Search -
Tales of the Coast Guard, by Lieut. Warneford
Tales of the Coast Guard by Lieut Warneford Author:William Russell General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1856 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: Cab of % fast - THE SMUGGLERS' HOSTAGE. Only one of the seamen wounded in the brush with the smugglers previously narrated recovered. The other, James Norton, having been hit grievously on the left knee-cap, it was found necessary to take off the leg, and the poor fellow sank under the operation. The most energetic measures were, it may be supposed, immediately adopted to bring the guilty parties to justice. The government offered a large reward to any one -- excepting, of course, those who fired the fatal shots -- that would give informationleading to the conviction of the offenders, and an active inquiry was at once set on foot, and vigorously carried on throughout the neighbourhood. The result was the apprehension of a number of persons to whom suspicion pointed, and the ultimate committal of five of them to the Winchester March assize on the capital charge. It was, however, very doubtful that we had secured one of the chief culprits. There was no evidence that the men in prison were owners of the goods attempted to be run, were armed at the time, or in any way concerned in the affair, save as temporary helpers; and even on this last point the proof with regard to two or three of them was by no means clear. From the blood-tracks leading to a considerable distance, discovered the morning after the affray, it was certain that the hurried and random shots of the seamen must have taken fearful effect on several of the fugitive contrabandists, but not one of these wounded men could be found; and it was greatly feared that the deaths of the two men would remain unavenged. Once during the preliminary inv...« less