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

anvey Island-Bradwell Quay-The East Anglian "Cart Gaps"-A B

e; although the longer sea-passages to be made elsewhere of course stood greatly in the way of the "free-traders" of those less favoured regions. After Kent and Sussex, the east coast was probably the most favourable for smuggling. The distance across the North Sea

n was shown by the yokels of those other counties. The stolid, ox-like rustics of the country-side there, as along the margin

the being of the men who dared tempestuous winds and waves there existed, as a rule, a more sportsmanlike and generous spirit. Something of the traditional heartiness inseparable from sea-life impelled them to give and take without the black blood that seethed evilly in the veins of the landsmen. The seamen, it seeme

how us why the land-smugglers of the Home Counties should have been so criminal, w

e Hawkhurst type of outrage. Smugglers there pulled a man out of bed, whipped him, tied him naked on a ho

asked to be shown the way to the custom-house. They had no sooner been shown it than there followed thirty smugglers, well armed with blunderbusses and pistols, who, with a heavy blacksmith's hammer and a crowbar, broke open the warehouse, in which a large quantity of dutiable goods was stored

d carried on a more than questionable business, was reputedly a nest of smugglers. The "Lobster Smack," a quaint old weatherboarded inn built just within the old earthen sea

th of the Blackwater there branch other creeks and estuaries leading past Mersea Island to Colchester; and here, looking out upon a melancholy sea, and greatly resembling a barn, stands the ancient chapel of St. Peter-upon-the-Wall, situated in one

ib" with the free-traders, and Pewit Island, just off the quay, a desolate islet almost awash, formed an admirable emergency store. The old stone-floored kitchen of the "Green Man," nowadays a cool and refreshing place in which to take a modest quen

encounter in which Mr. Toby, Supervisor of Excise, lost an eye in contending with a gang of smugglers at Caister, near Yarmouth, in A

and the chief problem of the free-traders of those parts was therefore often how to cover up the tracks they left so numerously in their passage across to the hard roads. In this resort the shepherds were their mainstay, and for the usual considerati

arly morn. Beneath the seaweed were, of course, numerous kegs. Sometimes the preventive men confiscated horses and carts, as well as their loads, and all were put up for sale. On one of these painful occasions the local custom-house officer, who knew a great deal more of the sea and its ways than he did of horses, was completely taken in by a farmer-confederate of the smugglers whose horses had been seized. The farmer went to make an offer for the animals, and was taken to see them. The season of the year was th

t any rate, is likely to bring, on occasion, curious local history to light. Not infrequently, in

stanton churchyard, on the coast of Norfolk, is pre-eminent, both for its grot

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the prisoners was undoubted, brought in a verdict of "Not guilty"; whereupon Mr. Murphy, counsel for the prosecution, moved for a new trial, observing that if a Norfolk jury were d

fter three hours' deliberation the prisoners were again found "Not guil

rhung with fine trees. Such ancient ways, including the many old drove-roads in the north, never turnpiked, made capital soft going, and, rarely touching villages or hamlets, were of a highly desirable, secretive nature. The origin of the Peddar's, or Padder's, Way is still in dispute among antiquaries, some seeing in it a Roman road, others conceiving it to