THE “MURDERS BY SMUGGLERS” IN HAMPSHIRE
THE most outstanding chapter in the whole history of smuggling is that of
the cold-blooded “Murders by Smugglers” which stained the annals of the
southern counties in the mid-eighteenth century with peculiarly revolting
deeds that have in them nothing of romance; nothing but a long-drawn
story of villainy and fiendish cruelty. It is a story that long made
dwellers in solitary situations shiver with apprehension, especially if
they owned relatives connected in any way with the hated customs
officers.
This grim chapter of horrors, upon which the historian can dwell only
with loathing, and with pity for himself in being brought to the telling
of it, was the direct outcome of the lawless and almost unchecked doings
of the Hawkhurst Gang, whose daring grew continually with their
long-continued success in terrorising the countryside.
The beginnings of this affair are found in an expedition entered upon by
a number of the gang in September 1747, in Guernsey, where they purchased
a considerable quantity of tea, for smuggling into this country.
Unfortunately for their enterprise, they fell in with a revenue cutter,
commanded by one Captain Johnson, who pursued and captured their vessel,
took it into the port of Poole, and lodged the tea in the custom-house
there.
The smugglers were equally incensed and dismayed at this disaster, the
loss being a very heavy one; and they resolved, rather than submit to it,
to go in an armed force and recover the goods. Accordingly a mounted
body of them, to the number of sixty, well provided with firearms and
other weapons, assembled in what is described as “Charlton Forest,”
probably Chalton Downs, between Petersfield and Poole, and thence
proceeded on their desperate errand. Thirty of them, it was agreed,
should go to the attack, while the other thirty should take up positions
as scouts along the various roads, to watch for riding-officers, or for
any military force, and so alarm, or actively assist, if needs were, the
attacking party.
It was in the midnight between October 6th and 7th that this advance
party reached Poole, broke open the custom-house on the quay, and removed
all the captured tea—thirty-seven hundredweight, valued at £500—except
one bag of about five pounds weight. They returned in the morning, in
leisurely fashion, through Fordingbridge; the affair apparently so public
that hundreds of people were assembled in the streets of that little town
to see these daring fellows pass.
[Picture: . . breaking open the Customs House at Poole]
Among these spectators was one Daniel Chater, a shoemaker, who recognised
among this cavalcade of smugglers a certain John Diamond, with whom he
had formerly worked in the harvest field. Diamond shook hands with him
as he passed, and threw him a bag of tea.
It was not long before a proclamation was issued offering rewards for the
identification or apprehension of any persons concerned in this impudent
raid, and Diamond was in the meanwhile arrested on suspicion at
Chichester. Chater, who seems to have been a foolish, gossiping fellow,
saying he knew Diamond and saw him go by with the gang, became an object
of considerable interest to his neighbours at Fordingbridge, who, having
seen that present of a bag of tea—a very considerable present as the
price of tea then ran—no doubt thought he knew more of the affair than he
cared to tell. At any rate, these things came to the knowledge of the
Collector of Customs at Southampton, and the upshot of several interviews
and some correspondence with him was that Chater agreed to go in company
with one William Galley, an officer of excise, to Major Battin, a Justice
of the Peace and a Commissioner of Customs at Chichester, to be examined
as to his readiness and ability to identify Diamond, whose punishment, on
conviction, would be, under the savage laws of that time, death.
Chater, in short, had offered himself as that detestable thing, a hired
informer: a creature all right-minded men abhor, and whom the smugglers
of that age visited, whenever found, with persecution and often with the
same extremity to which the law doomed themselves.
The ill-fated pair set out on Sunday, February 14th, on horseback, and,
calling on their way at Havant, were directed by a friend of Chater’s at
that place to go by way of Stanstead, near Rowlands Castle. They soon,
however, missed their way, and calling at Leigh, at the “New Inn,” to
refresh and to inquire the road, met there three men, George and Thomas
Austin, and their brother-in-law, one Mr. Jenkes, who accompanied them to
Rowlands Castle, where they all drew rein at the “White Hart”
public-house, kept by a Mrs. Elizabeth Payne, a widow, who had two sons
in the village, blacksmiths, and both reputed smugglers.
Some rum was called for, and was being drank, when Mrs. Payne, taking
George Austin aside, told him she was afraid these two strangers were
after no good; they had come, she suspected, with intent to do some
injury to the smugglers. Such was the state of the rural districts in
those times that the appearance of two strangers was of itself a cause
for distrust; but when, in addition, there was the damning fact that one
of them wore the uniform of a riding-officer of excise, suspicion became
almost a certainty.
But to her remarks George Austin replied she need not be alarmed, the
strangers were only carrying a letter to Major Battin, on some ordinary
official business.
This explanation, however, served only to increase her suspicions, for
what more likely than that this business with a man who was, among other
things, a highly placed customs official, was connected in some way with
these recent notorious happenings?
