CHAPTER IV
The “Murders by Smugglers” in Hampshire
The 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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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.
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.