OUTRAGE AT HASTINGS BY THE RUXLEY GANG—BATTLE ON THE
WHITSTABLE-CANTERBURY ROAD—CHURCH-TOWERS AS SMUGGLERS’ CELLARS—THE
DRUMMER OF HERSTMONCEUX—EPITAPH AT TANDRIDGE—DEPLORABLE AFFAIR AT
HASTINGS—THE INCIDENT OF “THE FOUR BROTHERS”
SUSSEX was again the scene of a barbarous incident, in 1768; and on this
occasion seafaring men were the malefactors.
It is still an article of faith with the writers of guide-books who do
not make their own inquiries, and thus perpetuate obsolete things, that
to call a Hastings fisherman a “Chop-back” will rouse him to fury. But
when a modern visitor, primed with such romance as this, timidly
approaches one of these broad-shouldered and amply-paunched fisherfolk
and suggests “Chop-backs” as a subject of inquiry, I give you my word
they only look upon you with a puzzled expression, and don’t understand
in the least your meaning.
But in an earlier generation this was a term of great offence to the
Hastingers. It arose, according to tradition, from the supposed descent
of these fisherfolk from the Norse rovers who used the axe, and cleaved
their enemies with them from skull to chine. But the true facts of the
case are laid to the account of some of the notorious Ruxley Gang, who in
1768 boarded a Dutch hoy, the _Three Sisters_, in mid-channel, on
pretence of trading, and chopped the master, Peter Bootes, down the back
with a hatchet. This horrid deed might never have come to light had not
these ruffians betrayed themselves by bragging to one another of their
cleverness, and dwelling upon the way in which the Dutchman wriggled when
they had slashed him on the backbone.
[Picture: The Chop-Backs]
The Government in November of that year sent a detachment of two hundred
Inniskilling Dragoons to Hastings, to arrest the men implicated, and a
man-o’-war and cutter lay off shore to receive them when they had been
taken prisoners. The soldiers had strict orders to keep their mission
secret, but the day after their arrival they were called out to arrest
rioters who had violently assaulted the Mayor, whom they suspected of
laying information against the murderers. The secret of the reason for
the soldiers’ coming had evidently in some manner leaked out. Several
arrests of rioters were made, and the men implicated in the outrage on
the Dutch boat were duly taken into custody.
The whole affair was so closely interwoven with smuggling that it was by
many suspected that the men who had been seized were held for that
offence as well; and persons in the higher walks of the smuggling
business, namely, those who financed it, and those others who largely
purchased the goods, grew seriously alarmed for their own liberty. In
the panic that thus laid hold of the town a well-to-do shopkeeper
absconded altogether.
Thirteen men were indicted in the Admiralty Court on October 30th, 1769,
for piracy and murder on the high seas; namely, 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,
and were capitally convicted. Of these, four, Thomas Ailsbury, William
Geary, William Wenham, and Richard Hyde, were hanged at Execution Dock,
November 27th.
The next most outstanding incident, a bloody affray which occurred on
February 26th, 1780, belongs to Kent.
As Mr. Joseph Nicholson, supervisor of excise, was removing to Canterbury
a large seizure of geneva he had made at Whitstable, a numerous body of
smugglers followed him and his escort of a corporal and eight troopers of
the 4th Dragoons. Fifty of the smugglers had firearms, and, coming up
with the escort, opened fire without warning or demanding their goods.
Two Dragoons were killed on the spot, and two others dangerously wounded.
The smugglers then loaded up the goods and disappeared. A reward of £100
was at once offered by the Commissioners of Excise, with a pardon, for
informers; and Lieutenant-Colonel Hugonin, of the 4th Dragoons, offered
another £50. John Knight, of Whitstable, was shortly afterwards
arrested, on information received, and was tried and convicted at
Maidstone Assizes. He was hanged on Penenden Heath and his body
afterwards gibbeted on Borstal Hill, the spot where the attack had been
made.
The south held unquestioned pre-eminence, as long as smuggling activities
lasted, and the records of bloodshed and hard-fought encounters are
fullest along the coasts of Kent and Sussex. Sometimes, but not often,
they are varied by a touch of humour.
The convenience afforded by churches for the storing of smuggled goods is
a commonplace of the history of smuggling; and there is scarce a seaboard
church of which some like tale is not told, while not a few inland
church-towers and churchyards enjoy the same reputation. Asked to
account for this almost universal choice of a hiding-place by the
smugglers, a parish clerk of that age supposed, truly enough, that it was
because no one was ever likely to go near a church, except on Sundays.
This casts an instructive side-light upon the Church of England and
religion at any time from two hundred to seventy or eighty years ago.
But a tale of more than common humour was told of the old church at Hove,
near Brighton, many years ago. It seems that this ancient building had
been greatly injured by fire in the middle of the seventeenth century,
but that the population was so small and so little disposed to increase
that a mere patching up of the ruins was sufficient for local needs.
