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186 The Polperro people made common cause of this, and resolved at once to preserve Potter and to punish Toms. The revenue men knew the danger in which the latter stood, and they took him on board a cutter cruising off the coast.

On a certain occasion the cutter was off Polruan, when some of the Polperro men persuaded Toms' wife to decoy him on land, solemnly assuring her that they would not touch his life, and that all they desired was to remove the only evidence that existed against Potter.

She fell in with their wishes, and by her means Toms was seized and at once carried off, kept in hiding-places till an opportunity occurred, when he was shipped to Guernsey, preparatory to conveying him to America. But he was traced, and was pounced on by the Government officers in the hold of an outward-bound vessel.

Meanwhile the dragoons, who had been engaged in the search at home, discovered that their movements were observed, and that intelligence of their approach from Plymouth was sure to precede them to Polperro. A detachment was therefore sent to Truro, with orders to march from the west, in which way they were enabled to come on Polperro unobserved. On one of these visits Potter was captured. He was taken to London, tried at the Old Bailey, convicted on the evidence of Toms, and hanged. The evidence, however, was strongly believed to be false. The shot had entered the breast of Bowden in a direction opposite to the fire of the smugglers; and one of the coastguardsmen