The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft

Bo-Peep, and Fairlight-The Smugglers' Route from Shoreham and Wor

ncidents, or perhaps seem so to do, because, with the growth of country newspapers, th

men from the watch-house at Camber then arrived upon the scene and seized one of the smugglers; whereupon a gang of not fewer than two hundred armed smugglers, who had until that moment been acting as a concealed reserve, rushed

vel called "Pett Horse-race." They had, in the dark, missed the spot where it was fordable. Romney Marsh, and the wide-spreading levels of Pett, C

them. Barham, ordained in 1813, and given the curacy of Westwell, near Ashford, had not long to wait before being brought into touch with the lawless doings here. One of the desperate smugglers of the Marsh had been shot through the body in a

mong them, I hope," exclaimed t

as the startling resp

yal Military Canal by a bridge. Often, as the clergyman was returning, late at night, to his comfortable parsonage at Warehorne, he was met and stopped by some mysterious horsemen; but when he mentioned his name he was invariably allowed to proceed, and, as he did so, a long and silent company of moun

on a night in May, or in the early hours of the morn

s, followed by the blockade-men, and, from their knowledge of the ground, were indebted for their ultimate escape. We regret to state two of the blockade seamen were wounded; one severely in the arm, which must cause amputation, and the other in the face, by slug shots. There can be no doubt but that some of the smugglers must have been wounded, if not killed. One of their muskets was picked up loaded-abandoned, no doubt, by the bearer of it, on account of wounds. The boat, with her cargo, was obliged

of a few days later, c

as occurred, as on the following morning blood was observed near the spot. Two men, it is said, belonging to the boat are taken prisoners, and two of the blockade are reported to be much bruised and beaten, and it is also suspected some of the smugglers are seriously,

muggled goods at Dover, the smugglers shot dead a seaman of the p

known by the eminently respectable-not to say imposing-name of "West Marina"; but in those times it was a shore, not indeed lonely (better for its reputation had it been so) but marked by an evil-looking inn, to which were attached still more evil-lookin

sh-poles, some six feet in length, rushed to the beach, landed the cargo, and made off with it, by various means, inla

-men were repulsed and one, Quartermaster Collins, killed. In the first volley fired by the blockade an old smuggler named Smithurst was killed; his body w

ed, for purposes of smuggling, and were removed for trial to the Old Bailey, where, on April 10th, they all pleaded guilty; as did Whiteman, Thomas Miller, Spray, Bennett, and Ford, together with Thomas Maynard and

d on the beach, and formed up two lines of guards while the landing of the tubs, and their loading into carts, on horses, or on men's shoulders, was proceeding. If the preventive officers knew anything of what was toward that busy d

eph Harrod, were shot dead, and on February 22nd, 1832, at Worthing, when between two and three hundred smuggl

assembled in large numbers, killed George Pett, chief boatman of the local preventive station, and ran their car

e marshes at Camber Castle, on April 1st, 1838, when a poor fiddler of Winchelsea, nam

o dwell on a lighter note, to contemplate the audacity, and to admire the ingenuit

eived the goods and took them inland, to London or to their intermediate storehouses in the country-side, very much at their leisure. Avoiding the much-travelled high-roads, and traversing the chalk-downs by unfrequented bridle-tracks, they went across the level Weald and past the Surrey border into that still lonely district running east and west for many miles, on the line of Leith Hill, Ewhurst, and Hindhead. There, along those wooded heights, whose solitary ways still astonish, with their remote aspect, the Londoner who by any chance comes to them, although but from thirty to thirty-five miles from the Bank of England in the City of London, you may still track, amid the pine-trees on the shoulders of the gorsy hills, or among the oaks that grow so luxuriantly in the Wealden clay, the "soft roads," as the country folk call them, along which the smugglers, unmolested, carried their merchandise. On Ewhurst Hill stands a windmill, to which in those times the smugglers' ways converged; and near by, boldly perched on a height, along the sylvan road that leads from Shere to Ewhurst village, stood the "Windmill," once the "New" inn, which had a double roof, utilised as a storehouse for clandestine kegs. A "Windmill" inn stands on the spot to-day, but it is a new building,

e inglenook, with its iron crane, marked "John Ticknor, 1755." The Barhatch woods were often used by smugglers, and the Ticknors never had any occasion to purchase spirits, because, at not infrequent intervals, w

height of two hundred and ninety-nine feet, two miles inland; a spot famed in all guidebook lore of this neighbourhood as the site of the "Miller's Tomb." This miller, whose real business of grinding corn seems to have been supplemented by participation in the stern joys of illegal

trade he carries on a very considerable one in smuggled goods." Let us pause a moment to reflect upon the impudent public manner in which John Olliver must have carried on his smuggling activities. To this impudence he added also figures on his house-top, representing a miller filling a sack and a smuggler chased by an exciseman with a drawn sword; after the exciseman coming a woman with a broom, belabouring him about the head. The tomb the miller had built for eventual occupation by his body was in the meanwhile generally occupied by spirits-not the spirits of the dead, but such eaux de vie as hollands and cognac; and he h

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on to Portsmouth, Nature would seem almost to have constructed the entire surroundings with the espe

side and Hayling Island on the other. There still stands on a quay by the waterside at Langston the old "Royal Oak" inn, which was a favourite gathering-place of the "free-traders" of these p

the Forest of Bere, at this point runs briskly into the creek, after having been penned up and made to form a mill-leat. It runs firstly, moat-like, in front of a charming old house, formerly the miller's residence, and then to the great waterwheel, and the mill itself, a tall, four-square building of red brick, not at all beautiful, but with a certain air of reserve all the more apparent, of course, because it is now deserted, bolted, and barred: steam flour-mills of more modern construction having, it may be supposed, successfully competed with its antiquated ways. But at no time, if we are to believe local legend, did Bedhampton Mill depend greatly upon its milling for prosperity. It was

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muggling era was really ended, we may see from one of the annual reports issued by the Commis

atch, a boat was observed coming from a small vessel about a mile from the shore. The boat, containing four men, stopped opposite the hut, landed one man and some bags, while the remainder of the crew took her some two hundred yards off, hauled her up, and then proceeded to the hut. One of our men was instantly despatched for assistance, while the other remained, watching. On his return with three policemen, the whole party went to the hut, where they found two men on watch outside and four inside, asle