A seizure was made at Deal about the year 1818 consisting of thirty-three packages of China crape and silk.  These had been very artfully concealed in the ballast bags of a lugger called the Fame, belonging to London.  One package was found in each bag completely covered up with shingles or small stones, so that even if a suspicious officer were to feel the outside of these bags he would be inclined to believe that they contained nothing but ballast, and if he opened them he would think there was nothing else but stones, for the goods were carefully squeezed into the centre of the bags and surrounded with a good thickness of shingle.  Another dodge which was discovered at Shoreham on a vessel which had come from Dieppe was to have the iron ballast cast in such a form that it was not solid but hollow inside.  By this means a good deal of dutiable stuff could be put inside the iron and then sealed up again.  There was a ship, also, named the Isis, of Rye, which fell into disgrace in endeavouring to cheat the Customs.  She was a smack of 26-16/94 tons burthen, her master being William Boxhall.  It was while she was lying at her home port that one of the Revenue officers discovered a concealment under her ballast, the entrance to which was obtained by unshipping two bulkhead boards forward.  There was one concealment on each side of the keel, and each contained enough space to hold from twenty to twenty-four ankers of spirits.

Along the Kentish coast a good deal of smuggling used to go on by means of galleys which were rowed by six, ten, and even twelve oars.  As these were navigated by foreigners and sailed under foreign papers, the Customs officers were a little puzzled as to what exactly could be done.  Could such craft be seized even when found with no cargoes on board, when they were either hauled up the beach or were discovered hovering off the coast?  After applying to the Board of Customs for guidance they were referred to the Act,[19] which provided that any boat, wherry, pinnace, barge, or galley that was built so as to row with more than four oars, if found within the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, or Essex, or on the river Thames, or within the limits of the Port of London, Sandwich, or Ipswich, or the creeks thereto belonging, should be forfeited together with her tackle.  The object of this was clearly to prevent the shortest cross-Channel route being traversed from Holland or France by big, seaworthy but open, multiple-oared craft, with enough men to row them and enough space to carry cargo that would make the smuggling journey worth while.

The following fraud was detected at one of the out-ports in 1819.  An entry had been made of twenty-seven barrels of pitch which had been imported in a ship from Dantzic.  But the Revenue officers discovered that these casks were peculiarly constructed.  Externally each cask resembled an ordinary tar-barrel.  But inside there was enclosed another cask properly made to fit.  Between the cask and the outside barrel pitch had been run in at the bung so that the enclosure appeared at first to be one solid body of pitch.  But after the affair was properly looked into it was found that the inner cask was filled with such dutiable articles as plate glass and East India china.