The Deal smugglers went to what Mr. Huskisson called “daring lengths,” and for this reason the Treasury suggested that patrols should be established within the town of Deal, and for two or three miles east and west of the same.  And the Treasury also very earnestly requested the Commander-in-chief for every possible assistance from the Army.  It was observed, also, that so desperate were these smugglers, that even when they had been captured and impressed, they frequently escaped from the men-of-war and returned to their previous life of smuggling.  To put a stop to this the Treasury made the suggestion that such men when captured should be sent to ships cruising at distant foreign stations.  Some idea of the violence which was always ready to be used by the smugglers may be gathered by the incident which occurred on the 25th of February 1805.  On this day the cutter Tartar, in the service of the Customs, and the Excise cutter Lively were at 10 P.M. cruising close to Dungeness on the look-out for smuggling craft.  At the time mentioned they saw a large decked lugger which seemed to them indeed to be a smuggler.  It stood on its course and eventually must run its nose ashore.  Thereupon a boat’s crew, consisting of men from the Tartar and the Lively, got out their oars and rowed to the spot where the lugger was evidently about to land her cargo.  They brought their boat right alongside the lugger just as the latter took the ground.  But the lugger’s crew, as soon as they saw the Revenue boat come up to her, promptly forsook her and scrambled on to the beach hurriedly.  It was noticed that her name was Diana, and the Revenue officers had from the first been pretty sure that she was no innocent fishing-vessel, for they had espied flashes from the shore immediately before the Diana grazed her keel on to the beach.

Led by one of the two captains out of the cutters, the Revenue men got on board the smuggler and seized her, when she was found to contain a cargo of 665 casks of brandy, 118 casks of rum, and 237 casks of Geneva.  Besides these, she had four casks, one case and one basket of wine, 119 bags of tobacco, and 43 lbs. of tea—­truly a very fine and valuable cargo.  But the officers had not been in possession of the lugger and her cargo more than three-quarters of an hour before a great crowd of infuriated people came down to the beach, armed with firearms and wicked-looking bludgeons.  For the lugger’s crew had evidently rushed to their shore friends and told them of their bad luck.  Some members of this mob were on horseback, others on foot, but on they came with oaths and threats to where the lugger and her captors were remaining.  “We’re going to rescue the lugger and her goods,” exclaimed the smugglers, as they stood round the bows of the Diana in the darkness of the night.  The Revenue men warned them that they had better keep off, or violence would have to be used to prevent such threats being carried out.