THE ATTORNEY AND THE SMUGGLER.

TOMMY JOHNSON was a smuggler of the modern school, about which it is hardly necessary to say more than that it differs considerably from the old or the ideal school. Neither Tommy nor any of his men were the picturesque ruffians that school-boy imagination describes, under the tutelary genius of well-known romancists; nor did they much resemble the full-booted, rollicking giants which low art, in common pictures, invariably makes the bold smuggler.

Tommy, the smuggler chief, was a short, stout, ruddy-faced, good-humoured fellow, who lived much as small tradesmen (of whom he was also one) live in that part of the south of England to which he belonged. Every body, it is said, liked him, and he liked every body—except a revenue-officer.

Of Johnson’s kith and kindred nobody knew, and few cared to inquire, any thing. Whether Tommy was his real name or not, I am uncertain. When on one occasion, being in trouble, he was asked by a local magistrate who his friends (perhaps meaning his relatives) were, jovial Tommy, with a show of distress, replied somewhat as that eccentric child of the Rev. Mrs. Stowe, Topsy, might have done, “that he ’spected he hadn’t got any.” There was, however, too much modesty or a little untruth in this. Tommy Johnson had hosts of sympathisers, who were prepared at all times to do him any service in their power. Rumour for many miles about his place of abode gave him credit for being what he really was—a smuggler. Tommy felt it necessary sometimes to vary the compliment, but not always. He never went so far as to repudiate having defrauded the revenue. He was rather pleased to hear folks embody in words the popular theory that there was no harm in robbing the Custom House. He did not care to hide from some people that he did now and then run a vessel clandestinely between a Dutch port and some mysterious point off a craggy side of the Isle of Wight. He, however, usually preferred to be known as a man who had once been in, but now retired from, that business.

Tommy, who was an otherwise prosperous man, once determined that he would indeed give up his perilous and unlawful business or profession.

“My dear,” he once observed to his loving wife, on their return from church one Sunday evening, “I’ll cut smuggling. I’m thinking it’s time I did. We can afford it, you know. This here business, the butcher’s shop, pays; the inn at P—— would honestly pay of itself; and the brickfield turns out right.”

“I wish you would, with all my heart,” his wife replied.

“I will. My mind’s made up.”

“You have said that before, Tommy,” observed his sweet partner; “but you can’t do it. I wish you could. You must be a smuggler. It’s the fun of it you like, as you say, I suppose?”

“Well, yes, I will. I’ve quite made up my mind. When I do really make up my mind to any thing, you know, I do it. I’ll have just one more run, just one more, and then I drop the game, and stick to the trade on land.”

“That’s what you said the year before last. Do you recollect the time, Tommy?”

Tommy shuddered. He made that promise to himself, and kept it by running a lugger from a port in the Netherlands to one of his points of concealment here. The affair turned out a bad one. The coast-guard discovered the arrival of the boat, seized the craft and its contents, and Tommy Johnson also, and ultimately lodged him in the gaol at Winchester, where he had to undergo a long imprisonment, pending the arrival of the assizes.

That the smuggler then had friends was here demonstrated. The facts were as plain as they could be, but their interpretation or bearing on the question of guilt or innocence was left to the jury, who had the law expounded for their guidance with all possible certainty. Tommy Johnson was acquitted in the teeth of evidence and the strength of a sympathy between himself and every man in the jury-box.

Let me, however, return to the last conversation between Mr. and Mrs. Johnson.

“I would have cut it after that,” he said; “but it cost such a sight of money. What with the loss of the ship, and all the rum, brandy, and hollands, and the hard money I paid Lawyer Swelling, we were almost ruined. I couldn’t stop then. Neck or nothing, I must go in again; but now we’re on our legs again, thank God! and I’ll drop the game after one more slice of luck.”

Having made this resolution, Mr. Johnson next day proceeded to execute it. He drew out two good round sums of money from different banks; a fine lugger, “a perfect beauty,” as he declared, was soon afterwards bought, and she was in due course freighted with liquors on a neighbouring coast.

I happened, not many weeks after this, to be travelling as an outside passenger by the coach from Cowes to Ventnor, in the Isle of Wight, when two revenue-carts, heavily laden, passed us on the road.

“My eyes!” exclaimed my driver; and addressing a man who swayed the whip in the first cart, he inquired, “Whose is that lot?”

“Tommy Johnson’s, we suppose.”

“Poor fellow! unlucky again!” sighed the coachman.

The last venture that was to crown the honest resolution had, then, failed, and worse had to be encountered.

The repentant smuggler was again locked up in Winchester Gaol for a weary succession of months. The case had already been established against him by the clearest evidence. Tommy’s heart dropped. His rotund form became elongated, his cheeks lost their plumpness and their colour, his garments hung loosely about his person, and his mind was ill at ease.

This was the fourth time Tommy Johnson had been put on his trial for a like offence against the laws of his country. Each time his case was, in the opinion of his legal advisers, more desperate than before. The facts were not each time stronger, but the prejudice against the prisoner increased with his reappearance in the dock.

