dence when hard pressed, and many were the clever ruses by which they baffled the revenue officers when it appeared as if capture and conviction were certain.

In Long Island Sound and Fisher's Island Sound smugglers at one time were both numerous and successful, and every effort was made to stamp them out. On one occasion a cutter sighted a large sloop acting in a most suspicious manner off Little Gull Island, and at once started in pursuit. The sloop was, however, a fast sailer, and as always, a stern chase is a long chase, and for hour after hour the two vessels sped up Long Island Sound, the cutter gaining inch by inch on the smuggler as Faulkner's Island was approached. Then, suddenly shifting her helm, the sloop bore in towards. shore, threading her way between the innumerable reefs and submerged rocks and heading for the Thimble Islands, a group of over one hundred rocks and wooded islets with narrow channels between. Unable to follow through the dangerous shoal waters, the cutter ran in as closely as she dared, sent a charge of round shot hurtling after the daring sloop and, realizing that sooner or later the sloop must emerge from among the islands, hove-to, and lowering a boat filled with armed men, sent it in to ferret out the smuggler. There was no difficulty in finding her. She was anchored safely between two of the islands, her sails furled, her

crew idling on deck, and no slightest objection was made when the revenue officers boarded her.

But not a single item of contraband was on board. She was, to all intents and purposes, an honest coasting sloop which had merely put into a convenient anchorage for a time, and it was obvious that she had not had time to send her contraband ashore and let the boats return. Of course there was a chance that shore boats had met her and had transferred the cargo, but it was scarcely possible that this could have been accomplished in the short space of time that had elapsed. No boats could be found on their way to the land and nothing could be discovered ashore. Though morally certain that the sloop was a smuggler; though the officers had seen her hail and run alongside a brig the day previous, and though all her actions, in trying to escape the cutter and in running the gauntlet of reefs to her anchorage, spoke eloquently of dishonest business afoot, yet the disgruntled officers could do nothing.

Not until long afterwards was it discovered that her contraband cargo of liquor had been safely reposing on the bottom of the little harbor, several fathoms beneath the feet of the inquisitive revenue officers, and secured to the anchor cable by a line bent to the hawser just below the surface of the water. Bundled hastily into a spare sail and securely lashed, the valuable wines, brandies and gin

See page 57.

had been lowered over the side whence, merely by hauling in the slack of the anchor cable and clapping a tackle onto the line attached to it, the contraband could be hoisted aboard as soon as the coast was clear.

Very often, too, contraband that was not injured by immersion, especially liquors, would be dropped overboard with a buoy attached by some incoming ship, to be picked up later by the smugglers when no revenue officers were near. Many times also, cargoes were secreted on desolate out-of-the-way spots,-buried in the sand or hidden in caves, until such time as there should be an opportunity to dispose of the contraband, and unquestionably, most if not all of the tales of buried pirate treasure along our coasts, as well as the few caches which have been found, had their origin in smugglers' contraband and not in the ill-gotten wealth of freebooters. Pirates as a whole were not a saving lot; they spent their gold and disposed of their loot as fast as they took it, and it is doubtful if any pirate ever buried a dollar's worth of treasure for future reference. But a fisherman, a clam digger, any one chancing to see a mysterious vessel standing off the shore with a boat drawn upon the beach and dim figures bearing boxes and bales across the rocks or sand at dead of night, would at once jump at the conclusion that they were pirates burying their blood-stained treasure, even though in reality