es the ship had run since the last "fix" had been made. This matter
naturally came out very strongly in the trials when the captured
smugglers were being prosecuted, and it was the business of the
defending counsel to do their best to upset the officers' reckoning, and
prove that the suspected craft was within her proper and legitimate
limits. Another trick which sprang up also about 1815, was that of
having the casks of spirits fastened, the one behind the other, in line
on a warp. One end of this rope would be passed through a hole at the
aftermost end of the keel, where it would be made fast. As the vessel
sailed along she would thus tow a whole string of barrels like the tail
of a kite, but in order to keep the casks from bobbing above water,
sinkers were fastened. Normally, of course, these casks would be kept on
board, for the resistance of these objects was very considerable, and
lessened the vessel's way. Any one who has trailed even a fairly thick
warp astern from a small sailing craft must have been surprised at the
difference it made to the speed of the vessel.

But so soon as the Revenue cutter began to loom big, overboard went
this string of casks towing merrily below the water-line. The cutter
would run down to her, and order her to heave-to, which she could
afford to do quite willingly. She would be boarded and rummaged, but
the officer would to his surprise find nothing at all and be
compelled to release her. Away would go the cruiser to chase some
other craft, and as soon as she was out of the range of the
commander's spy-glass, in would come the tubs again and be stowed
dripping in the hold. This trick was played many a time with success,
but at last the cruisers got to hear of the device and the smugglers
were badly caught. I shall in due season illustrate this by an actual
occurrence. What I want the reader to bear in mind is, that whilst the
age of smuggling by violence and force took a long time to die out,
yet it reached its zenith about the middle or the last quarter of the
eighteenth century. Right till the end of the grand period of
smuggling violence was certainly used, but the year 1815 inaugurated a
period that was characterised less by force and armed resistance than
by artfulness, ingenuity, and all the inventiveness which it is
possible to employ on a smuggling craft. "Smugglers," says Marryat in
one of his novels, "do not arm now--the service is too dangerous; they
effect their purpose b