drinking of whisky and the +hunting down of smugglers of it.</p> +<p>One of the most stirring incidents of his career was that +which occurred in 1792, when, foremost of a little band of +revenue officers, aided by dragoons, he waded into the waters of +Solway, reckless of the quicksands of that treacherous estuary, +and, sword in hand, was the first to board a smuggling brig, +placing the crew under arrest and conveying the vessel to +Dumfries, where it was sold. It was this incident that +inspired him with the poem, if indeed, we may at all fitly claim +inspiration for such an inferior Burns product:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: center">THE DE’IL’S +AWA’ WI’ THE EXCISEMAN</p> +<p>The De’il cam’ fiddling thro’ the town,<br +/> + And danc’d awa’ wi’ the +exciseman;<br /> +And ilka wife cry’d, “Auld Mahoun,<br /> + I wish you luck o’ your prize, man.”</p> +<p><a name="page203"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +203</span>We’ll mak’ our maut and brew our drink,<br +/> + We’ll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;<br /> +And monie thanks to the muckle black De’il,<br /> + That danced awa’ wi’ the exciseman.</p> +<p>There’s threesome reels, and foursome reels,<br /> + There’s hornpipes and strathspeys, man;<br /> +But the ae best dance e’er cam’ to our lan’,<br +/> + Was—the De’il’s awa’ +wi’ the exciseman.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Whisky, <i>i.e. usquebaugh</i>, signifying in Gaelic +“water of life,” originated, we are told, in the +monasteries, where so many other comforting cordials were +discovered, somewhere about the eleventh or twelfth +century. It was for a very long period regarded only as a +medicine, and its composition remained unknown to the generality +of people; and thus we find among the earliest accounts of +whisky, outside monastic walls, an item in the household expenses +of James the Fourth of Scotland, at the close of the fifteenth +century. There it is styled “aqua +vitæ.”</p> +<p>A sample of this then new drink was apparently introduced to +the notice of the King or his Court, and seems to have been so +greatly appreciated that eight bolls of malt figure among the +household items as delivered to “Friar James Cor,” +for the purpose of manufacturing more, as per sample.</p> +<p>But for generations to come the nobles and gentry of Scotland +continued to drink wine, and the peasantry to drink ale, and it +was only with the closing years of another century that whisky <a +name="page204"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 204</span>became at +all commonly manufactured. We read that in 1579 distillers +were for the first time taxed in Scotland, and private stills +forbidden; and the rural population did not altogether forsake +their beer for the spirit until about the beginning of the +eighteenth century. Parliament, however, soon discovered a +tempting source of revenue in it, and imposed constantly +increasing taxation. In 1736 the distillers’ tax was +raised to 20<i>s.</i> a gallon, and there were, in addition, +imposts upon the retailers.</p> +<p>It might have been foreseen that the very natural result of +these extortionate taxes would be to elevate illegal distilling, +formerly practised here and there, into an enormously increased +industry, flourishing in every glen. Only a very small +proportion of the output paid the duties imposed. Every +clachan had its still, or stills.</p> +<p>This state of things was met by another Act which prohibited +the making of whisky from stills of a smaller capacity than five +hundred gallons; but this enactment merely brought about the +removal of the more or less openly defiant stills from the +villages to the solitary places in the hills and mountains, and +necessitated a large increase in the number of excisemen.</p> +<p>Seven years of these extravagant super-taxes sufficed to +convince the Government of the folly of so overweighting an +article with taxation that successful smuggling of it would +easily bring fortunes to bold and energetic men. To do so +was thus abundantly proved to be a direct <a +name="page205"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 205</span>provocation +to men of enterprise; and the net result the Government found to +be a vastly increased and highly expensive excise establishment, +whose cost was by no means met by the revenue derived from the +heavy duties. Failure thus becoming evident, the taxes were +heavily reduced, until they totalled but ten shillings and +sixpence a gallon.</p> +<p>But the spice of adventure introduced by illegal distilling +under the old heavy taxation had aroused a reckless frame of mind +among the Highlanders, who, once become used to defy the +authorities, were not readily persuaded to give up their illegal +practices. The glens continued to be filled with private +stills. Glenlivet was, in especial, famed for its +whisky-smugglers; and the peat-reek arose in every surrounding +fold in the hills from hundreds of “sma’ +stills.” Many of these private undertakings did +business in a large way, and openly sold their products to +customers in the south, sending their tubs of spirits under +strong escort, for great distances. They had customers in +England also, and exciting incidents arose at the Border, for not +only the question of excise then arose, but that of customs duty +as well; for the customs rates on spirits were then higher in +England than in Scotland. The border counties of +Northumberland and Cumberland, Berwick, Roxburgh, and +Dumfriesshire were infested with smugglers of this double-dyed +type, to whom must be added the foreign contrabandists, such as +the Dutchman, Yawkins, who haunted the <a +name="page206"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 206</span>coasts of +Dumfriesshire and Galloway with his smuggling lugger, the +<i>Black Prince</i>, and is supposed to be the original of Dirk +Hatteraick, in Scott’s romance, “Guy +Mannering.”</p> +<p>The very name of this bold fellow was a terror to those whose +duty it was to uphold law and order in those parts; and it was, +naturally, to his interest to maintain that feeling of dread, by +every means in his power. Scott tells us how, on one +particular night, happening to be ashore with a considerable +quantity of goods in his sole custody, a strong party of +excisemen came down upon him. Far from shunning the attack, +Yawkins sprang forward, shouting, “Come on, my lads, +Yawkins is before you.”</p> +<p>The revenue officers were intimidated, and relinquished their +prize, though defended only by the courage and address of one +man. On his proper element, Yawkins was equally +successful. On one occasion he was landing his cargo at the +Manxman’s Lake, near Kirkcudbright, when two revenue +cutters, the <i>Pigmy</i> and the <i>Dwarf</i>, hove in sight at +once, on different tacks, the one coming round by the Isles of +Fleet, the other between the point of Rueberry and the Muckle +Ron. The dauntless free-trader instantly weighed anchor and +bore down right between the luggers, so close that he tossed his +hat on the deck of the one and his wig on that of the other, +hoisted a cask to his maintop, to show his occupation, and bore +away under an extraordinary pressure of canvas, without receiving +injury.</p> +<p><a name="page207"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 207</span>So, +at any rate, the fantastic legends tell us, although it is but +fair to remark, in this place, that no practical yachtsman, or +indeed any other navigator, would for a moment believe in the +possibility of such a feat.</p> +<p>To account for these and other hairbreadth escapes, popular +superstition freely alleged that Yawkins insured his celebrated +lugger by compounding with the Devil for one-tenth of his crew +every voyage. How they arranged the separation of the stock +and tithes is left to our conjecture. The lugger was +perhaps called the <i>Black Prince</i> in honour of the +formidable insurer. Her owner’s favourite +landing-places were at the entrance of the Dee and the Cree, near +the old castle of Rueberry, about six miles below +Kirkcudbright. There is a cave of large dimensions in the +vicinity of Rueberry, which, from its being frequently used by +Yawkins and his supposed connection with the smugglers on the +shore, is now called “Dirk Hatteraick’s +Cave.” Strangers who visit this place, the scenery of +which is highly romantic, are also shown, under the name of the +“Gauger’s Leap,” a tremendous precipice.</p> +<p>“In those halcyon days of the free trade,” says +Scott, “the fixed price for carrying a box of tea or bale +of tobacco from the coast of Galloway to Edinburgh was fifteen +shillings, and a man with two horses carried four such +packages.”</p> +<p>This condition of affairs prevailed until peace had come, +after the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. The +Government then, as always, <a name="page208"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 208</span>sadly in need of new sources of +revenue, was impressed with the idea that a fine sum might +annually be obtained by placing these shy Highland distillers +under contribution. But there were great difficulties in +the way. The existing laws were a mere dead letter in those +regions, and it was scarce likely that any new measures, unless +backed up by a display of military force, would secure +obedience. The Duke of Gordon, at that period a personage +of exceptionally commanding influence with the clansmen, was +appealed to by the Government to use his authority for the +purpose of discouraging these practices; but he declared, from +his place in the House of Lords, that the Highlanders were +hereditary distillers of whisky: it had from time immemorial been +their drink, and they would, in spite of every discouragement, +continue to make it and to consume it. They would sell it, +too, he said, when given the opportunity of doing so by the +extravagantly high duty on spirits. The only way out of the +difficulty with which the Government was confronted was, he +pointed out, the passing of an Act permitting the distilling of +whisky on reasonable terms.</p> +<p>The result of this straightforward speech was the passing of +an Act in 1823 which placed the moderate excise duty of +2<i>s.</i> 3<i>d.</i> a gallon on the production of spirits, with +a £10 annual license for every still of a capacity of forty +gallons: smaller stills being altogether illegal.</p> +<p>These provisions were reasonable enough, but <a +name="page209"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 209</span>failed to +satisfy the peasantry, and the people were altogether so opposed +to the regulation of distilling that they destroyed the licensed +distilleries. It was scarce worth the while of retailers, +under those circumstances, to take out licenses, and so it +presently came to pass that for every one duly licensed dealer +there would be, according to the district, from fifty to one +hundred unlicensed.</p> +<p>And so things remained until by degrees the gradually +perfected system of excise patrols wore down this resistance.</p> +<p>In the meanwhile, the licensed distillers had a sorry time of +it.</p> +<p>Archibald Forbes, many years ago, in the course of some +observations upon whisky-smugglers, gave reminiscences of George +Smith, who, from having in his early days been himself a +smuggler, became manager of the Glenlivet Distillery. This +famous manufactory of whisky, in these days producing about two +thousand gallons a week, had an output in 1824 of but one hundred +gallons in the same time; and its very existence was for years +threatened by the revengeful peasantry and proprietors of the +“sma’ stills.” Smith was a man of fine +physical proportions and great courage and tenacity of purpose, +or he could never have withstood the persecutions and dangers he +had long to face. “The outlook,” he said, +“was an ugly one. I was warned, before I began, by my +neighbours that they meant to burn the new distillery to the <a +name="page210"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 210</span>ground, and +me in the heart of it. The Laird of Aberlour presented me +with a pair of hair-trigger pistols, and they were never out of +my belt for years. I got together three or four stout +fellows for servants, armed them with pistols, and let it be +known everywhere that I would fight for my place till the last +shot. I had a pretty good character as a man of my word, +and through watching, by turns, every night for years, we +contrived to save the distillery from the fate so freely +predicted for it. But I often, both at kirk and market, had +rough times of it among the glen people, and if it had not been +for the Laird of Aberlour’s pistols I don’t think I +should have been telling you this story now.”</p> +<p>In ’25 and ’26 three more small distilleries were +started in the glen; but the smugglers succeeded very soon in +frightening away their occupants, none of whom ventured to hang +on a second year in the face of the threats uttered against +them. Threats were not the only weapons used. In 1825 +a distillery which had just been started at the head of +Aberdeenshire, near the banks o’ Dee, was burnt to the +ground with all its outbuildings and appliances, and the +distiller had a very narrow escape of being roasted in his own +kiln. The country was in a desperately lawless state at +this time. The riding-officers of the Revenue were the mere +sport of the smugglers, and nothing was more common than for them +to be shown a still at work, and then coolly defied to make a +seizure.