wards from Dover to
Ramsgate, where most of her cargo was unloaded. But after a time she
was ordered to be released and allowed to proceed to Holland, and
later still her skipper brought an action against MacTavish for
having been wrongfully detained for thirty days, for which demurrage
he claimed four guineas a day, besides damage to her cable and other
things, amounting in all to L208.

The reader will recollect that in another chapter we saw a couple of
sailing craft dodging about suspiciously in West Bay, one of which
began to fire signals to the other in order to warn her of the
Preventive boat: and we saw that the crew of three men in the
offending craft were arrested and found guilty. One of these men, it
will be remembered, was John Bartlett, who had at one time been a boy
on a Revenue cutter. From the incident which led to his arrest in 1819
let us pass to the 14th of September 1823. The scene is again West
Bay, and the old passion is still strong in Bartlett notwithstanding
his sentence. A little to the west of Bridport (Dorset) is Seatown,
and just beyond that comes Golden Cape. On the night of the above date
one of the Seatown Revenue officers about 1 A.M. noticed flashes
coming from the cliff between Seatown and Golden Cape. He proceeded to
the cliff, which at high-water runs straight up out of the sea. It was
a dark night with no moon, a little breeze, and only slight surf on
the shore--ideal conditions for any craft bent on smuggling.

On the cliff the officer, named Joseph Davey, espied a man. He hailed
him, thinking it was some one else, and asked him if he were Joey
Foss. "Yes," came back the answer, but when the officer seized him he
discovered it was not Foss but the notorious John Bartlett. Up came
another Revenue man named Thomas Nines to assist Davey, but in a few
minutes Bartlett gave a loud whistle, whereupon Nines looked out
seaward and exclaimed, "There's a boat."

"I sees him," answered Davey as the craft was approaching the shore.
By this time, also, there were ten or twelve men coming towards the
officers, and Bartlett managed to run down to the shore, shouting
"Keep off!" "Keep off!" as loudly as he could. The officers ran too,
but the boat turned round and put off to sea again. In the course of a
few minutes there rose up a large fire on the cliff, about a hundred
yards from where the officers were. It was another signal of warning
to the boat. For Bartlett, having got away from the of