battle. At first these fights were merely rough and tumble, fist and bludgeon encounters with no fatilities and no serious results, save the defeat of the officers, and often their capture, by the smugglers. One such occurred in June 1733 when the officers at Newhaven attempted to seize ten horses loaded with tea and were attacked by thirty smugglers. In the ensuing melee the officers were made prisoners, and were held captive until the contraband had been safely disposed of. Again, in July 1735, officers at Arundel, who were watching the coast, were seized by twenty smugglers and were roughly handled and confined, bound and gagged, until a cargo was landed and carried inland.

But before long, the encounters became more serious; pistols, guns and swords were used freely, and blood was spilled on both sides. Especially was this true in Kent and Sussex where the Hawkhurst gang had become prominent. This gang of outlaws was led by one Arthur Gray, one of the "Sea Cocks," as they were called, after whom Seacox Heath was named. He was a most successful smuggler, was reputed to be worth over ten thousand pounds,-equivalent to being a millionaire today and built a great stone storehouse on a ridge overlooking the Weald of Kent, which he made a distributing depot for his contraband. Oddly enough, years after Gray had passed away, and his storehouse, called Gray's Folly, had crumbled to

ruins, the site of the famous smuggler's warehouse was used by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for a palatial home. If spirits possess a sense of humor, then surely, the rascally old "Sea Cock's" spirit must have chuckled to think of the tricks fate plays when he saw the eminently respectable official dwelling on the very spot where lawless smugglers had foregathered and defied the government.

So notorious were the members of this Hawkhurst gang, so greatly feared by the inhabitants, that they practically ruled the district and none dared interfere. Every time the officials or the soldiery came to grips with Gray's men the smugglers were the victors, and in December 1744, the gang boldly seized three customs men and their officers, wounded the commander seriously, and carrying their prisoners to Hawkhurst, bound them to trees and flogged two of them almost to death. These two, it appeared, were former smugglers who had joined the King's forces, and after being almost flayed alive they were tumbled abroad a craft and exiled to France, with a parting injunction not to return on pain of death.

The following spring, in March 1745, twelve of the gang assaulted three officers whom they encountered in an alehouse at Grimstead Green, and after beating and wounding them, robbed them of watches and money.

They were rapidly graduating from the role of

smugglers to that of common thugs, thieves and highwaymen, and, before they knew it, the peaceful inhabitants found themselves under the rule and domination of the outlaws. They had, in fact, produced a Frankenstein, and the smugglers, whom they had befriended as benefactors, had grown to veritable ogres who threatened to destroy friends and foes alike. It was exactly what might have been expected, the natural and logical outcome of unchecked lawlessness, of the inability of the law to enforce its own provisions, and in a way much like the wave of lawlessness that has swept over our own country, the direct result of our inability to check the bootleggers' and the rum runners' activities. But in England, in the eighteenth century, it was, of course, much worse and much more serious.

The government forces were wholly inadequate to cope with the gangs; the people, even if they knew the identity of the offenders, dared give no information, and when the inhabitants of the little town of Goudhurst decided that something must be done, and pluckily took the matter in their own hands and raised a company of militia with an exsoldier, a man named Stuart, in command, the gang leaders were not at all worried. Waylaying a member of the newly organized militia, they tortured him into betraying the plans of the citizens, and then released him, ordering him to inform the

citizens that on a certain night they would attack the town, kill all the inhabitants and burn every building to the ground. Unfortunately for the gang, and most fortunately for the good and brave inhabitants of Goudhurst, the smuggler-gangsters most stupidly kept their word. As a result, the militia was ready and waiting for them. A fusillade greeted them, the brother of the leader of the gang, George Kingsmill, and another leader, Barnet Wollet, were killed, many were wounded, and, leaving a number of prisoners in the hands of the victorious citizens, the rest fled in disorder.

But despite this signal victory, which taught the gang a wholesome lesson as far as Goudhurst was concerned, they continued to terrorize the country and defy the law. Two years later, they captured two excise officers, and pinning them out on the beach at low tide, left them to suffer a terrible death as the waters slowly rose and covered them. Numerous other brutal murders and outrages were committed, and so arrogant had the gangsters become that they dubbed themselves "The gentlemen" and made it a rule that, when passing through a community, the people should turn their "faces to the wall." Anyone who glanced at them too curiously was apt to be beaten, maltreated or worse, and the citizens rushed to hiding or covered their faces whenever "The gentlemen" put in an appearance. Such were the conditions in Kent and Sussex by

1750, which are faithfully portrayed in the following lines:

"If you wake at midnight and hear a horse's feet,

Don't go drawing back the blind or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.

Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.
Five and twenty ponies

Trotting through the dark,
Brandy for the parson,
'Baccy for the clerk,

Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,

And watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen pass

by."

But "The gentlemen" had almost reached the end of their rope, by which, as is ever the case, they were bound to hang themselves. They had attained to that stage in their bloody career when they had to resort to even more cruel and relentless methods to preserve their status and their own safety, and had become out-and-out robbers and murderers, as much hated and feared by the law-abiding members of the community as any other common enemies. The culmination came, when, in 1747, a party of the thug-smugglers went to Guernsey and loaded a vessel with tea destined for an English port. They were chased and captured by a revenue cutter commanded by Captain Johnson, who, with his prisoners and his prize put into Poole where the contraband tea was stored in the customs house. The Hawkhurst gang and others, learning of this, vowed vengeance and gathered, sixty strong, at Charlton Forest at midnight on October 6th.