Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/435

 of rum, besides three hundred gallons pumped out of different casks, and a large quantity of coffee, which were proved to have been plundered from one vessel.

In another case, in August 1794, a small vessel arrived in the river from Antigua, with seventy hogsheads of sugar, five of which were actually stolen by three tidesmen in collusion with the mate and a well-known receiver. In this case the master of the vessel, happening to be a stranger, had expressed so much apprehension with regard to the dishonesty of the lumpers, that the revenue officers proposed, with a view of allaying his fears, to discharge the cargo. The result being that, while he remained on shore in fancied security, he lost one-fourteenth part of the whole!

One gigantic system of plunder seems to have prevailed throughout. There were "scuffle-hunters," who offered their services in long aprons, well adapted to wrap up and conceal whatever they could pilfer, and who were "longshore" thieves of the worst class. The lightermen committed the most nefarious robberies. The bumboatmen who were licensed to hawk goods among the shipping, and the "Peter-*boatmen" employed in fishing, swelled the number of delinquents. There was also a numerous class denominated "mudlarks," who stole whatever, above or below the water, they could lay hands upon. Whenever a "game-ship," that is, a ship whose officers were corrupted for the purposes of plunder, was discharging her cargo close to the shore, these mudlarks were accustomed to prowl about, grubbing in the mud under her bow and quarters,