Tommy and his wife resolved that no expense should be spared over the defence. Mr. Swelling, of Gosport, who had been so very successful on former occasions, was again instructed, and told to lay out as much money as he pleased in briefs to counsel. I reckon that he made a fine thing out of this bold modern smuggler. Four hundred pounds sterling were paid to him on account at starting. Another hundred were given him before the gaol delivery came round; and there was a balance yet to be liquidated, for which, however, the attorney agreed to give time. Now, suppose that he gave Mr. Needy, the indefatigable junior counsel, in all 25l. (which is far over the mark), and that Mr. Silkyarn, the eminent leader, got in all 75l. (which is a vast exaggeration), allow 50l. for the slight further costs out of pocket, and it will be seen that the attorney made a handsome profit. But there was yet a balance to be settled.

The days previous to trial were days of anxiety to the smuggler and his wife. Their intensity, of course, increased as they approached the grand ordeal. At last the day arrived on which, for the fourth time in his life, Tommy Johnson was placed on his trial for smuggling in the Assize Court at Winchester.

Again, to the surprise of his own attorney and counsel, he was acquitted.

The explanation of this miscarriage of justice is easily found. The arrest of Johnson caused a sensation through the entire county of Hants. He was, as I have said, a jovial man, and a kind-hearted fellow, in his way. Rumour spread the story of his dashing adventures far and wide—exaggerating and intensifying their commonplace into wild romance. This alone fascinated the public mind. But again, rumour having taken Tommy Johnson under her protection, just as she wantonly injures so many others, she made the very most she could of his merits. Every single act of kindness he had ever performed was magnified a hundredfold, and the common smuggler became a hero. I verily believe that Tommy Johnson could have got a hundred acquittals, at as many consecutive assizes. I don’t believe that a jury could be found to pronounce that awful word guilty to an indictment preferred by the Crown against him.

Tommy Johnson, after his acquittal, returned home, in a condition which an original mind has described as that of a wiser, sadder, and poorer man than he was prior to the last run. He, however, laudably determined not to make another adventure. He would not seek, through new perils, to retrieve his loss. Without any claims to the character of poet himself, he drew philosophy from Hamlet, and resolved to bear the ills he had rather than fly to others which, his lawyers told him, he could not fathom the depths of. He would stick to the safe pursuit of fortune on land, and not tempt the perils of the deep in the way he had done. In one of his soliloquies on this point he observed that he had made money at it, but he was afraid that he had used up his luck. He couldn’t stand those long imprisonments, and he couldn’t always go on dropping thousands into the hands of the coast-guard and the lawyers. On the whole, he was decidedly of opinion that smuggling was objectionable, on many grounds, and for various reasons; so he did in fact at last resolve to give it up—and he kept that promise.

Mr. Johnson, in less than a fortnight (being so anxious, as he said, to get the affair off his mind) wrote to his attorney to ascertain the exact balance due to that able and worthy man. The lawyer answered by a note, which led Mr. Johnson to call at his office with about 150l. in his pocket.

“Well, Mr. Johnson,” observed the attorney, stretching out his hands with frigid cordiality, “sit down. I am glad to see you, Mr. Johnson; very glad indeed. I never thought I should have succeeded in getting you off the last time. You owe a great deal to me and to your excellent counsel, Mr. Needy and Mr. Silkyarn.”

“Oh, yes; I’m much obliged, sir, I assure you,” Johnson interposed, with the hope of abbreviating the homily.

“Of course,” continued the lawyer, “I am bound to do the best I can for my client who is in a difficulty. I am glad that I did succeed in getting you off; but prevention is better than cure, you know, Mr. Johnson.”

“Of course,” exclaimed the impatient client.

“And,” the attorney went on to say, “let me give you a bit of sound advice gratis—moral and religious advice, as well as legal—Mr. Johnson. Let me assure you, that although I dare say you think there is no harm in it, it is as wicked to plunder the revenue as it is to rob a private individual.”

“I can’t see it in that light,” said the unconvicted smuggler.

“It is so, upon my honour,” replied the attorney. “Think over what I now say. Reflect upon the matter, Mr. Johnson, and you’ll see I’m right.”

“Well, that’s an affair for to-morrow. Let me see, what did you say your balance was, sir?”

“Oh, ah! Well, I said I’d take a hundred guineas in final settlement—that is, a hundred and five pounds, Mr. Johnson.”

Johnson counted the money in notes, and handed it to the attorney, who laid it on his table.

A moment’s silence followed.

It was broken by the attorney, who did not quite understand the look of the client; and as he feared that Mr. Johnson might be thinking the costs excessive, Mr. Swelling turned the theme.

“Now, I hope the next time you retain my services, they will be needed for some different purpose. I should like to see you make money, and invest it in land or houses, and let me prepare the deeds.”

“Yes, sir, you shall, when I can get the money to buy the land and houses.”

“Well, till then good by, Mr. Johnson,” said the attorney, rising to bow out his client.

“You forgot, sir, I think, to give me a receipt; and I don’t think I ever had any for the money I paid you in the prison?”

“Oh, very well, Mr. Johnson. Certainly you can have a duly-stamped receipt, if you please; but I hope you don’t suppose that I want to cheat you? I should not like to think you reward my anxious services on your behalf by entertaining such an unjust suspicion of me as that?”

“No, sir. Oh, no. Nothing of that sort. Only, as you were a-saying that it’s as wrong to rob the revenue as it is a private individual, I thought (although I don’t see things quite in that light) that you ought to give me one.”

The attorney’s moral philosophy cost him 7s. 6d.

He bit his lip, and sat down; and as penny receipts had not been invented, he wrote on a stamp of the above value a receipt for all the money paid him by the smuggler, who rather enjoyed the joke he had played off on his legal adviser.