ASmuggling Days and Smuggling Ways, by the Hon. H. N. Shore, R.N.
ASmuggling Days and Smuggling Ways, by the Hon. H. N. Shore, R.N.
But the Kentish and Sussex smugglers did not stop at bribery or corruption. If it was felt that either an informer had been at work, or that the coast was too well guarded to make a successful run possible, it was the practice of the smugglers to make their arrangements to assemble in force sufficiently strong to overpower the patrol and then the cargo was run under the “preventives’” very noses. As a rule, the “runs” made upon the Kentish and Sussex coasts were what was known as “direct.” That is to say, the boats which brought over the goods were sufficiently small or of sufficiently light draught to permit of their being beached or brought close inshore without the necessity (as was the case further west) of transhipment of the bales and tubs into smaller boats to be rowed ashore. The type of craft most in favour in the Deal and Folkestone districts were galleys, rowing ten or twelve oars and very fast, which could easily make the cross Channel passage in three or four hours in favourable weather. Or what were known as “tub-boats,” mere shells, which would not ride out a gale, knocked together out of the flimsiest and cheapestmaterials, and consequently of so little value (compared with the cargoes they conveyed) that they were frequently abandoned after the run, and were never troubled about in the case of a surprise, but left to their fate and to capture with little distress on the part of their owners. As a rule, these “tub-boats” were towed across Channel by French luggers, which left them when they had been brought within a mile or two of the coast, when sweeps were got out and the flimsy but heavily laden craft were brought inshore or beached.
Amongst the most famous of the larger smuggling craft of the district may be mentioned theBlack Rover, of Sandwich, which had a most ingenious method of concealing goods in tin cases; theIsis, of Rye, which was fitted with a false bow; and theMary Ann, of the same place, fitted with a false keel. A Folkestone boat taken in 1828 was found to have a most ingenious concealment “running from the stern to the transom, and from keel up to the underpart of the thwarts.”
How profitable smuggling was few people nowadays, we fancy, realize. There is, of course, the vague knowledge surviving that great fortunes were made by the most successful smugglers, but the amount of profit upon a single successful run is not generally known.
A very common practice was for a number of people to “club” together to provide the funds for a “run,” which generally ruled at £1 per “tub.” Some would, say, take fifty shares (i.e., “tubs”); others more or less as the case might be. The captain of a likely vessel was engaged to make the trip for a lump sum varying in amount according to the size of the cargo, seldom, however, falling much below £100. Then the men of the crew would have to be paid from £25 down to £10 a piece, according to the amount involved and the demand for men at the time. In France the “tubs” would cost from 17s. to 18s., and each English sovereign was worth in purchasing value about twenty-one shillings; but, taking it all round, to thepersons engaged in financing the run the cost would amount to £1 per “tub,” the difference being taken by the captain for incidental expenses, such as sinkers, rope, food for crew on trip, etc. Then there would be an additional £1 to pay for each “tub” successfully “run” and delivered to the adventurers. The total cost was thus about £2 per tub; the value of each on this side of the Channelhad the duty been paid£6 to £6 5s. Then it should not be forgotten that the spirit was so greatly above proof (generally 70%, and sometimes as high as 180%) that it could be diluted to twice, three, or even four times its bulk, so that each “tub” would ultimately produce from £12 to £20. Or in profit—less, of course, the amount paid to the captain and men of the boat—£10 to £18 per tub according to the amount of dilution which the strength of the original spirit allowed. On a cargo of 200 “tubs” or more it will be easily seen that the profit to be divided was enormous, and if the venture was that of a single individual half-a-dozen successful runs would almost make his fortune.
In the event of a cargo being seized the loss was in a very much less proportion. It consisted merely of the £100 paid the captain, the amount paid the men in the boat, and £1 per tub. It is little wonder then that, in the days to which we refer, smuggling was rife all along the coast from the North Foreland to Penzance.
How prosperous the smuggling trade of Folkestone was in the early years of the last century may be gathered from the following statement made by an old smuggler of Lydd. This old man used frequently to run across Channel in one of the smuggling galleys, taking with him a quantity of English guineas (which could easily be disposed of at Gravelines, Calais, or Boulogne for twenty-five to thirty shillings apiece), the proceeds of which he would invest in a cargo of tobacco, silk, lace, and spirits. In this way he made, if the “run” were successful, a double profit. On occasion, too, he would obtainvaluable information regarding the movements of the French fleet, and then on his way back across the Channel he would run alongside any English man-o’-war he came across, and let them know all he had been able to learn. This same smuggler used to say that in those times guineas were so common amongst the smuggling fraternity that they used to play pitch and toss with them.
