But just prior to this, Lieutenant Sharnbler had ordered an officer and two men to take spyglasses and watch her. At this time they were about fifteen or sixteen miles away from the North Foreland. One of the men looking through his glass observed that the _Admiral Hood_ was heaving tubs overboard, and it was then that the first musket was fired for her to heave-to, but as the tubs were still thrown overboard for the next three-quarters of an hour, the long gun and the muskets were directed towards her. The two vessels had sailed on parallel lines for a good hour's chase before the firing began, and the chase went on till about a quarter to five, the tide at this time ebbing to the westward and a fine strong sailing breeze. There was no doubt at all now that she was a smuggler, for one of the _Lively's_ crew distinctly saw a man standing in the _Admiral Hood's_ hatchway taking tubs and depositing them on deck, whilst some one else was taking them from the deck and heaving them overboard, the tubs being painted a dark green so as to resemble the colour of the waves. As the _Lively_ came ramping on, she found numbers of these tubs in the wake of the _Admiral Hood_, and lowered a boat to pick them up, and about twenty-two were found a hundred yards from the smuggler, and the _Lively_ also threw out a mark-buoy to locate two other tubs which they passed. And, inasmuch as there was no other vessel within six miles distance, the _Admiral Hood_ beyond a shadow of doubt was carrying contraband.
[Illustration: "The _Admiral Hood_ was heaving tubs overboard."]
After the vessel was at length hove-to, she was seized and ultimately taken into Rochester, and information was duly laid against the persons who had been engaged in this smuggling adventure. But it is here that Sir William Courtenay comes into the story. This gentleman, who had his seat at Powderham Castle, Devon, came forward and swore positively that the tubs, which the _Lively_ was supposed to have picked up, had been seen floating off the coast. He himself was staying on a visit to Canterbury, and on that Sunday afternoon happened to be sailing about off the Kentish coast, and sighted the _Lively_ about two o'clock. He kept her in sight, he said, until four o'clock. He also saw the _Admiral Hood_, and witnessed her being chased by the _Lively_, but he had seen the tubs for most of the day, as they had come up with the tide from the westward. With his own eyes, and not through a spy-glass, he witnessed the _Admiral Hood_ being captured by the cruiser, and followed up this evidence by remarking that "the tubs I saw picked up did not come out of the _Lord Hood_. I say so sterling and plump."