To make sure, Mrs. Payne sent privately one of her sons, who was then in
the house, for William Jackson and William Carter, two men deeply
involved with smuggling, who lived near at hand. In the meanwhile Chater
and Galley wanted to be gone upon their journey, and asked for their
horses. Mrs. Payne, to keep them until Jackson and Carter should arrive,
told them the man who had the key of the stables was gone for a while,
but would return presently.
As the unsuspecting men waited, gossiping and drinking, the two smugglers
entered. Mrs. Payne drew them aside and whispered her suspicions; at the
same time advising Mr. George Austin to go away, as she respected him,
and was unwilling that any harm should come to him.
It is thus sufficiently clear that, even at this early stage, some very
serious mischief was contemplated.
Mr. George Austin, being a prudent, if certainly not also an honest, man,
did as he was advised. Thomas Austin, his brother, who does not appear
to have in the same degree commanded the landlady’s respect, was not
warned, and remained, together with his brother-in-law. To have won the
reader’s respect also, she should, at the very least of it, have warned
them as well. But as this was obviously not a school of morals, we will
not labour the point, and will bid Mr. George Austin, with much relief,
“goodbye.”
Mrs. Payne’s other son then entered, bringing with him four more
smugglers: William Steel, Samuel Downer, _alias_ Samuel Howard, _alias_
“Little Sam,” Edmund Richards, and Henry Sheerman, _alias_ “Little
Harry.”
After a while Jackson took Chater aside into the yard, and asked him
after Diamond; whereupon the simple-minded man let fall the object of his
and his companion’s journey.
While they were talking, Galley, suspecting Chater would be in some way
indiscreet, came out and asked him to rejoin them; whereupon Jackson,
with a horrible oath, struck him a violent blow in the face, knocking him
down.
Galley then rushed into the house, Jackson following him. “I am a King’s
officer,” exclaimed the unfortunate Galley, “and cannot put up with such
treatment.”
“You a King’s officer!” replied Jackson, “I’ll make a King’s officer of
you; and for a quartern of gin I’ll serve you so again!”
The others interposed, one of the Paynes exclaiming, “Don’t be such a
fool; do you know what you are doing?”
Galley and Chater grew very uneasy, and again wanted to be going; but the
company present, including Jackson, pressed them to stay, Jackson
declaring he was sorry for what had passed. The entire party then sat
down to more drink, until Galley and Chater were overcome by drunkenness
and were sent to sleep in an adjoining room. Thomas Austin and Mr.
Jenkes were by this time also hopelessly drunk; but as they had no
concern with the smugglers, nor the smugglers with them, they drop out of
this narrative.
When Galley and Chater lay in their drunken sleep the compromising
letters in their pockets were found and read, and the men present formed
themselves into a kind of committee to decide what should be done with
their enemies, as they thought them. John Race and Richard Kelly then
came in, and Jackson and Carter told them they had got the old rogue, the
shoemaker of Fordingbridge, who was going to give an information against
John Diamond the shepherd, then in custody at Chichester.
They then consulted what was best to be done to their two prisoners, when
William Steel proposed to take them both to a well, a little way from the
house, and to murder them and throw them in. Less ferocious proposals
were made—to send them over to France; but when it became obvious that
they would return and give the evidence after all, the thoughts of the
seven men present reverted to murder. At this juncture the wives of
Jackson and Carter, who had entered the house, cried, “Hang the dogs, for
they came here to hang us!”
Another proposition that was made—to imprison the two in some safe place
until they knew what would be Diamond’s fate, and for each of the
smugglers to subscribe threepence a week for their keep—was immediately
scouted; and instantly the brutal fury of these ruffians was aroused by
Jackson, who, going into the room where the unfortunate men were lying,
spurred them on their foreheads with the heavy spurs of his riding-boots,
and, having thus effectually wakened them, whipped them into the kitchen
of the inn until they were streaming with blood. Then, taking them
outside, the gang lifted them on to a horse, one behind the other, and,
tying their hands and legs together, lashed them with heavy whips along
the road, crying, “Whip them, cut them, slash them, damn them!” one of
their number, Edmund Richards, with cocked pistol in hand, swearing he
would shoot any person through the head who should mention anything of
what he saw or heard.
From Rowlands Castle, past Wood Ashes, Goodthorpe Deane, and to Lady Holt
Park, this scourging was continued through the night, until the wretched
men were three parts dead. At two o’clock in the morning this gruesome
procession reached the Portsmouth Road at Rake, where the foremost
members of the party halted at what was then the “Red Lion” inn, long
since that time retired into private life, and now a humble cottage. It
was kept in those days by one Scardefield, who was no stranger to their
kind, nor unused to the purchase and storing of smuggled spirits. Here
they knocked and rattled at the door until Scardefield was obliged to get
out of bed and open to them. Galley, still alive, was thrust into an
outhouse, while the band, having roused the landlord and procured drink,
caroused in the parlour of the inn. Chater they carried in with them;
and when Scardefield stood horrified at seeing so ghastly a figure of a
man, all bruised and broken, and spattered with blood, they told him a
specious tale of an engagement they had had with the King’s officers:
that here was a comrade, wounded, and another, dead or dying, in his
brew-house.
