The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft

ggling in the Eighteenth Cent

obacco and tea grew and throve amazingly in later ages. Every one, knowin

among the earliest to yield to

whom three

counsel take, a

the illegal landing of the goods, found employment for hundreds of hardy seafaring men and stalwart landsmen, and

highly organised and widely distributed trade, involving every class. The time had come at last when every necessary of daily use was taxed heavily, often far above its ordinary trading value; and an absurd, and indeed desperate, condition of affairs had been reached, in which people of all ranks were more or less faced w

rovide adequate means by which these generally detested laws could be enforced. It was, and is, no defence to hold that the revenues thus hoped for were a sufficient excuse. To create an artificial restraint of trade, to elevate trading in spite of restraint into a crime, and yet not to provide an overmastering force that shall secu

ue; whether the revenue was to be applied in conducting foreign wars, or to find its way plentifully into the pockets of placemen, does not greatly matter. This misgovernment was a characteristic failing of the age; and it must, moreover, be recognised that the historian, with his comprehensive outlook upon the past, spread out, so to speak, map-like to his gaze, has the advantage of seeing these things as a whole, and of crit

culiarly useful to smugglers, the use of such, even in legalised importing, was strictly forbidden, and no craft of a lesser burthen than fifteen tons was permitted. This provision, it was fondly conceived, would strike a blow at smuggling, by rendering it impossible to slip up narrow and shallow waterways; but thi

of one among these

mes, or within the limits of the ports of London, Sandwich, or Ipswich, or any boat rowing with more than six oars found either upon land or water, in a

to row with more than six oars, extended to all othe

ay of the revenue authorities with such was drastic. They

n Kent, Sussex, Essex, and Suffolk. In twelve months, this report declared, 54,000 lb. of tea and 123,000 gallons of brandy had been seized, and still, in spite of these tremendous lo

mined encounters continually taking place, in which the recklessness and daring of the smugglers knew no bounds. Thus, in June 1733, the officers of customs at Newhaven, attempting to seize ten horses laden w

o their duty and seize the goods, but the smugglers fell furiously upon them, and with clubs knocked one off his horse, severely wounded him, and c

trial of endurance in that waiting game. They accordingly seized the officers and confined them until some boatloads of contraband had been landed and conveyed away on horseback. In the same month, at Kingston-by-the-Sea, between Brighton and Shoreham, some officer

isoners for an hour and a half. The same gang then fell in with another party, consisting of three riding-officers and six Dragoons, and were bold enough to attack them. Foolish enough, we

a person who, for fear of the smuggling gangs, was afraid to disclose his real name, and subscribed himself "Goring." The letter-whose cold-blooded informing, the work evidentl

pers, that this is expected off, I will send a List of the names of the Persons that were at that Business, and the places' names where they are usually and mostly resident. Cat (Morten's man) fired first, Morten was the

d Most faith

or

his Business, but all were Sussex

the Smuglers are drove from home they will soon all be taken. Note, that some say it was Gurr that fired first. You must well secure Cat, or else your Honours will soon lose the man; the best way will be to send for him up to London, for he knows the whole Company, and hath been Morten's servant two years. There were several young Chaps with

there can be good reason given that Jacob Walter brought him Goods for three years last past, and it is likewise no dispute of that matter amongst allmost all the Smuglers. The Bruces and Jacob fought about that matter and parted Company's, and Mr. Tompkin was allway, as most people k

and they may pay for taking; as Thomas Darby, Edw

iers knew them all, but they were not prosecuted, as [they] was not at Groombridge, when some

and Chaps from London come down to Groombridge allmost every day, as they used to do last Winter. When once they come to be drove from home, they will be put to great inconveniences, when the

t ￡500 building, and he

t Winter, some-ways, about

may have been officially taken upon it is also hidden from us. But we may at least gather from it that the master-men, the employers of the actual smugglers of the goods, wer

essed for money, and that the enormous leakage of customs dues might possibly in some degree be lessened by stern and not very high-minded laws. By this Act it was provided that smugglers who desired (whether on trial or not) to obtain a free pardon for past offences, might do so by fully disclosing them; at the same

ot only their present offence, but also with that for which they had compounded with the Dev- that is to say, with the law. And, being so charged, and duly convicted, their case was desperate; for if the previous offence had

ferocious smuggling gangs of Kent and Sussex were concerned-that by so doing he had already earned his capital sentence; for the temper of these men was such, and th

te-including a reward of ￡50 each for the discovery and conviction

within five miles of the sea-coast, or any navigable river, might be considered suspicious persons; and they ran the risk of being taken before a magistrate, who was empowered, on any such

losses. Smuggled goods seized and afterwards rescued entailed a fine of ￡200 upon the county; a revenue officer beaten by smugglers cost

render within forty days and were afterwards captured, the

itical pamphleteer, or what he termed "a scribbler for a party," as one of "the two lowest of human beings." Without the context in which these judgments are now placed, it would be more than a little difficult to trace their reasoning, which sounds as little sensible as it would be to declare at one and the same time a bu

nst smuggling were of the utmost stringency, they were not always applied with all the severity possible to be used; and, on the other hand, customs officers and the commanders of revenue cutters were well advised to guard against any excess of zeal in carrying out their instructions. To chase and capture a vessel that every one knew perfectly well to be a smuggler, and then to find no contraband aboard, because, as a matter of fact, it had been carefully sunk at some point where it could easily be recovered at leisure, was not only not t

ing to engage upon this private warfare against smuggling had, in the first instance, to give security to the Commissioners of a diligence in the cause thus undertaken, and to enter into business details respecting the cargoes captured. It was, however, not infrequently found, in practice, that these privateers very often