1749, and the body of Fairall was hung in chains on Horsendown Green,
and Kingsmill’s on Goudhurst Gore.
This most formidable gang was thus broken up; but Horace Walpole’s
letter of August 5, 1752, and the diary of Walter Gale,[80] show that
to Sussex men, the profits of the illicit trade were too great a
temptation to allow it to be given up.
The habit of smuggling, wrecking[81] and privateering led to
perpetration of many other crimes; amongst others, to a revival of
those acts of piracy which disgraced the Cinque Ports in the thirteenth
century.[82]
On Aug. 11, 1758, Nicholas Wingfield and Adams Hyde, of Hastings,
masters of two privateer cutters, piratically boarded the Danish ship
“Der Reisende Jacob,” on board of which was the Marquis Pignatelli,
Ambassador Extraordinary from his Catholic Majesty to the Court of
Denmark; assaulting Jurgan Muller, the master of the vessel, and
stealing twenty casks of butter. The Lords of the Admiralty offered
a reward of 500_l._ Nicholas Wingfield and Adams Hyde, with
four others, having been betrayed by some of their accomplices, were
arrested; and on Jan. 15, 1759, were brought under a strong guard
of soldiers, and lodged in the Marshalsea. They were tried at the
Admiralty sessions, March 9, 1759, when Nicholas Wingfield and Adams
Hyde were found guilty; and on the 28th of the same month, were hung
at Execution Dock. The four others were acquitted. The punishment did
not operate as a sufficient warning to the Hastings men. For seven
years a gang known as Huxley’s crew, most of whom lived at Hastings,
boarded and robbed several of the ships coming up the Channel; and in
particular in 1768, they boarded a Dutch homeward-bound hoy, called
“The Three Sisters,”[83] Peter Bootes, commander, about two leagues
from Beachy Head, and chopped the master down the back with an axe.
In November, 1768, the Government sent a detachment of two hundred of
the Inniskilling Dragoons to Hastings, to arrest the men, who had been
betrayed by their bragging to one another how the Dutchman wriggled
when they had cut him on the backbone; and a man-of-war and cutter lay
off Hastings to receive the men.[84] The soldiers had strict orders
not to allow their mission to be known; but the day after their
arrival, the Mayor (who was supposed to have aided in the evidence)
was assaulted in the town, because he would not tell what the soldiers
came for; the soldiers were thereupon called out, and several arrests
made of parties, who were conveyed to the Marshalsea. At the Admiralty
sessions holden on Oct. 30, 1869, Thomas Phillips, elder and younger,
William and George Phillips, Mark Chatfield, Robert Webb, Thomas and
Samuel Ailsbury, James and Richard Hyde, William Geary, alias Justice,
alias George Wood, Thomas Knight and William Wenham, were indicted for
the piracy of “The Three Sisters,” and capitally convicted; and of
these Thomas Ailsbury, William Geary, William Wenham, and Richard Hyde
were hung at Execution Dock, Nov. 27.
So great was the panic occasioned by these arrests, that a shop-keeper,
reported to be worth £10,000, absconded on information of having bought
goods of the smugglers.[85]
In 1779 it became necessary to pass another act against smuggling;
and, in a pamphlet making the new law known,[86] it is stated that the
practice of smuggling had made such rapid strides from the sea-coasts
into the very heart of the country, pervading every city, town, and
village, as to have brought universal distress on the fair dealer;
that the greater part of the 3,867,500 gallons distilled annually at
Schiedam, was to be smuggled into England; that a distillery had
lately been set up for making Geneva, for the same purpose, at Dunkirk;
that the French imported five or six millions of pounds of tea, the
greatest part of which was to be smuggled here;[87] that the trade
of Dunkirk (where, and at Flushing, the Sussex smugglers, so late as
thirty years since, had regular resident agents) was mostly carried on
by smugglers, in vessels not only large, but so well constructed for
sailing, that seldom one of them was captured; that in many places near
the sea, the farmer was unable to find hands to do his work, whilst
great numbers were employed in smuggling goods from one part of the
country to another; and that the smugglers paid for what they bought in
cash, or by the illicit exportation of English wool, no other articles
of any consequence being carried abroad by them.
