get the cargo ashore and, incidentally, make a very handsome profit as well.
We need not envy the Government the difficult and trying task that was theirs during the height of the smuggling era. There was quite enough to think of in regard to foreign affairs without wanting the additional worry of these contraband runners. That must be borne in mind whenever one feels inclined to smile at the apparently half-hearted manner in which the authorities seemed to deal with the evil. Neither funds nor seamen, nor ships nor adequate attention could be spared just then to deal with these pests. And it was only after the wars had at last ended and the Napoleonic bogey had been settled that this domestic worry could be dealt with in the manner it required. There were waiting many evils to be remedied, and this lawlessness along the coast of the country was one of the greatest. But it was not a matter that could be adjusted in a hurry, and it was not for another forty or fifty years, not, in fact, until various administrative changes and improvements had taken place, that at last the evil was practically stamped out. As one looks through the existing records one cannot avoid noticing that there was scarcely a bay or suitable landing-place along the whole English coast-line that did not become notorious for these smuggling "runs": there is hardly a cliff or piece of high ground that has not been employed for the purpose of giving a signal to the approaching craft as they came on through the night over the dark waters. There are indeed very few villages in proximity to the sea that have not been concerned in these smuggling ventures and taken active interest in the landing of bales and casks. The sympathy of the country-side was with the smuggling fraternity. Magistrates were at times terrorised, juries were too frightened to convict. In short, the evil had grown to such an extent that it was a most difficult problem for any Government to be asked to deal with, needing as it did a very efficient service both of craft and men afloat, and an equally able and incorruptible guard on land that could not be turned from its purpose either by fear or bribery. We shall see from the following chapters how these two organisations—by sea and land—worked.
If we exclude fiction, the amount of literature which has been published on smuggling is exceedingly small. Practically the whole of the following pages is the outcome of personal research among original, authentic manuscripts and official documents. Included under this head may be cited the Minutes of the Board of Customs, General Letters of the Board to the Collectors and Controllers of the various Out-ports, Out-port Letters to the Board, the transcripts from shorthand notes of Assizes and Promiscuous Trials of Smugglers, a large quantity of MSS. of remarkable incidents connected with smuggling, miscellaneous notes collected on the subject in the Library of the Customs House, instructions issued at different times to Customs officers and commanders of cruisers, General Orders issued to the Coastguard, together with a valuable précis (unpublished) of the existing documents in the many Customs Houses along the English coast made in the year 1911 by the Librarian to the Board of Customs on a round of visits to the different ports for that purpose. These researches have been further supplemented by other documents in the British Museum and elsewhere.
This volume, therefore, contains within its pages a very large amount of material hitherto unpublished, and, additional to the details gathered together regarding smuggling methods, especial attention has been paid to collect all possible information concerning the Revenue sloops and cutters so frequently alluded to in those days as cruisers. I have so often heard a desire expressed among those interested in the literature of the sea to learn all about the King's cutters, how they were rigged, manned, victualled, armed, and navigated, what were their conditions of service at sea, and so on—finally, to obtain accounts of their chasing of smuggling craft, accounts based on the narratives of eye-witnesses of the incidents, the testimony of the commanders and crews themselves, both captors and captives, that I have been here at some pains to present the most complete picture of the subject that has hitherto been attempted. These cutters were most interesting craft by reason both of themselves and the chases and fights in which they were engaged. The King's cutters were employed, as many people are aware, as well in international warfare as in the Preventive Service. There is an interesting letter, for instance, to be read from Lieutenant Henry Rowed, commanding the Admiralty cutter Sheerness, dated September 9, 1803, off Brest, in which her gallant commander sends a notable account to Collingwood concerning the chasing of a French chasse-marée. And cutters were also employed in connection with the Walcheren expedition. The hired armed cutter Stag was found useful in 1804 as a despatch vessel.
But the King's cutters in the Revenue work were not always as active as they might be. In one of his novels (The Three Cutters) Captain Marryat gives the reader a very plain hint that there was a good deal of slackness prevalent in this section of the service. Referring to the midshipman of the Revenue cutter Active, the author speaks of him as a lazy fellow, too inert even to mend his jacket which was out at elbows, and adds, "He has been turned out of half the ships in the service for laziness; but he was born so, and therefore it is not his fault. A Revenue cutter suits him—she is half her time hove-to; and he has no objection to boat-service, as he sits down in the stern-sheets, which is not fatiguing. Creeping for tubs is his delight, as he gets over so little ground."
But Marryat was, of course, intentionally sarcastic here. That this lazy element was not always, and in every ship, prevalent is clear from the facts at hand. It is also equally clear from the repeated admonitions and exhortations of the Board of Customs, by the holding-out of handsome rewards and the threatenings of dire penalties, that the Revenue-cutter commanders were at any rate periodically negligent of their duties. They were far too fond of coming to a nice snug anchorage for the night or seeking shelter in bad weather, and generally running into harbour with a frequence that was unnecessary. The result was that the cutter, having left her station unguarded, the smugglers were able to land their kegs with impunity.
But we need not delay our story longer, and may proceed now to consider the subject in greater detail.
CHAPTER IIToC
THE EARLIEST SMUGGLERS
It is no part of our intention to trace the history of the levying of customs through different reigns and in different ages, but it is important to note briefly that the evading of these dues which we designate smuggling, is one of the oldest offences on record.
The most ancient dues paid to the English sovereigns would seem to have been those which were levied on the exportation and importation of merchandise across the sea; and it is essential to emphasise at the outset that though nowadays when we speak of smuggling we are accustomed to think only of those acts concerned with imports, yet the word applies equally to the unlawful manner of exporting commodities. Before it is possible for any crime to be committed there must needs be at hand the opportunity to carry out this intention; and throughout the history of our nation—at any rate from the thirteenth century—that portion of England, the counties of Kent and Sussex, which is adjacent to the Continent, has always been at once the most tempted and the most inclined towards this offence. Notwithstanding that there are many other localities which were rendered notorious by generations of smugglers, yet these two between them have been responsible for more incidents of this nature than all the rest put together.
What I am anxious at first to emphasise is the fact that, although smuggling rose to unheard-of importance as a national danger during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and this is the period to which we shall especially address ourselves presently as affording the fullest and the most interesting information on an ingenious phase of human energy), yet it was not a practice which suddenly rose into prominence during that period. Human nature is much the same under various kings and later centuries. Under similar circumstances men and women perform similar actions. Confronted with the temptation to cheat the Crown of its dues, you will find persons in the time of George
