It was also brought out very clearly by the other side that when first seen the Iris was within nine miles of the English coast, and afterwards the Badger steered N.W. by W. towards the south of Dungeness, and after five and a half miles saw the Dungeness light and the South Foreland light, took cross-bearings of these, and having marked them off on the chart, fixed their position as about three miles from the coast.  Thus when the lugger was first encountered the latter was about nine miles from the land.

The date of that incident, then, was the 12th of November, and Hugnet was not then captured.  We may now pass over the next four weeks till we come to the 10th of December in that same year.  At eight o’clock in the morning the Revenue cutter Eagle was cruising off the coast of Kent when she observed a lugger bearing about N.W. by N. from them.  The lugger was under all sail and heading S.E. for Boulogne, having come out from East Dungeness Bay.  The weather was thick, it was snowing, and no land was in sight, Dungeness being the nearest portion of the English coast.

It did not take long for the Eagle’s commander to guess what was happening, especially when that bay was so notorious, and the cutter began to give chase, the wind being roughly N.W.  But as the Eagle pursued, the lugger, as was the approved custom, hauled up and came on a wind, hoping to get away and outpace the cutter.  But in this the smugglers were not successful, and eventually the Eagle overhauled her.  The cutter’s galley was now launched, and after having been for three-quarters of an hour rowed quickly by the aid of her eight men, the lugger was reached and hailed.  The usual warning signal was fired from a musket in the boat and colours shown.  The lugger, however, declined to heave-to as requested.

“If you don’t heave-to,” roared the chief mate of the Eagle, as he looked towards the helmsman, “we’ll fire right into you.”  On this the lugger lowered her sails, the galley bumped alongside, and the chief mate and crew, pistols in hand, leapt aboard.  “Where are you from?” asked the chief mate.  The answer came in French, which the latter did not understand, but he thought they said they were bound from Bordeaux to Calais.  If so, it was an obvious and foolish lie.  Mr. Gray—­for that was the mate’s name—­then inquired how many men were aboard, and the answer returned that there were seven.  Gray then called the lugger’s men aft, and separated the English from the foreign, and found there were five French and two English.  The two latter, said the Frenchman (who was none other than Albert Hugnet, whom we spoke of just now), were just passengers.  A few minutes later, the skipper contradicted himself and said there were not seven but nine, all told.  Gray then proceeded to look for the other two, and jumped down forward into the forepeak.  As the place was dark he put his cutlass in first and rummaged about.  In a moment the cutlass brought up against something soft.  Gray had struck a man, hiding there, on the legs and thighs.