consultation as to what was to be done.  One
proposed to take them both to a well near
the house, to murder them, and to throw;
them in.  One, more humane, offered to take
them prisoners, and send them over to
France; but that was objected to, as there
was a probability of their coming back, and
betraying everything.  Another said, if the
company agreed, he would take them away
to some place, where they should be confined
till it was known what should be the fate of
Dymoud the shepherd; and, in the mean
time, all should allow threepence a week to
support them; determining that whatever
might be Dymond's fate, theirs should be the
same.  But the majority were in no mood
for such tenderness or trifling.  The wives of
both Jackson and Carter were present, and
Jackson's wife sprang up, and with a furious
gesture, exclaimed, "Hang them like dogs!
Don't they come to hang us?"  But even this
was far from satisfying their cruel purpose.

Jackson began the movement.  He went
up into the room in which the two men were
lying, and having deliberately fastened a
large pair of spurs on his horseman's boots,
he sprang upon the bed, and began to strike
the sleepers on the face and forehead with
the rowels, till they were covered with blood;
beating them at the same time with a short
thick horsewhip, and calling upon them to
get up.  The unfortunate men sprang out of
bed, and found themselves seized at once, and
dragged down into the room below.  Prayers
for mercy brought them only oaths, and blows,
and warnings to be silent, in return.  The
smugglers then took them out of the house;
but one of their number returned, with a
pistol cocked in his hand, and swore that he
would shoot through the head any person
who should mention what he had seen or
heard.

Meanwhile, having taken their horses from
the stable, and stripped the two men of their
coats (which were found afterwards, stained:
with blood by the road-side), they placed
them both upon one of the horses, tying their
legs together under his belly; Jackson
having asked particularly for a belt, or a
cord for that purpose.  In this condition
they proceeded a little way, when Jackson,
who was like a furious maniac, cried out,
"Whip 'em, cut 'em, slash 'em, damn 'em."
And then all fell upon them with whips,
save the one who was leading the horse; for
the roads were so bad that they were obliged
to go slowly.  Thus they tortured the men
till they came to Woodash, which was only
half a mile from the place where they began.
Here their victims, writhing with the pain,
fell off, with their heads under the horse;
their legs, which were tied, appearing over
the back.  When their tormentors found
this, they set them upright again, and
continued whipping them over the head, face,
and shoulders, till they came to Dean, about
half a mile further; the horse still going at a
very slow pace, and stumbling over the rutty
broken roads, which increased their agony.
Here they slipped, and fell under the horse
again, as before, with their feet in the air.

This time, however, they were too weak to sit
upon the horse at all; upon which the tormentors
separated them, and two of the smugglers
mounted upon the horses, one took Chater,
and the other Galley, on his back, where the
torture was continued, till the two smugglers
themselves receiving some of the blows, called
out to the others to desist.  All this time,
Jackson rode beside the two men, with a
pistol cocked, swearing that if they groaned
loudly, he would blow their brains out.
They then agreed to go up with them to
Harris's well, in Ladyholt Park, which was
the property of John Caryll, a Catholic
gentleman, and a friend of the poet Pope.
Here they took Galley from the horse,
meaning to throw him down into the well.
The wretched man rejoiced at this;
begging them to dispatch him at once.  But
the fiend Jackson said, with a fearful
oath "No!  If that's the case, we must
have something more to say to you."  They
then put him on the horse again, and
whipped him over the downs, till he fell off
once more, and they laid him across the
saddle, with his breast downwards, as a
butcher does a calf, and one squeezed him
in a way so horribly cruel that the poor
fellow groaned very much, and cried aloud
that he could not bear it; and at last said,
"I am falling, I am falling."  One of the
gang, giving him a push, he fell heavily, and
some thought he had broken his neck, and
was dead; although from a horrible circumstance
afterwards discovered, it was known
that he was not.

It should not be forgotten, in considering
these barbarities as an indication of the
feeling against the revenue officers in those
days, that not one of these men had any direct
interest in the case of Dymond and the
smuggled tea, which had been taken out of
the custom-house at Poole, a place fiuther
distant from them than London, and
separated by a whole county.  Nor were they, in
the usual sense smugglers, or importers of
smuggled goods; but were only persons
interested in smuggling more or less.

Supposing Galley to be dead, they then laid
him upon a horse; and, as they were going
up a dirty lane, one said, "Let us seek a
place to carry them to."  So little were they
afraid of witnesses, that they went to the
house of one Pescod, and, knocking at the
door, the daughter came down; when they
said they had got two men whom they
wanted to bring into the house.  The girl
told them her father was ill.  But they insisting
that she should go up and ask him
to let them in.  She did, and brought down
word that her father would suffer nobody to
be brought there; and the men returned to
their companions.