HISTORY of SUSSEX
A Story of Contraband in Sussex: Page 3
By no means all the smugglers were of the romantic and picturesque type,
and a peculiarly brutal murder committed by West Sussex smugglers created
a great sensation at the time, and has been recorded by contemporaries at
as great a length and with as great gusto as a modern divorce of celebrities
is reported by some of our news papers today.
This was the murder of William Galley, a custom house officer, and Daniel
Chater a shoemaker, by 14 notorious smugglers in 1748. At the trial at Chichester
seven were sentenced to be hanged. The grand jury of 27 included Sir J.
Miller, Sir M. Featherstonhaugh, John Page, S. Blunt, W. Mittord, J. Hollest,
F. Peachey, J. Goble, R. Nash, etc.: the petty jury the local names of Halstead,
North, Faulkner, Hobbs, Woods, etc. One of the bodies was hanged in chains
near Rake, on the Portsmouth road, one on the Trundle Hill near Chichester,
and two upon the seacoast near Selsey Bill.
Among the bigger smuggling lights of that period or a little later was
the case of 300 smugglers who went to Crowlink, near Eastbourne, to land
a cargo, but were stopped by a signal from their lookout man. Four nights
later they landed at Cliff Point, Seaford, 300 five-gallon casks, losing
only 60 and one horse.
Three years later a run was attempted at Bexhill, where seven smugglers
with 100 casks were taken. There was one night in May, 1856, when a smuggling
galley, chased by a coastguard boat, ran ashore near the mouth of Rye Harbour
and opened fire on the guard. Blockade men from Camber watch house came
to the rescue and seized one of the smugglers, whereupon a body of 200 of
his armed comrades rushed out from behind the sandhills, opened fire on
the blockade men, and were eventually driven off with the capture of their
galley.
In April, 1827, about 20 smugglers went to Fairlight, near Hastings. There
was a struggle with the preventive men, in the course of which the smugglers
wrested some muskets from their opponents, beat them with the butt-ends,
and ran one through with a bayonet.
Thackeray's smuggling romance of "Denis Duval " drew its inspiration,
as the author described in a characteristic letter to the Editor of the
" Cornhill," from the romantic criminals, the brothers Weston,
who lived at one time at the Grey Friars, Winchelsea. Passing as country
gentlemen "in the odour of perfect respectability," as Mr. Lucas
says, they for years ravaged the roads elsewhere as highwaymen, and were
eventually hanged at Tyburn.
Many a Sussex cottage and farmhouse still has its threat cellars and unsuspected
hiding-places where contraband cargoes of silks and spirits and tobacco
were stored by the "runners" on their way lo London, and many
a ghost story was invented in the old days to account for the mysterious
noises which wayfarers might hear by night in lonely places. It is related
of a Burwash child that when she was put to bed she was told, after she
had said her prayers, " Now mind, if the gentlemen come along, don't
you look out of the window. " The " gentlemen," explains
Mr. Lucas, " were the smugglers, and not to look at them was a form
of negative help, since he that has not seen a gentleman cannot identify
him."
Of another Burwash character the same writer relates that his grandfather
had 14 children, " all of whom were brought up to be smugglers."
A curiosity of Sussex smuggling days was formerly to be seen on Highdown
Hill, north of Ferring, where an eccentric miller, who lived in the eighteenth
century, is buried. The miller had a hobby for machinery and working models.
One of these, which he placed on the top of his house, showed a Customs
House officer with an upraised sword, pursuing a smuggler. At the heels
of the officer was an old woman, violently banging him with a broom. The
miller's funeral drew thousands together from various parts of the county.
His body was brought from his house by persons dressed in white, and followed
by young women similarly arrayed. He was carried all round the field in
which he was buried, and on the interment of the body a young woman read
a sermon.
As indicated in Congreve's verses quoted at the head of this chapter,
Sussex folk long had an unenviable reputation for their wrecking propensities.
How some of them " followed their own wilful minds" in this matter is recorded in a letter from Lord La Warr in 1550
to " My very special good friend Mr. Secretary Cecil, " the great ancestor of the Cecils of today.
Lord La Warr, in a stop-less, breathless letter, describes how one Thomas
Thickenor, of Beaumaris, Anglesey, had loaded a cargo of wheat and rye from
Brittany for Beaumaris, but unfortunately;
" On Wednesday last an hour before eight the same vessel by tempest
was driven on land here besides Shoreham three miles from me and the country
perceiving them in danger and like to be lost went thither where they were
arrived and the poor men which were marvellously wet both with the sea and
with rain and ready to perish of cold when they saw the country come so
fast upon them desired them to save their corn saying they should have the
one half for their labour and so, went to houses to succour themselves and
when they were gone the people not regarding those words fell to their spoil
and hewed the said ballinger and took away the boards and rails so that
by 8 or 9 of the clock in the morning they had left nothing there neither
of the corn nor of the vessel, saving the keel, two anchors and two cables,
a bonet and 5 or 6 small pieces of ordnance."
