AND TEE DUKES OF BICEMOND. 



The ancient and ornamental Market Cross, standing 

 in the centre of the city of Chichester, being greatly 

 dilapidated, the Duke repaired it, at considerable 

 expense, in 1746. 



On the 14th of January, 1749, his Grace met the 

 Judges, Sir Thomas Birch, Kt., Sir Michael Foster, Kt., 

 and Baron Edward Clive, at Midhurst, they having 

 come with the counsellors and principal officers in 

 six coaches, each drawn by six horses. The smugglers 

 of Sussex were then incredibly daring and numerous, 

 and openly set the law at defiance, and it was the 

 intention of a gang of these brigands to waylay the 

 procession at Hind Heath, but the idea was aban- 

 doned, as it was reported that the judges would be 

 guarded by a party on horseback. The Duke enter- 

 tained these judges at Goodwood before they pro- 

 ceeded to the bishop's palace at Chichester, to open 

 the special assizes held to try seven notorious 

 smugglers for murder, viz. Benjamin Tapner, John 

 Cobby, John Hammond, William Jackson, William 

 Carter, Richard Mills the elder, and Richard Mills 

 the younger. These, and other desperate and lawless 

 men, had often passed through Goodwood Park in 

 such numbers and so well mounted as to bid defiance 

 to any attempt to arrest their progress. 



Their booty was in kegs, slung upon pack-horses 

 seized for the purpose. Such was the terror they 

 exercised, that any justice of the peace who committed 