[Picture: The “Red Lion,” Rake]
Chater they presently carried to an outhouse of the cottage of a man
named Mills, not far off, and then returned for more drink and discussion
of what was to be done with Galley, whom they decided to bury in Harting
Combe. So, while it was yet dark, they carried him down from the ridge
on which Rake stands, into the valley, and, digging a grave in a
fox-earth by the light of a lantern, shovelled the dirt over him, without
inquiring too closely whether their victim were alive or dead. That he
was not dead at that time became evident when his body was discovered
eight months later, hands raised to his face, as though to prevent the
earth from suffocating him.
The whole of the next day this evil company sat drinking in the “Red
Lion.” Richard Mills, son of the man in whose turf-shed Chater lay
chained by the leg, passing by, they hailed him and told him of what they
had done; whereupon he said he would, if he had had the doing of it, have
flung the man down Harting Combe headlong and broken his neck.
On this Monday night they all returned home, lest their continued absence
might be remarked by the neighbours; agreeing to meet again at Rake on
the Wednesday evening, to consider how they might best put an end to
Chater.
When Wednesday night had come this council of murderers, reinforced by
others, and numbering in all fourteen, assembled accordingly. Dropping
into the “Red Lion” one by one, it was late at night before they had all
gathered.
They decided, after some argument, to dispatch him forthwith, and, going
down to the turf-shed where he had lain all this while, suffering agonies
from the cruel usage to which he had been subjected, they unchained him.
Richard Mills at first had proposed to finish him there. “Let us,” said
he, “load a gun with two or three bullets, lay it upon a stand with the
muzzle of the piece levelled at his head, and, after having tied a long
string to the trigger, we will all go off to the butt-end, and, each of
us taking hold of the string, pull it all together; thus we shall be all
equally guilty of his death, and it will be impossible for any one of us
to charge the rest with his murder, without accusing himself of the same
crime; and none can pretend to lessen or to mitigate his guilt by saying
he was only an accessory, since all will be principals.”
[Picture: Chater being kicked and cut]
Thus Richard Mills, according to the story of these things told in horrid
detail (together with a full report of the subsequent trial) by the
author of the contemporary “Genuine History.” The phraseology of the
man’s coldly logical proposals is, of course, that of the author himself;
since it is not possible that a Sussex rustic of over a hundred and sixty
years ago would have spoken in literary English.
Mills’s proposition was not accepted. It seemed to the others too
merciful and expeditious a method of putting an end to Chater’s misery.
They had grown as epicurean in torture as the mediæval hell-hounds who
racked and pinched and burnt for Church and State. They were resolved he
should suffer as much and as long as they could eke out his life, as a
warning to all other informers.
The proposal that found most favour was that they should take him to
Harris’s Well, in Lady Holt Park, and throw him in.
Tapner, one of the recruits to the gang, thereupon inaugurated the new
series of torments by pulling out a large clasp-knife, and, with a
fearful oath, exclaiming, “Down on your knees and go to prayers, for with
this knife I will be your butcher.”
Chater, expecting every moment to be his last, knelt down as he was
ordered, and, while he was thus praying, Cobby kicked him from behind,
while Tapner in front slashed his face.
The elder Mills, owner of the turf-shed, at this grew alarmed for his own
safety. “Take him away,” he said, “and do not murder him here. Do it
somewhere else.”
They then mounted him on a horse and set out for Lady Holt Park; Tapner,
more cruel, if possible, than the rest, slashing him with his knife, and
whipping him with his whip, all the way.
It was dead of night by the time they had come to the Park, where there
was a deep dry well. A wooden fence stretched across the track leading
to it, and over this, although it was in places broken and could easily
have been crawled through, they made their victim climb. Tapner then
pulled a rope out of his pocket and tied it round Chater’s neck, and so
pushed him over the opening of the well, where he hung, slowly
strangling.
But by this time they were anxious to get home, and could afford no more
time for these luxuries of cruelty, so they dropped him to the bottom of
the well, imagining he would be quite killed by the fall. Unfortunately
for Chater, he was remarkably tenacious of life, and was heard groaning
there, where he had fallen.
They dared not leave him thus, lest any one passing should hear his
cries, and went and roused a gardener, one William Combleach, who lived a
little way off, and borrowed a ladder, telling him one of their
companions had fallen into Harris’s Well. With this ladder they intended
to descend the well and finally dispatch Chater; but, seeing they could
not manage to lower the ladder, they were reduced to finding some huge
stones and two great gateposts, which they then flung down, and so ended
the unhappy man’s martyrdom.
The problem that next faced the murderers was, how to dispose of the two
horses their victims had been riding. It was first proposed to put them
aboard the next smuggling vessel returning to France, but that idea was
abandoned, on account of the risk of discovery. It was finally decided
to slaughter them and remove their skins, and this was accordingly done
to the grey that Galley had ridden, and his hide cut up into small pieces
and buried; but, when they came to look for the bay that Chater had used,
they could not find him.