A large number of the merchant-smugglers from Guernsey at the same time migrated to Coniris, about eight miles from Tregner, in France, and ten leagues east of the Isle of Bas, and twelve leagues S.S.W. from Guernsey.  Anyone who is familiar with that treacherous coast, and the strength of its tides, will realise that in bad weather these little craft, heavily loaded as they always were on the return journey, must have been punished pretty severely.  Some others, doubtless, foundered altogether and never got across to the Devonshire shores.  Those people who had now settled down at Coniris were they who had previously dealt with the smugglers of Cawsand, Polperro, Mevagissey, and Gerrans.  To these places were even sent circular letters inviting the English smugglers to come over to Coniris, just as previously they had come to fetch goods from Guernsey.  And another batch of settlers from Guernsey made their new habitation at Roscore (Isle of Bas), from which place goods were smuggled into Coverack (near the Lizard), Kedgworth, Mount’s Bay, and different places “in the North Channel.”

Spirits, besides being brought across in casks and run into the country by force or stealth, were also frequently at this time smuggled in through the agency of the French boats which brought vegetables and poultry.  In this class of case the spirits were also in small casks, but the latter were concealed between false bulkheads and hidden below the ballast.  But this method was practically a new departure, and began only about 1815.  This was the smuggling-by-concealment manner, as distinct from that which was carried on by force and by stealth.  We shall have a good deal more to say about this presently, so we need not let the matter detain us now.  Commanders of cruisers were of course on the look-out for suspected craft, but they were reminded by the Board that they must be careful to make no seizures within three miles of the French and Dutch coasts.  And that was why, as soon as a suspected vessel was sighted, and a capture was about to be made, some officer on the Revenue cutter was most careful immediately to take cross-bearings and fix his position; or if no land was in sight to reckon the number of leagues the ship had run since the last “fix” had been made.  This matter naturally came out very strongly in the trials when the captured smugglers were being prosecuted, and it was the business of the defending counsel to do their best to upset the officers’ reckoning, and prove that the suspected craft was within her proper and legitimate limits.  Another trick which sprang up also about 1815, was that of having the casks of spirits fastened, the one behind the other, in line on a warp.  One end of this rope would be passed through a hole at the aftermost end of the keel, where it would be made fast.  As the vessel sailed along she would thus tow a whole string of barrels like the tail of a kite, but in order to keep the casks from bobbing above water, sinkers were fastened.  Normally, of course, these casks would be kept on board, for the resistance of these objects was very considerable, and lessened the vessel’s way.  Any one who has trailed even a fairly thick warp astern from a small sailing craft must have been surprised at the difference it made to the speed of the vessel.