[23] How slow she was may be guessed by the fact that she took seven hours to go from Dover to the Downs even under the expert handling of MacTavish's crew.
[24] She was officially described as a dogger.
CHAPTER XIX[ToC]
ACTION AND COUNTER-ACTION
It is conscience that makes cowards of us all, and this may be said of smugglers no less than of law-abiding citizens. A trial was going on in connection with a certain incident which had occurred in Cawsand Bay, Plymouth Sound. It was alleged that, on the night of November 17, 1831, a man named Phillips had been shot in the knee whilst in a boat, trying with the aid of some other men to get up an anchor. The chief officer of the Preventive service at Cawsand was accused by Phillips of having thus injured him, and the case in the course of time was brought into court. Among the witnesses was one whom counsel believed to be not wholly unconnected with smuggling. Whether or not this was true we need not worry ourselves, but the following questions and answers are well worth recording.
Cawsand was a notorious smuggling locality, and its secluded bay, with plenty of deep water almost up to the beach, made it highly suitable for sinking tubs well below the surface of the water. And then there must have been very few people ashore who had never been concerned in this contraband trade. In such villages as this you might usually rely on the local innkeeper knowing as much as anyone in the neighbourhood on the subject of smuggling. Such a man, then, from Cawsand, illiterate, but wideawake, went into the witness-box for counsel to cross-examine, and the following dialogue carries its own conviction:—
Question. "You are an innkeeper and sailor, if I understand you rightly?"