ventured with a single guard, soe as aforesaid, during the warr, or for one year’s tryall, &c. “HEN. BAKER. “December, 1703.” * * * * * The new force was utterly inadequate to the suppression of the trade. In the next forty-five years the daring of the smugglers grew with the impunity with which they were enabled to act. Large gangs, of twenty, forty, fifty, and even one hundred, rode, armed with guns, bludgeons, and clubs, throughout the country, setting every one at defiance, and awing all the quiet inhabitants. They established warehouses and vaults in many districts, for the reception of their goods, and built large houses at Seacock’s Heath, in Etchingham (built by the well-known smuggler, Arthur Gray, and called “Gray’s Folly”), at Pix Hall and the Four Throws, Hawkhurst,[62] at Goudhurst, and elsewhere, with the profits of their trade. We have in the treasury papers[63] many particulars of the daring and desperate acts of these companies or gangs of men in both parts of Sussex, during the first half of the last century, principally in the smuggling of tea. In an engagement between the custom-house officers and upwards of sixty armed men, at Ferring, on June 21st, 1720, William Gouldsmith, the custom-house officer, had his horse shot under him.[64] In June, 1733, the officers of the customs at Newhaven attempted to seize ten horses laden with tea, at Cuckmere; but they were opposed by about thirty men, armed with pistols and blunderbusses, who fired on the officers, took them prisoners, and confined them whilst the goods were carried off.[65] In August of the same year, the riding officers observed upwards of twenty smugglers at Greenhay, most of them on horseback, armed with clubs, and their horses laden with tea, which the officers endeavoured to seize, but the smugglers fell upon them, and with clubs knocked one of the officers off his horse, wounded him, and confined him for an hour, whilst the gang carried off the goods. On December 6, 1735, some officers of Newhaven, assisted by dragoons, met with a large gang of smugglers, well armed, who surrounded the officers, and confined them for about an hour and a half. The smugglers were afterwards met by three other officers and six dragoons, whom the smugglers attacked, but the officers got the better, pursued them, and seized five smugglers, armed with pistols, swords, and cutlasses, and twelve horses.