the laws themselves are upon which they are founded. But be they what
they will, the claim they have to them is of Divine original, and
derived ultimately from Him, who is the “Governor among the nations;
who ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will”.
As long, therefore, as men retain in their minds such a sense of God
as disposes them to give Him His right, they will probably not fail in
giving Cæsar his. But whenever it happens that the Divine authority
is disregarded, and God Himself and His laws neglected, it cannot be
any wonder that the command of men should be so lightly esteemed.
These loose and irreligious notions, then, we may fairly fix upon as
one principal cause of that depravity of manners, which so thrives
and spreads amongst us; that having first by their influence been
divested of the fear of God, we are come at length to have no regard
for men. Presumptive are we and self-willed, and like that profligate
and abandoned people described by the apostle, “we despise dominion,
and are not afraid to speak evil of dignities”. What will be the issue
of this growing evil, or where the end of those things will be, God
only knows, who is the Disposer of all events. That some care should be
taken to stop its progress, a prudential concern for our own safety,
had we no other inducements, renders absolutely necessary. But there
are motives of a higher nature; the regard we have for our religion,
laws, and liberties, should excite us to it; as an effectual means to
promote the glory of God, and to secure the peace of the kingdom. And
happy it is for us, that we have some illustrious instances of persons,
who have concern enough for both, to engage in their behalf: and to
give us hopes, however, that by this their seasonable zeal in “doing
justice and judgment,” they may be able, with the blessing of Almighty
God, if not to correct all the abuses of these daring and outrageous
people, at least give a check to their insolence, and keep them within
modest bounds; that those who will not be persuaded by the mercy of an
indulgent sovereign, to pay him willingly that submission which the
very design of government gives an undoubted right to, a just severity
may restrain from such enormous practices, as bring disgrace and danger
to government itself.
Let us then humbly request of God, that, as he has now begun to make
us happy, by settling us in a state of peace and putting away all fear
of danger from our enemies abroad, he would go on to the completion of
it, by repressing our disorders at home. That so we, who are blessed
with a wise and well constituted government, administered by a mild
and most gracious prince, may testify our sense and worthiness of so
great a blessing, by living peaceably and quietly under it. That to the
fervency of our prayers we may add our endeavours likewise to preserve
an establishment, which is the only means, under God, of preserving
us; and, in a word, which is the common dictate both of reason and
religion, that all, who share in the benefits, may join in the duties
of an obedient people.
SMUGGLING IN SUSSEX.
BY WILLIAM DURRANT COOPER, ESQ., F.S.A.
_Reprinted from Vol. X. of the “Sussex Archæological Collections.”_
The system of smuggling in Sussex and the neighbouring counties on the
seacoast, dates from a period long prior to that in which heavy customs
duties on imports encouraged, what is locally and technically called,
“the free-trader.”
The southern counties were first used for an illicit export trade in
wool; and, till after the reign of Charles I., it was only during
our wars with France, Holland and Spain, when the products of those
countries were prohibited here, that there was an illicit import trade
of any magnitude.
EXPORT SMUGGLING.
A few notes on the wool trade will best illustrate the origin of the
illegal export of that article, of which Dryden in his “King Arthur,”
says:--
Though Jason’s fleece was famed of old,
The British wool is growing gold,
No mines can more of wealth supply.
It keeps the peasant from the cold,
And takes for kings the Tyrian dye.
In the reign of Edward I., among the articles of inquiry before the
jurors on the hundred rolls, 1274, was the illegal exportation of
wool;[18] the Sussex return shows that it had been sent from
Shoreham.[19] Soon after an export duty was imposed on English wool, of
20_s._ a bag (or 3_l._ of our money), increased to 40_s._ (or 6_l._) in
1296; then lowered to half-a-mark a bag; and, ultimately, the higher
duty was again imposed. At this time the price of the English wool was
6_d._ a pound (or 1_s._ 6_d._ of our money), and many English merchants
transported themselves with it.