</p> +<p><a name="page211"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +211</span>Prominent among these active and resourceful men was +one Shaw, proprietor of a shebeen on the Shea Water, in the wilds +of Mar. Smugglers were free of his shy tavern, which, as a +general rule, the gaugers little cared to visit singly. +Shaw was alike a man of gigantic size, great strength, and of +unscrupulous character, and stuck at little in the furtherance of +his illegal projects. But if Shaw was a terror to the +average exciseman, George Smith, for his part, was above the +average, and feared no man; and so, when overtaken by a storm on +one occasion, had little hesitation in seeking the shelter of +this ill-omened house. Shaw happened to be away from home +at the time, and Smith was received by the hostess, who, some +years earlier, before she had married her husband, had been a +sweetheart of the man who now sought shelter. The +accommodation afforded by the house was scanty, but a bedroom was +found for the unexpected guest, and he in due course retired to +it. Mrs. Shaw had promised that his natural enemies, the +smugglers, should not disturb him, if they returned in the night; +but when they did return, later on, Shaw determined that he would +at least give the distillery man a fright. Most of them +were drunk, and ready for any mischief, and would probably have +been prepared even to murder him. Shaw was, however, with +all his faults, no little of a humorist, and only wanted his joke +at the enemy’s expense.</p> +<p>The band marched upstairs solemnly, in spite of some little +hiccoughing, and swung into the <a name="page212"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 212</span>bedroom, a torch carried by the +foremost man throwing a fitful glare around. The door was +locked when they had entered, and all gathered in silence round +the bed. Shaw then, drawing a great butcher’s knife +from the recesses of his clothes, brandished it over the +affrighted occupant of the bed. “This gully, mon, iss +for your powels,” said he.</p> +<p>But Smith had not entered this House of Dread without being +properly armed, and he had, moreover, taken his pistols to bed +with him, and was at that moment holding one in either hand, +under the clothes. As Shaw flourished his knife and uttered +his alarming threats, he whipped out the one and presented it at +Shaw’s head, promising him he would shoot him if the whole +party did not immediately quit the room; while with the other +(the bed lying beside the fireplace) he fired slyly up the +chimney, creating a thunderous report and a choking downfall of +soot, in midst of which all the smugglers fled except Shaw, who +remained, laughing.</p> +<p>Shaw had many smart encounters with the excise, in which he +generally managed to get the best of it. The most dramatic +of these was probably the exploit that befell when he was +captaining a party of smugglers conveying two hundred kegs of +whisky from the mountains down to Perth. The time was +winter, and snow lay thick on field and fell; but the journey was +made in daytime, for they were a numerous band and well armed, +and feared no one. But the local <a +name="page213"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 213</span>Supervisor +of Excise had by some means obtained early news of this +expedition, and had secured the aid of a detachment of six +troopers of the Scots Greys at Coupar-Angus, part of a squadron +stationed at Perth. At the head of this little force rode +the supervisor. They came in touch with the smugglers at +Cairnwell, in the Spittal of Glenshee.</p> +<p>“Gang aff awa’ wi’ ye, quietly back up the +Spittal,” exclaimed the supervisor, “and leave the +seizure to us.”</p> +<p>“Na, faith,” replied Shaw; “ye’ll get +jist what we care to gie!”</p> +<p>“Say ye so?” returned the excise officer +hotly. “I’ll hae the whole or nane!”</p> +<p>The blood rose in Shaw’s head, and swelled out the veins +of his temples. “By God,” he swore, +“I’ll shoot every gauger here before ye’ll get +a drap!”</p> +<p>The supervisor was a small man with a bold spirit. He +turned to his cavalry escort with the order “Fire!” +and at the same time reached for Shaw’s collar, with the +exclamation, “Ye’ve given me the slip often enough, +Shaw! Yield now, I’ve a pistol in each pocket of my +breeches.”</p> +<p>“Have ye so?” coolly returned the immense and +statuesque Shaw, “it’s no’ lang they’ll +be there, then!” and with that he laid violent hands upon +each pocket and so picked the exciseman bodily out of his saddle, +tore out both pistols and pockets, and then pitched him, as +easily as an ordinary man could have done a baby, head over heels +into a snow-drift.</p> +<p><a name="page214"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +214</span>Meanwhile, the soldiers had not fired; rightly +considering that, as they were so greatly outnumbered, to do so +would be only the signal for an affray in which they would surely +be worsted. A wordy wrangle then followed, in which the +exciseman and the soldiers pointed out that they could not +possibly go back empty-handed; and in the end, Shaw and his +brother smugglers went their way, leaving four kegs behind, +“just out o’ ceeveelity,” and as some sort of +salve for the wounded honour of the law and its armed +coadjutors.</p> +<p>Not many gaugers were so lion-hearted as this; but one, at +least, was even more so. This rash hero one day met two +smugglers in a solitary situation. They had a cart loaded +up with whisky-kegs, and when the official, unaided, and with no +human help near, proposed single-handed to seize their +consignment and to arrest them, they must have been as genuinely +astonished as ever men have been. The daring man stood +there, purposeful of doing his duty, and really in grave danger +of his life; but these two smugglers, relishing the humour of the +thing, merely descended from their cart, and, seizing him and +binding him hand and foot, sat him down in the middle of the road +with wrists tied over his knees and a stick through the crook of +his legs, in the “trussed fowl” fashion. There, +in the middle of the highway, they proposed to leave him; but +when he pitifully entreated not to be left there, as he might be +run over and killed in the dark, they <a name="page215"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 215</span>considerately carried him to the +roadside; with saturnine humour remarking that he would probably +be starved there instead, before he would be noticed.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p214.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Smugglers hiding goods in a tomb" +title= +"Smugglers hiding goods in a tomb" +src="images/p214.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The flood-tide of Government prosecutions of the +“sma’ stills” was reached in 1823–5, when +an average of one thousand four hundred cases annually was +reached. These were variously for actual distilling, or for +the illegal possession of malt, for which offence very heavy +penalties were exacted.</p> +<p>Preventive men were stationed thickly over the face of the +Highlands, the system then employed being the establishment of +“Preventive Stations” in important districts, and +“Preventive Rides” in less important +neighbourhoods. The stations consisted of an officer and +one or two men, who were expected by the regulations not to sleep +at the station more than six nights in the fortnight. +During the other eight days and nights they were to be on outside +duty. A ride was a solitary affair, of one exciseman. +Placed in authority over the stations were +“supervisors,” who had each five stations under his +charge, which he was bound to visit once a week.</p> +<p>George Smith, of Glenlivet, already quoted, early found his +position desperate. He was a legalised distiller, and paid +his covenanted duty to Government, and he rightly considered +himself entitled, in return for the tribute he rendered, to some +measure of protection. He therefore petitioned the Lords of +the Treasury to that <a name="page216"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 216</span>effect; and my lords duly replied, +after the manner of such, that the Government would prosecute any +who dared molest him. This, however, was not altogether +satisfactory from Smith’s point of view. He desired +rather to be protected from molestation than to be left open to +attack and the aggressors to be punished. A dead man +derives no satisfaction from the execution of his assassin. +Moreover, even the prosecution was uncertain. In +Smith’s own words, “I cannot say the assurance gave +me much ease, for I could see no one in Glenlivet who dared +institute such proceedings.”</p> +<p>It was necessary for a revenue officer to be almost killed in +the execution of his duty before the Government resorted to the +force requisite for the support of the civil power. A +revenue cutter was stationed in the Moray Firth, with a crew of +fifty men, designed to be under the orders of the excise officers +in cases of emergency.</p> +<p>But the smugglers were not greatly impressed with this +display, and when the excisemen, accompanied with perhaps +five-and-twenty sailors, made raids up-country, frequently met +them in great gangs of perhaps a hundred and fifty, and +recaptured any seizures they had made and adopted so threatening +an attitude that the sailors were not infrequently compelled to +beat a hasty and undignified retreat. One of these +expeditions was into Glenlivet itself, where the smugglers were +all Roman Catholics. The excisemen, with this in mind, +considered that the <a name="page217"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 217</span>best time for a raid would be Monday +morning, after the debauch of the Sunday afternoon and night in +which the Roman Catholics were wont to indulge; and accordingly, +marching out of Elgin town on the Sunday, arrived at Glenlivet at +daybreak. At the time of their arrival the glen was, to all +appearance, deserted, and their coming unnoticed, and the sight +of the peat-reek rising in the still air from some forty or fifty +“sma’ stills” rejoiced their hearts.</p> +<p>But they presently discovered that their arrival had not only +been observed but foreseen, for the whole country-side was up, +and several hundred men, women, and children were assembled on +the hill-sides to bid active defiance to them. The +excisemen keenly desired to bring the affair to a decisive issue, +but the thirty seamen who accompanied them had a due amount of +discretion, and refused to match their pistols and cutlasses +against the muskets that the smugglers ostentatiously +displayed. The party accordingly marched ingloriously back, +except indeed those sailors who, having responded too freely to +the smugglers’ invitation to partake of a “wee +drappie,” returned gloriously drunk. The excisemen, +so unexpectedly baulked of what they had thought their certain +prey, ungraciously refused a taste.</p> +<p>This formed the limit of the sorely tried Government’s +patience, and in 1829 a detachment of regulars was ordered up to +Braemar, with the result that smuggling was gradually reduced to +less formidable proportions.</p> +<p><a name="page218"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 218</span>The +Celtic nature perceives no reason why Governments should confer +upon themselves the rights of taxing and inspecting the +manufacture of spirits, any more than any other commodity. +The matter appears to resolve itself merely into expediency: and +the doctrine of expediency we all know to be immoral. The +situation was—and is, whether you apply it to spirits or to +other articles in general demand—the Government wants +revenue, and, seeking it, naturally taxes the most popular +articles of public consumption. The producers and the +consumers of the articles selected for these imposts just as +naturally seek to evade the taxes. This, to the Celtic +mind, impatient of control, is the simplest of equations.</p> +<p>About 1886 was the dullest time in the illicit +whisky-distilling industry of Scotland, and prosecutions fell to +an average of about twenty a year. Since then there has +been, as official reports tell us, in the language of +officialdom, a “marked recrudescence” of the +practice. As Mr. Micawber might explain, in plainer +English, “there is—ah—in fact, more whisky made +now.” Several contributory causes are responsible for +this state of things. Firstly, an economical Government +reduced the excise establishment; then the price of barley, the +raw material, fell; and the veiled rebellion of the crofters in +the north induced a more daring and lawless spirit than had been +known for generations past. Also, restrictions upon the +making of malt—another of the essential constituents from +which the spirit is distilled—<a name="page219"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 219</span>were at this time removed, and any +one who cared might make it freely and without license.