A not uninteresting light upon the way in which Napoleon financed his wars is to be gathered from the following statement, which is taken from O’Meara’sNapoleon at St Helena: “I got bills on Vera Cruz, which certain agents sent by circuitous routes ... to London, as I had no direct communication. The bills were discounted by merchants in London, to whom ten per cent, and sometimes a premium, was paid as their reward.... Even for the equipping of my last expedition after my return from Elba a great part of the money was raised in London.” Napoleon also added that the gold was brought over to France by the smugglers.
There also would appear but little doubt that the smugglers were few of them above selling information to the French of the movements of the English fleet, the mobilization of troops, and the progress of works for the defence of the country from invasion. At all events, Napoleon abundantly testified that he was kept informed by them of “every important occurrence and movement of the enemy (English) by these men.”
Their treachery was suspected by the authorities, but we believe comparatively seldom discovered and brought home to the traitors.
No wonder then that Folkestone old town is, or certainly was but a few years ago, a nest of ingenious hiding-places, relics of the smuggling days, which were often so cleverly constructed that their discovery was only made when a beam had been removed, or alterations had to be made, and sometimesnot until the house in which they were was entirely pulled down.
There are, of course, many smuggling stories connected with Folkestone houses. One of the best is as follows: On a certain night in November in the year 1826 a cargo had been successfully run between Hythe and Folkestone by a noted smuggler, and a portion of it had been brought into the latter town and safely secreted. However, one of the Folkestone coastguards got wind of the fact, and in the very early morning appeared with a strong band of “preventives” in the street in which the smuggler’s house stood. Their summons did not at once meet with an answer, but at length, after repeated hammerings on the door and shutters of the windows of the ground floor, which noise aroused the whole street, Nancy Morris, the daughter of the smuggler, thrust her head from the upper window and, rubbing her eyes as though aroused out of sleep, inquired what was wanted.
“Open in the King’s name!” exclaimed the officer in command. “And look sharp about it, my lass, or ’twill be the worse for you, and your old fox of a father.”
Nancy did not hurry downstairs, but after a few moments the door was opened, the “preventives” streamed into the kitchen, and then, seeing no one save the girl and a child, a boy of about twelve asleep in a nook by the fire, several of the men went upstairs. No one was to be discovered, however. But the officer was not satisfied. He decided to remain on guard himself, and, after whispering to two or three of his men (for smugglers were at times rough customers to manage single-handed) to be handy if required, he sat down to pass the time as best he might. Nancy was pretty; the coastguard lieutenant was a sailor man. Nancy was also resourceful, and a gentle flatterer to boot. And so it is little wonder that the lieutenant succumbed to her charms, drank her health, fell incontinently into a doze, which, by reason of Miss Nancy’shaving drugged the cognac, became a deep sleep. And then down the chimney, at a signal from his clever daughter, crept sturdy William Morris, choking a bit with the smoke, but otherwise no worse. A few moments later a trap was lifted in the floor of the back-kitchen and the smuggler disappeared. Nancy let down the flap, re-sanded the floor carefully, and returned to attempt to arouse the unwelcome guest.
By the time he was brought to himself and to a knowledge that he had most probably been tricked, William Morris was sitting comfortably in the parlour of a house several hundred yards away, having reached that haven of refuge at first by an underground passage leading to a near-by house, and afterward by a back alley.
The lieutenant had nothing to boast of, and as there was not much to his credit at all in the adventure he kept his own counsel. Nancy was profuse in her expressions of delight at his “nice rest.”
“Sir,” said she, “you must indeed have needed it sadly.”
And we can well imagine her laughter when the house door closed after her crestfallen guest.
It was not till comparatively recent years that this old house was pulled down, and the connecting passage, “tub hole,” under the back kitchen floor, and the hiding-place in the chimney stack, about 7 ft. by 2 ft. by 3ft., were disclosed.