Although the illicit trade in the bulky article of wool came to an end
with the commencement of the war of 1793, yet the trade in tea, silks,
tobacco, and spirits continued; and, after the close of the war, was
largely carried on. By degrees, tea was not easily got, and the duty on
silks left little profit to the smuggler. Spirits increased in value,
by being some forty per cent. over proof, and tobacco still, however,
gave a profitable return, and lives were freely risked.[88]
In such a society as the Sussex, it would be improper to enter into
any details which might involve the characters of persons still alive;
but I may glance briefly at some of the encounters which have taken
place within my own time. The trial for murder, and conviction at
Horsham, on March 28, 1821, of George England, a preventive man, for
shooting Joseph Swaine, a fisherman of Hastings, in a scuffle, is in
the recollection of many fishermen still alive there. On Feb. 11th,
in the next year, three hundred smugglers went to Crow Link, near
Eastbourne, to land a cargo, but were stopped by a signal from the
sentinel; four nights afterwards, they landed at Cliff Point, Seaford,
three hundred half-ankers, losing only sixty-three and a horse. On the
13th, they attacked the sentinel at Little Common with bats;[89] he,
however, shot a smuggler with his pistol; the boat made sail from the
land, and a coach-and-six, which was waiting at the back of the beach,
drove off empty to Pevensey. In September, 1824, a run was attempted
to Bexhill, when seven smugglers, with one hundred tubs of spirits,
were taken; and one of the blockade-men, named Welch, having jumped
into the boat, the smugglers pulled off with him, and his dead body was
found on the sands in the morning, with the head and face bruised and
lacerated. In May, 1856, a smuggling galley, chased by a guardboat, ran
ashore near the mouth of Rye Harbour, and opened fire on the guard. The
blockade-men from Camber watch-house came to the spot and seized one of
the smugglers, when a body of not less than two hundred armed smugglers
rushed from behind the sandhills, commenced a fire on the blockade,
killing one and wounding another, but were ultimately driven off with
the capture of their galley, carrying off, nevertheless, their wounded.
On another occasion, four or five smugglers were killed whilst swimming
the military canal at Pett-horse Race, having missed the spot where
it was fordable. On April 13, 1827, about twenty smugglers went down
to the eastward of Fairlight; a struggle ensued; the smugglers wrested
some muskets from the blockade-men, beat them with the butt-ends, and
ran one through with a bayonet; the smugglers at length retreated,
leaving one of their number dead; another was found afterwards, having
been apparently dropped by the smugglers; a third, some distance on the
way to Icklesham, the body scarcely cold; the rest of the wounded men
were carried off by their companions; and I have been informed that
one of the party alone carried one of his fellows on his back, from
the scene of the conflict at Fairlight to his residence at Udimore, a
distance of six miles at least.
Another, and nearly the last of these bloodsheddings, took place on
Jan. 3, 1828, near Bexhill. A lugger landed between that village and
the little public-house at Bo-peep; a party of smugglers, armed with
bats, rushed to the beach, landed the cargo, and made off with it in
carts, on horses, and on men’s backs straight to Sidley Green; here
they were come up with by the blockade, reinforced to about forty men;
the armed portion of the smugglers drew themselves up in a regular
line, and a desperate fight took place. The smugglers fought with such
determination and courage that the blockade-men were repulsed, after
many had been severely bruised and the Quartermaster Collins killed. In
the first volley fired by the blockade, an old smuggler named Smithurst
was killed; his body was found the next morning, with his bat still
grasped in his hands, the weapon being almost hacked in pieces by the
cutlasses and bayonets of the blockade-men. Here again, as was their
invariable habit, the smugglers carried safely away all their wounded.