</p> +<p>Your true Highlander will not relinquish his +“mountain-dew” without a struggle. His +forefathers made as much of it as they liked, out of inexpensive +materials, and drank it fresh and raw. No one bought +whisky; and a whole clachan would be roaring drunk for a week +without a coin having changed hands. Naturally, the +descendants of these men—“it wass the fine time they +had, whateffer”—dislike the notion of buying their +whisky from the grocer and drinking stuff made in up-to-date +distilleries. They prefer the heady stuff of the old +brae-side pot-still, with a rasp on it like sulphuric acid and a +consequent feeling as though one had swallowed lighted petroleum: +stuff with a headache for the Southerner in every drop, not like +the tamed and subdued creature that whisky-merchants assure their +customers has not got a headache in a hogshead.</p> +<p>The time-honoured brae-side manner of brewing whisky is not +very abstruse. First find your lonely situation, the +lonelier and the more difficult of access, obviously the +better. If it is at once lonely and difficult of approach, +and at the same time commands good views of such approaches as +there are, by so much it is the better. But one very +cardinal fact must not be forgotten: the site of the proposed +still and its sheltering shieling, or bothy, must have a +water-supply, either from a mountain-stream naturally passing, or +by an artfully constructed rude system of pipes.</p> +<p><a name="page220"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 220</span>A +copper still, just large enough to be carried on a man’s +back, and a small assortment of mash-tubs, and some pitchers and +pannikins, fully furnish such a rustic undertaking.</p> +<p>The first step is to convert your barley into malt; but this +is to-day a needless delay and trouble, now that malt can be made +entirely without let or hindrance. This was done by +steeping the sacks of barley in running water for some +forty-eight hours, and then storing the grain underground for a +period, until it germinated. The malt thus made was then +dried over a rude kiln fired with peats, whose smoke gave the +characteristic smoky taste possessed by all this bothy-made +stuff.</p> +<p>It was not necessary for the malt to be made on the site of +the still, and it was, and is, generally carried to the spot, +ready-made for the mash-tubs. The removal of the duty upon +malt by Mr. Gladstone, in 1880, was one of that grossly overrated +and really amateur statesman’s many errors. His +career was full of false steps and incompetent bunglings, and the +removal of the Malt Tax was but a small example among many +Imperial tragedies on a grand scale of disaster. It put new +and vigorous life into whisky-smuggling, as any expert could have +foretold; for it was precisely the long operation of converting +the barley into malt that formed the illegal distiller’s +chief difficulty. The time taken, and the process of +crushing or bruising the grains, offered some obstacles not +easily overcome. The crushing, in <a +name="page221"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 221</span>particular, +was a dangerous process when the possession of unlicensed malt +was an offence; for that operation resulted in a very strong and +unmistakable odour being given forth, so that no one who happened +to be in the neighbourhood when the process was going on could be +ignorant of it, while he retained his sense of smell.</p> +<p>Brought ready-made from the clachan to the bothy, the malt was +emptied into the mash-tubs to ferment; the tubs placed in charge +of a boy or girl, who stirs up the mess with a willow-wand or +birch-twig; while the men themselves are out and about at work on +their usual avocations.</p> +<p>Having sufficiently fermented, the next process was to place +the malt in the still, over a brisk heat. From the still a +crooked spout descends into a tub. This spout has to be +constantly cooled by running water, to produce condensation of +the vaporised alcohol. Thus we have a second, and even more +important, necessity for a neighbouring stream, which often, in +conjunction with the indispensable fire, serves the excisemen to +locate these stills. If a bothy is so artfully concealed by +rocks and turves that it escapes notice, even by the most +vigilant eye, amid the rugged hill-sides, the smoke arising from +the peat-fire will almost certainly betray it.</p> +<p>The crude spirit thus distilled into the tub is then emptied +again into the still, which has been in the meanwhile cleared of +the exhausted malt and cleansed, and subjected to a second +distilling, <a name="page222"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +222</span>over a milder fire, and with a small piece of soap +dropped into the liquor to clarify it.</p> +<p>The question of maturing the whisky never enters into the +minds of these rustic distillers, who drink it, generally, as +soon as made. Very little is now made for sale; but when +sold the profit is very large, a capital of twenty-three +shillings bringing a return of nine or ten pounds.</p> +<p>But the typical secret whisky-distiller has no commercial +instincts. It cannot fairly be said that he has a soul +above them, for he is just a shiftless fellow, whose soul is not +very apparent in manner or conversation, and whose only ambition +is to procure a sufficiency of “whusky” for self and +friends; and a “sufficiency” in his case means a +great deal. He has not enough money to buy taxed whisky; +and if he had, he would prefer to make his own, for he loves the +peat-reek in it, and he thinks “jist naething at +a’” of the “puir stuff” that comes from +the great distilleries.</p> +<p>He is generally ostensibly by trade a hanger-on to the +agricultural or sheep-farming industries, but between his spells +of five days at the bothy (for it takes five days to the making +of whisky) he is usually to be seen loafing about, +aimlessly. Experienced folk can generally tell where such +an one has been, and what he has been doing, after his periodical +absences, for his eyelids are red with the peat-smoke and his +clothes reek with it.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p222.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Dragoons dispersing smugglers" +title= +"Dragoons dispersing smugglers" +src="images/p222.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Perhaps the busiest centre of Highland illicit <a +name="page223"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +223</span>whisky-distilling is now to be located in the Gairloch, +but anything in the shape of exact information on so shy a +subject is necessarily not obtainable. Between this +district and the Outer Hebrides, islands where no stills are to +be found, a large secret trade is still believed to exist. +Seizures are occasionally made but the policy of the Inland +Revenue authorities is now a broad one, in which the existence of +small stills in inconsiderable numbers, although actually known, +is officially ignored: the argument being that undue official +activity, with the resultant publicity, would defeat itself by +advertising the fact of it being so easy to manufacture whisky, +leading eventually to the establishment of more stills.</p> +<p>The illegal production of spirits does, in fact, proceed all +over Great Britain and Ireland to a far greater extent than +generally suspected; and such remote places as the Highlands are +nowadays by no means the most favourable situations for the +manufacture. Indeed, crowded towns form in these times the +most ideal situations. No one in the great cities is in the +least interested in what his neighbour is doing, unless what he +does constitutes a nuisance: and it is the secret +distiller’s last thought to obtrude his personality or his +doings upon the notice of the neighbours. Secrecy, personal +comfort, and conveniences of every kind are better obtained in +towns than on inclement brae-sides; and the manufacture and +repair of the utensils necessary to the business are effected +more quickly, less expensively, and <a name="page224"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 224</span>without the prying curiosity of a +Highland clachan.</p> +<p>It follows from this long-continued course of illegal +distilling that the Highlands are full of tales of how the +gaugers were outwitted, and of hairbreadth escapes and curious +incidents. Among these is the story of the revengeful +postmaster of Kingussie, who, on his return from a journey to +Aberlour on a dark and stormy night, called at Dalnashaugh inn, +where he proposed to stay an hour or two. The pretty maid +of the inn attended diligently to him for awhile, until a posse +of some half-dozen gaugers entered, to rest there on their way to +Badenoch, where they were due, to make a raid on a number of +illicit stills. The sun of the postmaster suddenly set with +the arrival of these strangers. They were given the +parlour, and treated with the best hospitality the house could +afford, while he was banished to the kitchen. He was +wrathful, for was he not a Government official, equally with +these upstarts? But he dissembled his anger, and, as the +evening wore on and the maid grew tired, he suggested she had +better go to bed, and he would be off by time the moon +rose. No sooner had she retired than he took the +excisemen’s boots, lying in the inglenook to dry, and +pitched them into a great pot of water, boiling over the +blaze.</p> +<p>When the moon had risen, he duly mounted his pony and set out +for Badenoch, where he gave out the news that the gaugers were +coming.</p> +<p>The excisemen could not stir from the inn for <a +name="page225"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 225</span>a +considerable time, for their boiled boots refused to be drawn on; +and by the time they had been enabled to stretch them and to set +out once more on their way, the Badenoch smugglers had made off +with all their gear, leaving nothing but empty bothies for +inspection. The local historian is silent as to what +happened afterwards to the postmaster, the only possible author +of this outrage.</p> +<p>A smuggler of Strathdearn was unfortunate in having the excise +pouncing suddenly upon him in his bothy, and taking away his only +cask of whisky. The hated myrmidons of a Sassenach +Government went off with the cask, and were so jealous of their +prize that they took it with them to the inn where they were to +pass the night. All that evening they sang songs and were +merry with a numerous company in an upper room; but even at their +merriest they did not forget their capture, and one of their +number sat upon it all the time.</p> +<p>It chanced, however, that among these merry fellows were some +of the smuggler’s friends, who were careful to note exactly +the position of the cask. They procured an auger and bored +a hole from the room below, through the flooring and into the +cask, draining all the whisky away. When the excisemen had +come to the end of their jollification, they had only the empty +cask for their trouble.</p> +<p>One of the brae-side distillers of Fortingal brought a cart +laden with kegs of whisky into <a name="page226"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 226</span>Perth, by arrangement with an +innkeeper of that town; but the innkeeper refused to pay a fair +price.</p> +<p>“Wha will her sell it till, then?” asked the +would-be vendor.</p> +<p>The innkeeper, a person of a saturnine humour, mentioned a +name and a house, and the man went thither with his cart.</p> +<p>“What is it, my man?” asked the occupier, coming +to the door.</p> +<p>“Well, yer honour, ’tis some o’ the finest +whusky that iver was made up yon, and niver paid the +bawbee’s worth o’ duty.”</p> +<p>“D’ye know who I am?” returned the +householder. “I’m an officer of excise, and I +demand to know who sent you to me.”</p> +<p>The smuggler told him.</p> +<p>“Now,” said the exciseman, “go back to him +and sell him your whisky at his own price, and then +begone.”</p> +<p>The man did as he was bidden; sold his consignment, and left +the town. It was but a few hours afterwards that the +innkeeper’s premises were raided by the excise, who seized +the whisky and procured a conviction at the next Assizes, where +he was heavily fined.</p> +<p>One of the last incidents along the Border, in connection with +whisky-smuggling between Scotland and England, occurred after the +duty had been considerably lowered. This was a desperate +affray which took place on the night of Sunday, January 16th, +1825, at Rockcliffe Cross, five miles <a name="page227"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 227</span>from Carlisle on the Wigton +road. One Edward Forster, officer of excise, was on duty +when he observed a man, whose name, it afterwards appeared, was +Charles Gillespie, a labourer, carrying a suspicious object, and +challenged him. This resulted in an encounter in which the +excise officer’s head was badly cut open. Calling aid +of another labourer, who afterwards gave evidence, he remarked +that he thought the smuggler had almost done for him, but pursued +the man and fired upon him in the dark, with so good an aim that +he was mortally wounded, and presently died. It was a +dangerous thing in those times for an excise officer to do his +duty, and at the inquest held the coroner’s jury returned a +verdict of “Murder”; the men who formed the jury +being doubtless drawn from a class entirely in sympathy with +smuggling, and possibly engaged in it themselves. Forster, +evidently expectant of that verdict, did not present himself, and +was probably transferred by his superiors to some post far +distant. There the affair ends.