Captain Toosloe sett on shore, by Cleavell, from Dieppe. Clark.
Shoreham: Three French prisoners more. Mose.
Three came on shore in long-boat, and made their escape through the country. Ogilvie.
Oct. 2.—Mr. Herne seized: brought up per messenger. Seaford.
Dec. 12.—Major Boucher, Captain Ogiliby and five more out of France, seized at Beachy Head, by express; brought up by messengers.
Out of a small hoy, near Selsea, seized five Frenchmen; committed to Chichester gaol, broke prison, and retaken by J. Field.
Seizures of Silks and other French Goods, &c.—Convictions and compositions made and obtained by the said officers, within the time first above-menconed, amounting to about six thousand five hundred pounds—as per records in her Majesty’s Court of Exchequer may appeare. 6,500l.
The public records of this period give us other evidence of the calling to which the smugglers betook themselves in time of war, viz., the conveyance of letters and correspondence to the enemy.[59] Thomas Owen, on January 3, 1703, reported the capture of William Snipp at Lydd, and John Burwash and George Fuller—described in Mr. Baker’s letter of 6th of the same month as “part of the old gang of those who were ‘owlers’ in the late war”—as openly in communication with French sloops which came to the coast, and hoped that the law would take hold of their carrying correspondence with the sloops, “else there would be more wool transported than there has been for many years;” whilst Mr. Baker declared that “the practice, if permitted, would very much encourage and contribute to the exportation of wool, and also the running or smuggling of French goods.”[60]
This system of carrying on correspondence with France, in time of war, lasted down to and through the last war, during which the daily newspapers and correspondence were regularly carried to Buonaparte, by a family then resident at Bexhill.
From the following report, made by Mr. Baker in December, 1703, it appears that the new law had by that time abated, though it had not quite stopped, the “owling” trade along these coasts, but that import smuggling still flourished:—