The public records of this period give us other evidence of the calling to which the smugglers betook themselves in time of war, viz., the conveyance of letters and correspondence to the enemy.[59] Thomas Owen, on January 3, 1703, reported the capture of William Snipp at Lydd, and John Burwash and George Fuller--described in Mr. Baker’s letter of 6th of the same month as “part of the old gang of those who were ‘owlers’ in the late war”--as openly in communication with French sloops which came to the coast, and hoped that the law would take hold of their carrying correspondence with the sloops, “else there would be more wool transported than there has been for many years;” whilst Mr. Baker declared that “the practice, if permitted, would very much encourage and contribute to the exportation of wool, and also the running or smuggling of French goods.”[60] This system of carrying on correspondence with France, in time of war, lasted down to and through the last war, during which the daily newspapers and correspondence were regularly carried to Buonaparte, by a family then resident at Bexhill. From the following report, made by Mr. Baker in December, 1703, it appears that the new law had by that time abated, though it had not quite stopped, the “owling” trade along these coasts, but that import smuggling still flourished:-- “May it please your Honours,[61]--In obedience to your Honours, commanding me to consider how the charge of the ryding-officers appointed for the guard of the coasts of Kent and Sussex may, in some measure, be reduced without prejudice to her Majestie’s service, in preventing the exporting of wool, &c., from these coasts. Upon consideration thereof, and from observations I have made of the state of that and the smuggling trade, as they have been carryed on since the present warr, I have observed and do beleive that the neck of the ‘owling’ trade, as well as the spirit of the ‘owlers,’ is in a great measure broke, particularly in Romney Marsh; where I have, in several of my late reports and papers laid before your Honours, observed unto you, that in the latter end of the last warr, and the beginning of the last peace, wool used to be shipped off from thence and from other parts of that county by great numbers of packes weekly, there are not now many visible signs of any quantities being transported. But for fine goods, as they call them (viz., silks, lace, &c.), I am well assured that trade goes on through both counties, though not in such vast quantities as have been formerly brought in--I mean in those days when (as a gentleman of estate in one of the counties has, within this twelve months, told me) he had been att once, besides at other times, at the loading of a wagon with silks, lace, &c., till six oxen could hardly move it out of the place: I doe not think that the trade is now so carried on as ’twas then. Therefore, upon consideration of the whole matter, since your Honours are of opinion that it is for