THE PERIOD OF INGENUITY
Just as there had been a great improvement in the reorganisation
brought about by the advent of the Coast Blockade, so the Preventive
service on shore generally was smartened up. That this was so is clear
from the existing correspondence. For instance, five more Preventive
boats were to be stationed between Shellness and Southwold, and three
between Cuckmere Haven and Hayling Island; another boat was sent to
Newton (Yorkshire), another to Dawlish (Devonshire), and another to
Happisburgh (Norfolk) or, as it was then spelt, Hephisburg.
Some idea of the activity of the cruisers may be seen from the number
of smugglers which these craft had been able to capture. The reader
will recollect that during the year ending October 1, 1810, the
highest number of smugglers handed over to the Navy was thirteen, and
this was done by Captain Gunthorpe of the Excise cutter _Viper_. He
thus became entitled to the sum of £500. It will be remembered also
that it was afterwards decided that, beginning in 1812, £500 would be
paid only if the number captured was not less than twenty. But now
from a Treasury Minute of October 20, 1818, we find that, although the
former number of captures was over thirteen, it was just under twenty.
And, here again, Captain Matthew Gunthorpe, this time commanding the
Excise cutter _Vigilant_, and Captain Robert Hepburn of the Excise
cutter _Regent_, in the year 1816 seized nineteen smugglers each, or a
total of thirty-eight. As neither captain had reached the twenty and
both were equal, it was decided to add the second and third rewards
together (_i.e._ £300 plus £200) and to give £250 to Captain
Gunthorpe, officers and crew, and £250 to Captain Hepburn, officers
and crew. And there is on record at this time a memorial from one W.
Blake, the son of W. Blake, senior. The last-mentioned had been
commander of the cutter _Nimble_, but was drowned in 1816. His son now
prayed for the reward of £300 to be paid to the family of the
deceased, as he had captured sixteen smugglers.
After the Admiralty had taken over the Revenue cruisers they did not
neglect to sanction a pension system, and the following scheme was
embraced:--Commanders of cruisers on retiring were to have from £91,
5s. to £155, 2s. 6d. per annum, according to their length of service;
and for any wound received they were to have an additional £91, 5s.
per annum. First mates were pensioned after five years' service at the
rate of £35 a year, but after thirty years' service they were to have
£85 a year as pension. And so it was arranged for all ratings down to
the boys. The widow of a commander killed or drowned in the service
was allowed £65 a year.
And now that we are in that period after the year 1815 we must not
fail to bear in mind that this is the epoch when the smugglers were
using ingenuity in preference to force. The busiest part had yet to
come and did not occur till the third decade of the nineteenth
century. But even from the time of the Battle of Waterloo until, say,
about 1825 there were ten years in which the smugglers left no device
untried which they could conceive to enable them to outdo the Revenue
authorities. And we may now proceed to give actual instances of these
ingenious attempts.
We begin with the early part of 1816. At this time the Tide-Surveyor
at one of the out-ports had reason to suspect that the French
market-boats which used to sail across to England were in the habit of
bringing also a good deal of silks and other prohibited goods. At last
he went on board one of these craft and immediately after she had
arrived he caused the whole of her cargo to be put ashore. He then
searched her thoroughly from deck to keelson, but he found nothing at
all. However, he was determined not to give up his quest, and had part
of her ceiling examined minutely, and was then surprised to note that
some fresh nails had apparently been driven. He therefore caused the
ceiling to be ripped off, when he discovered that a large variety of
contraband goods had been neatly stowed between the ship's timbers.
It was only a few months later in that same year that another Revenue
officer boarded a Dutch schuyt which was bound from Amsterdam to
London. Her cargo consisted of 500 bundles of bulrushes, but on making
his examination these innocent articles were found to conceal between
the rushes forty-five boxes of glass in illegal packages, and also
some other prohibited goods which had been shipped from the United
Kingdom for exportation and were intended to have been again
clandestinely relanded.
