The social conditions of the early years of the eighteenth century were in a high degree favourable to underhand dealings. Although England was on the verge of a great war with her secular rival, the patrolling of the Channel seems to have been almost entirely neglected. Sloops crossed to France, and crossed to England from France almost daily, and went and came unchallenged. H.M.S. Warspite, on seizing a French privateer out of St. Malo, was confronted with the claim of a Yarmouth fisherman, who complained that the boat was his own; that it had been driven to sea in a storm, captured, and carried to St. Malo. Every fishing fleet clearly ran the same risk. The presence of a Seaford peasant having become desirable, for some undisclosed reason, he was kidnapped from his field, willingly or unwillingly, and carried to France. With the Channel in this condition it is clear that although the movements of highly placed men could be watched and controlled, obscure agents could pass and repass in perfect security, so far as the efforts of the pubic services were concerned. Extensive powers of the public services were concerned. Extensive powers of arrest of suspicious persons were enjoyed by the magistracy, but the public services were themselves not above suspicion.