One of the gang now came up to him, and uttering an oath, brandishing aloft a large clasp-knife, exclaimed: "Down on your knees and go to prayers, for with this knife I will be your butcher." Terrified at the menace, and expecting momentarily to die, Chater knelt down on the turf and began to say the Lord's Prayer. One of the villains got behind and kicked him, and after Chater had asked what they had done to Galley, the man who was confronting him drew his knife across the poor man's face, cut his nose through, and almost cut both his eyes out. And, a moment later, gashed him terribly across the forehead. They then proceeded to conduct him to a well. It was now the dead of night, and the well was about thirty feet deep, but without water, being surrounded with pales at the top to prevent cattle from falling in. They compelled him to get over, and not through these pales, and a rope was placed round his neck, the other end being made fast to the paling. They then pushed him into the well, but as the rope was short they then untied him, and threw him head foremost into the former, and, finally, to stop his groanings, hurled down rails and gate-posts and large stones.
Chater hanging at the Well in Lady Holt Park, the Bloody Villains Standing by.[ToList]
The Bloody Smugglers flinging down Stones after they had flung his Dead Body into the Well.[ToList]
I have omitted the oaths and some of the worst features of the incident, but the above outline is more than adequate to suggest the barbarism of a lot of men bent on lawlessness and revenge. Drunk with their own success, the gang now went about with even greater desperation. Everybody stood in terror of them; Custom officers were so frightened that they hardly dared to perform their duties, and the magistrates themselves were equally frightened to convict smugglers. Consequently the contraband gangs automatically increased to great numbers. But, finally, a reward of £500 was offered by the Commissioners of Customs for the arrest of everyone of the culprits, and as a result several were arrested, tried, convicted, and executed. The murderers were tried at a special assize for smugglers held at Chichester, before three judges, and the seven men were sentenced to death. William Jackson died in prison a few hours after sentence. He had been very ill before, but the shock of being sentenced to death, and to be hung afterwards in chains and in ignominy, rapidly hastened his death, and relieved the executioner of at least one portion of his duty. He had been one of the worst smugglers in his time, and was even a thief among thieves, for he would even steal his confederates' goods. Between the sentence and the hour for execution a man came into the prison to measure the seven culprits for the irons in which their bodies were subsequently to be hung by chains. And this distressed the men more than anything else, most of all Jackson, who presently succumbed as stated.
Mills, senior, had gradually been drawn into the smuggling business, though previously he had been quite a respectable man. After giving up actual smuggling, he still allowed his house to be used as a store-place for the contraband goods. His son, Richard, also one of the seven, had been concerned in smuggling for years, and was a daring fellow. John Cobby, the third of the culprits, was of a weaker temperament, and had been brought under the influence of the smugglers. Benjamin Tapner was especially penitent, and "hoped all young people would take warning by his untimely fate, and keep good company, for it was bad company had been his ruin." William Carter complained that it was Jackson who had drawn him away from his honest employment to go smuggling, but John Hammond was of a more obdurate nature, and had always hated the King's officers.
According to the testimony of the Rev. John Smyth, who visited them in gaol, all the prisoners received the Holy Communion at ten o'clock, the morning after being sentenced to death. All the prisoners except the two Mills admitted that they deserved the sentence, but all the surviving six acknowledged that they forgave everybody. On January 19, 1748-9, they were executed. The two Mills were not hung in chains, but having neither friend nor relation to take them away their bodies were thrown into a hole near the gallows, into which also was placed Jackson's body. Carter's body was hung in chains on the Portsmouth Road, near Rake; that of Tapner on Rook's Hill, near Chichester; those of Cobby and Hammond on the sea coast near Selsey Bill; so that from a great distance they could be observed across the sea by the ships as they went by east and west. Later on, John, the brother of Richard Mills, and one of the gang, was also arrested. When the above three judges were travelling down to Chichester for the trial of the seven men, John had intended waylaying their lordships on Hind Heath, but his companions had refused to support him. But soon after his father's and brother's execution he met with a man named Richard Hawkins, whom he accused of having stolen two bags of tea. Hawkins denied it, and was brutally and unmercifully thrashed to death in the Dog and Partridge Inn at Slindon Common, his body being afterwards carried a dozen miles, thrown into a pond, with stones attached, and then sunk. John Mills was convicted and hanged at East Grinstead, and afterwards remained hanging in chains on Slindon Common. Other members of the gang were also arrested, tried at the same assizes as highwaymen, and then executed.