Moreover, the spiritual needs of the place were considered to be so small
that Hove and Preston parishes were ecclesiastically united, and were
served by one clergyman, who conducted service at each parish church on
alternate Sundays. At a later period, indeed, Hove church was used only
once in six weeks.
But in the alternate Sunday period the smugglers of this then lonely
shore found the half-ruined church of Hove peculiarly useful for their
trade; hence the following story.
One “Hove Sunday” the vicar, duly robed, appeared here to take the duty,
and found, greatly to his surprise, that no bell was ringing to call the
faithful to worship. “Why is the bell not ringing?” demanded the vicar.
“Preston Sunday, sir,” returned the sexton shortly.
“No, no,” replied the vicar.
“Indeed, then, sir, ’tis.”
But the vicar was not to be argued out of his own plain conviction that
he had taken Preston last Sunday, and desired the sexton to start the
bell-ringing at once.
“’Taint no good, then, sir,” said the sexton, beaten back into his last
ditch of defence; “you can’t preach to-day.”
[Picture: The Drummer of Herstmonceux]
“_Can’t_, fellow?” angrily responded the vicar; “what do you mean by
‘can’t’?”
“Well, then, sir,” said the sexton, “if you must know, the church is full
of tubs, and the pulpit’s full of tea.”
An especially impudent smuggling incident was reported from Hove on
Sunday, October 16th, 1819, in the following words:
“A suspected smuggling boat being seen off Hove by some of the
custom-house officers, they, with two of the crew of the _Hound_ revenue
cutter, gave chase in a galley. On coming up with the boat their
suspicions were confirmed, and they at once boarded her; but while intent
on securing their prize, nine of the smugglers leapt into the _Hound’s_
galley and escaped. Landing at Hove, seven of them got away at once, two
being taken prisoners by some officers who were waiting for them. Upon
this a large company of smugglers assembled, at once commenced a
desperate attack upon the officers, and, having overpowered them,
assaulted them with stones and large sticks, knocked them down, and cut
the belts of the chief officer’s arms, which they took away, and thereby
enabled the two prisoners to escape.”
A reward of £200 was offered, but without result. The cargo of the
smugglers consisted of 225 tubs of gin, 52 tubs of brandy, and one bag of
tobacco.
Many of the ghost-stories of a hundred years and more ago originated in
the smugglers’ midnight escapades. It was, of course, entirely to their
advantage that superstitious people who heard unaccountable sounds and
saw indescribable sights should go off with the notion that supernatural
beings were about, and resolve thenceforward to go those haunted ways no
more. The mysterious “ghostly drummer” of Herstmonceux, who was often
heard and seen by terrified rustics whose way led them past the ruined
castle at night, was a confederate of the Hastings and Eastbourne
smugglers, to whom those roofless walls and the hoary tombs of the
adjoining churchyard were valuable storehouses. Rubbed with a little
phosphorus, and parading those spots once in a way with his drum, they
soon became shunned. The tombstones in Herstmonceux churchyard, mostly
of the kind known as “altar-tombs,” had slabs which the smugglers easily
made to turn on swivels; and from them issued at times spirits indeed,
but not such as would frighten many men. The haunted character of
Herstmonceux ceased with the establishment of the coastguard in 1831, and
the drummer was heard to drum no more.
The churchyards of the Sussex coast and its neighbourhood still bear
witness to the fatal affrays between excisemen and smugglers that marked
those times; and even far inland may be found epitaphs on those who fell,
breathing curses and Divine vengeance on the persons who brought them to
an untimely end. Thus at Tandridge, Surrey, near Godstone, may be seen a
tall tombstone beside the south porch of the church, to one Thomas
Todman, aged thirty-one years, who was shot dead in a smuggling affray in
1781. Here follow the lamentable verses, oddities of grammar, spelling,
and punctuation duly preserved:
Thou Shall do no Murder, nor Shalt thou Steal
are the Commands Jehovah did Reveal
but thou O Wretch, Without fear or dread
of Thy Tremendous Maker Shot me dead
Amidst my strength my sins forgive
As I through Boundless Mercy
hope to live.
The prudery of some conscientious objector to the word “wretch” has
caused it to be almost obliterated.
[Picture: Tandridge church]
At Patcham, near Brighton, the weatherworn epitaph on the north side of
the church to Daniel Scales may still with difficulty be deciphered:
Sacred to the memory of DANIEL SCALES
who was unfortunately shot on Thursday evening,
November 7th 1796
Alas! swift flew the fatal lead,
Which piercèd 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.
Daniel Scales was one of a desperate smuggling gang, who had had many
narrow escapes, but was at last shot through the head.
