In such a society as the Sussex, it would be improper to enter into any details which might involve the characters of persons still alive; but I may glance briefly at some of the encounters which have taken place within my own time. The trial for murder, and conviction at Horsham, on March 28, 1821, of George England, a preventive man, for shooting Joseph Swaine, a fisherman of Hastings, in a scuffle, is in the recollection of many fishermen still alive there. On Feb. 11th, in the next year, three hundred smugglers went to Crow Link, near Eastbourne, to land a cargo, but were stopped by a signal from the sentinel; four nights afterwards, they landed at Cliff Point, Seaford, three hundred half-ankers, losing only sixty-three and a horse. On the 13th, they attacked the sentinel at Little Common with bats;[89] he, however, shot a smuggler with his pistol; the boat made sail from the land, and a coach-and-six, which was waiting at the back of the beach, drove off empty to Pevensey. In September, 1824, a run was attempted to Bexhill, when seven smugglers, with one hundred tubs of spirits, were taken; and one of the blockade-men, named Welch, having jumped into the boat, the smugglers pulled off with him, and his dead body was found on the sands in the morning, with the head and face bruised and lacerated. In May, 1856, a smuggling galley, chased by a guardboat, ran ashore near the mouth of Rye Harbour, and opened fire on the guard. The blockade-men from Camber watch-house came to the spot and seized one of the smugglers, when a body of not less than two hundred armed smugglers rushed from behind the sandhills, commenced a fire on the blockade, killing one and wounding another, but were ultimately driven off with the capture of their galley, carrying off, nevertheless, their wounded. On another occasion, four or five smugglers were killed whilst swimming the military canal at Pett-horse Race, having missed the spot where it was fordable. On April 13, 1827, about twenty smugglers went down to the eastward of Fairlight; a struggle ensued; the smugglers wrested some muskets from the blockade-men, beat them with the butt-ends, and ran one through with a bayonet; the smugglers at length retreated, leaving one of their number dead; another was found afterwards, having been apparently dropped by the smugglers; a third, some distance on the way to Icklesham, the body scarcely cold; the rest of the wounded men were carried off by their companions; and I have been informed that one of the party alone carried one of his fellows on his back, from the scene of the conflict at Fairlight to his residence at Udimore, a distance of six miles at least.