Many more like yarns were current years ago, but we must up anchor and set our faces once more westward.
The coastline from Folkestone onwards decreases in height, but Dungeness lies ahead, known as the most dangerous of all headlands between the North Foreland and Spithead. As we drop Folkestone astern and cruise along the pleasant shore, with the high range of the Downs behind it inland, one passes Hythe of historic memory, now a clean, modern town, though no longer a port; and behind it Saltwood, with theancient tower breaking through the encompassing woods. Here it was that the murder of the great Archbishop Thomas A’Becket was planned, and hence the murderers, headed by one Ranulf de Broc, owner of the stronghold, set forth on their dastardly mission. It was to the castle also they afterwards returned to find (so tradition tells us) that the table set in the great hall for their entertainment and refreshment declined to bear the viands, whilst the torches kindled to give them light turned sickly and flickered out.
Soon Dungeness looms ahead with the wide stretching Romney Marsh, beloved in ancient times by outlaws, and in later ones the rendezvous of the most desperate and successful of the Kentish smugglers, on our starboard quarter. Reminiscent of Holland, and having its saving dyke in Dymchurch Wall three miles long, it was in the early years of the last century a wild desolate expanse so given over to the smugglers that they were powerful enough to make one parson at least give them the freedom of one of the aisles of his church as a store for contraband. But the parsons of those days were not above receiving a “tub” which had never paid duty for themselves, and a bale of silk or lace for their wives and daughters.
The Romney Marsh has been, from time immemorial, the refuge of malefactors in the broadest sense of the word. Here, in Saxon times, doubtless hid recalcitrant thanes and vassals; and in the Middle Ages those who had put themselves outside the protection of the Church, or had broken the law; later, some of the pirates of the Cinque Ports, whose predatory expeditions at times were on the point of embroiling not only the fisherfolk of the adjoining coast upon which they preyed, but even the two nations to which they belonged; afterwards hunted Royalists took refuge here until some opportune moment for escaping to France presented itself: then, later still, in the early Georgian era, those who adhered to the Stuartsmet and plotted and drank “to the King over the water”; and, but a little later still, escaped prisoners of war were secreted in its midst till the smugglers, who were generally concerned in their escape, could arrange on some favourable night to convey them across Channel. What stirring romances could be written of the dark and secret doings of Romney Marsh?
Once round Dungeness, however, and Rye is before one. It is not nowadays much of a port, indeed, as such its greatness has departed, leaving it a quaint, old-world place, with an air of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries hanging about it. It is almost impossible to believe that once it was a flourishing and important place, one of the seven head ports—not merely a “limb” of the Confederacy—and capable as late as the reign of George II of affording a haven of refuge for large ships.
There is delightful country in the immediate vicinity, for Rye is at the confluence of the valley of the three streams, the Rother, Tillingham, and Brede. In the architecture of Rye, if one has ventured into its harbour, which is nowadays difficult of entrance and exit, one finds some delightful bits of almost medieval date: hoary roofs and towers and moss-grown walls. It is difficult to believe that once the “French walked the streets, slaying all they could meet with, afterwards burning the houses.” Just as they did, we may remark, at Sandwich, Winchelsea, Yarmouth, Dartmouth, and many another town upon our south coast. No one who comes into Rye Haven should leave it without going up to Rye town and inspecting the ancient parish church, which shares with several others the distinction of being the largest in England. In it is the oldest clock in the country, and the North Chapel is an exquisite piece of thirteenth-century work.
Off Rye and Winchelsea took place on August 29, 1350, the great fight between the fleet of Edward III and the Spaniards(L’Espagnols sur mer), in which the latter, superior in size and numbers, were defeated with a loss of twenty-six out of their forty large ships. From Winchelsea Queen Philippa anxiously watched the varying fortunes of the day. She had more than an impersonal interest in the result, for in the thick of the manœuvring vessels, where the fight was fiercest, we are told was the ship on which were the King himself and his two sons.
