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Godfrey Burdett "I am an Excise-officer, at Yoxford: On the 31st of July, 1797. I went to a place called the Cross-bow, between Yoxford and Wangford, we had intelligence of a parcel of smugglers; Mr. Gooch and I met with them in the afternoon, coming off Lowestoffe Beach, there appeared to be seven or eight carts, and twenty or thirty men, that was between one and three o'clock in the morning; the carts came off the beach on to the turnpike road; I rode up, and found them loaded with half ankers; Mr. Gooch and I rode in amongst them, and cut off three carts; I struck at a man with a white stick, and struck it out of his hand; a man upon a cart immediately struck at me; I returned the blow, and struck him off the cart; I did not know any one them; we tracked the carts to Lord Rous's Park.
Q. That was the first seizure; be so good as come to the second? - A. Before we got to Lord Rous's Park the prisoner passed us in a cart; I am sure of his person, I knew him very well; he had been sent back with one of the carts, and when I saw him he had got the cutter's men in the cart; he called us b-rs; we went up to Lord Rous's Lodge, and let them pass us, they were huzzaing; we went on, and in Lord Rous's Park we found to the number of sixty or seventy half ankers, I counted thirty in one lot; Mr. Gooch went off for a waggon to convey them away, and while he was gone, I saw the smuggling carts coming from the White-hart, at Blithborough; I ordered one of the waggons that we had hired, to bring the half ankers out of the wood; we slaved a half anker, we knocked the head in, on purpose to taste it, it was foreign geneva; I told him I should seize that tub, and the rest of the tubs that were in the wood; I ordered my men to load the waggon, and when we had got about twenty half ankers in the waggon, the smugglers appeared upon the hill, in five carts; when they saw us they huzzaed, d-d their eyes, and said they were glad to see us; I asked them what they wanted; the prisoner replied that he wanted to go past, he said the King's highway was as free for them as for us; he then said, d-n your eyes we want the tubs, and the tubs we will have; they immediately surrounded us, and blocked us in between the waggon and the pales, and their carts; Dick then jumped down off the cart, and said, d-n their eyes they are fixed; we charged them with our swords, and then we forced out between the carts, and we left the tubs behind; I told them they had got the tubs, but if they offered to move them I would fire at them; one of the sailors, with a straw hat on, came immediately up to me, and said, d-n your eyes shoot; he unbuttoned to his shirt, and said, here is a breast to shoot at; we then fired at them several times, and they retreated; they then charged us with pitchforks, and bludgeons, up the hill, and stoned us till we got loaded again, and then we drove them back again, and so we kept on for nearly half an hour; then they holloaed out that we should have twenty tubs; I then consulted Mr. Gooch, and we found we had only one cartridge a-piece left; then we said we would accept of twenty tubs; Little Dick's reply was, d-n your eyes we will not give you twenty." The defendant was found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for three years on board the hulks with hard labour.
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