In the sack were three half-ankers. A bag of shingle acted as sinker, and the bladder kept the sack floating.]
The second occurrence took place at Rye. A seizure was made of twelve tubs of spirits which had been sunk by affixing to the head of each a circular piece of sheet lead which just fitted into the brim of the cask, and was there kept in its place by four nails. The weight of the lead was 9 lbs., and the tubs, being lashed longitudinally together, rolled in a tideway unfettered, being anchored by the usual lines and heavy stones. The leads sank the casks to the bottom in 2-1/2 fathoms of water, but at that depth they in specific gravity so nearly approximated to their equal bulk of fluid displaced that they could scarcely be felt on the finger. The leads were cast in moulds to the size required, and could be repeatedly used for the same purpose, and it was thought that the smuggling vessels, after coming across the Channel and depositing their cargoes, would on a later voyage be given back these pieces of lead to be affixed to other casks.
A clinker-built boat of about 26 tons burthen named the St. François, the master of which was named Jean Baptiste La Motte, of and from Gravelines, crossed the North Sea and passed through the Forth and Clyde Canal in the year 1823 to Glasgow. Nominally she had a cargo of apples and walnuts, her crew consisting of six men besides the master. She was able to land part of her cargo of "apples" at Whitby and the rest at Glasgow, and afterwards, repassing safely through the canal again, returned to Gravelines. But some time after her departure from Scotland it was discovered that she had brought no fruit at all, but that what appeared to be apples were so many portions of lace made up into small boxes of the size of apples and ingeniously painted to resemble that fruit.
As showing that, even as late as the year 1824, the last of the armed cutters had not been yet seen, we may call attention to the information which was sent to the London Custom House through the Dublin Customs. The news was to the effect that in February of that year there was in the harbour of Flushing, getting ready for sea, whither she would proceed in three or four days, a cutter laden with tobacco, brandy, Hollands, and tea. She was called the Zellow, which was a fictitious name, and was a vessel of 160 tons with a crew of forty men, copper-bottomed and pierced for fourteen guns. She was painted black, with white mouldings round the stern. Her boom also was black, so were her gaff and masthead. The officers were warned to keep a look-out for her, and informed that she had a large strengthening fish on the upper side of the boom, twenty cloths in the head, and twenty-eight in the foot of the mainsail. It was reported that she was bound for Ballyherbert, Mountain Foot, and Clogher Head in Ireland, but if prevented from landing there she was consigned to Ormsby of Sligo and Burke of Connemara. In the event of her failing there also she had on board two "spotsmen" or pilots for the coast of Kerry and Cork. There was also a lugger at the same time about to proceed from Flushing to Wexford. This vessel was of from 90 to 100 tons, was painted black, with two white mouldings and a white counter. She carried on her deck a large boat which was painted white also.
Tobacco was discovered concealed in rather a curious manner on another vessel. She had come from St. John, New Brunswick, with a cargo of timber, and the planks had been hollowed out and filled with tobacco, but it was so cleverly done that it was a long time before it was detected. All sorts of vessels and of many rigs were fitted with places of concealment, and there was even a 50-ton cutter named the Alborough, belonging to London, employed in this business, which had formerly been a private yacht, but was now more profitably engaged running goods from Nieuport in Belgium to Hull. The descriptions of some of these craft sent to the various outports, so that a smart look-out for them might be kept up, are certainly valuable to us, as they preserve a record of a type of craft that has altered so much during the past century as almost to be forgotten. The description of the sloop Jane, for instance, belonging to Dumbarton in 1824, is worth noting by those who are interested in the ships of yesterday. Sloop-rigged, and carvel built, she had white mouldings over a yellow streak, and her bulwark was painted green inside. Her cross-jack yards,[21] as they are called, her bowsprit-boom, her gaff and studding-sail boom were all painted white, and she had three black hoops on the mast under the hounds. Her sails were all white, but her square topsail and topgallant-yards were black. The Jane was a 90-tonner.
The reader will remember considering some time back an open boat which was fitted with hollow stanchions under the thwarts, so that through these stanchions ropes might pass through into the water below. I have come across a record of a smack registered in the port of London under the singularly inappropriate name of the Good Intent. She was obviously built or altered with the sole intention of being employed in smuggling. I need say nothing of her other concealments under the cabin berths and so on, as they were practically similar to those on the Asp. But it was rather exceptional to find on so big a craft as the Good Intent a false stanchion immediately abaft the fore scuttle. Through this stanchion ran a leaden pipe about two inches in diameter, and this went through the keelson and garboard strake, so that by this means a rope could be led through and into the vessel, while at the other end a raft of tubs could be towed through the water. By hauling tightly on to this line the kegs could be kept beautifully concealed under the bilge of the vessel, so that even in very clear water it would not be easy to suspect the presence of these tubs. The other end of this pipe came up through the ship until it was flush with the deck, and where this joined the latter a square piece of lead was tarred and pitched so as scarcely to be perceived.
There must indeed have been a tremendous amount of thought, as well as the expenditure of a great deal of time and money, in creating these methods of concealment, but since they dared not now to use force it was all they could do.
FOOTNOTES:
[21] The cro'jack yard was really the lower yard of a full-rigged ship on the mizzen-mast, to the arms of which the clews or lower corners of the mizzen-topsail were extended. But as sloops were fore-and-aft craft it is a little doubtful what is here meant. Either it may refer to the barren yard below the square topsail carried by the sloops of those days—the clews actually were extended to this yard's arms—or the word may have been the equivalent of what we nowadays call cross-trees.