"P.S.—This moment we have advice that there is a gang of 200 smugglers more at St. Peter's in the Isle of Thanet."
Seven months later in that year, at nine o'clock one November morning, a gang of 150 smugglers managed to land some valuable cargo from a couple of cutters on to the Sandwich flats. Several Revenue officers were despatched into the country for the purpose of meeting with some of the stragglers. The officers came into collision with a party of these men and promptly seized two horse-loads of goods consisting of five bags of tea and eight half-ankers of wine. But they were only allowed to retain this seizure for half-an-hour, inasmuch as the smugglers presently overpowered the Revenue men and wrested back their booty. The preventive men were also considerably knocked about, and one of them had his thumb badly dislocated. The officers declared that they knew none of the people, the latter being well supplied not with firearms but with great clubs. A fortnight later, just a few miles farther along the coast, a gang of 150 smugglers succeeded in landing their goods at Reculvers near Birchington; and ten days later still another gang of the same size was able to land their goods near Kingsgate, between the North Foreland and Margate. But it cannot be supposed that the Revenue officers were not aware of the approach of these incidents. The fact was that they were a little lacking in courage to face these problems on every occasion. Indeed, they were candid enough to admit that they dared not venture near these ruffians "without the utmost hazard of their lives." But the riding-officers were not solely to blame, for where were the Custom House sloops? How was it they were always absent at these critical times? Indeed, the Collector and Controller informed the Commissioners that not one of these sloops had been seen cruising between Sandwich and Reculvers for some months past.
This complaint about the cruisers was made in March 1747, and in that same month another gang, two hundred strong, appeared on the coast, but this time, after a smart encounter, the officers secured and placed in the King's warehouse a ton of tea as well as other goods, and three horses. A day or two later a gang of smugglers threatened to rescue these goods back again. The property formed a miscellaneous collection and consisted of fifty pieces of cambric, three bags of coffee, some Flemish linen, tea, clothes, pistols, a blunderbuss, and two musquetoons. To prevent the smugglers carrying out their intention, however, a strong guard was formed by an amalgamation of all the officers from Sandwich, Ramsgate, and Broadstairs, who forthwith proceeded to Margate. In addition to these, it was arranged that Commodore Mitchell should send ashore from the Downs as many men as he could spare. This united front was therefore successful, and for once the smugglers were overmatched. And but for a piece of bad luck, or sheer carelessness, a couple of years later a smart capture might well have been brought about. It was one day in August when the officers had received information that a gang of twenty men and horses had appeared near Reculvers to receive goods from a cutter that was seen to be hovering near the coast. The smugglers on shore were cute enough to locate the officers, and by some means evidently signalled to the cutter, for the latter now put to sea again and the gang cleared off. Although for some time after this incident both officers and dragoons patrolled the coast in the neighbourhood no one was ever fortunate enough to gather information either as to the cutter or the people who had vanished into the country with such rapidity.
And yet in spite of the very numerous sympathisers which these illicit importers possessed, yet of course there were some individuals who were as much against them as any officer of the Customs. In the neighbourhood of Plymouth legitimate trade had suffered a great deal owing to these practices. The mayor, aldermen, and merchants of Saltash were at last compelled to send a memorial to the Lords of the Treasury complaining that in the rivers adjacent to that place there were several creeks and inlets which were being made of considerable use by the smugglers for landing their goods. Especially was this the case up the river Tamar, and all this had been and was still "to the great prejudice of the fair traders and merchants." They pointed out that a great deal of it consisted of clandestine running from ships in the Sound, Hamoaze, and other anchorages round about there. Large quantities of French linings, wines, and brandies were being run ashore with impunity and speedily sold in the adjacent towns or conveyed some distance into Devonshire. The mayor therefore begged the Treasury for three additional Custom officers consisting of an inspector of roads and two tide-waiters to be established at Saltash, but the Treasury could not see their way to grant such a request.
But in other parts of the country the roads were kept carefully watched to prevent goods being brought inland. The coaches which ran from Dover to London with passengers who had come across from the Continent were frequently stopped on the highway by the riding-officers and the passengers searched. Harsh as this mode of procedure may seem to us to-day, yet it was rendered necessary by the fact that a good many professional carriers of contraband goods were wont to travel backwards and forwards between England and abroad. Some years later, for example, when the Dover coach was stopped at "The Half-Way House," a foreigner, who was travelling by this conveyance and had been able to evade the Customs' search at Dover, was found to be carrying two gold snuff-boxes set with diamonds, four lockets also set with diamonds, eighteen opals, three sapphires, eight amethysts, six emeralds, two topazes, and one thousand two hundred torquoises—all of which were liable to duty.
And thus the illegal practices continued all round the coast. From Devonshire it was reported that smuggling was on the increase—this was in the autumn of 1759—and that large gangs armed with loaded clubs openly made runs of goods on the shore, the favourite locale being Torbay, though previously the neighbourhood of Lyme had been the usual aim of these men who had sailed as a rule from Guernsey. All that the Collector could suggest was that an "impress smack" should be sent to that district, as he promised that the notorious offenders would make excellent seamen.
There was an interesting incident also off the north-east coast of England, where matters were still about as bad as ever. We referred some pages back to the capture of a Dutch dogger off the Isle of Man; we shall now see another of these craft seized in the North Sea. Captain Bowen of the sloop Prince of Wales, hearing that the dogger Young Daniel was running brandy on the coast near to Newcastle, put to sea in search of her. He came up with a number of those cobbles—open boats—which are peculiar to the north-east coastline, though at one time they were used as far south as Great Yarmouth. The cobbles which he was able to intercept had just been employed in transferring the contraband from the dogger to the shore. Bowen captured one of these small craft with a dozen casks aboard. Another was forced ashore and secured by the land officers. Meanwhile, the Dutchman stood out to sea so that he might be able to draw off the spirits from large casks into smaller ones, which were the better fitted for running ashore. It was found afterwards that he had large numbers of these lesser casks, and during that evening she put about and crept stealthily in towards the shore again until she approached within about a mile of the mouth of the Tees. Her intention was to run the rest of her cargo under cover of darkness, and her skipper had arranged for large numbers of men to be on that coast ready to receive and carry off these casks. But Bowen was determined to head her off this project. An exciting chase followed, during which—to quote an official report of the time—the dogger did her best "to eat the sloop out of the wind," that is to say sailed as close to the wind as she could travel in the hope of causing her adversary to drop to leeward. For seven hours this chase continued, but after that duration the Prince of Wales captured the Young Daniel eight leagues from the shore. This is not a little interesting, for inasmuch as the chase began when the dogger was a mile from the mouth of the river, the vessels must have travelled about 23 statutory miles in the time, which works out at less than 3-1/2 miles an hour. Not very fast, you may suggest, for a Revenue cutter or for the Dutchman either. But we have no details as to the weather, which is usually bad off that part of the coast in February (the month when this incident occurred), and we must remember that the doggers were too bluff of build to possess speed, and the time had not yet arrived when those much faster Revenue cutters with finer lines and less ample beam were to come into use.
FOOTNOTES:
[5] A snow was a vessel with three masts resembling the main and foremast of a ship with a third and small mast just abaft the mainmast, carrying a sail nearly similar to a ship's mizzen. The foot of this mast was fixed in a block of wood or step but on deck. The head was attached to the afterpart of the maintop. The sail was called a trysail, hence the mast was called a trysail-mast. (Moore's Midshipman's Vocabulary, 1805.)