</p> +<p>About the same time, on the Carlisle and Wigton road, two +preventive men at three o’clock in the morning met a man +carrying a load, which, when examined, proved to be a keg of +spirits. Two other men then came up and bludgeoned the +officers, one of whom dropped his cutlass; whereupon a smuggler +picked it up, and, attacking him vigorously, cut him over the +head. The smugglers then all escaped, leaving behind them +two bladders containing eight gallons of whisky.</p> +<h2><a name="page228"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +228</span>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Some Smugglers’ Tricks and +Evasions</span>—<span class="smcap">Modern +Tobacco-Smuggling</span>—<span class="smcap">Silks and +Lace</span>—<span class="smcap">A Dog +Detective</span>—<span class="smcap">Leghorn +Hats</span>—<span class="smcap">Foreign Watches</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> tricks practised by smugglers +other than those daring and resourceful fellows who risked life, +limb, and liberty in conflict with the elements and the +preventive service, may form, in the narration, an amusing +chapter. Smugglers of this kind may be divided, roughly, +into three classes. Firstly, we have the ingeniously +evasive trade importer in bulk, who resorts to false declarations +and deceptive packing and labelling, for the purpose of entering +his merchandise duty-free. Secondly, we have the sailors, +the firemen of ocean-going steamers, and other persons of like +classes, who smuggle tobacco and spirits, not necessarily to a +commercial end, in considerable quantities; and thirdly, there +are those enterprising holiday-makers and travellers for pleasure +who cannot resist the sport.</p> +<p>We read in <i>The Times</i> of 1816 that, among the many +expedients at that time practised for smuggling goods into +France, the following scheme <a name="page229"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 229</span>of introducing merchandise into +Dieppe had some dexterity. Large stone bottles were +procured, and, the bottoms being knocked off, they were then +filled with cotton stockings and thread lace. A false +bottom was fixed, and, to avoid suspicion, the mouth of each +bottle was left open. Any inquiries were met with the +statement that the bottles were going to the spirit merchant, to +be refilled.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p228.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Smugglers Attacked" +title= +"Smugglers Attacked" +src="images/p228.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>This evasion was successfully carried on until a young man +from Brighton ventured on too heavy a speculation. He +filled his bottle with ten dozen stockings, which so weighted it +that the bottom came off, disclosing the contents.</p> +<p>Ingenuity worthy of a better cause is the characteristic of +modern types of smugglers. A constant battle of wits +between them and the custom-house officers is in progress at all +ports of entry; and the fortunes of either side may be followed +with much interest.</p> +<p>One of the most ingenious of such tricks was that of the +trader who was importing French kid-gloves. He caused them +to be despatched in two cases; one, containing only right-hand +gloves, to Folkestone, the other, left-hand only, to +London. Being at the time dutiable articles, and the +consignee refusing to pay the duty, the two cases were +confiscated and their contents in due course sold at +auction. No one has a use for odd gloves, and these +oddments accordingly in each case realised the merest trifle; but +the purchaser—who was of course the consignee +himself—netted <a name="page230"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 230</span>a very considerable profit over the +transaction. The abolition of duty on such articles has, +however, rendered a modern repetition of the trick +unnecessary. Nor is it any longer likely that foreign +watches find their way to these shores in the old time-honoured +style—<i>i.e.</i> hung in leather bags round the persons of +unassuming travellers.</p> +<p>Such an one, smuggling an unusual number across from Holland, +calculated upon the average passage of twenty-four hours, and +reckoned he could, for once in a way, endure that spell of +waiting and walking about deck without lying down. He could +not, as a matter of fact, on account of the watches, afford to +lie down. To his dismay, the vessel, midway of the passage, +encountered a dense fog, and had occasionally to stop or slow +down; and, in the end, it was a forty-eight hours’ +passage. The unfortunate smuggler could not endure so much, +and was obliged to disclose his treasure. So the Revenue +scored heavily on that occasion.</p> +<p>Tobacco is still largely smuggled, and is, in fact, the +foremost article so treated to-day; the very heavy duty, not less +than five times its value, forming a great, and readily +understood, temptation. Perhaps the most notable attempt in +modern times to smuggle tobacco in bulk was that discovered in +1881.</p> +<p>The custom-house staff in London had for some time before that +date become familiar with warning letters sent anonymously, +hinting that great quantities of tobacco were continually being +<a name="page231"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 231</span>conveyed +into England from Rotterdam without paying duty, but for a while +little notice was taken of these communications; until at length +they grew so definite that the officials had no choice but to +inquire. Detective officers were accordingly despatched to +Rotterdam, to watch the proceedings there, and duly observed the +packing of two large marine boilers with tobacco, by hydraulic +pressure. They were then shipped aboard a steamer and taken +to London, whence they were placed upon the railway at +King’s Cross, for delivery in the north. A great deal +of secret manoeuvring by the custom-house officials and the +police resulted in both boilers being seized in London and those +responsible for them being secured. It was then discovered +that they were only dummy boilers, made expressly for smuggling +traffic; and it was further thought that this was by no means the +first journey they had made. The parties to this +transaction were fined close upon five thousand pounds, and the +consignment was confiscated.</p> +<p>To conceal tobacco in hollow loaves of bread, especially made +and baked for this purpose, was a common practice, and one not +altogether unknown nowadays; while the coal-bunkers, the +engine-rooms, and the hundred and one odd corners among the iron +plates and girders of modern steamships afford hiding-places not +seldom resorted to. The customs officers, who board every +vessel entering port, of course discover many of these +<i>caches</i>, but it is not to be <a name="page232"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 232</span>supposed that more than a percentage +of them are found.</p> +<p>Smuggled cigars are to-day a mere commonplace of the ordinary +custom-house officer’s experience with private travellers, +and no doubt a great quantity find a secret passage through, in +the trading way. For some years there was a considerable +import of broomsticks into England from the Continent, and little +or no comment was made upon the curious fact of it being worth +while to import so inexpensive an article, which could equally +well be made here. But the mystery was suddenly dispelled +one day when two clerks in a customs warehouse, wearied of a dull +afternoon, set to the amusement of playing single-stick with two +of these imported broomsticks. No sooner did one broomstick +smite upon another in this friendly encounter than they both +broke in half, liberating a plentiful shower of very excellent +cigars, which had been secreted in the hollowed staves.</p> +<p>Silks formed an important item in the smugglers’ trade, +and even the gentlemen of that day unconsciously contributed to +it, by the use of bandana handkerchiefs, greatly affected by that +snuff-taking generation. Huskisson, a thoroughgoing +advocate of Free Trade, was addressing the House of Commons on +one occasion and declaring that the only possible way to stop +smuggling was to abolish, or at any rate to greatly reduce, the +duties; when he dramatically instanced the evasions and floutings +of the laws. “Honourable <a name="page233"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 233</span>members of this House are well aware +that bandana handkerchiefs are prohibited by law, and yet,” +he continued, drawing one from his pocket, while the House +laughed loud with delight, “I have no doubt there is hardly +a gentleman here who has not got a bandana +handkerchief.”</p> +<p>Lace-smuggling, of course, exercised great fascination for the +ladies, who—women being generally lacking in the moral +sense, or possessing it only in the partial and perverted manner +in which it is owned by infants—very rarely could resist +the temptation to secrete some on their way home from foreign +parts. The story is told how a lady who had a smuggled lace +veil of great value in her possession grew very nervous of being +able to carry it through, and imparted her anxiety to a gentleman +at the hotel dinner. He offered to take charge of it, as, +being a bachelor, no one was in the least likely to suspect him +of secreting such an article. But, in the very act of +accepting his offer, she chanced to observe a saturnine smile +spreading over the countenance of the waiter at her elbow. +She instantly suspected a spy, and secretly altered her plans, +causing the veil to be sewn up in the back of her husband’s +waistcoat.</p> +<p>The precaution proved to be a necessary one, for the luggage +of the unfortunate bachelor was mercilessly overhauled at every +customs station on the remainder of the journey.</p> +<p>Among the many ruses practised upon the preventive men, who, +as the butts of innumerable evasive false-pretences, must have +been experts <a name="page234"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +234</span>in the ways of practical jokes, was that of the +pretended drunken smuggler. To divert attention from any +pursuit of the main body of the tub-carrying gang, one of their +number would be detailed to stagger along, as though under the +influence of drink, in a different direction, with a couple of +tubs slung over his shoulders. It was a very excellently +effective trick, but had the obvious disadvantage of working only +once at any one given station. It was the fashion to +describe the preventive men as fools, but they were not such +crass fools as all that, to be taken in twice by the same simple +dodge.</p> +<p>The solitary and apparently intoxicated tub-carrier would lead +the pursuers a little way and would then allow himself easily to +be caught, but would then make a desperate and prolonged +resistance in defence of his tubs. At last, overpowered and +the tubs taken from him, and himself escorted to the nearest +blockade-station, the tubs themselves would be examined—and +would generally be found to contain only sea-water!</p> +<p>The customs men, however, were not without their own bright +ideas. The service would scarcely have been barren of +imagination unless it were recruited from a specially selected +levy of dunderheads. But it was an exceptionally brilliant +officer who hit upon the notion of training a puppy for +discovering those places where the smugglers had, as a temporary +expedient, hidden their spirit-tubs. It would often happen +that a successful run ended at the beach, and that opportunities +<a name="page235"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 235</span>for +conveying the cargo inland had to be waited upon. It would, +therefore, be buried in the shingle, or in holes dug in the sands +at low water, until a safe opportunity occurred. The +customs staff knew this perfectly well, but they necessarily +lacked the knowledge of the exact spots where these stores had +been made.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p234.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Smugglers Defeated" +title= +"Smugglers Defeated" +src="images/p234.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The exceptionally imaginative customs officer in question +trained a terrier pup to the business of scenting them by the +cunning method of bringing the creature up with an acquired taste +for alcohol. This he did by mixing the pup’s food +with spirits, and allowing it to take no food that was not so +flavoured. Two things resulted from this novel treatment: +the dog’s growth was stunted, and it grew up with such a +liking for spirits that it would take nothing not freely laced +with whisky, rum, gin, or brandy.