steads, and rivers, where they
lay at anchor under pretence of waiting for orders. Another method
still, that was as simple as it was successful, consisted of landing
their goods at outports on such holidays as the King's birthday, &c.,
when the Revenue officers were absent. Cockburn admitted that he had
done this himself and had run great quantities of brandies, teas, and
Spanish liquorice even as much as nearly a ton of the latter at a
time. But besides these two classes there was a third. The whole of
the coasting trade in those days was of course done in sailing ships;
and inasmuch as there were no railways for carrying merchandise there
was a good deal more encouragement for the sailing ship owner than
there is to-day. The methods of smuggling adopted by these coasters
was a little more complicated, and this was done by such means as
fraudulently obtaining permits, by cockets clandestinely obtained, by
false entry of one sort of goods for another, and by corrupting the
Customs' officers. To prove his case the captain gave the following
examples, _all of which he had himself employed since the year 1738!_

As regards the obtaining of permits fraudulently, he said that he had
gone to Dunkirk, taken aboard 2040 gallons of French brandy and
cleared for North Bergen in Norway. Of course he had no intention
whatever of steering for that port, but in case he met any of the
Custom House sloops as he approached the English coast, it would be
convenient to show this clearance and so prevent his brandy being
seized. From Dunkirk, then, he sailed across the North Sea and ran up
the river Humber. There, by previous arrangement, one of those keels
which are so well known in the neighbourhood of the Humber and Trent
met him. The keel had been sent from York down the Ouse with permits
to cover the brandy. The keel was cleared by a merchant at York, who
obtained permits for conveying to Gainsborough a quantity of French
brandy equal to that which Cockburn had on board his ship, though in
fact the keel, notwithstanding that she obtained these permits, set
forth with no brandy in her at all.

It was the point where the Ouse crosses the Trent at right angles that
had been arranged as the trysting-place, and there the keel took on
board from Cockburn the brandy which had come from Dunkirk. Cockburn
himself nailed the permits on to the heads of the casks, which in due
course were taken by the keel, when the flood tide made again, to
G