OVERBOARD 385

THE "RIVAL'S" INGENIOUS DEVICE 392

"TAKEN COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE" 398




King's Cutters & Smugglers


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


Outside pure Naval history it would be difficult to find any period so
full of incident and contest as that which is covered by the exploits
of the English Preventive Service in their efforts to deal with the
notorious and dangerous bands of smugglers which at one time were a
terrible menace to the trade and welfare of our nation.

As we shall see from the following pages, their activities covered
many decades, and indeed smuggling is not even to-day dead nor ever
will be so long as there are regulations which human ingenuity can
occasionally outwit. But the grand, adventurous epoch of the smugglers
covers little more than a century and a half, beginning about the year
1700 and ending about 1855 or 1860. Nevertheless, within that space of
time there are crowded in so much adventure, so many exciting escapes,