</p> +<p>The plan of operations with a dog educated into these vicious +tastes was simple. When his master found a favourable +opportunity for strolling along the shore, in search of buried +kegs, the dog, having been deprived of his food the day before, +was taken. When poor hungry Tray came to one of these +spots, the animal’s keen and trained scent instantly +detected it, and he would at once begin scratching and barking +like mad.</p> +<p>The smugglers were not long in solving the mystery of their +secret hoards being all at once so successfully located; and, all +too soon for the Revenue, a well-aimed shot from the cliffs +presently cut the dog’s career short.</p> +<p><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +236</span>“Perhaps the oddest form of the smuggling carried +on in later times,” says a writer in an old magazine, +“was a curious practice in vogue between Calais and Dover +about 1819–20. This, however, was rather an open and +well-known technical evasion of the customs dues than actual +smuggling. The fashion at that time came in of ladies +wearing Leghorn hats and bonnets of enormous dimensions. +They were huge, strong plaits, nearly circular, and commonly +about a yard in diameter; and they sold in England at from two to +three guineas, and sometimes even more, apiece. A heavy +duty was laid upon them, amounting to nearly half their +value.</p> +<p>It is a well-known concession, made by the custom-houses of +various countries, that wearing-apparel in use is not liable to +duty, and herein lay the opportunity of those who were +financially interested in the import of Leghorn plaits. A +dealer in them hired, at a low figure, a numerous company of +women and girls of the poorest class to voyage daily from Dover +to Calais and back, and entered into a favourable contract with +the owners of one of the steamers for season-tickets for the +whole band of them at low rates. The sight of these women +leaving the town in the morning with the most deplorable headgear +and returning in the evening gloriously arrayed, so far as their +heads were concerned, was for some few years a familiar and +amusing one to the people of Dover.</p> +<p>Another ingenious evasion was that long <a +name="page237"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 237</span>practised +by the Swiss importers of watches at the time when watches also +were subject to duty. An <i>ad valorem</i> duty was placed +upon them, which was arrived at by the importers making a +declaration of their value. In order to prevent the value +being fixed too low, and the Revenue being consequently +defrauded, the Government had the right of buying any goods they +chose, at the prices declared. This was by no means a +disregarded right, for the authorities did frequently, in +suspicious cases, exercise it, and bought considerable +consignments of goods, which were afterwards disposed of by +auction, at well-known custom-house sales.</p> +<p>The Swiss makers and importers of watches managed to do a +pretty good deal of business with the customs as an unwilling +partner, and they did it in a perfectly legitimate way; although +a way not altogether without suspicion of sharp practice. +They would follow consignments of goods declared at ordinary +prices with others of exactly similar quality, entered at the +very lowest possible price, consistent with the making of a +trading profit; and the customs officials, noting the glaring +discrepancy, would exercise their rights and buy the cheaper +lots, thinking to cause the importers a severe loss and thus give +them a greatly needed lesson. The watch-manufacturers +really desired nothing better, and were cheerfully prepared to +learn many such lessons; for they thus secured an immediate +purchaser, for cash, and so greatly increased their +turnover. Other folks incidentally <a +name="page238"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 238</span>benefited, +for goods sold at customs auctions rarely ever fetched their real +value: there were too many keenly interested middlemen about for +that to be permitted. Thus, an excellent watch only, as a +rule, to be bought for from £14 to £15, could on +these occasions often be purchased for £10. Naturally +enough, the proprietors of watch and jewellery businesses were +the chief bidders at these auctions; and, equally naturally, they +usually found means to keep down the prices to themselves, while +carefully ensuring that private bidders should be artfully run +up.</p> +<h2><a name="page239"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +239</span>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p style="text-align: center" class="gutsumm"><span +class="smcap">Coast Blockade</span>—<span class="smcap">The +Preventive Water-Guard and the Coastguard</span>—<span +class="smcap">Official Return of Seizures</span>—<span +class="smcap">Estimated Loss to the Revenue in</span> +1831—<span class="smcap">The Sham Smuggler of the +Seaside</span>—<span class="smcap">The Modern +Coastguard</span></p> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> early coastguardmen had a great +deal of popular feeling to contend with. When the +coast-blockade was broken up in 1831, and the “Preventive +Water-Guard,” as this new body was styled, was formed, +officers and men alike found the greatest difficulty in obtaining +lodgings. No one would let houses or rooms to the men whose +business it was to prevent smuggling, and thus incidentally to +take away the excellent livelihood the fisherfolk and +longshoremen were earning. Thus, the earliest stations of +the coastguard were formed chiefly out of old hulks and other +vessels condemned for sea-going purposes, but quite sound, and +indeed, often peculiarly comfortable as residences, moored +permanently in sheltered creeks, or hauled up, high and dry, on +beaches that afforded the best of outlooks upon the sea.</p> +<p>Very few of these primitive coastguard stations <a +name="page240"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 240</span>are now +left. Their place has been pretty generally taken by the +neat, if severely unornamental, stations, generally whitewashed, +and enclosed within a compound-wall, with which summer visitors +to our coasts are familiar. And the old-time prejudice +against the men has had plenty of time to die away during the +eighty years or so in which the coastguard service has +existed. There are still, however, some eleven or twelve +old hulks in use as coastguard stations; principally in the +estuaries of the Thames and Medway.</p> +<p>The Preventive Water-Guard, from which the existing coastguard +service was developed, was not only the old coast-blockade +reorganised, but was an extension of it from the shores of +Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, and Essex, to the entire coast-line of +the United Kingdom. It was manned by sailors from the Royal +Navy, and the stations were commanded by naval lieutenants. +Many of the martello towers that had been built at regular +intervals along the shores of Kent and Sussex, and some few in +Suffolk, in or about 1805, when the terror of foreign invasion +was acute, were used for these early coastguard purposes.</p> +<p>That the preventive service did not prevent, and did not at +first even seriously interfere with, smuggling, was the +contention of many well-informed people, with whom the Press +generally sided. The coast-blockade, too, was—perhaps +unjustly—said to be altogether inefficient; and was further +said, truly enough, to be ruinously costly. Controversy was +bitter on these matters. <a name="page241"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 241</span>In January 1825 <i>The Times</i> +recorded the entry of the revenue cutter, <i>Hawke</i>, into +Portsmouth, after a cruise in which she had chased and failed to +capture, owing to heavy weather, a smuggling lugger which +successfully ran seven hundred kegs of spirits. To this +item of news Lieutenant J. F. Tompson, of H.M.S. +<i>Ramillies</i>, commanding the coast-blockade at Lancing, took +exception, and wrote to <i>The Times</i> a violent letter, +complaining of the statements, and saying that they were +absolutely untrue. To this <i>The Times</i> replied, with +considerable acerbity, on February 3rd, that the statement was +true and the lieutenant’s assertions unwarranted. The +newspaper then proceeded to “rub it in” vigorously: +“There is nothing more ridiculous, in the eyes of those who +live upon our sea-coasts, than to witness the tender +sensibilities of officers employed upon the coast-blockade +whenever a statement is made that a smuggler has succeeded in +landing his cargo; as though they formed a part of the most +perfect system that can be established for the suppression of +smuggling. Now be it known to all England that this is a +gross attempt at humbug. Notwithstanding all the unceasing +vigilance of the officers and men employed, smuggling is carried +on all along the coast, from Deal to Cornwall, to as great a +degree as the public require. Any attempt to smuggle +<i>this</i> <span class="smcap">Fact</span> may answer the +purpose of a party, or a particular system, but it will never +obtain belief.</p> +<p>“It was only a few days since that a party <a +name="page242"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 242</span>of +coast-blockade men (we believe belonging to the Tower, No. 61) +made common cause with the smugglers, and they walked off +altogether!”</p> +<p>Exactly! The sheer madness of the Government in +maintaining the extraordinary high duties, and of adding always +another force to existing services, designed to suppress the +smugglers’ trade, was sufficiently evident to all who would +not refuse to see. When commodities in great demand with +all classes were weighted with duties so heavy that few persons +could afford to purchase those that had passed through His +Majesty’s Custom-houses, two things might have been +foreseen: that the regularised imports would, under the most +favourable circumstances, inevitably decrease; and that the +smuggling which had already been notoriously increasing by leaps +and bounds for a century past would be still further encouraged +to supply those articles at a cheap rate, which the +Government’s policy had rendered unattainable by the +majority of people.</p> +<p>An account printed by order of the House of Commons in the +beginning of 1825 gave details of all customable commodities +seized during the last three years by the various establishments +formed for the prevention of smuggling: the Coastguard, or +Preventive Water-guard; the Riding-officers; and the revenue +cruisers and ships of war.</p> +<p>In that period the following articles were seized and dealt +with:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><a name="page243"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +243</span>Tobacco</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">902,684¼</p> +</td> +<td><p>lb.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Snuff</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">3,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>,,</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Brandy</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">135,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>gallons.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rum</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">253</p> +</td> +<td><p>,,</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Gin</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">227,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>,,</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Whisky</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10,500</p> +</td> +<td><p>,,</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Tea</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">19,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>lb.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Silk</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">42,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>yards.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>India handkerchiefs</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2,100</p> +</td> +<td><p>pieces.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Leghorn hats</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">23</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Cards</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">3,600</p> +</td> +<td><p>packs.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Timber</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10,000</p> +</td> +<td><p>pieces.</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Stills</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">75</p> +</td> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>The cost of making these seizures, and dealing with them, was +put as follows:</p> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center">£</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>s.