The sentence runs on for some lines further before coming to a halt, and
the writer proceeds to moralise sadly: " Surely the folks do increase
and grow to much disobedience as in robbing, killing, hunting, and other
idleness without any fear for lack of due execution of the king's laws as
ye may perceive by their acts that they do not regard God nor the king nor
their laws, but follow their own wilful minds."
A couple of centuries later the Shoreham men were still tough nuts to
crack, and the '' London Chronicle " for January 2nd, 1794, tells of
the adventure of a Shoreham smuggling cutter:
" Last Monday a row galley belonging to Shoreham Custom House fell
in with a smuggling cutter off the above place, and attempted to board her,
upon which one of the cutter's men appearing on deck, declared he would
not be boarded, and warned the boat's crew against the folly and peril of
making such an attempt, but in vain; when the more effectually to intimidate
them, without having recourse to more desperate means, several musket shots
were fired from the cutter over the heads of the boatmen, but with as little
effect ; for the coxswain being a man of greater resolution than judgment,
he persisted in his design until he had so provoked the smugglers that they
fired into his boat and killed one man, when the rest backed about and sheered
off, it is said, without obtaining the least knowledge of any of the persons
who had; though reluctantly, committed the murder, and would afterwards
have sunk the boat, but from some accidental miscarriage in the discharge
of their stern guns."
One seems to read in this ingenuous narrative a certain sympathy on the
part of the reporter of the "' Chronicle " with the men of the
smuggling cutter, so persistently interrupted in their business by the obstinate
coxswain of the king's craft.
In several of the wars between England and France in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries it would appear that both nations went on fishing as
usual, it being agreed that fishing vessels should not be interfered with.
When a similar proposal was made in 1744 the deputy mayor of Rye (J. Lamb)
wrote the following reply:
" Honoured Sirs, - Having a letter from a friend at Boulogne dated
4th of June, intimating that the Minister of France had presented a memorial
to our Court proposing a free fishery betwixt the two kingdoms desiring
this town to apply to the ministry in favour of the said proposal, I immediately
summoned the corporation and also the masters of the fishing boats, etc.,
to meet this morning at the Court Hall, when I read to them the said letter
and asked their opinion how far they thought such regulations would be for
the benefit of this nation and particularly the fishery, and it was unanimously
agreed by all present that it would be very injurious to us. Some of them
remember the ill effects of such agreement some part of the last French
war, when their boats used to come over full of men and a few nets; till
something better offered they pretended to fish; when any ships came in
sight they were privateers, and many vessels have been taken in that manner."
Cross-Channel passengers in the "good old times " were as ready
to diddle His Majesty's Customs in petty ways as their more numerous successors
in our own day. For instance, in 1788, passengers from the Continent concealed
a curiously miscellaneous collection of articles in their luggage.
There were "seized among the wearing apparel of Elizabeth Morris, a
passenger from France, 9 bunches fancy feathers at 2s. each, one piece thin
silk, about 20 yards, at 2s. per yard, 8 paper fans at 1s. each."
" Found among the Baggage of Mr. Robinson, a Passenger from France,
17½ dozen Pots Rouge at 7s. 6d. per dozen, 8 dozen snuff and other
small boxes at 4d. each, 55 straw toothpick cases at 2d. each, 68 torter
shell combs at 6d. each, 8 small ornamented Dressing Boxes at 3d. each,
63 ivory thimbles at 1s. per dozen, 48 torter shell slides for the Hair
at 1s. each, and 6 bottles perfumed waters at 1s. each."
A fan worth 8s. was seized in the trunk of the Rev. Mr. Alexander, a passenger
in the " Prince William Henry," for being prohibited; and two
fans worth 16s. in the baggage of Captain Seet, a passenger in the ''Lyon."
Into the 1900's with free trade and modern systems of coast patrol, the
contraband trade seemed to have run its course upon our coasts. But in more
recent years, as taxes upon goods such as tobacco, beers and wines amongst
others have risen, a new breed of smuggler has emerged in England and the
practise is again making headlines and the topic for many a serious debate,
especially by the Government.
If the tariff conditions of the near future render the game worth the
candle, it seems likely that the new preventive men (Customs officers),
will be " up against it" in a very literal sense.
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Smuggling in Sussex
