REVENUE CRUISER CHASING SMUGGLING LUGGER. Before firing on a smuggler the cruiser was bound to hoist his Revenue colours —both pennant and ensign—no matter whether day or night. (from the original painting by Charles Dixon, R.I.) ToList KING'S CUTTERS AND SMUGGLERS 1700-1855 BY E. KEBLE CHATTERTON AUTHOR OF "SAILING SHIPS AND THEIR STORY," "THE ROMANCE OF THE SHIP" "THE STORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY," "FORE AND AFT," ETC. WITH 33 ILLUSTRATIONS AND FRONTISPIECE IN COLOURS LONDON GEORGE ALLEN & COMPANY, LTD. 44 & 45 RATHBONE PLACE 1912 [All rights reserved] Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh PREFACE I have in the following pages endeavoured to resist the temptation to weave a web of pleasant but unreliable fiction round actual occurrences. That which is here set forth has been derived from facts, and in almost every case from manuscript records. It aims at telling the story of an eventful and exciting period according to historical and not imaginative occurrence. There are extant many novels and short stories which have for their heroes the old-time smugglers. But the present volume represents an effort to look at these exploits as they were and not as a novelist likes to think they might have occurred. Perhaps there is hardly an Englishman who was not thrilled in his boyhood days by Marryat and others when they wrote of the King's Cutters and their foes. It is hoped that the following pages will not merely revive pleasant recollections but arouse a new interest in the adventures of a species of sailing craft that is now, like the brig and the fine old clipper-ship, past and done with. The reader will note that in the Appendices a considerable amount of interesting data has been collected. This has been rendered possible only with great difficulty, but it is believed that in future years the dimensions and details of a Revenue Cutter's construction, the sizes of her spars, her tonnage, guns, &c., the number of her crew carried, the names and dates of the fleets of cutters employed will have an historical value which cannot easily be assessed in the present age that is still familiar with sailing craft. In making researches for the preparation of this volume I have to express my deep sense of gratitude to the Honourable Commissioners of the Board of Customs for granting me permission to make use of their valuable records; to Mr. F.S. Parry C.B., Deputy Chairman of the Board for his courtesy in placing a vast amount of data in my hands, and for having elucidated a good many points of difficulty; and, finally, to Mr. Henry Atton, Librarian of the Custom House, for his great assistance in research. E. KEBLE CHATTERTON. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. THE EARLIEST SMUGGLERS 14 III. THE GROWTH OF SMUGGLING 40 IV. THE SMUGGLERS' METHODS 56 V. THE HAWKHURST GANG 82 VI. THE REVENUE CRUISERS 94 VII. CUTTERS AND SLOOPS 121 VIII. PREVENTIVE ORGANISATION 138 IX. CUTTERS' EQUIPMENT 157 X. THE INCREASE IN SMUGGLING 182 XI. THE SMUGGLERS AT SEA 199 XII. THE WORK OF THE CUTTERS 215 XIII. THE PERIOD OF INGENUITY 239 XIV. SOME INTERESTING ENCOUNTERS 257 XV. A TRAGIC INCIDENT 276 XVI. ADMINISTRATIVE REFORMS 295 XVII. SMUGGLING BY CONCEALMENTS 320 XVIII. BY SEA AND LAND 339 XIX. ACTION AND COUNTER-ACTION 361 XX. FORCE AND CUNNING 379 403 APPENDICES ILLUSTRATIONS PLATES Colour REVENUE CRUISER CHASING SMUGGLING LUGGER frontispiece FACING PAGE A REPRESENTATION OF YE SMUGGLERS BREAKING OPEN YE KING'S 86 CUSTOM HOUSE AT POOLE MR. GALLEY AND MR. CHATER PUT BY YE SMUGGLERS ON ONE 88 HORSE NEAR ROWLAND CASTLE GALLEY AND CHATER FALLING OFF THEIR HORSE AT WOODASH 88A CHATER CHAINED IN YE TURFF HOUSE AT OLD MILLS'S 89 CHATER HANGING AT THE WELL IN LADY HOLT PARK, THE BLOODY VILLAINS STANDING BY 90 THE BLOODY SMUGGLERS FLINGING DOWN STONES AFTER THEY HAD FLUNG HIS DEAD BODY INTO THE WELL H.M. CUTTER "WICKHAM," COMMANDED BY CAPTAIN JOHN 178 FULLARTON, R.N. H.M. CUTTER "WICKHAM" 179 IN TEXT PAGE "DOW SENT HIS MATE AND TEN MEN ON BOARD HER" 72 "CAME CHARGING DOWN ... STRIKING HER ON THE QUARTER" 102 "A GREAT CROWD OF INFURIATED PEOPLE CAME DOWN TO THE 187 BEACH" "THE 'FLORA' WITH THE 'FISGARD,' 'WASSO,' AND 'NYMPH'" 202 "THE 'CAROLINE' CONTINUED HER COURSE AND PROCEEDED TO 211 LONDON" HOW THE DEAL BOATMEN USED TO SMUGGLE TEA ASHORE 213 "THE 'BADGER' WAS HOISTING UP THE GALLEY IN THE RIGGING" 265 "FIRE AND BE DAMNED" 278 THE SANDWICH DEVICE 314 THE SLOOP "LUCY" SHOWING CONCEALMENTS 324 CASK FOR SMUGGLING CIDER 326 THE SMACK "TAM O'SHANTER" SHOWING METHOD OF 329 CONCEALMENT FLAT-BOTTOMED BOAT FOUND OFF SELSEY 332 PLAN OF THE SCHOONER "GOOD INTENT" SHOWING METHOD OF 334 