A few months prior to the above occurrence Lieutenant John Wood Rouse was in command of his Majesty’s schooner Pioneer.  On the 11th of January 1817 he was cruising between Dungeness and Point St. Quintin, when his attention was drawn to a lugger whose name we may state by anticipation was the Wasp.  She appeared to be making for the English coast on a N.W. bearing, and was distant about six miles.  In order to cut her off and prevent her from making the shore Lieutenant Rouse sent one of his men named Case with a galley to cross her bows.  At the same time he also despatched another of his boats under the care of a Mr. Walton to make directly for the lugger.  This occurred about 10 A.M., and the chase continued till about 3.45 P.M., when the schooner came alongside the lugger that had, by this time, been seized by Mr. Case.  Lieutenant Rouse was then careful to take bearings of the land, and fixed his position so that there should be no dispute as to whether the lugger were seized within the legal limits.

On capturing the lugger, only two persons were found on board, and these were at once transferred to the Pioneer.  To show what liars these smugglers could become, one of these two said he was a Frenchman, but his name was the very British-sounding William Stevenson.  The other said he was a Dutchman.  Stevenson could speak not a word of French, but he understood English perfectly, and said that part of the cargo was intended for England and part for Ireland, which happened to be the truth, as we shall see presently.  He also added that of the crew of eight three were Dutchmen and five English, for he had by now forgotten his own alleged nationality.

Prior to the arrival of Mr. Case’s boat the lugger had hoisted out her tub-boat and rowed away as fast as the waves would let her, with all the crew except these two.  She was found to have a cargo of tobacco and tea, as well as Geneva, all being made up into suitable dimensions for landing.  On examining the ship’s papers it was indicated that she was bound for Bilbao in Spain.  But these papers had evidently been obtained in readiness for such an occurrence as the advent of the schooner.  When it is mentioned that this lugger was only a large galley with absolutely no deck whatever, and capable of being rowed by ten men, it was hardly credible that she would be the kind of craft to sail round Ushant and across the Bay of Biscay.  “Was she calculated to carry a cargo to Spain?” asked counsel at the trial two years later.  “I will risk my experience as a sailor,” answered one of the witnesses, “that I would not have risked my life in a boat of that description.”

But, unfortunately for the smugglers, there was discovered on board a tin box which absolutely gave their case away.  In this tin box was found an instructive memorandum which it requires no very great ingenuity to decipher, and ran something as follows:—­

  “For B. Valden.