THE GROWTH OF SMUGGLING
About the middle of the eighteenth century the smuggling of tea into
the country had reached such extensive limits that the revenue which
ought to have been expected from this source was sinking instead of
rising. In fact it came to this, that of all the tea that was consumed
in this country not one half had paid duty and the rest was smuggled.
The bands of smugglers were well financed, were themselves hardy
sailors and skilful pilots. They had some of the best designed and
best built cutters and luggers of that time. They were able to
purchase from an almost inexhaustible market, and to make a quick
passage to the English shores. Arrived there they could rely on both
moral and physical support; for their friends were well mounted, well
armed, and exceedingly numerous, so that ordinarily the cargo could be
rapidly unshipped, and either hidden or run into the country with
despatch. Not once, but times without number the smuggling cutters had
evaded the Revenue cruisers at sea, showing them a clean pair of
heels. With equal frequency had the Preventive men on land been
outwitted, bribed, or overpowered. And inasmuch as the duties on the
smuggled articles were high, had they passed through the Customs, so,
when smuggled, they could always fetch a big price, and the share for
the smugglers themselves was by no means inconsiderable. But it is
always the case that, when large profits are made by lawless, reckless
people, these proceeds are as quickly dissipated in extravagance of
living. It is sad to think that these seafaring men, who possessed so
much grit and pluck, had such only been applied in a right direction,
actually died paupers. As one reads through the pitiful petitions,
written on odd scraps of paper in the most illiterate of hands begging
for clemency on behalf of a convicted smuggler, one can see all too
clearly that on the whole it was not the actual workers but the
middle-men who, as is usually the case, made the profits. A life of
such uncertainty and excitement, an existence full of so many
hairbreadth escapes did not fit them for the peaceful life either of
the fisherman or the farmer. With them money went as easily as it had
come, and taking into account the hardness of the life, the risks that
were undertaken, the possibility of losing their lives, or of being
transported after conviction, it cannot be said that these men were
any too well paid. Carelessness of danger led to recklessness;
recklessness led on to a life that was dissolute and thriftless. And
in spite of the fact that these tear-stained appeals were usually
signed by all the respectable inhabitants of the seaside village--the
rector, the local shipbuilder, Lloyds' shipping agent, the chief
landowners and so forth--many a wife and family had to starve or
become chargeable to the Union, while the breadwinner was spending his
time in prison, serving as an impressed sailor on board one of his
Majesty's ships against the enemy; or, if he had been found physically
unfit for such service, condemned to seven or more years of
transportation.
But by the year 1745 smuggling had reached such a pitch that something
had to be done. The country was in such a state of alarm and the
honest traders made such bitter complaints of the disastrous effect
which these illicit practices were having on their prosperity that, on
the 6th of February in that year, a Parliamentary Committee was formed
"to inquire into the causes of the most infamous practice of smuggling
and consider the most effectual methods to prevent the said practice."
For it was clear that in spite of all that had been done by the
Customs and Excise, by the Admiralty and the military, they had not
succeeded in obtaining the desired effect.
And during the course of this inquiry a great deal of interesting
evidence came out from expert witnesses, some of whom had not long
since been the greatest smugglers in existence, but had come forward
and received the pardon of the State. We may summarise the testimony
obtained by this Committee as follows. The smugglers, after sailing
away from England, used to purchase the tea abroad sometimes with
money but at other times with wool. That was a serious matter in
either alternative if, as was the case, the transactions were carried
on to any large extent; for the country simply could not afford to be
denuded either of its valuable wool--since that crippled the wool
manufactures--or of the coin of the realm, which made for bankruptcy.
But this was not all. England was at war with her neighbours, and the
French only too gladly admitted the smuggling vessels into her ports,
since these lawless and unpatriotic men were able to give information
of the state of affairs in England. There was in the Isle of Man at
this time no levying of Customs or other duties, so that between that
island and France there was kept up a constant trade especially in
teas, other East India goods and brandies, which were afterwards
conveyed clandestinely to English ports, especially to Liverpool, as
already we have noted, and also to Glasgow, Dumfries, as well as to
Ireland. In the days when there were sloops at Liverpool doing duty
for the Crown they used to set forth and do their best to stop this
running, "but as it is a very dangerous station, a seizure is scarce
heard of."
