Hi everyone,
The Aldington Blues were a large gang and just about all the community from high to low were involved in some way. The Gang even kept a Doctor on a retainer to look after any wounded smugglers.
Many of the men were ex-soldiers and sailors home from the Napoleonic war, who knew how to fight professionally. The government responded by increasing its Royal Coastal Blockage to 3000 men stretched along 200 miles of the Kent coast. The 14 year stretch from 1815 has been acnowledged as the bloodiest period in 200 years of smuggling. The Wikipedia has a great site about the gang http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Aldington_Gang