cleared for North Bergen in Norway. Of course he had no intention
whatever of steering for that port, but in case he met any of the
Custom House sloops as he approached the English coast, it would be
convenient to show this clearance and so prevent his brandy being
seized. From Dunkirk, then, he sailed across the North Sea and ran up
the river Humber. There, by previous arrangement, one of those keels
which are so well known in the neighbourhood of the Humber and Trent
met him. The keel had been sent from York down the Ouse with permits
to cover the brandy. The keel was cleared by a merchant at York, who
obtained permits for conveying to Gainsborough a quantity of French
brandy equal to that which Cockburn had on board his ship, though in
fact the keel, notwithstanding that she obtained these permits, set
forth with no brandy in her at all.

It was the point where the Ouse crosses the Trent at right angles that
had been arranged as the trysting-place, and there the keel took on
board from Cockburn the brandy which had come from Dunkirk. Cockburn
himself nailed the permits on to the heads of the casks, which in due
course were taken by the keel, when the flood tide made again, to
Gainsborough some distance up the Trent. Arrived there the casks were
properly taken into stock and entered in the Custom House books as if
the brandy had been actually brought down from York and had previously
paid duty. On this one venture the garrulous skipper admitted that he
cleared a profit by the brandy of £250 per cent., which was a
remarkably handsome reward for so short a voyage as from Dunkirk.

Port wines, he said, were purchasable at Dunkirk because these had
been taken from English merchantmen by privateers; and since there was
little or no market for such wines in Spain they were brought into
Dunkirk, whither resorted the smugglers eager to buy them. He