I have noticed of late (1886) an exceptional degree of spasmodic vigour in the direction of the suppression of smuggling. It is not, indeed, that the Customs’ people have afforded proofs more astonishing than usual of their peculiar power of discovering tobacco, spirits, eau-de-Cologne, cigars, and the like in inconceivable and apparently impracticable shipboard nooks and holes; the special display takes the comparatively unaccustomed form of small men-of-war chasing smack-rigged craft flying Dutch colours, and bearing the strange name of “coopers” or “copers.” It is not known, I think, that there is any British or other law which renders illegal the act of sailing the high seas with a hold freighted with spirits, tobacco, and perfumes. That this is so may be gathered from the case of a Dutch cooper which, after an “exciting chase,” was brought to and boarded by a small cruiser and carried into an English port. But she had not been long detained before orders arrived for her release. One sees in a thing of this kind how hard it is to squeeze the least drop of romance from marine events in these days. Chases may be “exciting:” but they are of the rocket pattern—fire going up and stick coming down. Where is now the burly smuggling salt with a face as big and as full of colour as a topside of beef, great fearnought trousers, and boots; a stout jacket, plentifully garnished with buttons; a striped shirt and a large silk neckerchief, and a belt broken by the shafts of knives, the hilt of a cutlass, the butt-ends and gleaming barrels of a brace or more of big pistols? “Old Stormy he is dead and gone!” is the burden of a sea-chorus that is very applicable to those heavy villains of the long-shore theatre, Dirk Hatterick and bold Will Watch. The issue of a chase in these times is strictly in correspondence with the decidedly sneaking way in which smuggling—such as it is—is carried on. The concealment of a few watches in the heels of a pair of shoes; yards of pigtail snugly coiled away in cheeses; cigars marvellously well packed in the hollow hearts of balks of timber; how dull, mean, twopenny are such devices in the face of the defiant heroism of those historic braves who, waiting for moonless nights, mastheaded their lug-sails in death-like silence, and stole out into the wide waters of the English, the Irish, the Bristol Channels, a mere blot of ink upon the dusk, crossing the hawse of cruisers like shadows of vaporous wings, and melting into the sullen gloom of some secret bay flanked by cliffs liberally honeycombed with caves and echoing corridors!^[32]

Long antecedent to the days in which the Dutch cooper coquets with her Majesty’s customs, and seduces Revenue cruisers into issueless pursuits, the smuggler gave the naval officer as much to do as the Frenchman or the Batavian. The fights were desperate; there was scarce an anker of run brandy that did not represent a life. It is not pleasant, perhaps, in the old pictures and book “embellishments” to see a smart frigate in hot pursuit of a top-sail lugger, and to know that yon puff of smoke at the bow of the chaser represents a cannon ball fired by an Englishman at his own countrymen. Whenever that sort of thunder is raised under the British Jack, you feel that the destination of the levin-brand which preceded it ought not at all events to be an English hull or an English breast. Nevertheless the blood will tingle to those early cuts and whole-page illustrations. How grandly the cruiser looms up astern! The spray breaks as far aft as the gangway, and the silver glitter sweeps in sparkling smoke over the sprit-sail yard that has been got “fore and aft” in readiness. Her royals soar cloud-like among the clouds, and her flag, as big as the main-topgallant-sail, streams its milky splendour of white bunting, crimson-crossed and nobly jacked in the corner, from the signal halliards at the end of the spanker gaff. But the eye, and, perhaps, the heart, is with that nimble shape in the foreground. She is a three-masted lugger, with yards long enough to give as much head to the canvas as would serve to blow a Royal George along. What a spring she has of bow! How elegant is the sweep of the line of her lee rail, lying dark amid the wash of cream there! Not so much as a puff from a musket-barrel answers that fore-chaser, blazing away at her astern. If the Revenue were not the abstraction that, with Charles Lamb, one somehow regards it, one would wish that saucy smuggler speedily overhauled. As it is, the sympathetic artist, by introducing a touch of thickness away to windward there, hints at the approach of a fog, and at the possibility, even yet, of that crouching whiskered crew successfully landing their tobacco, spirits, silk, and tea.

The old smuggling laws were somewhat stiff. Compared to them how mild are the penalties which the modern collector of Customs can press for! In the good old times, in the days of the fine old English gentleman—on whose account, by the way, it is nowhere recorded that any human being ever went into mourning—a penalty of £300 was imposed upon any master of a ship coming from abroad having more than one hundred pounds of tea on board or more than one hundred gallons of foreign spirits in casks under sixty gallons (besides two gallons for each seaman). Foreign spirits imported from any part of Europe, in a vessel containing less than sixty gallons, were forfeited along with the ship and her furniture. If any goods, such as tea or coffee, liable to forfeiture were found on board a ship bound from foreign ports, lying at anchor or “hovering” within two leagues of the coast, the ship, if not above two hundred tons, was forfeited. Any person selling coffee, tea, cocoa-nuts, or chocolate was forced to write “Dealer in coffee, etc.,” over his door under a penalty of £200. Illustrations of this kind make one see the sort of risks the smuggler ran in those days. Not but that the public should have held themselves very much obliged for all these penalties and punishments. It is on record that, information having been laid against some persons living in Dorsetshire for harbouring smuggled tea, their houses were searched, and there were found about thirty pounds of tea, mixed with leaves, and one thousand and thirty pounds weight of ash, elder, and sloe leaves, dried and prepared, ready for mixing with the tea! This was about the time when the poet Cowper in his nightcap was celebrating the merits of the cup that cheers. But did it not inebriate? Think of the proportion of a thousand and thirty pounds of ash, elder, and sloe leaves, to thirty pounds of the Hong merchant’s sample! All these leaves were got in the summer, and I read that the poor of the district were so well paid for collecting them, that the farmers could not obtain labourers for their harvests.

