Poole Harbour, with its many creeks and inlets running up into wide stretches of desolate heath, formed an almost ideal district for smuggling operations, whilst the thickly wooded chines and secluded stretches of sandy beach, extending from the harbour mouth at South Haven, past what was in those days the tiny hamlet of Bourne, half-hidden amid pine woods and heather-clad valleys, to the eastern point of the bay formed by Hengistbury Head near Christchurch, were also well adapted for the “running” of rich cargoes of silks, lace, tea, tobacco, and spirits. Indeed, this wide extending stretch of yellow sand, with its numerous chines, or “bunnies,” and its devious and unfrequented paths running inland to the outskirts of the New Forest was the scene of not a few romantic, as well as desperate, encounters between the men of the preventive service and the local smugglers, and at the loftiest part of the westernmost cliffs of the bay--then more sheer than at the present time--there is a spot where a bold and famous smuggler held one of the revenue men head downwards whilst his comrades ran the cargo on the beach below, threatening the man that if he fired his pistol or gave any other alarm he should be dropped from the height on to the beach below. It was, however, at Poole itself that one of the most historic and daring exploits of the south-coast smugglers took place.[D] In September of the year 1747 one John Diamond, or Dymar, agreed to purchase from a well-known gang of smugglers a large amount of tea then lying in Guernsey, awaiting conveyance to the English coast. This was safely shipped; but, unfortunately for the smugglers’ enterprise, the vessel whilst on its way up Channel, was sighted, chased, and captured by a revenue cutter commanded by a Captain Johnson. The cargo was seized, confiscated, and carried into Poole and lodged in the Custom House. This act on the part of the authorities so aroused the anger of the persons who had found a considerable sum of money for the undertaking that the famous gang of smugglers principally interested in the business came from distant Hawkhurst in Sussex, sixty or seventy strong, and armed to the teeth, for the purpose of attacking the Custom House on Poole Quay and recovering their property. They arrived in Poole by way of Lyndhurst about eleven o’clock one Tuesday night, and, having left some thirty of their number on the different roads, the remainder of the party stealthily entered the town by a back lane. Leaving their horses in charge of several of their comrades, they immediately proceeded to break open the Custom House in defiance of the preventive men, and succeeded in possessing themselves of the confiscated tea. This amounted to many bags, with which they loaded up the pack horses and rode off across the wild heatherland lying to the north-east of the town, till they came through Fordingbridge to the New Forest, and thence finally reached their haunts in Sussex.