</i></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: center"><i>d.</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Law expenses </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">29,816</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">19</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">4¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Storage, rent of warehouses, etc. </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">18,875</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">14</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Salaries, cooperage, casks, repairs, etc.</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">1,533,708</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">4</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">10</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>Rewards to officers, etc. </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">488,127</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">11½</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">£2,070,528</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">2</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right">0¾</p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<p>The produce of all these articles sold was £282,541 +8<i>s.</i> 5¾<i>d.</i>; showing a loss to the nation, in +attempting during that period to suppress smuggling, of +considerably over one million and three quarters sterling.</p> +<p>This return of seizures provides an imposing array of figures, +but, amazing as those figures are by themselves, they would be +still more so if it were possible to place beside them an exact +return of the goods successfully run, in spite of blockades <a +name="page244"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 244</span>and +preventive services. Then we should see these figures fade +into insignificance beside the enormous bulk of goods that came +into the country and paid no dues.</p> +<p>Some very startling figures are available by which the +enormous amount of smuggling effected for generations may be +guessed. It would be possible to prepare a tabulated form +from the various reports of the Board of Customs, setting forth +the relation between duty-paid goods and the estimated value of +smuggled commodities during a term of years, but as this work is +scarce designed to fill the place of a statistical abstract, I +will forbear. A few illuminating items, it may be, will +suffice.</p> +<p>Thus in 1743 it was calculated that the annual average import +of tea through the legitimate channels was 650,000 lb.; but that +the total consumption was three times this amount. One +Dutch house alone was known to illegally import an annual weight +of 500,000 lb.</p> +<p>An even greater amount of spirit-smuggling may legitimately be +deduced from the perusal of the foregoing pages, and, although in +course of time considerably abated, as the coastguard and other +organisations settled down to their work of prevention and +detection, it remained to a late date of very large +proportions. Thus the official customs report for 1831 +placed the loss to the Revenue on smuggled goods at +£800,000 annually. To this amount the item of French +brandy contributed £500,000. The annual cost of +protecting <a name="page245"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +245</span>the Revenue (excise, customs, and preventive service) +was at the same time between £700,000 and +£800,000.</p> +<p>An interesting detailed statement of the contraband trade in +spirits from Roscoff, one of the Brittany ports, shows that, two +years later than the above, from March 15th to 17th, 1833, there +were shipped to England, per smuggling craft, 850 tubs of brandy; +and between April 13th and 20th in the same year 750 tubs; that +is to say, 6,400 gallons in little more than one month. And +although Roscoff was a prominent port in this trade, it was but +one of several.</p> +<p>So late as 1840, forty-eight per cent. of the French silks +brought into this country were said to have paid no duty; and for +years afterwards silk-smugglers, swathed apoplectically in +contraband of this description, formed the early steamship +companies’ most regular patrons.</p> +<p>The seaside holiday-maker of that age was an easy prey of +pretended smugglers, cunning rascals who traded upon that most +wide-spread of human failings, the love of a bargain, no matter +how illegitimately it may be procured. The lounger on the +seaside parades of that time was certain, sooner or later, to be +approached by a mysterious figure with an indefinable air of +mystery and a semi-nautical rig, who, with many careful glances +to right and left, and in a hoarse whisper behind a secretive +hand, told a tale of smuggled brandy or cigars, watches or +silks. “Not ’arf the price you’d pay for +’em in the shops, guv’nor,” the <a +name="page246"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 246</span>shameless +impostor would say, producing a bundle of cigars, “but the +real thing; better than them wot most of the shops keep. I +see you’re a gent. as knows a good smoke. You shall +’ave ’em”—at some preposterously low +price. And generally the greenhorn did have them; finding, +when he came to smoke the genuine Flor de Cabbage he had bought, +that they would have been dear at any price. To that +complexion of mean fraud did the old smuggling traditions of +courage, adventure, and derring-do come at last!</p> +<p>The modern coastguard, known technically as the First Naval +Reserve, is still under Admiralty control, but proposals are, it +is understood, now afoot for entirely altering its status, and +for reorganising it as a purely civil force, under the orders of +the customs and excise authorities. At present the +coastguard establishment numbers some 4,200 officers and men, and +is understood to cost £260,000 a year. It is not, +perhaps, generally understood that the coastguardman is really a +man-o’-war’s man, attached to a particular ship, and +liable at any moment of national emergency to be called to rejoin +his ship, and to proceed on active service.</p> +<p>It is not really to be supposed that the coastguard succeed in +entirely suppressing smuggling, even in our own times. Few +are the articles that are now subject to duty, and the temptation +is consequently not now very great. Also, the landing of +such goods as tea, tobacco, and spirits in bulk would readily be +detected; but smuggling <a name="page247"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 247</span>of spirits and of tobacco in small +quantities is commercially remunerative while the duties are as +high as from 11<i>s.</i> to 17<i>s.</i> a gallon, and from +3<i>s.</i> 6<i>d.</i> to 5<i>s.</i> a pound in respect of tobacco +and cigars; while large quantities of that entirely modern +article, saccharine, on which there is a duty of one shilling and +threepence an ounce (with a minimum legal weight on import of +eleven pounds, designed to render clandestine traffic in it +difficult), must, in the very nature of things, be illegally +introduced.</p> +<p>That there will be a phenomenal increase of smuggling when the +inevitable happens and protection of the country’s trade +against the foreigner is instituted, seems certain. It will +seem like old times come again.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">THE END</p> +<h2><a name="page249"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +249</span>INDEX</h2> +<p>(<i>Individual smugglers indexed only when mentioned at +length</i>.)</p> +<p><span class="smcap">Acts of Parliament</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page7">7</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page14">14</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page17">17</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page23">23</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page27">27</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page34">34</a></span>–6</p> +<p>Arundel, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Barhatch</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +<p>Beccles, Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +<p>Bedhampton Mill, near Havant, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span>–109</p> +<p>Beer, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page125">125</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page183">183</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page187">187</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page191">191</a></span>–4, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page199">199</a></span></p> +<p>Blackwater, The, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Blakeney, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +<p>Bo-Peep, Fatal conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span>–100</p> +<p>— Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +<p>Borstal Hill (near Canterbury), Fatal conflict at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page80">80</a></span></p> +<p>Bradwell Quay, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Braemar, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page217">217</a></span></p> +<p>Branscombe, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +<p>Budleigh Salterton, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page198">198</a></span></p> +<p>Bulverhythe, Fatal conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span></p> +<p>Burns, Robert, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page202">202</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Caister</span>, <span +class="smcap">Conflict at</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page115">115</a></span></p> +<p>Camber Castle, Fatal conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +<p>Canvey Island, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +<p>Carter family, smugglers, of Prussia Cove, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page165">165</a></span>–82</p> +<p>— Henry, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page172">172</a></span>–83</p> +<p>— John, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span>–72, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page174">174</a></span></p> +<p>Carter, Wm., customs officer, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +<p>Castle, Mr., excise officer, murdered, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page68">68</a></span></p> +<p>Chater, Daniel, Murder of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>-60</p> +<p>“Chop-backs,” <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page78">78</a></span>–80</p> +<p>Coastguard, The, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page246">246</a></span></p> +<p>Colchester, Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span></p> +<p>“Cruel Coppinger,” <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page129">129</a></span>–36</p> +<p>Cuckmere, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Dalnashaugh</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page224">224</a></span></p> +<p>Diamond, John, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page53">53</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span></p> +<p>“Dog and Partridge,” Slindon Common, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page63">63</a></span>–7</p> +<p>Dover, Fatal conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page98">98</a></span></p> +<p>Dymchurch, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Eastbourne</span>, <span +class="smcap">Fatal conflict near</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page97">97</a></span></p> +<p>— at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page101">101</a></span></p> +<p>Ewhurst, Smugglers’ hiding-places at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page102">102</a></span>–104</p> +<p>Export smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page2">2</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>–23</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Fairall</span>, <span +class="smcap">smuggler</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span>–72</p> +<p>Fairlight Glen, Fatal conflict at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page100">100</a></span></p> +<p>Ferring, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page22">22</a></span></p> +<p>Four Brothers, smuggling lugger, Fatal conflict with, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page87">87</a></span>–92</p> +<p>Fowey, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page139">139</a></span></p> +<p>“Free-traders,” a term for smugglers, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page39">39</a></span></p> +<p>Fuller’s-earth, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Galley</span>, <span +class="smcap">William</span>, <span class="smcap">Murder +of</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page49">49</a></span>–61</p> +<p><a