Attempts to prohibit the exportation of wool were, however, made by
Edward III. That monarch had offered great facilities to the Flemings
to establish the woollen manufactures in this country; in 1336 the
mayors and bailiffs of Winchelsea, Chichester (and twelve other
ports out of Sussex), were directed not to allow the export till the
duty had been paid;[20] and he had so far succeeded, that the cloth
produced in the year 1337 was sufficient to enable him to prohibit
the wear of any cloths made beyond seas, and to interdict the export
of English wool, under the penalties which then attached to capital
felonies. His anticipations, however, were not realised. The merchants
of Middlebourg, and afterwards of Calais, had great facilities for
evading the English law; they clandestinely exported foreign cloths to
England, and imported the wool smuggled out of this country.[21] The
law was so severe that it became useless; the punishment of loss of
life and limb was soon repealed. In 1341, Winchelsea, Chichester (and
thirteen other ports not in Sussex), were named, from which wool might
be exported, on payment of a duty of 50_s._ a sack;[22] and licenses
were granted for all who should give 40_s._ upon a pack of wool of 240
pounds, beyond the due custom of half-a-mark a pack. The next step
taken by Edward was to regulate the price of wool; and accordingly, in
1343, an Act was passed, fixing, for three years, the price of Kent,
Sussex and Middlesex wool--the best wool being fixed at nine marks (or
8_l._ 3_s._ 6_d._ of our money), and marsh at 100_s._ (or 13_l._ 14_s._
6_d._ of our money), showing the distinction between the two breeds
of short and long woolled sheep in this country. Similar attempts at
regulating the price were, from time to time, made by the Legislature.
In 1353, they gave the King duty of 50_s._ a sack[23] on exported wool;
and by the same statute, Chichester was one of the ten towns in England
appointed as staples for weighing the wool. Ten years later, the staple
was established at Calais, and there was a prohibition on exportation
elsewhere; this so lowered the price of wool, that in 1390 the growers
had three, four and five years’ crop unsold; and, in the next year
liberty was given to export generally, on payment of a duty. In 1363,
it was declared that all merchants and others, for their ease, might
ship wools at Lewes, where the customers of Chichester were directed to
take the customs.[24] In 1394, John Burgess, of Lewes, was pardoned
for being at the port called Kingston, having at Goring by night
shipped wool which had not paid customs, on the ship of Lawrence Blake,
an alien [Pat., 18 Ric. II.] and two years after Thomas Kitte and
Richard Barnard took on horses by night four sacks of wool, which the
said Thomas and Lawrence Hildere had sold to a foreigner and promised
to deliver: and Robert Smith, of Offington, Henry Elay, William Kitte,
John Mitchelgrove, William Hobbin, John Mot, of Worthing, William Otham
and William Garrett, lay wait for them the same night in the highway
at Worthing, near the sea, opposite the port of Kingston, and took
them with their horses and the wool, and detained them, but they paid
8 marks and more to help their cause [Pat., 20 Ric. II.]. In 1368,
Chichester was still among the places for the staple; but in 1402 (4th
Hen. IV.), the Lewes Burgesses prayed[25] that wool might be again
weighed, for home consumption and for shipment, at that town as well
as at Chichester, because they were near the sea, and a great part of
the wool was grown near there, and the town and neighbourhood were
inhabited by many great merchants.
At this period licenses were freely granted for the export of wool to
any part of the Continent, on payment of a heavy duty to the Crown.
It was to evade this duty that the smuggling trade was carried on.
When, in 1423,[26] it was enacted that no license should be granted
to export the “slight,” _i.e._, the short “wools of Southampton,
Kent, Sussex and York,” except to the staple at Calais, a still more
direct encouragement was given to the men of the coast to evade the
law; and, in 1436, wharves[27] were assigned for the shipping of wool,
to avoid the damage done to the King by those who shipped their wools
in divers secret places and creeks, “stealing and conveying the same,
not customed, to divers parts beyond the seas, and not to Calais.” The
shippers were required to find sureties and to bring back from Calais
certificates of unlading there.
The price of wool fell considerably; and, in 1454, it was not much more
than two-thirds of its price 110 years previously; the wool-growers
were alarmed, and their representatives in the Commons complained
of the great “abundance of wools, as well by stealth as by license,
uttered into the parts beyond the sea,”[28] and prayed that wool might
not be sold under certain prices; Shropshire marsh wool was fixed at
fourteen marks; Kent at 3_l._, instead of 100_s._; Sussex at
50_s._; and Hants at seven marks a sack; whilst in the next reign
(of Edward IV.) it was enacted that no alien should export wool, and
denizens only to Calais.
