Dover town was, about this time, the scene of stirring events. One Lieutenant Lilburn, in command of a revenue cutter, had captured a smuggler, and had placed the crew in Dover gaol. As they had not offered armed resistance to the capture, their offence was not capital, but they were liable to service on board a man-o’-war—a fate they were most anxious to avoid. These imprisoned men were largely natives of Folkestone and Sandgate, and their relatives determined to march over the ten miles between those places and Dover, and, if possible, liberate them. When they arrived in Dover, and their intention became known, a crowd of fisherfolk and longshore people swarmed out of the Dover alley-ways and reinforced them. Prominent among them were the women, who, as ever in cases of popular tumult, proved themselves the most violent and destructive among the mob. Nothing less than the destruction of the gaol was decided upon, and the more active spirits, leaving others to batter in the walls, doors, and windows, climbed upon the roof, and from that vantage-point showered bricks and tiles upon the Mayor and the soldiers who had been called out. The Mayor, beset with tooth and claw by screeching women, who tore the Riot Act out of his hand, fled, and Lieutenant Lilburn exhorted the officer in charge of the military to fire upon the crowd, but he declined; and meanwhile the tradespeople and respectable inhabitants busied themselves in barricading their shops and houses. [Picture: “Run the Rascals through!”] The prisoners were triumphantly liberated, taken to a blacksmith’s, where their irons were knocked off, and then driven off in post chaises to Folkestone, whence they dispersed to their several hiding-places. Romney was, about this time, the scene of another desperate affair, when an attempted seizure of contraband brought all the smugglers’ friends and relations out, in violent contest with the excise and a small party of marines in command of which was one Lieutenant Peat. A magistrate was sent for, who, amid a shower of stones, read the Riot Act. The Lieutenant hesitated to resort to extreme force, but one of the smugglers was eventually killed by him, in response to the magistrate’s order, in respect of one of the most violent of the crowd: Secure your prisoner, sir. Run the rascal through! CHAPTER VII FATAL AFFRAYS AND DARING ENCOUNTERS AT RYE, DYMCHURCH, EASTBOURNE, BO-PEEP, AND FAIRLIGHT—THE SMUGGLERS’ ROUTE FROM SHOREHAM AND WORTHING INTO SURREY—THE MILLER’S TOMB-LANGSTON HARBOUR—BEDHAMPTON MILL THE ’twenties of the nineteenth century formed a period especially rich in smuggling incidents, or perhaps seem so to do, because, with the growth of country newspapers, they were more fully reported, instead of being left merely the subject of local legend.