The reader will remember our mentioning the name of Captain M'Culloch
just now in connection with the Coast Blockade. Writing on the 2nd of
April, 1817, from on board H.M.S. _Ganymede_ lying in the Downs, this
gallant officer stated that, although it was known that the smugglers
had constructed places ashore for the concealment of contraband goods
under the Sand Hills near to No. 1 and No. 2 batteries at Deal, yet
these hiding-places were so ingeniously formed that they had baffled
the most rigid search. However, his plan of landing crews from his
Majesty's ships to guard this district (in the manner previously
described) had already begun to show good results. For two midshipmen,
named respectively Peate and Newton, commanding the shore parties in
that neighbourhood, had succeeded in locating five of those places of
concealment.
"This discovery," continued the despatch, "I am assured will be a most
severe blow to the smugglers, as they were enabled to remove their
cargoes into them in a few minutes, and hitherto no person besides
themselves could form any idea of the manner in which their
store-holes were built. They are generally 4 feet deep, of a square
form and built of a 2-inch plank, with the scuttle in the top, into
which a trough filled with shingle is fitted instead of a cover to
prevent their being found out by pricking; and I understand they were
built above two years ago. I have ordered them to be destroyed, and
parties are employed in searching for such concealments along the
other parts of the beach." Thus, thanks to the Navy, the smugglers had
been given a serious repulse in the most notorious district.
Then there was also the danger of collusive smuggling. For instance,
when a smuggler had been frustrated from successfully landing a cargo
of spirits from a small foreign vessel or boat he might go and give
information to a Custom officer so that he might have the goods seized
by the latter, the arrangement being that the smuggler should be paid
a fair portion of the reward which the officer should receive for the
seizure. Inasmuch as the officers' rewards were by no means
inconsiderable this method might fully indemnify the smuggler against
any loss.
Just before Christmas of 1819 the Custom officers at Weymouth seized
on board a vessel named _The Three Brothers_ sixteen half-ankers and
seven small kegs or flaggons of foreign spirits. These were found to
be concealed under a platform of about nine feet in length fitted on
either side of the keelson, and of sufficient height for one cask. Its
breadth was such as to allow of two casks and a flaggon. When full
this secret hiding-place would contain about thirty casks in all. The
whole concealment was covered with stone and iron ballast. The
platform was fitted with false bulkheads and filled up with large
stones so as to avoid suspicion, the entrance to which was made (after
removal of the ballast) from the bottom of the forecastle through two
bulkheads about two feet apart.
Another instance was that of a consignment of four cases which had
come over from France. These cases contained plaster figures and
appeared to be hollow. However, the Custom officers had their
suspicions and decided to perforate the plaster at the bottom with an
auger. After making still larger holes there were extracted from
inside the following amazing list of articles:--Two clock movements,
six pieces of bronze, thirty-two pieces of porcelain, and two small
paintings.
A certain other French craft was boarded by the Revenue officers who,
on measuring her range of deck and also under it including the
bulkheads, found a greater difference than the rake would fairly
account for. They were naturally highly suspicious and proceeded to
take down part of the bulkhead aft, when they discovered that this
bulkhead was not single but double, being between the cabin and the
hold. This bulkhead was made of solid oak planking and was 2 feet 10
inches thick. It was securely nailed, and the cavity thus made
extended from one side of the hull to the other, giving a breadth of 7
feet 2 inches, its length being about 2 feet 2 inches, and the height
3 feet 6 inches. It will thus be readily imagined that a good quantity
of spirits, wine, and plums from France could easily therein be
contained and brought ashore when opportunity presented itself.
At another port a vessel was actually discovered to have false bows.
One might wonder how it was that the officer ever found this out, but
he was smart enough to measure the deck on the port side, after which
he measured the ship below. He found a difference of over a foot, and
so he undertook a thorough search of the ship. He first proceeded to
investigate the forepeak, but he was unable to discover any entrance.
He therefore went to the hold, examined the bulkhead, and observed
that the nails of the cleats on the starboard side had been drawn. He
proceeded to force off the cleats, whereupon one of the boards of the
bulkhead fell down, and a quantity of East India silk handkerchiefs
came tumbling out. Needless to say, this proved a serious matter for
the vessel's skipper.