In 1547, under Edward VI., complaints were made as to the falling-off
in the amount of duty due to the crown; the irregularity with which it
was paid; and the mode in which the price was artificially raised by
the merchants. An enquiry was directed into the rate of subsidy due
to the King, and the weight and quality of the wool in England and
Calais;[29] and a bill was introduced for regulating the buying by
staplers and clothiers. In the year 1548, the act against regrating was
continued.
About this time, it would seem that the woollen manufacture existed
both in the counties of Kent and Sussex.[30] In 1551, renewed attempts
to improve the English manufacture were made. A body of Flemish
weavers was settled at Glastonbury,[31] and supplied with wools; and
the Legislature passed a very stringent act for regulating the times
of buying wool--so stringent, indeed, that several of its clauses had
to be repealed in 1553. Queen Elizabeth also favoured still more the
immigration of foreign weavers. Although licenses were granted for the
export of wools on payment of duty, and in October, 1560, we have an
account of wools shipped legally to Bruges,[32] yet practically the
merchants of the staple had obtained a monopoly of exportation.[33]
The loss of Calais, however, and consequently of the staple there, had
most materially injured the English wool-grower and the merchants of
the staple. The latter laid their complaints before Queen Elizabeth,
in 1560, representing the injury they had sustained since the loss
of Calais,[34] and obtained such redress as was within the power of
the crown, namely, by license to export wool generally, on payment of
export duty. A similar license had been granted to Lord Robert Dudley,
which was renewed in 1562;[35] and in 1571 the act of Edward VI.,
putting restrictions on the home trade, was extended.
The Parliaments of Mary, Elizabeth and James granted the high duty of
1_l._ 13_s._ 6_d._ a sack on wool exported by natives, and double the
amount by foreigners. It is noticeable that at this time short wools
had become of still less value; and that the long Cotswold wool had
come into the most favour.
These restrictions operated very prejudicially on the trade; and in
1572 the Company of Woolmen petitioned the Queen to take off the
restraints imposed by the act of the preceding year and by Edward
VI.;[36] and five years afterwards (1577) the scarcity and high price
were so great as to give rise to grave complaints against the merchants
of the staple from the clothiers of Wilts, Worcester, Gloucester and
Essex[37] (then the principal seats of the woollen manufacture). In
August of that year commissioners were appointed in sundry counties to
have the special oversight for the restraint of the unlawful buying and
engrossing wool;[38] and towards the close of the reign of James I.
(in 1621–24–26) bills were introduced prohibiting all exportation of
wool.[39]
On April 17, 1630, Charles I. also published a proclamation against the
export of wool, but still granted licenses. In 1647, in consequence
of the high price, an ordinance passed wholly prohibiting the
exportation of wool and Fuller’s Earth.[40] Again, on November 18,
1656, a further proclamation was issued against the exportation; yet
it was avowed, by an authority writing in that year,[41] that, though
the exportation was prohibited as almost a felony, there was nothing
more daily practised. Nor was the loss, said he, in this case all
the injury; for when honest men did “detect these caterpillars,” and
endeavoured by due course of law to make stoppage thereof, and to have
the offenders punished, so many were the evasions--such combination
and interests in the officers who ought to punish; such favour had
they in the courts of justice, and in general, such were the affronts
and discouragements--that the dearest lover of his country, or most
interested in trade, dared not to prevent that mischief which his eyes
beheld to fall upon his nation.
After the Restoration, in 1660, an act was passed entirely prohibiting
the export of wool; and in 1662, the illicit export was made felony.
The severity of the punishment had no effect in discouraging the
active spirits along the southern coast, and they readily risked their
necks for 12_d._ a day. Seven years after the last enactment,
it is stated that from Romney Marsh the greatest part of the rough
wool was exported, being put on board French shallops by night, with
ten or twenty men well armed to guard it; whilst in some other parts
of Sussex, Hants, and Essex, the same methods were used, but not so
conveniently.[42] In 1671, Mr. W. Carter declared that the misery of
England was the great quantity of wool stolen out of England. Holland
drew from Ireland whole ship-loads of wool, besides what came from
England, being stolen out from the Kentish, Essex, and Sussex coasts.
