bour, prizes taken by the redoubtable "Arripay," as his
captives termed him. Nothing flying the Spanish flag in the Channel
seemed to escape him, until matters at last became so humiliating that
the might of both countries was brought to bear on Poole, and the town
underwent a severe chastisement, in which Page's brother was killed.
This spirit of warlike enterprise descended to the great grandchildren
of these Elizabethans, for in Poole church is a monument to one
Joliffe, captain of the hoy _Sea Adventurer_, who, in the days of
Dutch William, drove ashore and captured a French privateer. In the
following year another bold seaman, William Thompson, with but one man
and a cabin-boy to help him, took a Cherbourg privateer and its crew
of sixteen. Both these heroes received a gold chain and medal from the
King. Another generation, and the town was fighting its own masters
over the question of "free imports." In spite of the usually accepted
fact that smuggling can only prosper in secret, Poole became a sort of
headquarters for all that considerable trade that found in the nooks
and crannies of the Dorset coast safe warehouses and a natural
cellarage. So bold did the fraternity become that in 1747, when a
large cargo of tea had been seized by the crown authorities and placed
for safe keeping in the Customs House, the free traders overpowered
all resistance and triumphantly retrieved their booty, or shall we
say, their property? and took it surrounded by a well-armed escort to
various receivers in the remoter parts of the wild country north-west
of Wimborne. The leaders of this attack were afterwards found to be
members of a famous Sussex band and the incident led to tragedy. An
informer named Chater, of Fordingbridge, and an excise officer--William
Calley--were on their way to lay an information, when they were seized
by a number of smugglers and cruelly done to death. For this six men
suffered the full penalty and three others were hanged for the work
done at Poole.

The waters of Poole Harbour are salt as the sea outside though fed by
the rivers Frome and Puddle, and so of course its best aspect is when
the tide is full. The erratic ebb and flow is more pronounced here
than at Southampton and there are longer periods of high than low
water. Brownsea Island, that occupies the centre of this inland sea,
with its wooded banks of dark greenery makes an effective foil to the
sparkling waters and long mauve line of the Purbeck