The town of Rye is a small parish village located within the East Sussex region and just goes to show that looks can be deceiving for the village whilst always fairly low in population has had a colourful and roguish history due to its strong connections with smugglers. Many smugglers both national and foreign sought to exploit the remarkable benefits that having a town so close to the sea could provide them. All forms of contraband from sugar, cigars, rum, silk and wine were smuggled both into and from the village of Rye and it was rumored that this small village was a major thorn in the Chancellor of the Exchequers side due to the significant amount of revenue lost each and every year.

The town of Rye was also relied upon to stop another great tyrant of the British people: Napoleon. During the course of the Napoleonic wars there was a great deal of scare mongering and concern about the possibility of a French led invasion force landing on British soil and so in an attempt to prevent this, a large and deep ditch was built in the hope that it would stop the invaders dead in their tracks.

Dubbed the Royal Military Canal, this particular approach eloquently demonstrates that wonderful maxim of "when in doubt, look busy" for Napelon had already made a name for himself as the man whose armies would not be stopped by anything, least of all by a mere body of water. It would seem that the people who had ordered the construction of the ditch realized the folly of their efforts, and the canal was not actually completed until a significant period of time after the French threat came to an end.

There is a great deal of debate even to this day as to how the smugglers should be regarded, some see them as highly romanticsed figures who sought to defy the bureaucracy and corruption of the English judiciary. Others see them as violent, ruthless bandits and others still regard them as the downtrodden working class, making their fortune the only way they know how.

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