The war waged by the State against the smuggler was as vengeful as the hottest against a foreign foe. As an example: in 1784 the severity of the winter had obliged the smugglers to lay up a great number of their vessels. It was suggested to Mr. Pitt that a fine opportunity offered for destroying these boats, if sufficient force could be procured to prevent the smugglers from attempting a rescue. Pitt sent word to the war office for a regiment of soldiers to be at Deal on a certain day. The officer in command of the soldiers found on his arrival that the people of the town having got scent of what was to happen, had advised the publicans to pull down their signs that the soldiers should not be able to get quarters. They consented and no quarters were to be had. Eventually the men obtained shelter in a barn, but the officer had the utmost difficulty to procure provisions for them. Next day some cutters were seen lying off the beach and the soldiers marched down to the water. The inhabitants thought the troops would embark in the cutters. Then it was that the order was given to burn the boats, and the force being great, the people were obliged to stand idly looking on, not daring a rescue.

Those were days when a cruise against the smugglers promised some excellent pickings. One of the most successful of the cruising ships was the Atalanta, of eighteen guns, that was hardly paid off and her crew discharged when, such was her popularity, on being almost immediately re-commissioned men entered with extraordinary eagerness. In one short cruise alone she captured eight sail and nearly two thousand ankers of spirits, besides bale goods; and every man’s share of the prize money amounted to twice the value of his wages. The old reports run thus: “Came in the Atalanta, eighteen guns, Captain Mansfield, with a fine smuggling cutter of eighty tons, called the Admiral Pole, of Exeter, with one hundred and seventy ankers of spirits, taken after a long chase. She was seized some months since at Weymouth for having an over quantity of spirits on board, and was liberated on bond being given to the Board of Customs and Excise.” Or, “Came in, the Eagle, Excise cutter, Captain Ward, with a fine smuggling cutter, called the Swift (formerly the Bonaparte, French privateer), with five hundred tubs of brandy, after a long chase within the limits of the Dodman.” Or, “Sailed on a cruise against the smugglers, the Ranger, cutter, Captain A. Fraser.” Or, “Came in from a cruise against the smugglers, the Galatea, of thirty-six guns, Captain Wolfe.”

It will be judged that if bold Will Watch or belted Joe Marline succeeded in running his goods it was certainly not through lack of attention to him on the part of the King’s navy. And, as may be supposed, many black deeds of violence and murder are on record. The story of an assassination eminently characteristic of the old smuggling times is preserved in the Old Bailey annals. On the night of December 26, 1798, a Custom House officer went in a boat to look after smugglers near Cawsand Bay on the coast of Cornwall. He saw a sloop lying at anchor, the people of which hailed him, and asked him whose boat it was. He answered that it was a King’s boat. They warned him not to approach; if he did, they would fire on him; he was then some eight or ten fathoms distant from the sloop. His men, nothing daunted, continued to row, whilst he held the Revenue colours in his hand. The smugglers fired a volley from their muskets, slipped their cable, and made off. One of the men in the boat was killed. The smugglers were apprehended on the evidence of one of their own people. This man, named Tom Rogers, said that he was a sailor on board the vessel (named the Lottery) on the night referred to. They had just arrived from Guernsey with a cargo of smuggled spirits, and, at the moment of the approach of the Customs’ boat, they were discharging the tubs into boats alongside. The witness declared that after they had made sail, one of the crew named Potter said it was he who had fired, that he had taken good aim, and had seen a man drop in the boat. On this evidence Potter was found guilty, and hanged at Execution Dock.

But whatever may be thought of the morality of the smuggler, it is indisputable that his cutter or lugger was a magnificent nursery for seamen. The exploits of some of these fellows in respect of recaptures alone would fill a stout volume with wonderful instances of intrepidity and seamanship. Take the case of the Echo, of Poole, that was boarded by a French privateer, and retaken by the mate and a boy of twelve, who seized the helmsman, forced him below with two French seamen, battened them down, and brought them to Plymouth.

Of the Marquis of Granby, that was captured off the Goodwins by a French lugger; the captain and two men were put into the Frenchman’s boat, in order to be conveyed on board the privateer, that was giving chase to another vessel, and that, by carrying a press of sail, in a short time left the boat nearly five miles astern. On observing this the smuggling skipper wrested a sword out of the hands of the officer of the boat, and compelled the French sailors to row him back to his own ship. This done, he gallantly boarded her, sword in hand, and speedily cleared the deck of the Frenchmen, who, to save their lives, jumped overboard, and were picked up by their own boat. The smuggler then proceeded on his voyage; but what became of the French sailors was never known.

