“The smugglers are armed,” says a report of this affair, “with swingels, like flails, with which they can knock people’s brains out”; and proceeds to say that weapons of this kind, often delivering blows from unexpected quarters, are extremely difficult to fight against. The captain of this gang was a man named Lucas, who kept an inn called the “Ship,” at Woolbridge; and, information being laid, Captain Jackson, the local inspector of customs, went with an assistant and a police officer from London to his house at two o’clock in the morning and roused him. “Who’s there?” asked Lucas. “Only I, Mrs. Smith’s little girl. I want a drop of brandy for mother,” returned the inspector, in a piping voice. “Very well, my dear,” said the landlord, and opened the door; to find himself in the grasp of the police-officer. Henry Fooks, of Knowle, and three others of the gang, were then arrested; and the whole five committed to Dorchester gaol. The wild coast of Dorset, if we except Poole Harbour and the cliffs of Purbeck, yields little to the inquirer in this sort, although there can be no doubt of smuggling having been in full operation here. Jack Rattenbury, whose story is told on another page, could doubtless have rubricated this shore of many cliffs and remote hamlets with striking instances; and not a cliff-top but must have frequently exhibited lights to “flash the lugger off,” what time the preventive men were on the prowl; and no lonely strand but must have witnessed the smugglers, when the coast was again clear, rowing out and “creeping for the crop” that had been sunk and buoyed, or “put in the collar,” as the saying went. A relic of these for the most part unrecorded and forgotten incidents is found in the epitaph at Wyke, near Weymouth, on one William Lewis: Sacred to the memory of WILLIAM LEWIS, who was killed by a shot from the _Pigmy_ Schooner 21st April 1822, aged 53 years. * * * * * Of life bereft (by fell design), I mingle with my fellow clay, On God’s protection I recline To save me on the Judgment-day. There shall each blood-stain’d soul appear, Repent, all, ere it be too late, Or Else a dreadful doom you’ll hear, For God will sure avenge my fate. * * * * * This Stone is Erected by his Wife as the last mark of respect to an Affectionate Husband. The inscription is surmounted by a representation, carved in low relief, of the _Pigmy_ schooner chasing the smuggling vessel.