In the town of Calais alone, there had been at least, within two
years, brought in forty thousand packs of wool from the coasts of
Kent and Sussex; for Romney Marsh men were not content only with the
exportation of their own growth, but bought wool ten or twenty miles up
the country, brought it down to the seaside, and shipped it off;[43]
and all attempts at effective prosecution of the offenders were
defeated.[44]
In 1677, the landowners endeavoured, without success, to obtain a
direct sanction for a legitimate export trade; and “Reasons for a
Limited Exportation” were published. Andrew Marvel, writing in this
same year, describes the owners as a militia, that, in defiance of all
authority, convey their wool to the shallops with such strength, that
the officers dare not offend them.[45]
After the revolution of 1688, the penalty of felony, imposed by the Act
of Charles II., was thought too severe. Very few convictions had taken
place under it; and, in 1698, a milder punishment was inflicted;[46]
whilst, in 1698, a direct blow was aimed at the Kent and Sussex men by
an enactment which lasted till our own day,[47] that no person living
within fifteen miles of the sea, in those counties, should buy any
wool before he entered into a bond, with sureties, that all the wool
he should buy should not be sold by him to any persons within fifteen
miles of the sea; and growers of wool within ten miles of the sea, in
those counties, were obliged, within three days of shearing, to account
for the number of fleeces, and where lodged.
All the care of the Legislature had been to no purpose; the coast
men had set the law at defiance--openly carrying their wool at
shearing-time, on horses’ backs to the seashore, where French vessels
were ready to receive it--and attacking fiercely anyone who ventured
to interfere. Mr. W. Carter himself was sharply attacked in 1688.
Having procured the necessary warrants, he repaired to Romney Marsh,
where he seized eight or ten men, who were carrying the wool on the
horses’ backs to be shipped, and desired the Mayor of Romney to commit
them. The Mayor--wishing, no doubt, to live a peaceful life among his
neighbours--admitted them to bail. Carter and his assistants retired to
Lydd, but that town was made too hot to hold them--they were attacked
at night; adopting the advice of the Mayor’s son, they next day,
December 13, came towards Rye. They were pursued by some fifty armed
horsemen till they got to Camber Point; so fast were they followed,
that they could not get their horses over Guilford Ferry; but, luckily,
some ships’ boats gave them assistance, so that the riders got safe
into the town, which had been “put into much fear;” and “had they not
got into the boats,” says one of the witnesses, “Mr. Carter would have
received some hurt, for many of the exporters were desperate fellows,
not caring what mischief they did.”[48]
The new law was not, at first, much more efficient. Mr. Henry Baker,
the supervisor of these counties, writing on his tour from Hastings, on
September 18, 1698, refers the customs department to some observations
he had made in relation to the “owling”[49] and smuggling trades; and
in his letter of April 25, 1699, he states that in a few weeks there
would be shorn in Romney Marsh (besides the adjacent parts in the
level) about 160,000 sheep, whose fleeces would amount to about three
thousand packs of wool, “the greatest part whereof will be immediately
sent off hot into France--it being so designed, and provisions, in a
great measure, already made for that purpose.”[50] All that the new law
seems to have done at first was to send the wool grown by the Sussex
and Kent men some fifteen miles up the country, to be thence recarried
to the sea and shipped.
Under the new act, seventeen surveyors were appointed for nineteen
counties; and 299 riding officers, whose salaries and expenses came to
£20,000 a year. They seized only 457 packs of wool, got only 162 packs
condemned, and had 504 packs rescued. In Kent, sixty-five packs were
seized and eight only condemned; in Sussex, twenty-six were seized, and
twelve condemned.[51]
The illicit exportation of wool was never stopped; and, in 1702,
Mr. William Symonds, of Milton, near Gravesend, in his “New Year’s
Gift to the Parliament: or, England’s Golden Fleece preserved, in
Proposals humbly laid before the Present Parliament,”[52] makes
twenty-five proposals to prevent the exportation of wool, which was
illicitly carried on to a great extent; and, by the first, he suggests
six staples, or registry offices, at Ashford, Faversham, Maidstone,
Tunbridge, Gravesend, and Dartford, for the prevention of clandestine
export from these places.
In 1717, an act passed, directing that smugglers of wool, who should be
in prison, and should not plead, might have judgment against them, and,
if they did not pay the penalty, might be transported;[53] and yet, on
May 19, 1720, it was necessary to issue a proclamation for enforcing
the law.