Sometimes too, cases used to come over from France containing carton
boxes of artificial flowers. These boxes, it was found, were fitted
with false bottoms affording a space of not more than a quarter of an
inch between the real bottom and the false. But into this space was
squeezed either a silk gauze dress or some parcels "very nicely
stitched in," containing dressed ostrich feathers. The flowers were
usually stitched down to the bottom of the boxes to prevent damage, so
it was difficult to detect that there was any false bottom at all.
However, after this practice had been in vogue for some time it was
discovered by the Revenue officers and the matter made generally known
among the officials at all the ports, so that they could be on the
alert for such ingenuity.
Sometimes when a Revenue officer was on her station she would come
across a sailing craft, which would be found to have quite a
considerable number of spirits in small casks together with a number
of other prohibited goods. If the master of such a craft were told by
the cruiser's officer that they would have to be seized as they were
evidently about to be smuggled, the master would reply that they were
nothing of the kind, but that whilst they were on the fishing grounds
working their nets they happened to bring these casks up from the
sinkers and warp which had kept them below water; or they had found
these casks floating on the sea, and had no doubt been either lost or
intentionally thrown overboard by some smuggling vessel while being
chased by a Revenue cruiser. It became a very difficult matter to
ascertain under such circumstances whether the master were speaking
the truth or the reverse, for it was not altogether rare for the kegs
to be picked up by fishermen in the manner indicated. So the only way
out of this dilemma was for the commanders of the cruisers to bring
such craft as the above to the nearest Custom House, where the master
could be brought ashore and subjected to a cross-examination as to
where they found these casks and what they proposed doing with them.
A seizure was made at Deal about the year 1818 consisting of
thirty-three packages of China crape and silk. These had been very
artfully concealed in the ballast bags of a lugger called the _Fame_,
belonging to London. One package was found in each bag completely
covered up with shingles or small stones, so that even if a suspicious
officer were to feel the outside of these bags he would be inclined to
believe that they contained nothing but ballast, and if he opened them
he would think there was nothing else but stones, for the goods were
carefully squeezed into the centre of the bags and surrounded with a
good thickness of shingle. Another dodge which was discovered at
Shoreham on a vessel which had come from Dieppe was to have the iron
ballast cast in such a form that it was not solid but hollow inside.
By this means a good deal of dutiable stuff could be put inside the
iron and then sealed up again. There was a ship, also, named the
_Isis_, of Rye, which fell into disgrace in endeavouring to cheat the
Customs. She was a smack of 26-16/94 tons burthen, her master being
William Boxhall. It was while she was lying at her home port that one
of the Revenue officers discovered a concealment under her ballast,
the entrance to which was obtained by unshipping two bulkhead boards
forward. There was one concealment on each side of the keel, and each
contained enough space to hold from twenty to twenty-four ankers of
spirits.
Along the Kentish coast a good deal of smuggling used to go on by
means of galleys which were rowed by six, ten, and even twelve oars.
As these were navigated by foreigners and sailed under foreign papers,
the Customs officers were a little puzzled as to what exactly could be
done. Could such craft be seized even when found with no cargoes on
board, when they were either hauled up the beach or were discovered
hovering off the coast? After applying to the Board of Customs for
guidance they were referred to the Act,[19] which provided that any
boat, wherry, pinnace, barge, or galley that was built so as to row
with more than four oars, if found within the counties of Middlesex,
Surrey, Kent, or Essex, or on the river Thames, or within the limits
of the Port of London, Sandwich, or Ipswich, or the creeks thereto
belonging, should be forfeited together with her tackle. The object of
this was clearly to prevent the shortest cross-Channel route being
traversed from Holland or France by big, seaworthy but open,
multiple-oared craft, with enough men to row them and enough space to
carry cargo that would make the smuggling journey worth while.
