At Patcham, near Brighton, the weatherworn epitaph on the north side of the church to Daniel Scales may still with difficulty be deciphered:
Sacred to the memory of Daniel Scales
who was unfortunately shot on Thursday evening,
November 7th 1796Alas! swift flew the fatal lead,
Which piercèd through the young man’s head
He instant fell, resigned his breath,
And closed his languid eyes in death.
All you who do this stone draw near,
Oh! pray let fall the pitying tear.
From this sad instance may we all,
Prepare to meet Jehovah’s call.
Daniel Scales was one of a desperate smuggling gang, who had had many narrow escapes, but was at last shot through the head.
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:
“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.
’Tis mine to-day to moulder in the earth. . . .”
The rest is not now readable.
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.
An epitaph in the churchyard of All Saints, Hastings, bears witness to this incident:
