e. Could such craft be seized even when found with no cargoes on
board, when they were either hauled up the beach or were discovered
hovering off the coast? After applying to the Board of Customs for
guidance they were referred to the Act,[19] which provided that any
boat, wherry, pinnace, barge, or galley that was built so as to row
with more than four oars, if found within the counties of Middlesex,
Surrey, Kent, or Essex, or on the river Thames, or within the limits
of the Port of London, Sandwich, or Ipswich, or the creeks thereto
belonging, should be forfeited together with her tackle. The object of
this was clearly to prevent the shortest cross-Channel route being
traversed from Holland or France by big, seaworthy but open,
multiple-oared craft, with enough men to row them and enough space to
carry cargo that would make the smuggling journey worth while.

The following fraud was detected at one of the out-ports in 1819. An
entry had been made of twenty-seven barrels of pitch which had been
imported in a ship from Dantzic. But the Revenue officers discovered
that these casks were peculiarly constructed. Externally each cask
resembled an ordinary tar-barrel. But inside there was enclosed
another cask properly made to fit. Between the cask and the outside
barrel pitch had been run in at the bung so that the enclosure
appeared at first to be one solid body of pitch. But after the affair
was properly looked into it was found that the inner cask was filled
with such dutiable articles as plate glass and East India china.

Sometimes tubs of spirits were packed up in sacks and packs of wool
and thus conveyed from the coast into the interior of the country; and
in the seizing of some goods at Guernsey it was found that tea had
been packed into cases to resemble packages of wine which had come out
of a French vessel belonging to St. Malo. Nor was the owner of a
certain boat found at Folkestone any novice at this high-class art. Of
course those were the days when keels of iron and lead were not so
popular as they are to-day, but inside ballast was almost universal,
being a relic of the mediaeval days when so much valuable inside space
was wasted in ships. In this Folkestone boat half-a-dozen large stones
were used as ballast, which was a very natural thing for such a craft.
But when these stones came to be examined they were found to have been
hollowed out and to have been fitted with tin cases which were filled
with spirits