At the spring assizes at Horsham, in 1828, Spencer Whiteman of
Udimore, Thomas Miller, Henry Miller, John Spray, Edward Shoesmith,
William Bennett, John Ford and Stephen Stubberfield, were indicted
for assembling armed on this night, for purposes of smuggling, and
were removed for trial to the Old Bailey, where, on April 10, they all
pleaded guilty; as did Whiteman, Thomas Miller, Spray, Bennett and
Ford, together with Thomas Maynard and Plumb, for a like offence on
Jan. 23, 1828, at Eastbourne. Sentence of death was passed on all, but
the punishment was commuted to transportation. They were, with three
exceptions, young men under thirty years of age.
Other, but minor affrays took place on Jan. 3, 1831, two miles east
of Hastings, when two of the smugglers, William Cruttenden and Joseph
Harrold, were shot dead; on Feb. 22, 1832, at Worthing, between two
hundred and three hundred men there assembled, when one William
Cowardson was shot dead, and several more were carried away wounded;
and on January 23, 1833, at Eastbourne, when the smugglers, having
killed the chief boatman, George Pitt, formed two lines on each side
till the cargo was run, and then left--not, however, without having
several of their party wounded; but on no one of these occasions was
any of the gang discovered. The last occasion on which a life was
sacrificed was on April 1, 1838, when Thomas Monk, a poor fiddler
of Winchelsea, was shot by the coast-guard, in an affray at Camber
Castle.[90]
The Abbey ruins, the dismantled Castles,[91] the “haunted” houses,
were all used without interruption by the smugglers, as depositories
for their goods. I have been present, in a house at Rye, when silks,
for sale, were mysteriously produced from their hidingplaces; and
it was the custom of the farmers, in that neighbourhood, to favour
the smugglers so far as to allow the gates in the fields to be left
unlocked at night; and to broach, without a scruple, the half-anker of
Schiedem, which was considerately left in some hayrick or out-house, in
acknowledgment of the farmer’s accommodating and kindred spirit.
* * * * *
_The following is taken from an interesting article, entitled,
“Extracts from the Journal of Walter Gale, schoolmaster at
Mayfield” (“Sussex Archæological Collections,” 1857, pp.
194–5)._
“‘10th March.--Being disappointed of my Bourn journey, I set out for
Laughton after drinking a quartern of gin, and came to Whitesmith’s,
where was a hurley bolloo about Mr. Plummer’s (now a custom-house
officer) having seized a horse loaded with three anchors of brandy,
which was carried off by him and two soldiers, and afterwards stabled
at Parish’s; John Willard and Wm. Bran being there, followed and
overtook them, and prevailed with them to go back. Parish took the
seized horse and put it into Martin’s stable.’
“Two years only before this occurred, a special commission, at the head
of which that great judge, Sir Michael Forster, presided, had been sent
to Chichester to try seven smugglers for the murder of two custom-house
officers under circumstances of atrocity too horrible to be related.
They were convicted, and, with the exception of one who died the night
before the execution, they were all executed and hanged in chains in
different parts of Sussex. A company of foot guards and a troop of
horse attended to prevent all chances of rescue, so thoroughly were the
feelings of great numbers of the people enlisted on the side of the
smugglers. Seven more were tried and convicted at the following assizes
at East Grinstead for the barbarous murder of a poor fellow named
Hawkins (who was suspected of giving information against them, and who
was literally flogged to death), and for highway robbery. Six of them
were executed. Most of them belonged to the celebrated Hawkhurst gang,
who were the terror of the counties of Kent and Sussex. Three more were
tried at the Old Bailey for joining with sixty others in breaking open
the custom-house at Poole, and taking away a quantity of tobacco which
had been seized and deposited there. They were executed at Tyburn. The
place called Whitesmith’s was celebrated for its nest of smugglers
long after this time. It has been stated, by a person who took the
office of overseer of a neighbouring parish about forty years ago, that
one of the outstanding debts of the previous year was due to ---- of
Whitesmith, a well-known smuggler, for “two gallons of gin to be drunk
at the vestry”!
