From this time forward Crawford was frequently engaged in this business.
He got into communication with the dealers in arms whose acquaintance he
had made six years before. He went himself to Hamburg, and, after
learning something of the chicanery prevalent in the trade, which it
took all his resourcefulness to overcome, he fell in with an honest Jew
by whose help he succeeded in sending a thousand rifles safely to
Belfast. Other consignments followed from time to time in larger or
smaller quantities, in the transport of which all the devices of
old-time smuggling were put to the test. Crawford bought a schooner,
which for a year or more proved very useful, and, while employing her in
bringing arms to Ulster, he made acquaintance with a skipper of one of
the Antrim Iron Ore Company's coasting steamers, whose name was Agnew, a
fine seaman of the best type produced by the British Mercantile Marine,
who afterwards proved an invaluable ally, to whose loyalty and ability
Crawford and Ulster owed a deep debt of gratitude, as they also did to
Mr.
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