[6] It was the frequent custom at this time to speak of sloops as cruisers.
[7] A dogger was a two-masted Dutch fishing-vessel usually employed in the North Sea off the Dogger Bank. She had two masts, and was very similar to a ketch in rig, but somewhat beamy and bluff-bowed.
[8] These, of course, were not the light rowing-boats of the kind that were in use on the Thames and elsewhere. The term wherry was applied to various decked fishing-vessels belonging to England, Ireland, and the Isle of Man.
CHAPTER V[ToC]
THE HAWKHURST GANG
We come now to consider the desperate character of a band of men who rendered themselves for all time notorious in the domestic history of our country by acts of unbridled violence and consummate cruelty.
But before we proceed to relate as fully as our limited space will allow the details of these incidents, it is necessary to remind ourselves once again of the great, solid mass of sympathy, both active and passive, that was always at the back of the smugglers. Without this such daring runs by night could never have occurred: doubtful of the assistance which could be whole-heartedly given by the people on shore, the seafaring men would never have dared to take such enormous risks of life and goods. Not merely did the villagers come down to the shore to help to bring the goods inland, not only did they lend their horses and carts, but they would tacitly suffer the smugglers to hide casks of spirits in wells, haystacks, cellars, and other places. In Cornwall, for instance, fifty-five tubs of spirits were found concealed in a well, over the top of which a hay-stack had been built. This was near Falmouth, one of the most notorious of the smuggling localities. And there is actual record of at least one instance where the natives charged a rent of a shilling a tub for stowing away the smuggled goods. In another county a cavern had most ingeniously been hollowed out under a pond big enough to hold a hundred casks, the entrance being covered over with planks carefully strewed with mould. So clever and original was this idea that it was never discovered for many years.