A. "No."
Q. "Are you or are you not frequently in practice as a smuggler?"
A. "No!"
And that was all that could be got out of a man who probably could have told some of the best smuggling yarns in Cornwall. The inhabitants so thoroughly loathed the Preventive men that, to quote the words of the man who was chief officer there at the time we are speaking of, "the hatred of the Cawsand smugglers is ... so great that they scarcely ever omit an opportunity of showing it either by insult or otherwise."
There was a kind of renaissance of smuggling about the third decade of the nineteenth century, and this was brought on partly owing to the fact that the vigilance along our coasts was not quite so smart as it might have been. But there were plenty of men doing their duty to the service, as may be seen from the account of Matthew Morrissey, a boatman in the Coastguard Service at Littlehampton. About eleven o'clock on the evening of April 5, 1833, he saw a vessel named the Nelson, which had come into harbour that day. On boarding her, together with another boatman, he found a crew of two men and a boy. The skipper told him they were from Bognor in ballast. Morrissey went below, got a light, and searched all over the after-cabin, the hold, and even overhauled the ballast, but found nothing. He then got into the Coastguard boat, took his boat-hook, and after feeling along the vessel's bottom, discovered that it was not as it ought to have been.
"I'm not satisfied," remarked the Coastguard to her skipper, Henry Roberts, "I shall haul you ashore."
One of the crew replied that he was "very welcome," and the Coastguard then sent his companion ashore to fetch the chief boatman. The Coastguard himself then again went aboard the Nelson, whereupon the crew became a little restless and went forward. Presently they announced that they would go ashore, so they went forward again, got hold of the warp, and were going to haul on shore by it when the Coastguard observed, "Now, recollect I am an officer in his Majesty's Revenue duty, and the vessel is safely moored and in my charge; and if you obstruct me in my duty you will abide by the consequences." He took the warp out of their hands, and continued to walk up and down one side of the deck while the crew walked the other. This went on for about twenty minutes, when Henry Roberts came up just as the Coastguard was turning round, and getting a firm grip, pushed him savagely aft and over the vessel's quarter into the water. Heavily laden though the Coastguard was with a heavy monkey-jacket, petticoat canvas trousers over his others, and with his arms as well, he had great difficulty in swimming, but at last managed to get to the shore. The chief boatman and the other man were now arriving, and it was found that the Nelson's crew had vanished. The vessel was eventually examined, and found to have a false bottom containing thirty-two tubs of liquor and twenty-eight flagons of foreign brandy. Roberts was later on arrested, found guilty, and transported for seven years.
"Getting a firm grip, pushed him ... into the water."[ToList]