A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Defoe notices l that the Shoreham, Brighton, and Rye boats went numerously to the Yarmouth 

 fishery ; but it may be added that in the middle of the eighteenth century they sailed more to hire 

 or ' host' themselves to the Suffolk owners than to fish for themselves. Brighton he calls ' a poor 

 fishing town,' and the chief trade of Shoreham was shipbuilding, especially of West Indiamen. In 

 1770 General Smith, a candidate for a seat in Parliament, offered ^3,000 and to build 600 tons of 

 shipping there if elected. 2 A writer of 1785 remarked that the Sussex boats then no longer went 

 to the North Sea, the owners being supposed to have taken to smuggling. 3 During the long peace 

 which characterized Sir Robert Walpole's administration the maritime annals of Sussex are mainly 

 connected with smuggling, but the state of war which, with the exception of one truce, existed 

 between 1739 and 1763 marked the commencement of the era when invasion in its modern form 

 was feared and provided against. A descent from Dunkirk, in aid of a Jacobite rising, was planned 

 for January, 17434 ; at first the intention was to land the troops in Sussex, but that was subse- 

 quently changed for a landing in the Thames. War between France and England had not formally 

 been declared, but the silent menace of a powerful English fleet in the Downs brought the 

 preparations to naught. The year 1745 opened with expectation of invasion from Dunkirk, Calais, 

 and Boulogne, and Admiral Vernon was placed in command of a squadron in the Downs 

 to protect Sussex and Kent. Vernon arranged for a system of alarm signals along the coast, to be 

 made from the steeples of Rye, Fairlight, Hastings, and Pevensey churches, with an additional 

 station at Beachy Head ; flags were to be used by day and cressets at night. Many of the Sussex 

 smugglers boasted that they were protected by the government, and it was no doubt true that 

 the ministry used some of them to obtain information, as their successors did during later wars. 

 Vernon sent up the report of one of these men, George Harrison of Hastings, who sailed in and 

 out of Boulogne as calmly as if it were his native port, although, at the moment, there were 50 

 transports and 6,000 or 7,000 troops there preparing for the rush over. 4 No descent came, but 

 there was a moment of consternation in December when an express reached London at one 

 o'clock a.m. one night to inform the duke of Newcastle that the French had landed in Pevensey Bay. 

 By four o'clock a Cabinet Council was sitting and troops were assembling in Hyde Park, but six 

 hours later another express spurred in with the news that the supposed French ships were only the 

 tenders of Vernon's squadron. The alarm was also carried to Chichester, where it caused a rather 

 discreditable panic. 



During the Seven Years' War Sissinghurst was used as a depot for prisoners of war who were 

 sent from Deal and Yarmouth. 6 For favouring the men in their custody the agent in charge was 

 dismissed, and the surgeon censured, in December, 1756. The new agent, John Cook, did not err 

 on the side of leniency ; in 1761 the prisoners managed to get a memorial into the hands of the 

 French ambassador at the Hague, who delivered it to the English representative there, making, in 

 the words of the Admiralty minute, ' heavy complaints of ill-usage and inhuman treatment ' 

 against the agent and the military guard. A commissioner of the Sick and Wounded Board 6 was 

 ordered to go down at once and inquire 7 ; the commissioner, Dr. Maxwell, reported that there had 

 been some ' unfortunate accidents,' and if a member of the Board went so far we may be sure that 

 the details would not bear any whitewash. There is a reference, in the same year, to prisoners of 

 another kind at Seaford, where a press-gang officer complained that the prison in which the men he 

 had caught were confined was so weak that they made many attempts to escape, which he seemed to 

 think both unnatural and ungrateful. 8 There was a curious outburst of piracy between 1 760 and 1770, 

 which had Hastings as its source. In 1765, after an instance off Beachy Head, the government 

 offered jsoo reward for reliable information, 'as cases of this nature have lately been very 

 frequent.' 9 It does not appear that the authorities were successful until 1768, when ' Ruxey's 

 gang ' were discovered and arrested. For seven years they had carried on the game in the 

 Channel in the only way in which it could be carried on safely, that is by murdering the crews 

 and sinking the captures after plundering them. Detection only came by the accident of a 

 drunken boast of how a Dutchman 'wriggled about' when sliced with an axe. 10 There must 

 have been a good deal of excitement in Hastings for 200 troops were ordered there ; four of 

 the pirates were hanged. 



A report of 1766 shows that batteries had been placed in some of the coast towns to enable 

 them to protect themselves against privateers ; the Ordnance Office lent the guns on condition that 



1 Tour Through Great Britain, 1724, ii, 50, 52, 6l. ' Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxvii, 93. 



* J. Knox, View of the British Empire, 286. 



4 A smuggling family at Bexhill are said to have supplied Napoleon with English newspapers and carried 

 his correspondence to and fro during the Great War (Suss. Arch. Coll. x, 79). 



* Admir. Sec. Min. Ixiv, 27 Oct., 26 Nov., 30 Dec. 1756. 



* Which body had charge of prisoners of war. 



7 Admir. Sec. Min. Ixix, 14 Nov. 1761 ; I Jan. 1762. 8 Ibid. 29 Oct. 1761. 



9 Ho. Off. Papers, 1 6 Oct. 1765. I0 Ann. Register, 1768. 



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