Marsh district, succeeded in capturing a gang of eight or ten Owlers, who were brazenly running wool in French boats from Folkestone, and taking his captives to the Mayor of Romney, demanded that they be lodged in prison. Instead, the Mayor released them under ridiculously light bail for, like everyone else, he not only feared the vengeance of the smugglers if he was too severe, but also, he had quite a sum of his money invested in wool to be exported by the very men brought before him. He did, however, offer a tip to the astounded and indignant Carter, suggesting quite casually, that if he were in Carter's place he would promptly shake the dust of Romney from his feet. Very wisely the disgruntled but helpless excise officer took the Mayor's hint, and with his men, departed at the best possible speed for Lydd. But the Owlers were not to be baffled so easily. Shouting and cursing, waving any weapons they could lay hands on, they marched on Lydd, attacked the inn where Carter had taken refuge, and followed close at the officers' heels as they raced in full retreat for Rye. It was a close race with a most unpleasant end in view for the losers, and with fifty relentless armed men in full cry after them, poor Carter and his men floundered across marshes and over dykes, the Owlers rapidly gaining, until, by sheer good luck, they came upon several boats at Camber Point, and leaping into these, rowed like mad to Rye, leaving the vengeful Owlers standing impotently on the shore.

Naturally, the Owlers, thus finding that they could put the officials to flight, and were quite safe as far as the local authorities were concerned, became even bolder than before. Not only did they ship the locally grown wool but, finding the market could consume more than they could supply, they sent members of their organization inland and bought wool over twenty miles from the coast. As a result of this, the government passed a law providing that no one living within fifteen miles of the sea, in Kent or Sussex, should buy wool without giving heavy sureities and a bond, and that no wool could be sold to anyone within fifteen miles of the coast, while every sheep raiser within the stated limit must, within three days of shearing, declare under oath the number of his fleeces and where stored or disposed of. But if the authorities thought that this law would help matters they were vastly mistaken. To be sure, it made a trifle more work for the Owlers, but that was all. They merely carried the wool inland beyond the fifteen mile limit, resold it to themselves, carted it back and smuggled it across channel, adding a few pennies a pound to the price to pay for their extra labor. At about this time, too, the government decided to substitute dragoons for the customs officers in the smuggler-infested district, which, from the government's point of view, was a vast mistake. The

soldiers were even more easily bribed than the excise officers had been; they had no taste for the work and had far rather spend their time drinking and gaming in a cosy tavern than floundering through muddy marshes and patrolling wind-swept dykes in an effort to prevent something in which they had not the least interest, work which they considered far beneath the dignity of a king's trooper.

Hitherto there had been no real conflict between the Owlers and the officials, but on January 21, 1720 a pitched battle took place at Ferring between sixty Owlers and the customs officers under William Goldsmith. Several smugglers were killed and wounded, the commander of the troops had his horse shot under him, and both sides withdrew in good order.

But even if it was not a victory for the smugglers, still, it proved to them that they could give battle to the trained forces of the crown, and it also proved to the authorities that the Owlers were far more formidable than they had imagined. Indeed, if we judge from results, it would seem that the troops were extremely loath to come to grips with the smugglers.

To battle with an enemy from overseas, to shoot or cut down a foreign foe, was quite in order; but to kill a fellow countrymen, or be killed by him, merely because he was violating a most unjust and

unpopular law, was quite a different matter, and they much preferred to conduct a passive campaign, and carry out the letter of the law by following the Owlers here, there and everywhere, at a reasonably safe distance. That they did an enormous amount of following is apparent, for in a Treasury Warrant dated 1720 we find the sum of two hundred pounds paid for shoes and stockings, with the naïve explanation that all the footgear of the dragoons had been "worn out chasing smugglers."

Finding that all the laws hitherto enacted made no impression upon the Owlers' activities, the government took another tack and promulgated an entirely new law in 1719. This prohibited the use of vessels of less than fifteen tons burden for trade, -evidently with the idea that by this means the Owlers could be prevented from using craft capable of entering the shoal rivers and creeks of the marsh district. Then, in 1720, the limit was raised to craft of thirty tons burden, and, in 1721, to those of forty tons in Middlesex, Surrey, Kent, Sussex or on the River Thames, while in addition, it was enacted that any boat of over six oars found anywhere within two leagues of the coast should be confiscated and each occupant thereof fined forty pounds. But the lawmakers quite overlooked the fact that the smugglers never did and never had cared a whoop for the law, and continued to use ten, twelve or fourteen oared boats, or small craft,

as much as before, even though the few craft captured were, as provided by law, sawn into three parts by the officials.

By this time, too, the Owlers had become true smugglers, and, in addition to running wool out of the country in defiance of law they were exporting Fuller's earth, also prohibited, and smuggling in various articles. Fuller's earth was on the forbidden list merely as it was used in the manufacture of woolens, and a rather amusing incident is recorded in connection with this phase of smuggling in the trial of one, Edmund Warren, who fell into the clutches of the law while supposedly engaged in smuggling the prohibited mineral to France. Edmund, however, was a very canny rascal, and finding himself in a tight place, was forced to tell the truth and proved to the satisfaction of the court that he had not only kept well within the law, but had most cleverly cheated his French customers by shipping ordinary potter's clay instead of Fuller's earth.

But both wool and Fuller's earth were falling into disrepute as contraband, and by the middle of the eighteenth century the Owlers, as such, had disappeared, and the former wool runners' attentions were devoted exclusively to smuggling tea, tobacco and other commodities into England, instead of smuggling prohibited goods out. Partly, this was due to the extremely low price of wool, but more