THROUGH WESSEX—II.
The time of the French wars, too, was the time when the smugglers were in their glory. The Government laid heavy duties on spirits, lace, and such things, and employed a large body of officers, called "preventive men," to watch the seaports and coasts, and take care that no such articles came into the land without paying duty.
But, for all that, many and many a cask of brandy and parcel of lace came over from France, and was smuggled ashore under cover of night, or upon some very lonely stretch of coast. The usual method of the smugglers was this: a vessel laden with contraband goods would appear at an arranged place upon an arranged time. With the darkness of night a number of boats put off to her and received the cargo, and pulled back to the beach. Here would be a band of comrades with a number of strong, swift horses. The horses were loaded with the casks and bundles, and then away they were driven full-gallop up-country towards a safe hiding-place, where the goods could be stored until sold.
The trade was very profitable, for the duty was so heavy that the smuggler, if he made a successful run, could sell his goods far more cheaply than a merchant who had paid duty, and could yet make a large profit. But the preventive officers were always on the watch, and it was a constant struggle between them and the smugglers. Sometimes the officers won. They caught the smugglers and captured the goods. But the smugglers often showed fight, and when both parties were well armed, the affair would become a pitched battle, in which men were killed or wounded on both sides.
As a rule, however, the smugglers depended on hoodwinking and eluding the preventive men, and endless were their devices to gain their ends. Sometimes a vessel appeared off the coast behaving in a suspicious manner and leading the officers to believe she carried a cargo of contraband goods. At nightfall she exchanged signals with the shore, but when she was boarded, nothing wrong could be discovered. She was merely a decoy, and while the preventive men had been kept busy with her movements, another vessel had landed a cargo at some other point along the coast.
Along the shore are still to be seen many old houses, where devices have been arranged to aid smugglers. There may be a secret cellar entered by a hidden door, where casks were placed till the officers were out of the way, or a sliding panel in the wainscot, worked by a spring, is the door of a cupboard where bundles of lace could be concealed. Then there are secret hiding-places for the smugglers themselves when pursued by their enemies. In one house there is a stone wall which looks perfectly solid. But if a particular stone be pressed, a piece of the wall swings aside and gives entrance to a tiny closet built in the thickness of the wall. Here is just room for a man to hide, and when the door is closed on him, no one who does not understand the secret could discover where he is.
But the smugglers would soon have been suppressed had they not had many friends in the countryside. Many a farmer took care to turn a blind eye when he suspected that the smugglers were using one of his barns or sheds as a hiding-place. He knew very well that when they went he would find a cask left behind, and he took it, and nothing was said. The preventive officers made capture of contraband goods in the strangest of places—in the cellars of squires, who were justices of the peace and supposed to aid them, and more than once in a church, where a parish clerk or sexton, in league with the smugglers, had stowed away the forbidden casks and bales.