It seems, then, that one morning a lugger was observed by a revenue cutter lying becalmed in Whitesand Bay. Through their glasses the revenue men made it out to be the _Lottery_, of Polperro, well known for her fast-sailing qualities, as well as for the hardihood of her crew. With the springing up of the breeze, there was little doubt but that she would put to sea, and thus add yet another opportunity to the many already existing for sneering at the stupidity of the local preventive force. Accordingly, the chief officer, with all despatch, manned two or three boats and put off, before a breeze could spring up, making sure of an easy capture. The smugglers, however, observed these movements of their watchful enemies, and commenced to make preparations for resistance, whereupon the revenue boats opened fire; but it was not until they had approached closely that the smugglers returned their volleys, and then the firing grew very heavy, and when within a few yards of the expected prize, Ambrose Bowden, who pulled bow-oar in one of the attacking boats, fell mortally wounded. It was plain that the Polperro men had come to a determination not to surrender their fine craft, or the valuable cargo it carried; and the commander of the revenue men thought it, under the circumstances, the wisest thing to withdraw and to allow the _Lottery_ to proceed to sea, which she did, at the earliest opportunity. But the names of those who formed the crew were sufficiently well known to the authorities, and the smugglers accordingly found themselves in a very difficult position; not indeed on account of smuggling, but for the resistance they had offered to authority, resulting in what was technically murder. They all scattered and went into hiding, and, secreted by friends, relatives, and sympathisers in out-of-the-way places, long baffled the efforts of the revenue officers, aided by searching parties of dragoons, to find them. The authorities no sooner had learnt, on reliable information, where they lay hidden, than they were found to have been spirited away elsewhere. But all this skulking about, with its enforced idleness and waste of time, grew wearisome to the skulkers, and at length one of the crew of the _Lottery_, Roger Toms by name, more weary than his fellows of hiding, and perhaps also thinking that his services would be handsomely rewarded, offered himself as King’s evidence. According to his showing, it was a man named Tom Potter who fired the shot that killed Bowden. The search then concentrated upon Potter. The fury of Toms’s fellow-smugglers, and the entire population of Polperro, against the informer, Toms, may readily be imagined. To in any way aid these natural enemies of the people was of itself the unforgiveable sin, and to further go and offer evidence that would result in the forfeit of the life of one of his own comrades disclosed an even deeper depth of infamy.