The following fraud was detected at one of the out-ports in 1819. An
entry had been made of twenty-seven barrels of pitch which had been
imported in a ship from Dantzic. But the Revenue officers discovered
that these casks were peculiarly constructed. Externally each cask
resembled an ordinary tar-barrel. But inside there was enclosed
another cask properly made to fit. Between the cask and the outside
barrel pitch had been run in at the bung so that the enclosure
appeared at first to be one solid body of pitch. But after the affair
was properly looked into it was found that the inner cask was filled
with such dutiable articles as plate glass and East India china.
Sometimes tubs of spirits were packed up in sacks and packs of wool
and thus conveyed from the coast into the interior of the country; and
in the seizing of some goods at Guernsey it was found that tea had
been packed into cases to resemble packages of wine which had come out
of a French vessel belonging to St. Malo. Nor was the owner of a
certain boat found at Folkestone any novice at this high-class art. Of
course those were the days when keels of iron and lead were not so
popular as they are to-day, but inside ballast was almost universal,
being a relic of the mediæval days when so much valuable inside space
was wasted in ships. In this Folkestone boat half-a-dozen large stones
were used as ballast, which was a very natural thing for such a craft.
But when these stones came to be examined they were found to have been
hollowed out and to have been fitted with tin cases which were filled
with spirits. One cannot acquit the owner of any fraudulent intent,
but one certainly can admire both his ingenuity and the great patience
which must have been necessary to have hollowed a cavity from such an
unyielding material as stone. This was equalled only by the cargo from
Guernsey. Four sacks said to contain potatoes from the Channel Isles
were opened by the Revenue officers at a certain port, and, on being
examined, it was found that these were not potatoes at all. They were
so many rolls of tobacco which had been fashioned to resemble the size
and form of the vegetable, and then covered artfully over with a thin
skin and finally clayed over so cleverly that they had every
appearance of the potatoes they pretended to be.
But the Channel Isles were still notorious. In twelve sacks of flour
imported from Jersey were found hidden in the middle twelve bales of
tobacco weighing 28 lbs. each. A few weeks later three boxes of prunes
also from Jersey were opened, when it was discovered that the prunes
were not more than three inches deep at the top and three inches deep
at the bottom. But between there was a space in which were
concealed--in each box--a paper parcel of silk, some scarves and
gloves, &c. But in order to make the total weight of the box
approximate to that which would have existed had it been full of
prunes a square piece of lead was placed above and another underneath
these dutiable articles.
But to me the most ingenious method of all was that which was employed
in 1820 for smuggling tobacco. The offending ship was one of the
vessels employed in the transport service, and the man who thought of
the device was not far from being a genius. He first of all obtained
the quantity of tobacco which he proposed--no doubt with the
assistance of more than one confederate--to smuggle ashore. He then
proceeded to divide this into two, each of which formed one strand.
Afterwards he made these strands into a rope, every bit of it being
tobacco. But then he took a three-strand hawser and laid this over the
tobacco, so that when the hawser was finished no one could suspect the
tobacco without first cutting or unlaying the rope. I have not been
able to discover how this trick was ever suspected. Nothing less than
an accident or the information of a spy could possibly lead to
detection in such a clever case.
There were all sorts of varieties of concealments now practised since
the "scientific" period of smuggling had come in. And since those
wicked old days have passed, and with them a good many of the
old-fashioned types of craft, it may be well that examples of these
misdirected efforts should be collected herewith. There was a smack,
for instance, which was found to have under her ballast a large trunk
that was divided into four separate compartments each about 15 feet
long and could contain twelve half-ankers. One end of the trunk was
fixed against the bulkhead of the cabin, and extended the whole length
of the hold opening at the forward end close to the keelson by
unshipping two pieces of the bulkhead.
Another instance of the employment of false bows to a craft was found
on searching the fishing smack _Flower_, of Rye, whose master's name
was William Head. It was observed that this false section would hold
as much as forty to fifty half-ankers, the entrance being on the port
side of the false bow, where a square piece took out, being fastened
by a couple of screws, the heads of which were concealed by wooden
bungs imitating treenails. The _Flower_ was further discovered to have
a false stern, the entrance to this being by means of the upper board
of this stern on the port side in the cabin. She was a vessel 39 feet
2-1/2 inches long, 12 feet 1-1/2 inches beam, 5 feet 9-1/2 inches
deep, and of 23-1/2 tons burthen, being fitted with a standing
bowsprit and sloop-rigged. An almost identical set of concealments was
found in the smack _Albion_ at Sandwich, a vessel of over 42 tons
burthen. The entrance to her false stern was through a small locker on
the port and starboard sides. She was further fitted with a false
stern-post and false timbers.