The Winchelsea at which William the Conqueror landed in 1067, with its seven hundred houses and more than two score inns, was swept away by the sea, although the site on which it stood was destined once again in the course of the centuries to emerge as dry land. The commencement of the disasters which ultimately overwhelmed the town is thus described by an anonymous (?) author much quoted by Grose and others: “In the month of October, 1250, the moon, upon her change, appearing exceeding red and swelled, began to show tokens of the great tempest of wind that followed, which was so huge and mightie, both by land and sea, that the like had not been lightlie knowne, and seldome, or rather never, heard of by men then alive. The sea forced contrarie to his natural course, flowed twice without ebbing, yeelding such a rooring that the same was heard (not without great wonder) a farre distance in from the shore.” We are further told that the sea was strangely phosphorescent, and that the mariners could not save their ships, “three tall ships perishing without recoverie, besides other smaller vessels.” And, moreover, several of the churches and some three hundred of the houses were “drowned.” Though, doubtless, frightened, the inhabitants did not desert their stricken town. Perhaps they would have been wiser had they done so, for thirty-seven years later, on February 4, 1287, the remaining portion, to all intents and purposes, was (to use Holinshed’s quaint word) “drowned.”
The new Winchelsea, which has, in a measure at least, come down to us at the present time, was speedily commenced under the patronage of Edward I himself. Into this town, and through its then prosperous streets, marched 3,000 French three-quarters of a century later, in 1359, “to its great harme and terrible destruction.” This was not by any means the last time that the hereditary enemies of the inhabitants of the Cinque Ports landed, for they were successful then, and again in 1378, after having been driven off two years before by the militant Abbot of Battle Abbey with great loss. These French attacks were, to a large extent, retaliatory measures for those of the men of Winchelsea; and at last, in consequence of the piratical doings of the latter, we are told by Pennant, Prince Edward attacked the town, took it by storm, and put to the sword all the chief offenders, saving the rest, to whom he granted much better terms than they had any right to expect.
Now Winchelsea is suffering from the gentle decay which seems to envelop rather than attack places which have once been ports and are so no longer by reason of Nature’s want of kindliness. Amidst its pleasant houses and pretty gardens, in which all flowers that love the sun and the salt air of the coast flourish amazingly, one seems to breathe the atmosphere of somnolent repose, tinctured with the salt which rests upon lip and cheek to tell of the not far distant sea which once lapped the foot of its now vanished castle.
Winchelsea’s fine church, dating from Edward I’s time, was unhappily destroyed by the French, who left only the chancel and side aisles standing. This fragment, isolated in the midst of a green God’s acre, is, however, well worth visiting. The roof beams of the building are said to have been made from the timber of wrecked or dismantled ships, “stuff the like of which is seldom nowadays found,” as a well-known antiquary puts it.
The chief glory of the church, however, lies in the marvellously carved canopied tombs of those merchant princes and admirals of the Cinque Ports of long ago, Gervaise and Stephen Alard, grandfather and grandson. There are few, if any, finer in Sussex.
The old Grey Friars Priory, or what was left of it, was the habitation in Georgian times of two brothers, George and Joseph Weston by name, who, whilst apparently pursuing the peaceful and respectable avocations of country gentlemen, were actually highwaymen, the terror of the Kentish and Sussex high roads and those of counties further afield, and, withal, were daring and successful robbers of coaches. They were eventually “taken” and ultimately hanged, amid much excited interest, at Tyburn. It is they and their adventures which form the basis of Thackeray’s unfinished romance,Denis Duval, which he wrote on the spot in a house standing near the churchyard.
Thackeray, in a letter to the editor of theCornhill Magazine, in which he gives a good many interesting details of the incidents upon which his story is founded, whilst referring to other Winchelsea and Rye characters, says of the Westons: “They were rascals, too. They were tried for robbing the Bristol mail in 1780, and, being acquitted for want of evidence, were tried immediately afterward on another indictment for forgery; Joseph was acquitted, but George was capitally convicted.” Joseph was not destined to escape, however, for, as the novelist goes on to say, “Before their trials they and some others broke out of Newgate, and Joseph fired at and wounded a porter who tried to stop him on Snow Hill. For this he was tried and found guilty on the Black Act, and hung along with his brother.”
It was in the churchyard of Winchelsea that John Wesley, who was almost always travelling about the country, preached his last open-air sermon, in 1790, under the shelterof the great tree on the western side, “to many folk,” we are told, “some few of which were converted so that tears ran a-down their cheeks.”
And thus the greatness of Winchelsea, stranded as it is from the lapping of the channel surges, though the boom of them when angry can be heard, is of the past.