March 28th 1690. It is dead of night; in the small creek near Dymchurch, a village on Romney Marsh, a dark boat approaches a well-hidden landing stage. It moves noiselessly across the water, slows down, and ties up. Immediately, but without a sound, some thirty figures emerge from the bushes and approach the water. A horse and cart appear from nowhere, and the work begins. In the space of quarter of an hour, the boat's cargo is totally unloaded, carried up the bank and loaded onto the cart, and onto another one that follows it. Twenty minutes later, the boat, with darkened sail, is turning round and heading back out to sea whence it had come. Its cargo, a hundred barrels of finest cognac, is on its way to a hiding place, for later dispatch to London.