[Illustration:  A Representation of ye Smugglers breaking open ye KING’S Custom House at Poole.]

After the Poole officers discovered what had happened to their Custom House, there was not unnaturally a tremendous fuss, and eventually the King’s proclamation promised a reward for the apprehension of the men concerned in the deed.  Nothing happened for months after, but at last Diamond was arrested on suspicion and lodged in Chichester Gaol.  We can well imagine the amount of village gossip to which this would give rise.  Chater was heard to remark that he knew Diamond and saw him go by with the gang the very day after the Custom House had been broken open.  When the Collector of Customs at Southampton learned this, he got into communication with the man, and before long Chater and Mr. William Galley were sent with a letter to Major Battin, a Justice of the Peace for Sussex.  Galley was also a Custom House officer stationed at Southampton.  The object of this mission was that Chater’s evidence should be taken down, so that he might prove the identity of Diamond.

On Sunday February 14, then, behold these two men setting out for Chichester.  On the way they stopped at the White Hart Inn, Rowland’s Castle, for refreshment.  But the landlady suspecting that they were going to hurt the smugglers, with the intuition of a woman and the sympathy of a mother decided to send for two men named Jackson and Carter.  For this Mrs. Paine, a widow, had two sons herself, who though nominally blacksmiths were in fact smugglers.  Jackson and Carter came in, to whom the widow explained her suspicions, and these two men were presently followed by others of the gang.  Before very long they had got into conversation with Galley and Chater, and plied them with drink, so that they completely gave away the nature of their mission, and after being fuddled and insulted were put to bed intoxicated.  After a while, they were aroused by Jackson brutally digging his spurs on their foreheads and then thrashing them with a horse-whip.  They were then taken out of the inn, both put on to the same horse, with their legs tied together below the horse’s belly.  They were next whipped as they went along, over the face, eyes, and shoulder, till the poor victims were unable to bear it any longer, and at last fell together, with their hands tied underneath the horse, heads downwards.  In this position the horse struck the head of one or the other with his feet at every step.  Afterwards the blackguardly tormentors sat the two men upright again, whipped them, and once more the men fell down, with heels in air.  They were utterly weak, and suffering from their blows.

[Illustration:  Mr. Galley and Mr. Chater put by ye Smugglers on one Horse near Rowland Castle A.  Steele who was Admitted a Kings Evidence B. Little Harry.  C. Iackson D. Carter E. Downer.  F. Richards. 1.  Mr. Galley. 2.  Mr. Chater.]

[Illustration:  Galley and Chater falling off their Horse at Woodash draggs their Heads on the Ground, while the Horse kicks them as he goes; the Smugglers still continuing their brutish Usage.]