“There were places of deposit for the smuggled goods, most ingeniously
contrived, in various parts of Sussex. Among others, it is said, was
the manorial pound at Falmer, under which there was a cavern dug,
which could hold 100 tubs of spirits; it was covered with planks,
carefully strewed over with mould, and this remained undiscovered for
years.
“In the churchyard at Patcham there is an inscription on a monument,
now nearly illegible, to this effect:--
=Sacred to the Memory=
OF DANIEL SCALES, WHO WAS UNFORTUNATELY SHOT ON
THURSDAY EVENING, NOV. 7TH, 1796.
Alas! swift flew the fatal lead,
Which pierced through the young man’s head.
He instant fell, resigned his breath,
And closed his languid eyes in death.
All you who do this stone draw near,
Oh! pray let fall the pitying tear.
From this sad instance may we all
Prepare to meet Jehovah’s call.
“The real story of his death is this. Daniel Scales was a desperate
smuggler, and one night he, with many more, was coming from Brighton,
heavily laden, when the excise officers and soldiers fell in with
them. The smugglers fled in all directions; a riding-officer, as they
were called, met this man, and called upon him to surrender his booty,
which he refused to do. The officer, to use the words of the editor’s
informant, a very respectable man and neighbour, who in early life was
much engaged in such transactions, knew that ‘he was too good a man for
him, for they had tried it out before; so he shot Daniel through the
head.’”
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Jackson was so ill that he was obliged to be brought in a chair;
and likewise was permitted to have a chair, and sat during the time of
both his trials.
[2] Chater, as well as Galley, was tied on the same horse, and in the
same manner with him, yet in the indictment it only mentioned the name
of Galley.
[3] There were sixteen in the whole, with Race and Steel, the two
admitted evidence for the King.
[4] In the former part of this account we called his name Dimer
otherwise Diamond, for he was as frequently called by the one as the
other, but as he was named by the counsel Dimer, we shall keep to that
name where he was so called.
[5] Mr. Banks omitted here speaking of his calling first on Mr. Holton
in the village of Havant, but that will appear in its proper place.
[6] The other five prisoners were not at Rowland’s Castle, so that Mr.
Austin could have no knowledge of them.
[7] The name of the place is Goodthrop Dean, a little village.
[8] The witness was not certain whether it was John Mills, or his
brother Richard Mills, that made the proposal.
[9] This Stringer is Thomas Stringer, who stands indicted as a
principal in the murder of Daniel Chater, but is not yet taken.
[10] Little Harry is Henry Sheerman, who was condemned at the last
assizes at East Grinstead for the county of Sussex, for the murder
of Galley; and stood also indicted for the murder of Chater, but was
tried only on the first indictment. He was executed at Rake, near where
Galley was buried, and there hung in chains. An account of him at his
trial, under condemnation, and at the place of execution, will be
inserted in the following pages.
[11] This John Mills is the same person as went by the name of Smoker,
who was condemned at the last assizes at East Grinstead, for the county
of Sussex, for the cruel murder of Richard Hawkins, and is hung in
chains near the Dog and Partridge on Slindon Common; and whose trial
follows this account of the seven condemned at Chichester.
[12] This is the John Mills, since executed and hung in chains on
Slindon Common, Sussex, for the murder of Richard Hawkins, and of whom
we shall give a particular account.
[13] Notwithstanding James Reynolds was acquitted of the murder, yet
as it appeared very plain that he concealed the murder, by knowing
the same had been committed by the prisoner and the others who stand
indicted for the same; as being present at the consultation for
concealing the murder, and of burying the dead body, and advising
therein, and his wife also being present, they are both indicted for
the same, and are to be tried at the next assizes.
