Two ingenious instances of the sinking of contraband goods were found out about the year 1823, and both occurred within that notorious south-east corner of England.  The first of these belongs to Sandwich, where three half-ankers of foreign spirits were seized floating, being hidden in a sack, a bag of shingle weighing 30 lbs. being used to act as a sinker.  Attached to the sack were an inflated bladder and about three fathoms of twine, together with a small bunch of feathers to act as a buoy to mark the spot.  When this arrangement was put into use it was found that the bladder kept the sack floating one foot below the surface of the water.  The feathers were to mark the spot where the sack, on being thrown overboard, might bring up in case any accident had occurred to the bladder.  At spring tides the rush of the water over the Sandwich flats causes a good deal of froth which floats on the surface.  The reader must often have observed such an instance on many occasions by the sea.  The exact colour is a kind of dirty yellow, and this colour being practically identical with that of the bladder, it would be next to impossible to tell the difference between froth and bladder at any distance, and certainly no officer of the Revenue would look for such things unless he had definite knowledge beforehand.

[Illustration:  The Sandwich Device.  In the sack were three half-ankers.  A bag of shingle acted as sinker, and the bladder kept the sack floating.]

The second occurrence took place at Rye.  A seizure was made of twelve tubs of spirits which had been sunk by affixing to the head of each a circular piece of sheet lead which just fitted into the brim of the cask, and was there kept in its place by four nails.  The weight of the lead was 9 lbs., and the tubs, being lashed longitudinally together, rolled in a tideway unfettered, being anchored by the usual lines and heavy stones.  The leads sank the casks to the bottom in 2-1/2 fathoms of water, but at that depth they in specific gravity so nearly approximated to their equal bulk of fluid displaced that they could scarcely be felt on the finger.  The leads were cast in moulds to the size required, and could be repeatedly used for the same purpose, and it was thought that the smuggling vessels, after coming across the Channel and depositing their cargoes, would on a later voyage be given back these pieces of lead to be affixed to other casks.

A clinker-built boat of about 26 tons burthen named the St. Francois, the master of which was named Jean Baptiste La Motte, of and from Gravelines, crossed the North Sea and passed through the Forth and Clyde Canal in the year 1823 to Glasgow.  Nominally she had a cargo of apples and walnuts, her crew consisting of six men besides the master.  She was able to land part of her cargo of “apples” at Whitby and the rest at Glasgow, and afterwards, repassing safely through the canal again, returned to Gravelines.  But some time after her departure from Scotland it was discovered that she had brought no fruit at all, but that what appeared to be apples were so many portions of lace made up into small boxes of the size of apples and ingeniously painted to resemble that fruit.