AUTHOR OF "SAILING SHIPS AND THEIR STORY," "THE ROMANCE OF THE SHIP"
"THE STORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY," "FORE AND AFT," ETC.
WITH 33 ILLUSTRATIONS AND FRONTISPIECE IN COLOURS
LONDON
GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD.
44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE
1912
[All rights reserved]
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh
PREFACE
I have in the following pages endeavoured to resist the temptation to weave a web of pleasant but unreliable fiction round actual occurrences. That which is here set forth has been derived from facts, and in almost every case from manuscript records. It aims at telling the story of an eventful and exciting period according to historical and not imaginative occurrence. There are extant many novels and short stories which have for their heroes the old-time smugglers. But the present volume represents an effort to look at these exploits as they were and not as a novelist likes to think they might have occurred.