We begin with the early part of 1816.  At this time the Tide-Surveyor at one of the out-ports had reason to suspect that the French market-boats which used to sail across to England were in the habit of bringing also a good deal of silks and other prohibited goods.  At last he went on board one of these craft and immediately after she had arrived he caused the whole of her cargo to be put ashore.  He then searched her thoroughly from deck to keelson, but he found nothing at all.  However, he was determined not to give up his quest, and had part of her ceiling examined minutely, and was then surprised to note that some fresh nails had apparently been driven.  He therefore caused the ceiling to be ripped off, when he discovered that a large variety of contraband goods had been neatly stowed between the ship’s timbers.

It was only a few months later in that same year that another Revenue officer boarded a Dutch schuyt which was bound from Amsterdam to London.  Her cargo consisted of 500 bundles of bulrushes, but on making his examination these innocent articles were found to conceal between the rushes forty-five boxes of glass in illegal packages, and also some other prohibited goods which had been shipped from the United Kingdom for exportation and were intended to have been again clandestinely relanded.

The reader will remember our mentioning the name of Captain M’Culloch just now in connection with the Coast Blockade.  Writing on the 2nd of April, 1817, from on board H.M.S. Ganymede lying in the Downs, this gallant officer stated that, although it was known that the smugglers had constructed places ashore for the concealment of contraband goods under the Sand Hills near to No. 1 and No. 2 batteries at Deal, yet these hiding-places were so ingeniously formed that they had baffled the most rigid search.  However, his plan of landing crews from his Majesty’s ships to guard this district (in the manner previously described) had already begun to show good results.  For two midshipmen, named respectively Peate and Newton, commanding the shore parties in that neighbourhood, had succeeded in locating five of those places of concealment.

“This discovery,” continued the despatch, “I am assured will be a most severe blow to the smugglers, as they were enabled to remove their cargoes into them in a few minutes, and hitherto no person besides themselves could form any idea of the manner in which their store-holes were built.  They are generally 4 feet deep, of a square form and built of a 2-inch plank, with the scuttle in the top, into which a trough filled with shingle is fitted instead of a cover to prevent their being found out by pricking; and I understand they were built above two years ago.  I have ordered them to be destroyed, and parties are employed in searching for such concealments along the other parts of the beach.”  Thus, thanks to the Navy, the smugglers had been given a serious repulse in the most notorious district.