“Murder is not to be reckoned among them, I hope,” exclaimed the not easily shocked clergyman.
“Too many of them!” was the startling response of the dying man.
In 1817 Barham was collated by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the adjoining livings of Warehorne and Snargate, the first-named situated on the verge of the marsh; the second situated, moist and forbidding, in the marsh itself. The winding road between these two villages crossed the then newly made Royal Military Canal by a bridge. Often, as the clergyman was returning, late at night, to his comfortable parsonage at Warehorne, he was met and stopped by some mysterious horsemen; but when he mentioned his name he was invariably allowed to proceed, and, as he did so, a long and silent company of mounted smugglers defiled past, each man with his led horse laden with tubs. The grey tower of Snargate church he frequently found, by the aroma of tobacco it often exhaled, instead of its customary and natural mustiness, to have been recently used as a store for smuggled bales of that highly taxed article.
The _Cinque Ports Herald_ of 1826 records the landing on a night in May, or in the early hours of the morning, of a considerable cargo of contraband hereabouts:
“A large party of smugglers had assembled in the neighbourhood of Dymchurch, and a boat laden (as is supposed) with tubs of spirits, being observed to approach the shore nearly opposite to Dymchurch, the smugglers instantly commenced cheering, and rushed upon the coast, threatening defiance to the sentinels of the blockade; who, perceiving such an overwhelming force, gave the alarm, when a party of marines, coming to their assistance, a general firing took place. The smugglers retreated into the marshes, followed by the blockade-men, and, from their knowledge of the ground, were indebted for their ultimate escape. We regret to state two of the blockade seamen were wounded; one severely in the arm, which must cause amputation, and the other in the face, by slug shots. There can be no doubt but that some of the smugglers must have been wounded, if not killed. One of their muskets was picked up loaded—abandoned, no doubt, by the bearer of it, on account of wounds. The boat, with her cargo, was obliged to put to sea again, without effecting a landing, and, notwithstanding the vigilance of Lieutenants Westbrook, Mudge, and McLeod, who were afloat in their galleys on the spot, from the darkness of the night, effected its escape. We have also heard that a run of five hundred tubs took place on the Sussex coast last week, not far from Hastings, the smugglers losing only eleven tubs. This was also effected by force, and with such a superiority in number that they completely overpowered the blockade force.”