Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/373

Rh from all ports, our smugglers did a rare business in conveying prohibited English wares to France and returning with smuggled spirits to our shores, reaping a harvest both ways. If a revenue cutter hove in sight and gave chase, they sank their kegs, but with a small buoy above to indicate where they were, and afterwards they would return and "creep" for them with grappling irons. But the preventive officers were on the alert, and although they might find no contraband on the vessel they overhauled, yet the officers threw out their irons and searched the sea in the wake of the ship, and kept a sharp look-out for the buoys. If the contraband articles were brought ashore, and there was no opportunity to remove them at once, they were buried in the sand, to be exhumed when the coast was clear.

The smugglers had more enemies to contend with than the preventive men. As they were known to be daring and experienced sailors, they were in great request to man the navy, and every crib and den was searched for them that they might be impressed.

The life was hard, full of risks, and although these men sometimes made great hauls, yet they as often lost their cargoes and their vessels. They were very frequently in the pay of merchants in England, who provided them with their ships and bailed them out when they were arrested. Rarely did a smuggler realize a competence, he almost invariably ended his days in poverty. One of the most notorious of the Devon free-traders was Jack Rattenbury, who was commonly called "The Rob-Roy of the West." He wrote his Memoirs when advanced in life, and when he had given up smuggling, not that the trade had lost its attraction for him, but because he suffered from gout, and he ended his days as a contractor for blue-lias lime for the harbour in course of erection at Sidmouth.