SMUGGLING CASKS THE SCHOONER "SPARTAN" 336 DECK PLAN AND LONGITUDINAL PLAN OF THE "LORD RIVERS" 337 "THE CRUISER'S GUNS HAD SHOT AWAY THE MIZZEN-MAST" 348 "THE 'ADMIRAL HOOD' WAS HEAVING TUBS OVERBOARD" 358 "GETTING A FIRM GRIP, PUSHED HIM ... INTO THE WATER" 365 "LET'S ... HAVE HIM OVER THE CLIFF" 373 "UNDER COVER OF DARKNESS TOOK ON BOARD ... FORTY BALES 377 OF SILK" "ANOTHER SHOT WAS FIRED" 383 METHODS EMPLOYED BY SMUGGLERS FOR ANCHORING TUBS 385 THROWN OVERBOARD THE "RIVAL'S" INGENIOUS DEVICE 392 "TAKEN COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE" 398 King's Cutters & Smugglers CHAPTER I ToC INTRODUCTION Outside pure Naval history it would be difficult to find any period so full of incident and contest as that which is covered by the exploits of the English Preventive Service in their efforts to deal with the notorious and dangerous bands of smugglers which at one time were a terrible menace to the trade and welfare of our nation. As we shall see from the following pages, their activities covered many decades, and indeed smuggling is not even to-day dead nor ever will be so long as there are regulations which human ingenuity can occasionally outwit. But the grand, adventurous epoch of the smugglers covers little more than a century and a half, beginning about the year 1700 and ending about 1855 or 1860. Nevertheless, within that space of time there are crowded in so much adventure, so many exciting escapes, so many fierce encounters, such clever moves and counter-moves: there are so many thousands of people concerned in the events, so many craft employed, and so much money expended that the story of the smugglers possesses a right to be ranked second only to those larger battles between two or more nations. Everyone has, even nowadays, a sneaking regard for the smugglers of that bygone age, an instinct that is based partly on a curious human failing and partly on a keen admiration for men of dash and daring. There is a sympathy, somehow, with a class of men who succeeded not once but hundreds of times in setting the law at defiance; who, in spite of all the resources of the Government, were not easily beaten. In the novels of James, Marryat, and a host of lesser writers the smuggler and the Preventive man have become familiar and standard types, and there are very few, surely, who in the days of their youth have not enjoyed the breathless excitement of some story depicting the chasing of a contraband lugger or watched vicariously the landing of the tubs of spirits along the pebbly beach on a night when the moon never showed herself. But most of these were fiction and little else. Even Marryat, though he was for some time actually engaged in Revenue duty, is now known to have been inaccurate and loose in some of his stories. Those who have followed afterwards have been scarcely better. However, there is nothing in the following pages which belongs to fiction. Every effort has been made to set forth only actual historical facts, which are capable of verification, so that what is herein contained represents not what might have happened but actually did take place. To write a complete history of smuggling would be well- nigh impossible, owing to the fact that, unhappily through fire and destruction, many of the records, which to-day would be invaluable, have long since perished. The burning down of the Customs House by the side of the Thames in 1814 and the inappreciation of the right value of certain documents by former officials have caused so desirable a history to be impossible to be written. Still, happily, there is even now a vast amount of material in existence, and the present Commissioners of the Board of Customs are using every effort to preserve for posterity a mass of data connected with this service. Owing to the courtesy of the Commissioners it has been my good fortune to make careful researches through the documents which are concerned with the old smuggling days, the Revenue cutters, and the Preventive Service generally; and it is from these pages of the past and from other sources that I have been enabled to put forth the story as it is here presented; and as such it represents an attempt to afford an authentic picture of an extremely interesting and an equally exciting period of our national history, to show the conditions of the smuggling industry from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, and the efforts to put a stop to the same. We shall soon find that this period in its glamour, romance, and adventure contains a good deal of similarity to the great seafaring Elizabethan epoch. The ships were different, but the courage of the English seamen was the same.