It was on the water between Beachy Head and Newhaven that on June 30, 1690, De Tourville, Admiral of the French fleet, having gained valuable information from a Lydd publican of the division of the English and Dutch sea forces, bore down upon the latter and gave them battle. Outnumbered though they were—the French had eighty-five ships to the Hollanders’ thirty—the Dutch fought gallantly, but suffered a heavy defeat; whilst the English ships to leeward were unable to come to their allies’ assistance until the victory had been virtually won. The English admiral, Lord Torrington, afterwards nearly shared the fate meted out to Admiral Byng sixty-seven years later, but, although committed to the Tower and tried, to William of Orange’s keen disgust he was acquitted.
BEACHY HEAD
Seaford has indeed a chequered history. Like its other stranded neighbours amongst the Cinque and other Ports of the Confederacy, it once possessed its harbour, formed by the Ouse, known even in Roman times. And it sent two representatives to Parliament in the year 1300. Two years later it was commanded to furnish King Edward with a ship for his French expedition, two ships for the King in 1336, and five but eleven years later, so that its growth at that period must have been rapid; but in the reign of the Third Edward the decline of the place was equally marked. It ceased to send members to Parliament, and, with its haven rapidly silting up and the town suffering constant attacks by the French, the place and its inhabitants were soon in evil case. In the reigns of the last-named King and those of Richard II and Henry IV it was repeatedly sacked and burned, and so discontented did the people become with the want of assistance and protection afforded them, more especially in the reign of weak Henry VI, that they were ripe for rebellion, and when Jack Cade appeared they joined him almost to a man.
From this period onwards the Ouse now rapidly filled up, so that there was soon but the mere semblance of a port, and finally the river changed its course, found an outlet near the village of Meeching, and ultimately, in the sixteenth century, formed a harbour at Newhaven, in the mere name of which the downfall of neighbouring Seaford is succinctly told.
The French were not, however, content to leave the poor sea-deserted place alone. They made one of their periodical descents upon it in 1545. But on this occasion, with the assistance of gallant Sir Nicholas Pelham, the invaders were beaten off with heavy loss, the event being commemorated upon the worthy knight’s tomb in the following somewhat halting lines:
What time the French sought to have sack’t Seaford
This Pelham did repel ’em back aboord.
In 1640 Seaford was once more empowered to send representatives to Parliament, and later on amongst those who from time to time represented what had become a Treasury Borough we find William Pitt the elder and George Canning.
The wreckers and smugglers of Seaford during the latter half of the eighteenth and early part of the nineteenth century were scarcely less notorious than those of Hastings, Rye, and other places on the Sussex coast. Many a vessel was lured to destruction, and many a cargo run almost in sight of the authorities who existed to put down these malpractices. From a letter of a gentleman of Stafford, Sussex, to one of the newspapers on September 18, 1783, we extract the following account of smuggling as it then existed. “There is,” he writes, “a most convenient port, about a mile from Seaford, for smugglers to land their goods, and so daring are they become, that a dozen or more cutters may frequently be seen laying-to in open day.” On Tuesday evening, between two and three hundred smugglers on horseback came to Cookmere, and received various kinds of goods from the boats, “till at last the whole number were laden, when, in defiance of the King’s officers, they went their way in great triumph. About a week before this upwards of three hundred attended at the same place, and though the sea ran mountains high, the daring men in the cutters made good the landing, to the surprise of everybody, and the men on horseback took all away.”
It is chiefly from such extracts as that which we have just made that any clear idea can be obtained regarding the prevalence of smuggling and the daring tactics of the smugglers of those times.