name="page250"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +250</span>Gibson, William, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page162">162</a></span>–4</p> +<p>Glenlivet, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page209">209</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page215">215</a></span></p> +<p>Gloves, evasions of glove-smugglers, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page229">229</a></span></p> +<p>Goudhurst, Attack by smugglers on, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page42">42</a></span>–4</p> +<p>Gray, Arthur, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +<p>Greenhay, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +<p>“Green Man,” Bradwell Quay, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Grinstead Green, Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Harley</span>, <span +class="smcap">John</span>, Epitaph on, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +<p>Harting Combe, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span></p> +<p>Hartland, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page134">134</a></span></p> +<p>Hastings, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> +<p>— Murder at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +<p>— Outrage off, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +<p>Hawkhurst Gang, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span>–73</p> +<p>— Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +<p>Hawkins, Richard, Murder of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span>–7</p> +<p>Herstmonceux Castle, Ghostly drummer of, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +<p>Highdown Hill, near Worthing, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span></p> +<p>Hove church-tower as smugglers’ store, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page81">81</a></span>–3</p> +<p>— Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span></p> +<p>Hunstanton, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page117">117</a></span></p> +<p>Hurstmonceux Castle, Ghostly drummer of, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page84">84</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Indian Queens</span>,” <span +class="smcap">The</span>, <span class="smcap">near Bodmin</span>, +<span class="indexpageno"><a href="#page189">189</a></span></p> +<p>Informers, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page30">30</a></span>–34, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page65">65</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Jackson</span>, <span +class="smcap">Wm</span>., <span class="smcap">smuggler</span>, +<span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page51">51</a></span>–4, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page62">62</a></span></p> +<p>James, G. P. R., on smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page73">73</a></span>–7</p> +<p>James, Thos., Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span></p> +<p>Johnson, Dr., on Commissioner of Excise, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page36">36</a></span></p> +<p>— on smugglers (see Title-page)</p> +<p>Johnson, Thomas, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page156">156</a></span>–62</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>“<span class="smcap">King of Prussia</span>,” +<span class="smcap">Porth Leah</span>, <span class="smcap">or +Prussia Cove</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page165">165</a></span>–72</p> +<p>Kingsmill, George, smuggler, shot, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +<p>— Thomas, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page43">43</a></span></p> +<p>— executed, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page72">72</a></span></p> +<p>Kingston-by-the-sea, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page29">29</a></span></p> +<p>Kinson, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> +<p>Kipling, Rudyard, “smugglers’ song,” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +<p>Knill, John, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Lace</span>, <span class="smcap">Smuggling +of</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page233">233</a></span></p> +<p>Lady Holt Park, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page57">57</a></span>–9</p> +<p>Langston Harbour, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p>Leghorn hats, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page236">236</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page243">243</a></span></p> +<p>Lewis, Wm., Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span></p> +<p><i>Lively</i>, smuggling lugger, Conflict with, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page190">190</a></span></p> +<p>“Lobster Smack,” Canvey Island, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Lulworth, Conflict near, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page121">121</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Maidstone</span>, <span +class="smcap">Murder by smuggler at</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +<p>Maker, near Plymouth, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span></p> +<p>Mark, Robert, Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page147">147</a></span></p> +<p>“Miller’s Tomb,” near Worthing, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span>–106</p> +<p>Mills, John, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span>–7</p> +<p>Mills, Richard, the elder, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page55">55</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page58">58</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span></p> +<p>— the younger, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page56">56</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page66">66</a></span></p> +<p>Moon, John, Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +<p>“Moonshine,” a term for smuggled spirits, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page139">139</a></span></p> +<p>“Mount Pleasant” inn, near Dawlish, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page126">126</a></span></p> +<p>Mylor, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Olliver</span>, <span +class="smcap">John</span>, miller, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page104">104</a></span>–106</p> +<p>Owlers, The, of Romney Marsh, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page14">14</a></span>–23</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Parham Park</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +<p><a name="page251"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +251</span>Patcham, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +<p>Paulson, Henry, midshipman, Epitaph on, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +<p>Paulet, Harry, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page162">162</a></span></p> +<p>Peddar’s (or Padder’s) Way, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page118">118</a></span></p> +<p>Pett, Smugglers drowned at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +<p>Pewit Island, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Polperro, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page140">140</a></span></p> +<p>Poole, Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page48">48</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page70">70</a></span></p> +<p>Potter, Tom, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page141">141</a></span></p> +<p>Preventive Water Guard, The, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page239">239</a></span>–44</p> +<p>Pring, Wm., smuggler and informer, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page65">65</a></span></p> +<p>Privateers for prevention of smuggling, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page37">37</a></span></p> +<p>Profits of smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +<p>Prussia Cove, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page165">165</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page169">169</a></span>–72</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Rake</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span>–62</p> +<p>Ransley Gang, The, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page73">73</a></span></p> +<p>Rattenbury, Jack, smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page123">123</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page183">183</a></span>–99</p> +<p>“Red Lion,” Rake, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page54">54</a></span>–62</p> +<p>“Red Lion,” Rye, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> +<p>Rockcliffe Cross, Fatal conflict at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page226">226</a></span></p> +<p>Romney Marsh, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span></p> +<p>— wool-smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>–19</p> +<p>— Conflict on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page15">15</a></span>–17 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +<p>“Royal Oak,” Langston Harbour, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +<p>Ruxley Gang, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page79">79</a></span></p> +<p>Rye, Conflict at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page94">94</a></span></p> +<p>— Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page44">44</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Saccharine</span>, <span +class="smcap">Smuggling of</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page247">247</a></span></p> +<p>St. Aldhelm’s Head, Fatal conflict at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page122">122</a></span></p> +<p>St. Ives, Cornwall, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page149">149</a></span></p> +<p>St. Peter-upon-the-Wall, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page114">114</a></span></p> +<p>Scales, Daniel, Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +<p>“Sea Cocks,” The, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +<p>Seacox Heath, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +<p>Seaford, Murders by smugglers at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page45">45</a></span></p> +<p>Seaton, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page125">125</a></span></p> +<p>Shaw, whisky smuggler, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page211">211</a></span>–14</p> +<p>Sheerness, Wool robbery near, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +<p>“Ship,” Woolbridge, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span></p> +<p>Shoreham, Outrage at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page41">41</a></span></p> +<p>Silks, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page19">19</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page232">232</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page243">243</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page245">245</a></span></p> +<p>Smith, Adam, on smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page153">153</a></span></p> +<p>Smith, George, of Glenlivet, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page209">209</a></span>–212 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page215">215</a></span></p> +<p>Smith, Sydney, on taxation, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page5">5</a></span></p> +<p>Smugglers, Distinction between landsmen and seamen, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page112">112</a></span></p> +<p>Smugglers’ labourers, Pay of, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page10">10</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page14">14</a></span></p> +<p>Smuggling, Growth of in eighteenth century, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page24">24</a></span></p> +<p>— Pamphlet denouncing, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page154">154</a></span>-157</p> +<p>— Profits of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span></p> +<p>Snargate church as smugglers’ store, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page96">96</a></span></p> +<p>Southampton Water, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page109">109</a></span></p> +<p>Spirits, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page9">9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page80">80</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page95">95</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page96">96</a></span>–105 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page115">115</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page121">121</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page127">127</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page132">132</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page138">138</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page139">139</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page143">143</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page162">162</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page171">171</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page181">181</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page187">187</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page195">195</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page198">198</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span>–227 