THE PORTSMOUTH ROAD 183 



country from Portsmouth, almost as far as Liphook, 

 was infested by gangs of smugglers of whom the 

 poachers who still confer notoriety on some of the 

 villages of the area may be perhaps the lineal de- 

 scendants. 



From time to time, after some unusually audacious 

 outbreak against custom-house laws had taken place, 

 violent reprisals were made ; but on the whole the 

 revenue officers seem to have had decidedly the worst 

 of it, and the smugglers enjoyed an enviable immunity 

 from the retribution of justice. The climax to this 

 condition of affairs came on the 6th and 7th of October, 

 1747, when a gang of some sixty of these desperadoes 

 assembled secretly in Charlton Forest ; made a sudden 

 raid on Poole ; broke open the custom, where a large 

 quantity of tea which had been seized from one of their 

 confederates, was lodged, and made off with the booty, 

 without encountering any resistance from the surprised 

 authorities. 



The smugglers returned to their quarters by way of 

 Fordingbridge, and it is here that one of their future 

 victims first makes his appearance in the history. 

 Daniel Chater, a shoemaker of the place, was standing 

 watching the triumphant procession as they riotously 

 passed his house, when he recognized a man among 

 them who had worked with him in the last harvest- 

 time. The man thus recognized, whose name was 

 Diamond, not altogether relishing the attention, threw 

 Chater a bag of the stolen tea as he passed him — by 

 way of a sop to Cerberus. Shortly afterwards however he 

 was unfortunate enough to be taken into custody at 

 Chichester on suspicion of complicity in this very 

 Poole affair ; and the fact coming to Chater's ears, he 

 was tempted by the promise of a reward to accom- 

 pany a Mr. William Galley, a custom-house officer, to 

 Chichester for the purpose of identifying Diamond. 

 And Galley carried a sealed letter to Major Battin, a 

 justice of the peace for Sussex, clearly setting forth the 



