Nothing flying the Spanish flag in the Channel
seemed to escape him, until matters at last became so humiliating that
the might of both countries was brought to bear on Poole, and the town
underwent a severe chastisement, in which Page's brother was killed.
This spirit of warlike enterprise descended to the great grandchildren
of these Elizabethans, for in Poole church is a monument to one
Joliffe, captain of the hoy _Sea Adventurer_, who, in the days of
Dutch William, drove ashore and captured a French privateer. In the
following year another bold seaman, William Thompson, with but one man
and a cabin-boy to help him, took a Cherbourg privateer and its crew
of sixteen. Both these heroes received a gold chain and medal from the
King. Another generation, and the town was fighting its own masters
over the question of "free imports." In spite of the usually accepted
fact that smuggling can only prosper in secret, Poole became a sort of
headquarters for all that considerable trade that found in the nooks
and crannies of the Dorset coast safe warehouses and a natural
cellarage.
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