One could quote similar instances of the vehemence of the smugglers from other sources.  For instance, on February 2, 1748-49, the Collector of the Port of Penzance wrote to the Board to give them some idea of the people among whom he had to work.  “The insolence,” he said, “of some of the smuglers [sic] and wreckers in this neighbourhood is run to such a heighth, that tho our officers have from time to time secured severall Hogsheads, it has been by force taken from them [again], ’and the officers forced to save their lives.’” Writing again on the 14th December, the same correspondent added that “the smugglers never behaved with more insolence than at present, or was it ever known to be carried on with more audaciousness,” mentioning also that the previous night the snow[5] Squirrel of North Yarmouth had driven ashore loaded with a cargo of brandy.  The country-folk had immediately boarded her, stripped the master of everything valuable, and then carried off all the brandy they could lay their hands on, and, in their haste, had set fire to the rest of the cargo, so that at the time of writing the whole ship was in flames.  He mentioned also a couple of months later the difficulty he had to secure arrests of smugglers, for even when he had obtained warrants for the apprehension of eight most notorious men, the constables excused themselves from doing their duty in serving the warrants, and pretended that the eight men had absconded.

And anyone who cares to examine the Treasury Books and Papers for this period will find similar cases.  In July of 1743 some smugglers had seized the Custom House boat at Dover and coolly employed her for their own purposes in running tea.  The Custom officers deemed matters to be in such a state that they begged that a man-of-war might be stationed on that coast to prevent smuggling.  Similarly in January of 1743-44, during a skirmish near Arundel between the preventive men assisted by some dragoons against a band of smugglers, the latter had wounded three of the soldiers and carried off an officer and two other dragoons on board the smugglers’ cutter.  This was no unique occurrence, for sometimes the contraband runners, when infuriated, captured the would-be captors, hurried them out to sea, and then, having bound the unfortunate victims with a bit of spare rope and having tied a piece of ballast to their live bodies, they would be hurled overboard into the sea, and the soldier or preventive man would never be seen or heard of again unless his lifeless body were cast upon the beach.  At Folkestone, about this time, three men were carried off by the smugglers in trying to effect an arrest, and the supervisor at Colchester had been also carried off, but afterwards he had been released on promising not to mention the smugglers’ names.  It was bad enough, therefore, for the Revenue men when they had the assistance of the dragoons, but it was infinitely worse when they had to contend alone.  There is an almost pathetic petition from the Folkestone riding-officers sent on New Year’s Day 1744-45, begging for military assistance against the smugglers, as although there were soldiers stationed at Dover yet they were unobtainable, since they refused to march more than five miles.