As illustrative of the achievements of smugglers at that time let us
mention that it was reported officially from Yarmouth that on July 11
fifty smugglers had run a cargo of tea and brandy at Benacre in
Suffolk, and only a fortnight later a band of sixty smugglers landed
another contraband cargo at the same place, while a gang of forty got
another cargo safely ashore at Kesland Haven. A week later a still
larger band, this time consisting of seventy, passed through Benacre
Street with a large quantity of goods, a cart and four horses. The
smugglers at Kesland Haven had been able to bring inland their cargo
of tea and brandy by means of fifty horses. In one month alone--and
this at the depth of the winter when cross-channel passages could not
be expected to be too safe for small sailing craft--nine smuggling
cutters had sailed from the port of Rye to Guernsey; and it was
estimated that during the last half of the year there had been run on
to the coast of Suffolk 1835 horse-loads of tea as well as certain
other goods, and 1689 horse-loads of wet and dry goods, to say nothing
of a large quantity of other articles that should have paid duty.
These were conveyed away up country by means of waggons and other
vehicles, guarded by a formidable band of smugglers and sympathisers
well armed. Notwithstanding that the Revenue officers were in some
cases aware of what was going on, yet they positively dared not
attempt any seizures. And in those instances where they had undertaken
the risk they had been frequently beaten and left cruelly wounded
with bleeding heads and broken limbs.
One reliable witness testified that whereas it was computed that at
this time about 4,000,000 lbs. of tea were consumed in this kingdom,
yet only about 800,000 lbs. of this had ever paid duty, so that there
was considerably over 3,000,000 lbs. weight of tea smuggled in.
Therefore on this one item of tea alone the loss to the Crown must
have been something enormous. Multiply this by the long years during
which the smuggling went on, add also the duties which ought to have
been paid on tobacco and spirits, even if you omit to include the
amount which should have accrued from lace and other commodities, and
you may begin to realise the seriousness of the smuggling evil as
viewed by the Revenue authorities.
It was noted that a great deal of this contraband stuff was fetched
over from Flushing and from Middleburgh, a few miles farther up on the
canal. The big merchant sailing ships brought the tea from the East to
Holland, France, Sweden, and Denmark. But the Dutch, the French, the
Swedes, and the Danes were not great tea drinkers, and certainly used
it in nothing like the quantities which were consumed in England. But
it was profitable to them to purchase this East Indian product and to
sell it again to the smugglers who were wont to run across from
England. It should be added, however, that the species of tea in
question were of the cheaper qualities. It was also frankly admitted
in evidence that many of the civil magistrates, whose duty it was to
grant warrants for the arrest of these delinquents, were intimidated
by the smugglers, while the officers of the Customs and Excise were
terrorised.
At this period of the smuggling era, that is to say prior to the
middle of the eighteenth century, most of the smuggled tea was brought
over to the south coast of England in Folkestone cutters of a size
ranging from fifty to forty tons burthen. These vessels usually came
within about three or four miles of the shore, when they were met by
the smaller boats of the locality and the goods unladened. Indeed the
trade was so successful that as many as twenty or thirty cargoes were
run in a week, and Flushing became so important a base that not merely
did the natives subsidise or purchase Folkestone craft, but
ship-builders actually migrated from that English port to Flushing and
pursued their calling in Dutch territory. As to the reward which the
smugglers themselves made out of the transaction, the rates of payment
varied at a later date, but about the years 1728 and 1729 the
tea-dealers paid the men eight shillings a pound for the commodity.
And in spite of the seizures which were made by the Revenue cutters
and the land guard, yet these losses, admitted a witness, were a mere
trifle to the smugglers. In fact he affirmed that sometimes one
tea-dealer never suffered a seizure in six or seven years. We can
therefore readily believe that the financiers netted a very handsome
profit on the whole, and there are still standing plenty of fine
mansions in different parts of our country which are generally
supposed to have been erected from the proceeds of this form of
activity.
