But the smugglers found that, contrary to what one would expect, their greatest risk was not when landing the goods, but when bringing them across from the Continent.  A seizure on land was, at any rate during the first half of the eighteenth century, comparatively rare if they had been able to get away from the sloops and cutters.  For the bodyguard of armed men on horseback who promptly met and escorted the contraband into the country frequently did as they had planned.  And when once the tea has arrived inland it was easily sold to people who bought it not in small quantities but took as much as 1000 lbs. at a time.  In addition, there were a number of men called “duffers,” who used to walk inland wearing coats in which a hundred-weight of tea was concealed between two layers of cloth stitched together.  They were accordingly said to “quilt” so much of this commodity.  These duffers, having set forth on their walk, would eventually arrive in London and dispose of the tea to hawkers who, in turn, carried it about the town and sold it to the consumers, who, even if they had possessed any scruples, could not possibly know that the leaves had been smuggled in without paying the Crown’s levy.

But it was not merely by exercising the strictest vigilance on the activities of the Government sloops and land officers, nor entirely by resort to trickery and violence, to threats and intimidation that the smugglers managed to keep out of the hands of justice.  They even advanced one step further still, for there was a man named Norton whom they employed as their agent to defend them against prosecutions.  This Norton at one time had actually been in the employ of the Crown as clerk of the late Solicitor to the Customs.  And it was generally believed that Norton by some means—­most probably by offering tempting bribes—­obtained news from the clerks of the Customs’ solicitor when a smuggler was likely to be arrested and a warrant was about to be issued.  Norton was then supposed to give the smuggler an immediate warning and the man was able to make himself scarce.  It was quite an easy operation, for in those days when there was no telegraph and no steamboat service across the Channel, all the “wanted” man had to do was instantly to board his cutter, set sail, and hurry across to France or Holland, where he was sure of a welcome, where also he could employ himself in arranging for cargoes to be run into England perhaps in the very vessel which had brought him across.  There were plenty of his compatriots resident in Flushing, so he need not feel homesick, and when at last the incident had blown over he could find his way back to Kent or Sussex.

It was reckoned that about this time there were at least 20,000 people in England employed in smuggling, and in some parts (as, for instance, the village of Hawkhurst, about which we shall have more to say presently) gangs of large numbers could be got together in a very short time.  In Hawkhurst alone 500 smugglers could be collected within an hour.  Folkestone, however, ran Hawkhurst fairly close with a similar notoriety.  Such gangs, well armed as they were, went about with impunity, for notwithstanding that they were well known, yet no one dared to molest them.