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.
[Illustration: IN AN ENGLISH COUNTRY TOWN]
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.
As for the smugglers themselves, they practised a thousand tricks to
outwit their enemies of the law: they shod their horses backwards to
throw their pursuers off the scent, they gave false information to draw
the officers astray, they tried every device known to outwit them. One
day a very active and zealous officer, much dreaded by the smugglers of
his neighbourhood, made his appearance in a small fishing village at a
very awkward time. In a cove below the cliff there was a string of
loaded horses waiting for the darkness to come up the cliff road and
gallop inland with their burdens. The preventive officer rode up to
the inn, where the landlord, secretly quaking, for he was one of the
smugglers, made a great show of welcoming him.
In a short time there was an uproar in the village street; one of the
fishermen appeared to be beating his wife severely, and there was a
great hubbub for a time. Before long the ill-treated woman came into
the room where the officer was making a meal, and, apparently in a
state of anger and agitation, accused her husband of being a smuggler,
and offered to post the officer in a spot where he should have ample
evidence of the guilt of the villagers.
"I'll put ye within a yard of 'em as they pass by," said the woman,
"and then ye can get all their names and know where they are."
The officer, feeling sure that she was inspired by a spirit of revenge,
agreed to follow her directions, and, as dusk began to settle down, he
crept quietly to the back of her house, a spot which overlooked the
cliff road.
The woman met him, and cautioned him not to make a sound. "For," said
she, "if they get to know of ye, they'll take your life; they be such
terrible smugglers hereabouts."
She bade him get into a large cask beside the back-door, and pointed
out that he could see all who passed through the bung-hole. Eager to
discover the smugglers and the way they would take, he did so. But no
sooner was the unlucky man in the cask than a cover was popped on it by
the woman's husband, hidden near at hand, and the cover was held down
until it was firmly secured by hammer and nails. Then a spigot was
driven into the bung-hole, and a voice shouted, "Come on, boys! We've
boxed him up."
At the next moment the preventive officer heard the tramp of hoofs as
the horses filed past the cask where he was shut up in utter darkness.
The whole thing had been a trick from beginning to end. The quarrel
between husband and wife had been a sham one, intended to lure the
officer into the trap, and there he was fast in the cask; nor was he
released until the smugglers were far beyond reach of pursuit.