There was a kind of local intelligence bureau in most of the smuggling
centres on the south coast, and so loyal and so watchful were these
craftsmen that the inhabitants of the coast-line managed to let their
_confreres_ know when the Custom House sloops had sailed out of port
or when they hauled up for repairs and refit. As a consequence the
smuggling craft commonly escaped capture. Animated by a natural hatred
of all Government officials in general, especially of all those whose
duty it was to collect taxes, dues, and any kind of tolls; disliking
most of all the men of the Customs and Excise, and, further, being
allied by sympathy and blood relationship to many of the smugglers
themselves, it was almost impossible for the representatives of the
Crown to make any steady progress in their work. We all know that when
a number of even average law-abiding people get together, that crowd
somehow tends towards becoming a mob. Each person, so to speak,
forfeits his own individuality, that becomes merged into the
personality and character of the mob, which all the time is being
impelled to break out into something unlawful of a minor or greater
degree. Whenever you have stood among crowds you must have noted this
for yourself. It gets restive at the least opposition with which it is
confronted, it boos and jeers with the smallest incitement; and,
finally, realising the full strength of its unity, breaks out into
some rash violence and rushes madly on, heedless of the results. Many
murders have been in this way committed by men who ordinarily and in
their individual capacity would shrink from such crimes. But having
become merely one of the limbs, as it were, of the crowd they have
moved with the latter and obeyed its impulses.
It was just the same when many of the dwellers of the country-side,
many of the fishermen, labourers, and farm-hands found themselves
assembled on the report of a pistol shot or the cry of angry voices
coming up from the beach below. Something was happening, some one was
in trouble, and the darkness of the night or the gloom of the fog
added a halo of mystery round the occasion. Men and women came out
from their cottages, some one got hit, and then a general affray
began. Clubs and pistols and cutlasses were busy, men were bellowing
forth oaths, women shrieking, and the galloping of horses heard
rapidly approaching. Amid such excitements we can readily understand
that a good many acts of violence and deep injury occurred which
afterwards, when the heat of the event had vaporised, were regretted.
At the same time, notwithstanding that one is aware that the men were
engaged in an unlawful pursuit and that they themselves fully
appreciated their degree of guilt, yet we cannot but feel some sort of
sympathy with a crew who, after a long and exciting passage through
bad weather all the way across the Channel, after perhaps a breathless
race against the Government cruisers, had finally succeeded in landing
their tubs on the shore only to be pounced on immediately by the
riding officers and a _posse_ of dragoons. It must have been
heart-breaking that all their carefully laid plans, all their
hardships and trials should end in disaster. Realising this and that
their craft as well as their persons would be seized, it was but
natural that they would fight like the most desperate of men. And, at
the same time, those their relatives on shore who largely depended on
them for their bread and butter would rush to their aid with a spirit
and an impetuosity that could only end in one way. The pity of it all
was that so much fine daring and enthusiasm were not being employed
for a better cause and for more worthy results.
But the smugglers found that, contrary to what one would expect, their
greatest risk was not when landing the goods, but when bringing them
across from the Continent. A seizure on land was, at any rate during
the first half of the eighteenth century, comparatively rare if they
had been able to get away from the sloops and cutters. For the
bodyguard of armed men on horseback who promptly met and escorted the
contraband into the country frequently did as they had planned. And
when once the tea has arrived inland it was easily sold to people who
bought it not in small quantities but took as much as 1000 lbs. at a
time. In addition, there were a number of men called "duffers," who
used to walk inland wearing coats in which a hundred-weight of tea was
concealed between two layers of cloth stitched together. They were
accordingly said to "quilt" so much of this commodity. These duffers,
having set forth on their walk, would eventually arrive in London and
dispose of the tea to hawkers who, in turn, carried it about the town
and sold it to the consumers, who, even if they had possessed any
scruples, could not possibly know that the leaves had been smuggled in
without paying the Crown's levy.
But it was not merely by exercising the strictest vigilance on the
activities of the Government sloops and land officers, nor entirely by
resort to trickery and violence, to threats and intimidation that the
smugglers managed to keep out of the hands of justice. They even
advanced one step further still, for there was a man named Norton
whom they employed as their agent to defend them against prosecutions.
This Norton at one time had actually been in the employ of the Crown
as clerk of the late Solicitor to the Customs. And it was generally
believed that Norton by some means--most probably by offering tempting
bribes--obtained news from the clerks of the Customs' solicitor when a
smuggler was likely to be arrested and a warrant was about to be
issued. Norton was then supposed to give the smuggler an immediate
warning and the man was able to make himself scarce. It was quite an
easy operation, for in those days when there was no telegraph and no
steamboat service across the Channel, all the "wanted" man had to do
was instantly to board his cutter, set sail, and hurry across to
France or Holland, where he was sure of a welcome, where also he could
employ himself in arranging for cargoes to be run into England perhaps
in the very vessel which had brought him across. There were plenty of
his compatriots resident in Flushing, so he need not feel homesick,
and when at last the incident had blown over he could find his way
back to Kent or Sussex.
