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return to England. The papers relative to this period are still in 

 existence, and I am satisfied that if his lot had fallen in our own 

 times, his Indian experience would have been far different. He 

 arrived at Gravesend in November, 1765, no richer than when he 

 went out, and with an arrear of pay still owing to him by the 

 Company. 



He was now thirty-one years of- age, having been nearly 

 nine years away. In London he casually met with a former 

 neighbour, !Miss Hannah Fisher, of Shaw Bank. She was the 

 daughter of Mr. Daniel Fisher of that place, and a descendant of 

 that stout yeoman, John Fisher, who fought the eight years' legal 

 battle with the first Earl of Derwentwater, relative to the " Town 

 Cass," and "prevailed." She was a girl in her teens when Peter 

 Crosthwaite finished his apprenticeship at Brown Beck. Whether 

 it was love at first sight, or the re-kindling of a former friendship, 

 I know not ; but certain it is that they engaged to marry as soon 

 as he settled in any new employment. Her brother, Mr. Timothy 

 Fisher, of Holborn Bridge, became King's Linen Draper, and she 

 had been engaged keeping his house. It was not long before 

 Crosthwaite obtained a situation in the Customs at Blyth, in 

 Northumberland, and to this place he took his young wife. The 

 village of Blyth then contained about one hundred and thirty 

 families. It is still, I am told, about as unprepossessing a place 

 as could well be imagined. The preventive service was always 

 laborious and dangerous, and Blyth Nook was one of the spots 

 where smugglers followed their contraband work with great bold- 

 ness. Many a time during the twelve years he was engaged in the 

 service was he fired upon. But he was zealous in the performance 

 of his duty, holding it to be "undeniable that those people who in 

 anywise encourage smuggling are disloyal, traitors to the State, and 

 enemies to civil society." The incessant night duty at length told 

 upon his health, and his friends urged him to retire. His wife 

 joining in their entreaties, he at length decided to do so. As an 

 additional inducement, his father gave him the small estate where 

 he served his time. He procured the superannuation to which he 

 had subscribed, and entered upon his "Castle" (as he called it) 



