Again, at Westfield, Sussex, not far from Rye, may be found an old stone, rapidly going to decay, bearing some lines to the memory of a smuggler named Moon: “In Memory of John Moon, who was deprived of life by a base man, on the 20th of June 1809, in the 28th year of his age. ’Tis mine to-day to moulder in the earth. . . .” The rest is not now readable. Among the many tragical incidents of the smuggling era was the affray aboard a fishing-smack off Hastings in March 1821, in which a fisherman named Joseph Swain, supposed by the blockading officers of the preventive force to be a smuggler, was killed. Fishing-boats and their crews were, as a matter of course, searched by these officials; but the boat boarded by them on this occasion belonged to Swain, who denied having any contraband goods aboard and refused to permit the search. So strenuous a refusal as Swain offered would seem, in those times, of itself sufficient evidence of the presence of smuggled articles, and the boarders persisted. A sailor among them, George England by name, pressed forward to the attack, and Swain seized his cutlass and tore it out of his hand; whereupon England drew a pistol and fired at Swain, who instantly fell dead. An epitaph in the churchyard of All Saints, Hastings, bears witness to this incident: [Picture: Tombstone at Tandridge] This Stone Sacred to the memory of JOSEPH SWAIN, Fisherman was erected at the expence of the members of the friendly Society of Hastings in commiseration of his cruel and untimely death and as a record of the public indignation at the need- lefs and sanguinary violence of which he was the unoffending Victim He was shot by Geo. England, one of the Sailors employ’d in the Coast blockade service in open day on the 13th March 1821 and almost instantly expir’d, in the twenty ninth Year of his age, leaving a Widow and five small children to lament his lofs. England was subsequently put on his trial for wilful murder at Horsham, and was sentenced to death, but afterwards pardoned. In short, in one way and another, much good blood and a great quantity of the most excellent spirits were spilt and let run to waste, along the coasts.