It was reckoned that about this time there were at least 20,000 people
in England employed in smuggling, and in some parts (as, for instance,
the village of Hawkhurst, about which we shall have more to say
presently) gangs of large numbers could be got together in a very
short time. In Hawkhurst alone 500 smugglers could be collected within
an hour. Folkestone, however, ran Hawkhurst fairly close with a
similar notoriety. Such gangs, well armed as they were, went about
with impunity, for notwithstanding that they were well known, yet no
one dared to molest them.
We mentioned just now that the danger to the State of this import
smuggling was not merely that goods were brought into the country
without payment being made to the Customs, but that inasmuch as the
contraband goods were purchased abroad partly by wool and partly by
actual coin England was being robbed both ways. And as the wool
exportation declined and the import smuggling rose, so the amount of
gold that passed out of the country seriously increased. At least
£1,000,000 sterling were carried out of the kingdom each year to
purchase these goods, and of this amount somewhere about £800,000 were
paid for tea alone. At a later date the price of tea often went up,
but the dealer still made a profit of 40s. on every 100 lbs. We
alluded just now also to the dangers of seizure, and it is worth
remarking that these were recognised by the smugglers as being greater
in one district than in another. For instance, it was much more
difficult to run goods into the counties of Kent and Sussex than into
Suffolk, owing to the fleet at sea and the troops on the coast. And
as to the amount of support which could be relied on it was an
admitted fact that there was not one person in ten in the country but
would give the smugglers assistance, and even lend them horses and
carts. For the use of these the smugglers made payment at an increased
rate.
There was one witness before this Commission who stated that he knew
of about sixty English cutters of from thirty to forty tons burthen
each, and five or six vessels of the same burthen belonging to
merchants at Flushing which were employed constantly in running goods
across to England, and several of those who gave evidence confessed
that they had for years been actively engaged in smuggling, but had
taken advantage of the late Act of Indemnity. One reason alleged for
smuggling tea was that the East India Company did not sufficiently
supply the dealers with the low-priced kinds, whereas the Dutch did.
And it was further contended that if the price of tea were lessened
sixpence per lb. it would put a stop to smuggling of the commodity,
for at this date, although other articles such as spirits and tobacco
were brought in, yet there was far more tea run than anything else.
But at the same time the smugglers rather liked to include a quantity
of brandy casks among their cargo for the reason that they were heavy
and made very good ballast. And as to the ships themselves, it was
agreed that those of the smugglers were the best sailing
fore-and-afters that were built in those days, and could easily
out-sail both the King's ships and the Custom House sloops. Finally,
it was shown that in spite of the large and tempting rewards that were
offered by advertisement for the apprehension of those persons who had
been concerned in smuggling, no one had come forward to give
information for the reason that, even if he would, he dared not. And
so fascinating was the call of smuggling, that although there were
those who had willingly embraced the pardon granted them by the recent
Act, forsaken this illegal trade and settled down on farms or devoted
themselves to other occupations which were within the law, yet there
were many others who had returned to their former practices.
After accumulating this evidence, the Committee issued their first
report on March 24, 1745, and expressed themselves of the opinion that
the high duties charged on tea and other commodities had certainly
been one cause of smuggling. But they also added that the exposing for
sale of those boats and vessels which had been seized from the
smugglers was certainly another potent reason, for these craft were
frequently bought back by the men; they therefore recommended that all
captured craft should be burned. Furthermore, the Commission condemned
the custom of allowing penalties to be compounded so easily. As an
instance of this last-mentioned custom we might call attention to
three smugglers belonging to the county of Hampshire. There is a
reference to them in the Southampton Letters under date of April 28,
1730, from which it appears that Matthew Barton, John Gibort, and
William Moadon of Fordingbridge were under prosecution for running
goods ashore. They subsequently offered to compound for the said
offence on the following terms: Barton to pay the sum of £35, Gibort
to pay £25, and Moadon £15. But before allowing the matter to be
settled straight away the Collector and Comptroller at Southampton
were ordered to look carefully into the affair and to inquire what
these men were generally esteemed to be worth.