about two
o'clock a.m.
The French probably never did a more audacious thing than when , on the night of October 26th , 1804 , a party of forty odd of them left the lugger _ Belle Marie _ hove-to in Weymouth Roads and pulled , with muffled oars , in three boats , into the harbour ; from whence they succeeded in carrying out to sea the newly-arrived West Indian trader _ Weymouth _ , loaded with a full cargo of rum , sugar , and tobacco . The expedition was admirably planned , the night chosen being that upon which the new moon occurred ; it was a dismal , rainy , and exceptionally dark night , with a strong breeze blowing from the south-west ; the hour was about two o'clock a.m. ; there was an ebb tide running ; and the ship -- which had only arrived late in the afternoon of the previous day -- was the outside vessel in a tier of three ; the Frenchman had , therefore , nothing whatever to do but to cut the craft adrift and allow her to glide , silent as a ghost , down the harbour with bare poles , under the combined influence of the strong wind and the ebb tide . There was not a soul stirring about the quays at that hour ; nobody , therefore , saw the ship go out ; and the two custom-house officers and the watchman -- the only Englishmen aboard her -- were fast asleep , and were secured before they had time or opportunity to raise an alarm . So neatly , indeed , was the trick done that the first intimation poor old Peter White -- the owner of the ship and cargo -- had of his loss was when , at the first streak of dawn , he slipped out of bed and went to the window to gloat over the sight of the safely-arrived ship , moored immediately opposite his house but on the other side of the harbour , where she had been berthed upon her arrival on the previous afternoon . The poor old gentleman could scarcely credit his eyes when those organs informed him that the berth , occupied but a few hours previously , was now vacant .