[14] He was executed on a gibbet, erected on purpose, on Slindon
Common, near the Dog and Partridge, and afterwards hung in chains on
the same gibbet.
[15] This Shoemaker Tom had been a notorious smuggler, but no murder
being charged against him, he was by the court admitted on evidence.
[16] Willis and Stringer stand both indicted for the murder of Galley
and Chater.
[17] Edmund Richards also stands indicted for being concerned in the
murder of Galley and Chater.
[18] Henry III. had been advised to permit the export to Holland and
Brabant, at a duty of 5 marks to the sack; and it was calculated that
this duty, willingly paid, would yield 110,000 marks (£66,333 13s.
4d.), implying an export of 22,000 sacks, in six months. Blaauw’s
“Barons’ War,” Ap., p. 2.
[19] “Rot. Hun.,” ii., pp. 203–209.
[20] Rymer’s “Fœd.” (1821), ii., p. 944.
[21] In 1340 the greatest store of wool was conveyed by stealth. John
Smith’s “Memoirs of Wool,” 2 vols., 8vo, 1747, vol. i., p. 80.
[22] Rymer’s “Fœd.,” ii., p. 1158.
[23] A sack was to contain twenty-six stones of fourteen lbs. each, or
364 lbs.
[24] Prynne’s “Records,” 37 Edward III.
[25] “Rot. Parl.,” iii., p. 497.
[26] Act 2 Henry VI., c. 4.
[27] Act 15 Henry VI., c. 8.
[28] “Rot. Parl.,” v., p. 274.
[29] Acts 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 6.
[30] MSS. State Paper, Lemon, pp. 4, 5. A weaver is among the
victuallers of Rye, 1626, Dom., 44.
[31] Ibid., p. 37.
[32] Ibid., p. 161.
[33] By the Act 27 Henry VIII., c. 15, they had acquired the sole right
of buying wool in Sussex and twenty-seven other counties.
[34] MSS. State Paper, Domestic, Lemon, p. 168.
[35] Ibid., p. 199.
[36] MSS. State Paper, Domestic, Lemon, p. 456.
[37] Ibid., p. 550.
[38] Ibid., p. 554.
[39] It was prohibited, without license, by proclamation, July 20, 1622.
[40] Fuller’s Earth was found at Nutley Common, in Sussex.
[41] “The Golden Fleece,” by W. S. Gent, 1656, p. 67.
[42] “England’s Interest Asserted,” 1669, p. 17.
[43] “England’s Interest in Trade Asserted,” by W. C., 1671.
[44] Joseph Trevers, in 1675, says (p. 40):--“It is well known that
smugglers are not of meanest persons in the places where they dwell,
but have oftentimes great interest with the magistrates; and, being
purse-proud, do not value what they spend to ingratiate themselves with
persons of authority, to distrust all such as discover their fraudulent
dealings, or else by bribes to stop their mouths.... The smugglers are
not only well acquainted with some attorneys and clerks, but they make
good interest with the under sheriffs in the counties where they drive
their trade; and these have strange tricks and delays in their returns,
in which some of them will take part with the offenders, instead of
executing the law against them.”
[45] “Letter from a Younger Brother in Ireland to an Elder Brother in
England.” Published anonymously, 1677.
[46] 7 and 8 William III., c. 28.
[47] 9 and 10 William III., c. 40, secs. 2 and 3.
[48] “An abstract of the proceedings of W. Carter: being a plea to some
objections urged against him,” 1694.
[49] Wool smugglers were called “owlers.”
[50] Treasury Papers: Customs. Rolls House.
[51] Smith’s “Memoirs of Wool,” ii., p. 166.
[52] London, 4to, p. 45.
[53] 4 George I., c. 11.
[54] “The Golden Fleece,” 1736.
[55] 12 George II., c. 21.