Again, at Westfield, Sussex, not far from Rye, may be found an old stone,
rapidly going to decay, bearing some lines to the memory of a smuggler
named Moon:
“In Memory of John Moon, who was deprived of life by a base man, on
the 20th of June 1809, in the 28th year of his age.
’Tis mine to-day to moulder in the earth. . . .”
The rest is not now readable.
Among the many tragical incidents of the smuggling era was the affray
aboard a fishing-smack off Hastings in March 1821, in which a fisherman
named Joseph Swain, supposed by the blockading officers of the preventive
force to be a smuggler, was killed. Fishing-boats and their crews were,
as a matter of course, searched by these officials; but the boat boarded
by them on this occasion belonged to Swain, who denied having any
contraband goods aboard and refused to permit the search. So strenuous a
refusal as Swain offered would seem, in those times, of itself sufficient
evidence of the presence of smuggled articles, and the boarders
persisted. A sailor among them, George England by name, pressed forward
to the attack, and Swain seized his cutlass and tore it out of his hand;
whereupon England drew a pistol and fired at Swain, who instantly fell
dead.
An epitaph in the churchyard of All Saints, Hastings, bears witness to
this incident:
[Picture: Tombstone at Tandridge]
This Stone
Sacred to the memory of
JOSEPH SWAIN, Fisherman
was erected at the expence of
the members of the friendly
Society of Hastings
in commiseration of his cruel and
untimely death and as a record of
the public indignation at the need-
lefs and sanguinary violence of
which he was the unoffending Victim
He was shot by Geo. England, one
of the Sailors employ’d in the Coast
blockade service in open day on the
13th March 1821 and almost instantly
expir’d, in the twenty ninth Year of
his age, leaving a Widow and five
small children to lament his lofs.
England was subsequently put on his trial for wilful murder at Horsham,
and was sentenced to death, but afterwards pardoned.
In short, in one way and another, much good blood and a great quantity of
the most excellent spirits were spilt and let run to waste, along the
coasts.
The affair of the _Badger_ revenue cutter and the _Vre Brodiers_, or
_Four Brothers_, smuggling lugger was the next exciting event. It
happened on January 13th, 1823, and attracted a great deal of attention
at the time, not only on account of the severe encounter at sea, but from
the subsequent trial of the crew of the smuggler. The _Four Brothers_
was a Folkestone boat, and her crew of twenty-six were chiefly Folkestone
men. She was a considerable vessel, having once been a French privateer,
and was, as a privateer had need to be, a smart, easily handled craft,
capable of giving the go-by to most other vessels. She carried four
six-pound carronades. In constant commission, her crew pouched a pound a
week wages, with an additional ten guineas for each successful run.
On January 12th, of this momentous voyage, she sailed from Flushing with
over one hundred tons of leaf-tobacco aboard, snugly packed for
convenience of carriage in bales of 60 lb., and carried also a small
consignment of brandy and gin, contained in 50 half-ankers, and 13 chests
of tea—all destined for the south of Ireland. Ship and cargo were worth
some £11,000; so it is sufficiently evident that her owners were in a
considerable way of business of the contraband kind.
At daybreak on the morning of January 13th, when off Dieppe and sailing
very slowly, in a light wind, the crew of the _Four Brothers_ found
themselves almost upon what they at first took to be French
fishing-boats, and held unsuspiciously on her course. Suddenly, however,
one of them ran a flag smartly up her halliards and fired a gun across
the bows of the _Four Brothers_, as a signal to bring her to. It was the
revenue cutter _Badger_.
Unfortunately for the smuggler, she was carrying a newly stepped
mainmast, and under small sail only, and accordingly, in disobeying the
summons and attempting to get away, she was speedily outsailed.
The smuggler, unable to get away, hoisted the Dutch colours and opened
the fight that took place by firing upon the _Badger_, which immediately
returned it. For two hours this exchange of shots was maintained. Early
in the encounter William Cullum, seaman, was killed aboard the _Badger_,
and Lieutenant Nazer, in command, received a shot from a musket in the
left shoulder. One man of the _Four Brothers_ was killed outright, and
nine wounded, but the fight would have continued had not the _Badger_
sailed into the starboard quarter of the smuggler, driving her bowsprit
clean through her adversary’s mainsail. Even then the smuggler’s crew
endeavoured to fire one of her guns, but failed.
The commander of the _Badger_ thereupon called upon the _Four Brothers_
to surrender; or, according to his own version, the smugglers themselves
called for quarter; and the mate and some of the cutter’s men went in a
boat and received their submission, and sent them prisoners aboard the
_Badger_. The smugglers claimed that they had surrendered only on
condition that they should have their boats and personal belongings and
be allowed to go ashore; but it seems scarce likely the Lieutenant could
have promised so much. The _Four Brothers_ was then taken into Dover
Harbour and her crew sent aboard the _Severn_ man-o’-war and kept in
irons in the cockpit. Three of her wounded died there. The others,
after a short interval, were again put aboard the _Badger_ and taken up
the Thames to imprisonment on the Tower tender for a further three or
four days. Thence they were removed, all handcuffed and chained, in a
barge and committed to the King’s Bench Prison. At Bow Street, on the
following day, they were all formally committed for trial, and then
remitted to the King’s Bench Prison for eleven weeks, before the case
came on.