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page243">243</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page244">244</a></span>–7</p> +<p>Spittal of Glenshee, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page213">213</a></span></p> +<p>“Stinkibus,” a term for spoiled spirits, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page128">128</a></span></p> +<p>Swain, Joseph, Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page87">87</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Talland</span>, <span +class="smcap">Epitaph at</span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page147">147</a></span></p> +<p>— Smuggling pranks at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page143">143</a></span>–46</p> +<p>Tandridge, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +<p>Tea, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page24">24</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page28">28</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page31">31</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page47">47-9</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page63">63</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page113">113</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page152">152</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page243">243</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page244">244</a></span></p> +<p>Tobacco, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page83">83</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page88">88</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page110">110</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span>-232 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page243">243</a></span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page247">247</a></span></p> +<p><a name="page252"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +252</span>Todman, Thomas, Epitaph on, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page85">85</a></span></p> +<p>Trotman, Robert, Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page119">119</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Warehorne</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page96">96</a></span></p> +<p>Warren, The, near Dawlish, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page126">126</a></span>–128</p> +<p>Watches, Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page230">230</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page237">237</a></span></p> +<p>Webb, Wm., Epitaph on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page117">117</a></span></p> +<p>Welcombe Mouth, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page130">130</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page134">134</a></span></p> +<p>Wendron, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page148">148</a></span></p> +<p>Westfield, Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page86">86</a></span></p> +<p>Whisky smuggling, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page201">201</a></span>–227 <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page243">243</a></span></p> +<p>“White Hart,” Rowlands Castle, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page50">50</a></span>–54</p> +<p>Whitesand Bay, near Plymouth, Fatal conflict at, <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page140">140</a></span></p> +<p>“Wiltshire Moonrakers,” <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page120">120</a></span></p> +<p>“Windmill,” Ewhurst, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +<p>Wool, Exportation of forbidden, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>–14</p> +<p>— Duties on, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>–14</p> +<p>— Smuggling of, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page12">12</a></span>–23</p> +<p>Wreckers, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page133">133</a></span>, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page167">167</a></span></p> +<p>Wyke (near Weymouth), Epitaph at, <span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page124">124</a></span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p><span class="smcap">Yawkins</span>, <span +class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page205">205</a></span>–207</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed and bound by Hazell</i>, +<i>Watson & Viney</i>, <i>Ltd.</i>, <i>London and +Aylesbury</i>.</p> +<h2>NOTES.</h2> +<p><a name="footnote66"></a><a href="#citation66" +class="footnote">[66]</a> “Gregory’s +Gang” was a noted band of thieves and housebreakers, active +about 1730–35. Dick Turpin was at times associated +with them. See “Half Hours with the +Highwaymen,” vol. ii., p. 177.</p> +<p><a name="footnote173"></a><a href="#citation173" +class="footnote">[173]</a> “Autobiography of a +Cornish Smuggler.” (Gibbings & Co., Ltd., +1900.)</p> +<p><a name="footnote194"></a><a href="#citation194" +class="footnote">[194]</a> By smuggling, presumably.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SMUGGLERS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 45856-h.htm or 45856-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/5/8/5/45856 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at + www.gutenberg.org/license. + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809 +North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email +contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the +Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. +</pre></body> +</html> diff --git a/45856-h/images/fp.jpg b/45856-h/images/fp.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8dadbda --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/fp.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p102.jpg b/45856-h/images/p102.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bedf283 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p102.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p104.jpg b/45856-h/images/p104.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..144597b --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p104.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p106.jpg b/45856-h/images/p106.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac88e05 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p106.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p110.jpg b/45856-h/images/p110.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cfcecae --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p110.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p112.jpg b/45856-h/images/p112.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c64d971 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p112.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p114.jpg b/45856-h/images/p114.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f34a742 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p114.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p12.jpg b/45856-h/images/p12.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a08c78 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p12.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p136.jpg b/45856-h/images/p136.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4da5ecc --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p136.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p144.jpg b/45856-h/images/p144.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..442675a --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p144.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p156.jpg b/45856-h/images/p156.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8cbb672 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p156.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p158.jpg b/45856-h/images/p158.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f7213e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p158.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p16.jpg b/45856-h/images/p16.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9043783 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p16.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p168.jpg b/45856-h/images/p168.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..939fc49 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p168.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p170.jpg b/45856-h/images/p170.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec0b6d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p170.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p174.jpg b/45856-h/images/p174.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6558c36 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p174.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p184.jpg b/45856-h/images/p184.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..6ccd7a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p184.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p214.jpg b/45856-h/images/p214.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0314c82 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p214.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p222.jpg b/45856-h/images/p222.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f77d2c --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p222.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p228.jpg b/45856-h/images/p228.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b72ccd0 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p228.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p234.jpg b/45856-h/images/p234.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9cde72b --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p234.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p40.jpg b/45856-h/images/p40.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f445fb5 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p40.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p46.jpg b/45856-h/images/p46.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f154316 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p46.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p48.jpg b/45856-h/images/p48.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d10e65d --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p48.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p54.jpg b/45856-h/images/p54.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..09ed70c --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p54.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p56.jpg b/45856-h/images/p56.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..33897c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p56.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p64.jpg b/45856-h/images/p64.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0654a87 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p64.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p66.jpg b/45856-h/images/p66.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..49a1e4d --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p66.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p76.jpg b/45856-h/images/p76.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7986ba --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p76.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p78.jpg b/45856-h/images/p78.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..26ecc04 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p78.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p82.jpg b/45856-h/images/p82.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c16cb6c --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p82.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p84.jpg b/45856-h/images/p84.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..837d8ca --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p84.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p86.jpg b/45856-h/images/p86.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..30df31a --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p86.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p92.jpg b/45856-h/images/p92.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7640c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p92.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p96.jpg b/45856-h/images/p96.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..58b6526 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p96.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/p98.jpg b/45856-h/images/p98.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f984588 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/p98.jpg diff --git a/45856-h/images/tp.jpg b/45856-h/images/tp.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1da3681 --- /dev/null +++ b/45856-h/images/tp.jpg |
