Smuggling by Hot Air Balloon, 1838 April 24, 2018
Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern , trackback
Humans adapt new technologies quickly to almost every imaginable use. This was true with flight. The first manned hot air balloon flew in 1782. The first military use of hot air balloons came at the Battle of Fleurus in 1794: France became the first nation to ever use air power in war. However, what about balloons and crime: prison escapes, cattle rustling, robbery…? Beach has been looking through his file and came across this letter published in the Hampshire Telegraph in 1838 which suggests that hot air balloons were used for smuggling.
Novel mode of eluding the vigilance of Government by the perfection of Aerostation. A flight of 500 tubs of spirits of brandy was safely landed in the centre of the Isle of Wight, by one of those unearthly machines called balloons, similar in every respect to the great Nassau balloon which cause so much wonderment a few months since. The balloon, and its tremendous ballast of choice spirits, passed over the St. Lawrence* coast-guard without the slightest observation. It is now intended to lay up all the [anti-smuggling] vessels,, they being of no further utility, and send the coast-guard to Canada, as in future it will not be necessary to keep more than one man on top of St. Catherine’s** as a sky gazer.
Any earlier records of smuggling by air balloon? Drbeachcombing AT gmail dot com. And is this, in any case, genuine? It sounds a very risky venture to send a balloon from France with 500 tubs of brandy: or was it sent off a ship when the wind was right? The Telegraph inserted this comment.
We do not vouch for the following being a fact, but we assure our readers that it is a fact that it was sent to us for insertion, and we strongly suspect that more is meant that meets the eye, for we know that some of our island friends are particularly fond of ‘moonshine’ and not over-scrupulous in the means of procuring it.
Mmmmm
*village on south side of Isle of Wight
** lighthouse on southern shore
24 April 2018: James sends in this piece. From the Franco-Prussian war.