On Friday, April 25th, 1823, the twenty-two prisoners were arraigned in
the High Court of Admiralty; Marinel Krans, master of the _Four
Brothers_, and his crew, nearly all of whom bore Dutch names, being
charged with wilfully and feloniously firing on the revenue cutter
_Badger_, on January 13th, 1823, on the high seas, about eight miles off
Dungeness, within the jurisdiction of the High Court of Admiralty of
England.
Mr. Brougham, afterwards Lord Brougham, defended, the defence being that
the _Four Brothers_ was a Dutch vessel, owned at Flushing, and her crew
Dutchmen. A great deal of very hard swearing went towards this ingenious
defence, for the crew, it is hardly necessary to say, were almost all
English. At least one witness for the prosecution was afraid to appear
in consequence of threats made by prisoners’ friends, and an affidavit
was put in to that effect. It appeared, in the evidence given by the
commander of the _Badger_ and other witnesses for the prosecution, that
the prisoners all spoke excellent English at the time of the capture, and
afterwards; but they, singularly enough, understood little or none when
in court, and had to be communicated with through the agency of an
interpreter.
In summing up, Mr. Justice Parke said the crime for which the prisoners
were tried was not murder, but was a capital offence. Two things, if
found by the jury, would suffice to acquit the prisoners. The first was
that no part of the vessel which they navigated belonged to any subject
of His Majesty; the other that one half of the crew were not His
Majesty’s subjects. For if neither of these facts existed, His Majesty’s
ship had no right to fire at their vessel. But if the jury believed that
any part of the vessel was British property, or that one half of her crew
were British subjects, then His Majesty’s ship _Badger_, under the
circumstances that had been proved, being on her duty, and having her
proper colours flying, was justified in boarding their vessel; and their
making resistance by firing at the _Badger_ was a capital offence. The
reason for the evidence respecting the distance of the vessels from the
French coast being given was that, by the law of nations, ships of war
were not, in time of peace, permitted to molest any vessel within one
league of the coast of any other power.
The jury, after deliberating for two hours, returned a verdict of “Not
Guilty” for all the prisoners, finding that the ship and cargo were
wholly foreign property, and that more than one half the crew were
foreigners. They were, accordingly, at once liberated, and returned to
Folkestone in midst of great popular rejoicings. The _Four Brothers_ was
also released, and the commander of the _Badger_ had the mortification of
being obliged to escort her out of Dover harbour.
Dover town was, about this time, the scene of stirring events. One
Lieutenant Lilburn, in command of a revenue cutter, had captured a
smuggler, and had placed the crew in Dover gaol. As they had not offered
armed resistance to the capture, their offence was not capital, but they
were liable to service on board a man-o’-war—a fate they were most
anxious to avoid. These imprisoned men were largely natives of
Folkestone and Sandgate, and their relatives determined to march over the
ten miles between those places and Dover, and, if possible, liberate
them. When they arrived in Dover, and their intention became known, a
crowd of fisherfolk and longshore people swarmed out of the Dover
alley-ways and reinforced them. Prominent among them were the women,
who, as ever in cases of popular tumult, proved themselves the most
violent and destructive among the mob. Nothing less than the destruction
of the gaol was decided upon, and the more active spirits, leaving others
to batter in the walls, doors, and windows, climbed upon the roof, and
from that vantage-point showered bricks and tiles upon the Mayor and the
soldiers who had been called out. The Mayor, beset with tooth and claw
by screeching women, who tore the Riot Act out of his hand, fled, and
Lieutenant Lilburn exhorted the officer in charge of the military to fire
upon the crowd, but he declined; and meanwhile the tradespeople and
respectable inhabitants busied themselves in barricading their shops and
houses.
[Picture: “Run the Rascals through!”]
The prisoners were triumphantly liberated, taken to a blacksmith’s, where
their irons were knocked off, and then driven off in post chaises to
Folkestone, whence they dispersed to their several hiding-places.
Romney was, about this time, the scene of another desperate affair, when
an attempted seizure of contraband brought all the smugglers’ friends and
relations out, in violent contest with the excise and a small party of
marines in command of which was one Lieutenant Peat. A magistrate was
sent for, who, amid a shower of stones, read the Riot Act. The
Lieutenant hesitated to resort to extreme force, but one of the smugglers
was eventually killed by him, in response to the magistrate’s order, in
respect of one of the most violent of the crowd: Secure your prisoner,
sir. Run the rascal through!