THE HAWKHURST GANG.[1]
In September 1747 , one John Diamond, otherwise Dymar, agreed with a number of smugglers, to go over to Guernsey to smuggle tea ; when having purchased a quantity, on their return in a cutter, they were chased, and the vessel and tea taken by one Captain Johnson, the crew escaping in a boat ; Captain Johnson carried the vessel and tea to the port of Pool[e], and lodged the tea in the Custom-house there.
The smugglers were very much annoyed at the mis carriage of their purchase, and they resolved not to sit down contented with their loss ; a consultation being held, they agreed to go and take away the tea from the warehouse in which it was lodged. Accordingly about the middle of the next month, a body of them , to the number of sixty, well armed , assembled in Charlton Forest, in the County of Sussex and started on their enterprise about thirty of the gang were stationed at different places as scouts, to watch the motions of the officers and soldiers, and to be ready to assist or alarm the main body, in case any opposition should be made to their daring scheme. In the night time between the 6th and 7th October, -
- ↑ Compiled from a work published in 1749, containing a " Full and Genuine History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of William Galley and Daniel Chater by fourteen Notorious Smugglers, with their Trials, &c. , &c."