Of the William, that was captured by a privateer off Bridlington; all the crew, except three, were taken out and five Frenchmen put on board. The three Englishmen found means to choke the pumps with ashes, and made the Frenchmen believe the vessel was sinking. Sooner than go to the bottom they agreed to make for the nearest port, and eventually they carried the William to Sunderland. The Frenchmen, I read, were landed the same evening, “and have since been sent to Durham gaol.”

Of the Beaver, that was captured by a French privateer, named La Braave, of eighteen guns and seventy men. They put a prize-master and four seamen in the prize, leaving only the captain and a boy on board. The skipper contrived to secure the French prize-master by seizing him in the cabin and fastening his hands behind him; he then ran on deck with a crow-bar and a pistol, and in the scuffle the steersman fell overboard, and was drowned. The other three were aloft. The English captain, taking the helm, ordered them to remain aloft, or he would shoot them. In this manner he steered the vessel all night, and next morning sighting an English frigate, signalled and was brought safely to port by her. There is something not a little humorous in the thought of those three Frenchmen hanging on aloft all night, the smuggling Britisher at the helm, steering with one hand and with the other covering them with a pistol.

These are but a plum or two from a pudding very rich with such fruit. Somehow the British mariner of that period never could be taught to respect the French seaman as an adversary. Again and again you read of a man and a boy out-manoeuvring and subduing a fair ship’s company of wooden-shoes. I sometimes fancy that Napoleon Bonaparte helped to confirm the Englishman’s indifference to the French mariner—the intellectual heritage of years of conquest—by his coddling policy of dress and treatment. The uniform he himself designed for his nautical braves consisted of a blue jacket in the manner and of the cut of those of dragoons; red waistcoat with gilt buttons, and blue cloth pantaloons; red stockings, pointed shoes with round buckles, cropped hair “without powder!” They were ordered to change their shirts three times a week, and when on shore to wear small cocked hats. They were also provided with red nightcaps, ordered to be washed once a week. Every man had two nightcaps and two neckcloths. They were obliged to comb their hair three times in the seven days, and to be shaved twice a week. Their captains called them “mes enfans.” It was impossible for Jack to have a high opinion of marine masqueraders after this pattern, and when it came to fighting, the more the merrier, as you notice in the actions of smuggling men and boys.

The smugglers often turned out some fine useful seamen. There was Mr. Harry Paulet, who happened to be sneaking home with a cargo of brandy one morning when the French fleet, under Conflans, had stolen out of Brest, while Admiral Hawke lay concealed behind Ushant to watch the motions of the enemy. Paulet, loving his country better than his cargo, ran up to the British admiral, and, asking leave to speak to him, was allowed to go aboard. On his telling what he knew of the enemy, Hawke said if he was right he would make his fortune; but that if he lied he would hang him at the yard-arm. The fleet was instantly under weigh, and by Paulet’s directions was presently brought between the enemy and the French coast. The admiral then ordered Paulet into his own vessel; but the bold smuggler begged leave to remain, that he might assist in beating the enemy. This favour was granted, a station was assigned to Paulet, who fought like a gamecock, and when the battle was over he was sent home with a pocket full of letters of commendation, and subsequently rewarded in such a manner as to enable him to live in ease during the rest of his life. The famous comedian, Parsons, used to say that “he would rather spend a crown to hear Harry Paulet relate one of Hawke’s battles than sit gratis by the most celebrated orator of the day. There was,” said Parsons, “a manner in his heart-felt narrations that was certain to bring his auditors into the very scene of action; and when describing the moments of victory I have seen a dozen labouring men, at the Crown public house, rise together and, moved by an instantaneous impulse, give three cheers while Harry took breath to recite more of his exploits.”

Johnson, a smuggler, achieved amazing reputation as a pilot and seaman. He was several times locked up, laid in irons, as for instance in the New Jail in the Borough, and the Fleet, but always managed to break out, and at this work was a complete Jack Sheppard. He went to Holland, and his fame as a seafarer having spread, the French Government offered to make a settlement of £600 a year upon his family if he would engage in the attempt to invade England; but the bold smuggler was a patriot, and said no. His life was then threatened, but the skill that was equal to a Borough jail was superior to a French prison. Johnson got away, came home, and received King George’s pardon in consideration of “qualities which would do honour to a more elevated state.” But smugglers after the pattern of Paulet and Johnson have long ceased to flourish. Well may the old tar sing:

Will Watch has flung down his hanger and pistols, and appears in the more amiable and less hazardous part of a ship’s steward, a lascar, a foremast seaman, with a few pounds of cigars in his shirt or a cube of honeydew under his bunk boards. The coastguard, it is true, still keeps a look-out; but if it were not for the gardens and lawn-tennis grounds which his superior officer sets him to work upon, he would find his calling very dull and uneventful.