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SUSSEX SMUGGLERS. |
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withstand ; and which has been the cause of so many turning smugglers.
He said it was very hard work in going down to the sea-side to fetch the goods, and considering the hazard they run if taken, and of their own persons, as they are obliged to ride in the night only, and through the bye-wavs, avoiding all the public roads as much as possible, people would not take on with them if it were not for the great profits that arise.
He said that all the smugglers, both masters and riders, drink drams to great excess, and generally keep themselves half drunk, which was the only thing that occasioned them to commit such outrages as they did sometimes; and he gave the following account of the murders of Galley and Chater:—
That on Sunday the 14th of last February was twelvemonth, he was sent for to the widow Payne's, and informed that there were two men there who were going to make an information against John Dimer, that was in custody at Chichester, on suspicion of being concerned in breaking open the King's warehouse at Poole, that, as he was one concerned in the said fact, he readily went to hear what he could, and when he came there, he found Jackson, Richards, Steel (the evidence), and some more of the gang concerned in breaking open the said warehouse; when Jackson said to him, "Harry, I have sent for you: here are two men have got a letter to Justice Battine, for him to take an information against Dimer ;" and that they (the smugglers) resolved to have the letter from them ; which he agreed to ; and after they had made the men drunk, Carter and Jackson went into the room where the men were put to sleep, and took the letter, which they read, and found the contents amounted to all they suspected ; that it was |
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