“‘That’s he, sir, yonder with the lantern.’ And sure enough, there he stood on a rock, and poured, with pastoral diligence, ‘the light of other days’ on a busy congregation.”
It may almost be said that the Government did its best to encourage smuggling by the harsh and vexatious restrictions it put on trade. A prohibitory list of goods which might under no conditions whatever be imported into Great Britain included gold and silver brocade, cocoanut shells, foreign embroidery, manufactures of gold and silver plate, ribbons and laces, chocolate and cocoa, calicoes printed or dyed abroad, gloves and mittens.
Beside these a vast number of goods were charged with heavy duties, as spirits, tea, tobacco. The duties on these were so exorbitant, that it was worth while for men to attempt to run a cargo without paying duty.
To quote a writer in the Edinburgh Review, at the time when smuggling was fairly rife:—
“To create by means of high duties an overwhelming temptation to indulge in crime, and then to punish men for indulging in it, is a proceeding wholly and completely subversive of every principle of justice. It revolts the natural feelings of the people, and teaches them to feel an interest in the worst characters, to espouse their cause and to avenge their wrongs.”
Desperate affrays took place between smugglers and the preventive men, who were aware that the magistracy took a lenient view of the case when one of them fell, and brought in “murder” when an officer of the Crown shot a “free-trader.”
One of the most terrible men on the Cornish coast, remembered by his evil repute, was “Cruel Coppinger.” He had a house at Welcombe on the north coast, where lived his wife, an heiress. The bed is still shown to the post of which he tied her and thrashed her with a rope till she consented to make over her little fortune to his exclusive use.
Coppinger had a small estate at Roscoff, in Brittany, which was the headquarters of the smuggling trade during the European war. He was paid by the British Government to carry despatches to and from the French coast, but he took advantage of his credentials as a Government agent to do much contraband business himself.
I remember, as a boy, an evil-faced old man, his complexion flaming red and his hair very white, who kept a small tavern not in the best repute. A story of this innkeeper was told, and it is possible that it may be true—naturally the subject was not one on which it was possible to question him. He had been a smuggler in his day, and a wild one too.
On one occasion, as he and his men were rowing a cargo ashore they were pursued by a revenue boat. Tristram Davey, as I will call this man, knew this bit of coast perfectly. There was a reef of sharp slate rock that ran across the little bay, like a very keen saw with the teeth set outward, and there was but one point at which this saw could be crossed. Tristram knew the point to a nicety, even in the gloaming, and he made for it, the revenue boat following.