Treasury could not see their way to grant such a request.

But in other parts of the country the roads were kept carefully
watched to prevent goods being brought inland. The coaches which ran
from Dover to London with passengers who had come across from the
Continent were frequently stopped on the highway by the
riding-officers and the passengers searched. Harsh as this mode of
procedure may seem to us to-day, yet it was rendered necessary by the
fact that a good many professional carriers of contraband goods were
wont to travel backwards and forwards between England and abroad. Some
years later, for example, when the Dover coach was stopped at "The
Half-Way House," a foreigner, who was travelling by this conveyance
and had been able to evade the Customs' search at Dover, was found to
be carrying two gold snuff-boxes set with diamonds, four lockets also
set with diamonds, eighteen opals, three sapphires, eight amethysts,
six emeralds, two topazes, and one thousand two hundred
torquoises--all of which were liable to duty.

And thus the illegal practices continued all round the coast. From
Devonshire it was reported that smuggling was on the increase--this
was in the autumn of 1759--and that large gangs armed with loaded
clubs openly made runs of goods on the shore, the favourite _locale_
being Torbay, though previously the neighbourhood of Lyme had been the
usual aim of these men who had sailed as a rule from Guernsey. All
that the Collector could suggest was that an "impress smack" should be
sent to that district, as he promised that the notorious offenders
would make excellent seamen.

There was an interesting incident also off the north-east coast of
England, where matters were still about as bad as ever. We referred
some pages back to the capture of a Dutch dogger off the Isle of Man;
we shall now see another of these craft seized in the North Sea.
Captain Bowen of the sloop _Prince of Wales_, hearing that the dogger
_Young Daniel_ was running brandy on the coast near to Newcastle, put
to sea in search of her. He came up with a number of those
cobbles--open boats--which are peculiar to the north-east coastline,
though at one time they were used as far south as Great Yarmouth. The
cobbles which he was able to intercept had just been employed in
transferring the contraband from the dogger to the shore. Bowen
captured one of these small craft with a dozen casks aboard. Another
was forced ashore and secured by the lan