A considerable amount of ingenuity must have been exercised in the
case of an open four-oared boat which was seized at Dover together
with twelve ankers of spirits. The device was as follows:--Across the
bow end of the boat was the usual thwart on which an oarsman sat. At
the after end where the stroke sat was another thwart. Under each of
these thwarts was an ordinary stanchion for supporting the thwart. But
each of these two stanchions had been made hollow. Thus, through each
a rope could be inserted, and inasmuch as the keel had also been
pierced it was possible to pass one rope through at the bow-thwart
and another at the stern-thwart, these ropes penetrating the boat
from thwart to keel. The inboard ends of these two ropes were
carelessly lashed round the thwarts or covered with gear, so there was
no untoward appearance. But at the other ends of the ropes were
fastened the twelve ankers, which were thus towed along under the keel
of the craft, and not trailing out astern as was sometimes done in the
case of bigger boats. Thus because the whole body of the boat covered
the floating casks it was very unlikely that their presence would be
suspected.
The smack _Strawberry_ of Deal, on being searched, was found to have a
false bottom, capable of containing a considerable quantity of goods.
This bottom was constructed by two leaden cases fixed on the timbers
the whole length of the hold, one on each side of the keelson, and
ceiled over with the usual ceiling, having the ballast placed over it.
The cases opened on each side of the hold by taking out a plank from
the temporary ceiling. In the case of the lugger _Fox_ (as usual
belonging to Rye), a vessel over 16 tons, John Souden, master, there
were found to be double bottoms underneath the bed cabins, the
entrance being made from underneath the cabins, and then unshipping a
small piece of board about a foot square, each concealment being able
to hold from fifty to sixty pieces of bandana silks.
Another smuggling device in vogue during this ingenious period had to
be employed in such places as Ramsgate harbour, where it would have
been utterly impossible to have employed ordinary methods. It
resembled very much the method employed at Dover, mentioned just now.
A rowing-boat would come into the harbour, apparently with nothing in
her nor anything towing astern. But there were fifteen or so
half-ankers underneath her hull, spirits of course being contained in
these casks. Now the latter were all fastened to a long iron bar, the
ropes to the boat being fastened to this bar. Consequently, after the
boat had reached her corner of Ramsgate harbour, all she had to do was
to let go the ropes and the iron bar would keep the kegs on the sandy
bottom and prevent them from disclosing their identity by floating. At
low water the smugglers could have gone to get them up again, for they
would not move far even with the ebb tide. Unfortunately, however, the
Revenue Tide Surveyor at this port preceded the smugglers, and by
creeping for the bar and tubs with grapnels succeeded in locating what
he wanted.
On another occasion at one of the out-ports, or rather along the
neighbouring beach, thirty-three gallons of spirits, contained in
nineteen small casks, were recovered in a startling manner. Going
along the beach were noticed among the chalk rocks and stones of the
neighbourhood some other objects. These were the casks, but they had
been so cleverly covered over with a cement of chalk, to which was
fastened seaweed in the most natural manner, that seeing them there
among the rocks of the shore they would never have been discovered by
the Revenue men, had not it been (as one may guess) for a hint given
by an informer. Otherwise there they would have remained until the
smugglers found it convenient to come and fetch them.
We called attention just now to the concealing of tobacco in rope.
This device evidently became a fine art, and had succeeded on many an
occasion. At any rate in Flushing tobacco was openly on sale in the
shops ready for smuggling into England already made up into ropes. You
could get anything as big as a hawser and as small as a sail-tyer done
up so ingeniously as to deceive almost any one. In fact on washing
these slightly with a little rum they had every appearance of hempen
rope.
FOOTNOTES:
[19] 8 George I. cap. 18.