In 1731, and in the five following years, the manufacturers petitioned
for greater vigilance against the clandestine exportation of wool; it
being alleged that the great decay of the woollen manufactures was,
beyond dispute, owing to the illegal exportation of wool, of which
150,000 packs were supposed to be shipped yearly; and it was “feared
that some gentlemen of no mean rank, whose estates bordered on the
seacoast, were too much influenced by a near but false prospect of
gain,” to wish for the application of a remedy proposed, viz., the
registration of all wool at shearing-time, and a complete system of
certificates till it was manufactured; “so that no smuggler or owler
would venture to purchase it, by reason he would have no opportunity of
sending it abroad in the dark.”[54]
In the preamble to the Act of 1739,[55] it is expressly avowed that,
notwithstanding the penalties imposed for eighty years, the exportation
of wool, unmanufactured, was “notoriously continued.” The stringent law
of 1698 had failed in its object, and when, in 1787 (in opposition to
the demands of the Lincolnshire wool-growers for power to export their
produce), the manufacturers brought in a bill to prevent the illicit
exportation, because of the then increasing practice of smuggling
British wool into France, and the inefficiency of the laws to prevent
it; and when, as a remedy, it was proposed to extend the restrictions
imposed upon Kent and Sussex to the entire kingdom, the opponents of
the bill shrewdly asked:--“How it was the manufacturers could act
so absurdly, to demand an extension of laws relating to those two
counties, when it was supposed that the greatest quantities of wool
were smuggled from those parts?”[56]
The habit of export smuggling, then, has been, for some hundreds of
years at least, part of the system under which the middle and lower
classes in Sussex have been trained. Large fortunes were made by it in
East Sussex, and it came to an end only during the last war with France.
IMPORT SMUGGLING.
The wars with France, in the time of King William and Queen Anne,
revived and increased greatly the custom of _import_ smuggling,
for which the existing _export_ system, already well organised,
gave every convenience.
It was in Romney Marsh that Hunt, in the year 1696, ran cargoes of
Lyons silk and Valenciennes lace sufficient to load thirty pack-horses;
and, under cover of these proceedings, kept a house of resort for
men of high consideration among the Jacobites--of “earls and barons,
knights and doctors of divinity”--and established a clandestine post to
London, and frequent communications, by means of privateers, with the
Court of St. Germains.[57]
The vigilance necessarily used during the next war, to prevent these
clandestine communications with the enemy, will be best seen by the
following account of some persons, as well English as French,[58]
seized by the riding officers appointed for the guard of the coast of
Kent and Sussex, coming out of France; and of some other particulars
relating to correspondence, &c., on those coasts, since her Majesty’s
declaration of war in May, 1702, to December 20, 1703:--
JULY 25, 1702.--Some French letters sent from a privateer, and
others found in the beach near Seaford, all delivered to the
Secretary Hedge’s office.
OCT. 8.--Near Seaford, two persons seized and sent to the
Secretary. Mr. Pelham and J. Goldham.
JAN. 4, 1703.--At Newhaven, five Frenchmen and a boy taken.
Hawkins.
MAR. 5.--At Felpham, two French prisoners. Parratt.
MAY 3.--A Frenchman, from Calais, with letters and papers, under
Beachy Head in the night, sent for. Messenger Fowler.
MAY 6.--Three French prisoners at Pagham.
MAY 27.--Five or six French prisoners more, near Shoreham. Clark.
Captain Toosloe sett on shore, by Cleavell, from Dieppe. Clark.
Shoreham: Three French prisoners more. Mose.
Three came on shore in long-boat, and made their escape through
the country. Ogilvie.
OCT. 2.--Mr. Herne seized: brought up per messenger. Seaford.
DEC. 12.--Major Boucher, Captain Ogiliby and five more out
of France, seized at Beachy Head, by express; brought up by
messengers.
Out of a small hoy, near Selsea, seized five Frenchmen;
committed to Chichester gaol, broke prison, and retaken by J.
Field.
SEIZURES OF SILKS AND OTHER FRENCH GOODS, &C.--Convictions and
compositions made and obtained by the said officers, within
the time first above-menconed, amounting to about six thousand
five hundred pounds--as per records in her Majesty’s Court of
Exchequer may appeare. 6,500_l._