[56] In 1770 only thirty-two pounds of wool were seized; in 1780 there
were 12,383 lbs.; and in 1782 there were 13,916 lbs. seized.
[57] See Lord Macaulay’s “History of England,” vol. iv., p. 650.
[58] Egerton MS., 929, p. 38.
[59] A custom as early, at least, as the time of Elizabeth. See “Sussex
Archæological Collections,” vol. v., pp. 195, 196.
[60] Treasury Papers: Customs. Rolls House.
[61] Egerton MS. 929, fol. 40.
[62] _Ex. inf._ Miss Ann Durrant, æt. 89, 1858.
[63] Notorious instances of riots and assaults in running tea and other
goods.--Customs: Rolls House.
[64] Letter of Francis Briggs, July 26, 1733.--Customs: Rolls House.
[65] Notorious instances, &c.--Ibid.
[66] Treasury Papers.--Customs: Rolls House.
[67] The Family names will be familiar to many in our own day as very
active, bold men.
[68] Another well-known name.
[69] “Gentleman’s Mag.,” vol. xiv., p. 334.
[70] King’s “Pamphlets,” Brit. Mus., Lond., 1751, p. 13.
[71] Dearn’s “Weald of Kent,” 8vo, Cranbrook, 1814, p. 100.
[72] My great grandfather, Wm. Durrant, afterwards of Lamberhurst and
Boreham, M.D., was at that time resident with Mr. Hunt, a surgeon in
the town; and (like Mr. James, in his novel of “The Smuggler”) laid the
scene of the attack at Goudhurst Church.
[73] “General” Sturt was for some time prior to his death master of the
poorhouse of Cranbrook. See also “Gent. Mag.” vol. iv., p. 679.
[74] The tea was 41¾ cwt., packed in canvas and oilskin bags; and
thirty-nine casks of spirits, slung with ropes, in order to be loaded
on horses.--“History,” p. 132.
[75] He had been arrested and sent to London by James Butler, Esq.,
near Lewes, but escaped and rejoined his companions. It was proposed to
burn down Mr. Butler’s house; but that not meeting with general assent,
Fairall, Kingsmill, and others of the gang determined to waylay him,
near his own park, and shoot him; but, by accident, he did not return
home that night, and the matter becoming known, a watch was kept, and
the design laid aside.--“History,” p. 147.
[76] Trial of Benjamin Tapner and others, at Chichester, January, 1749.
[77] “A Full and Genuine History of the inhuman and unparalleled
Murders of Mr. William Galley, a Custom-house Officer, and Mr. Daniel
Chater, a shoemaker, by Fourteen Notorious Smugglers; with the Trials
and Execution of Seven of the Bloody Criminals, at Chichester.” Written
by a Gentleman of Chichester. Fifth Edition, 8vo. London: W. Clowes, 20
Villiers Street, Strand. N.D.
[78] Ibid., p. 32. The judges set out from London on Friday, Jan.
13th, and arrived at the Duke of Richmond’s house, at Godalming, that
evening. The next day they set out for Chichester, and were met by the
Duke at Midhurst; and he entertained them with a dinner at his “hunting
house,” near Charlton. They reached the Bishop’s Palace at Chichester,
at five that evening. The report that they were guarded there and back
by a party of horse is erroneous; the judges, counsellors and principal
officers were in six coaches, each drawn by six horses.
[79] See p. 131 of the same work as referred to on previous page.
[80] “Sussex Archæological Collections,” vol. iv., p. 185; vol. ix., p.
194.
[81] Congreve, in his Epilogue to “The Mourning Bride,” alludes to this
habit of the Sussex men. See also “A Descriptive Narrative of the Wreck
of the Nympha Americana, near Beachy Head,” Nov. 29th, 1747, with the
tailpiece by Mr. J. H. Hurdis; Lewes: Lee and Co., 1840.
[82] “History of Winchelsea,” p. 18.