COAST BLOCKADE—THE PREVENTIVE WATER-GUARD AND THE COASTGUARD—OFFICIAL
RETURN OF SEIZURES—ESTIMATED LOSS TO THE REVENUE IN 1831—THE SHAM
SMUGGLER OF THE SEASIDE—THE MODERN COASTGUARD
THE early coastguardmen had a great deal of popular feeling to contend
with. When the coast-blockade was broken up in 1831, and the “Preventive
Water-Guard,” as this new body was styled, was formed, officers and men
alike found the greatest difficulty in obtaining lodgings. No one would
let houses or rooms to the men whose business it was to prevent
smuggling, and thus incidentally to take away the excellent livelihood
the fisherfolk and longshoremen were earning. Thus, the earliest
stations of the coastguard were formed chiefly out of old hulks and other
vessels condemned for sea-going purposes, but quite sound, and indeed,
often peculiarly comfortable as residences, moored permanently in
sheltered creeks, or hauled up, high and dry, on beaches that afforded
the best of outlooks upon the sea.
Very few of these primitive coastguard stations are now left. Their
place has been pretty generally taken by the neat, if severely
unornamental, stations, generally whitewashed, and enclosed within a
compound-wall, with which summer visitors to our coasts are familiar.
And the old-time prejudice against the men has had plenty of time to die
away during the eighty years or so in which the coastguard service has
existed. There are still, however, some eleven or twelve old hulks in
use as coastguard stations; principally in the estuaries of the Thames
and Medway.
The Preventive Water-Guard, from which the existing coastguard service
was developed, was not only the old coast-blockade reorganised, but was
an extension of it from the shores of Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, and Essex,
to the entire coast-line of the United Kingdom. It was manned by sailors
from the Royal Navy, and the stations were commanded by naval
lieutenants. Many of the martello towers that had been built at regular
intervals along the shores of Kent and Sussex, and some few in Suffolk,
in or about 1805, when the terror of foreign invasion was acute, were
used for these early coastguard purposes.
That the preventive service did not prevent, and did not at first even
seriously interfere with, smuggling, was the contention of many
well-informed people, with whom the Press generally sided. The
coast-blockade, too, was—perhaps unjustly—said to be altogether
inefficient; and was further said, truly enough, to be ruinously costly.
Controversy was bitter on these matters. In January 1825 _The Times_
recorded the entry of the revenue cutter, _Hawke_, into Portsmouth, after
a cruise in which she had chased and failed to capture, owing to heavy
weather, a smuggling lugger which successfully ran seven hundred kegs of
spirits. To this item of news Lieutenant J. F. Tompson, of H.M.S.
_Ramillies_, commanding the coast-blockade at Lancing, took exception,
and wrote to _The Times_ a violent letter, complaining of the statements,
and saying that they were absolutely untrue. To this _The Times_
replied, with considerable acerbity, on February 3rd, that the statement
was true and the lieutenant’s assertions unwarranted. The newspaper then
proceeded to “rub it in” vigorously: “There is nothing more ridiculous,
in the eyes of those who live upon our sea-coasts, than to witness the
tender sensibilities of officers employed upon the coast-blockade
whenever a statement is made that a smuggler has succeeded in landing his
cargo; as though they formed a part of the most perfect system that can
be established for the suppression of smuggling. Now be it known to all
England that this is a gross attempt at humbug. Notwithstanding all the
unceasing vigilance of the officers and men employed, smuggling is
carried on all along the coast, from Deal to Cornwall, to as great a
degree as the public require. Any attempt to smuggle _this_ FACT may
answer the purpose of a party, or a particular system, but it will never
obtain belief.
“It was only a few days since that a party of coast-blockade men (we
believe belonging to the Tower, No. 61) made common cause with the
smugglers, and they walked off altogether!”
Exactly! The sheer madness of the Government in maintaining the
extraordinary high duties, and of adding always another force to existing
services, designed to suppress the smugglers’ trade, was sufficiently
evident to all who would not refuse to see. When commodities in great
demand with all classes were weighted with duties so heavy that few
persons could afford to purchase those that had passed through His
Majesty’s Custom-houses, two things might have been foreseen: that the
regularised imports would, under the most favourable circumstances,
inevitably decrease; and that the smuggling which had already been
notoriously increasing by leaps and bounds for a century past would be
still further encouraged to supply those articles at a cheap rate, which
the Government’s policy had rendered unattainable by the majority of
people.
An account printed by order of the House of Commons in the beginning of
1825 gave details of all customable commodities seized during the last
three years by the various establishments formed for the prevention of
smuggling: the Coastguard, or Preventive Water-guard; the
Riding-officers; and the revenue cruisers and ships of war.
In that period the following articles were seized and dealt with:
Tobacco 902,684¼ lb.
Snuff 3,000 ,,
Brandy 135,000 gallons.
Rum 253 ,,
Gin 227,000 ,,
Whisky 10,500 ,,
Tea 19,000 lb.
Silk 42,000 yards.
India handkerchiefs 2,100 pieces.
Leghorn hats 23
Cards 3,600 packs.
Timber 10,000 pieces.
Stills 75
The cost of making these seizures, and dealing with them, was put as
follows:
£ _s._ _d._
Law expenses 29,816 19 4¾
Storage, rent of warehouses, etc. 18,875 14 10½
Salaries, cooperage, casks, repairs, 1,533,708 4 10
etc.
Rewards to officers, etc. 488,127 2 11½
£2,070,528 2 0¾
The produce of all these articles sold was £282,541 8_s._ 5¾_d._; showing
a loss to the nation, in attempting during that period to suppress
smuggling, of considerably over one million and three quarters sterling.
This return of seizures provides an imposing array of figures, but,
amazing as those figures are by themselves, they would be still more so
if it were possible to place beside them an exact return of the goods
successfully run, in spite of blockades and preventive services. Then we
should see these figures fade into insignificance beside the enormous
bulk of goods that came into the country and paid no dues.
Some very startling figures are available by which the enormous amount of
smuggling effected for generations may be guessed. It would be possible
to prepare a tabulated form from the various reports of the Board of
Customs, setting forth the relation between duty-paid goods and the
estimated value of smuggled commodities during a term of years, but as
this work is scarce designed to fill the place of a statistical abstract,
I will forbear. A few illuminating items, it may be, will suffice.
Thus in 1743 it was calculated that the annual average import of tea
through the legitimate channels was 650,000 lb.; but that the total
consumption was three times this amount. One Dutch house alone was known
to illegally import an annual weight of 500,000 lb.
An even greater amount of spirit-smuggling may legitimately be deduced
from the perusal of the foregoing pages, and, although in course of time
considerably abated, as the coastguard and other organisations settled
down to their work of prevention and detection, it remained to a late
date of very large proportions. Thus the official customs report for
1831 placed the loss to the Revenue on smuggled goods at £800,000
annually. To this amount the item of French brandy contributed £500,000.
The annual cost of protecting the Revenue (excise, customs, and
preventive service) was at the same time between £700,000 and £800,000.
An interesting detailed statement of the contraband trade in spirits from
Roscoff, one of the Brittany ports, shows that, two years later than the
above, from March 15th to 17th, 1833, there were shipped to England, per
smuggling craft, 850 tubs of brandy; and between April 13th and 20th in
the same year 750 tubs; that is to say, 6,400 gallons in little more than
one month. And although Roscoff was a prominent port in this trade, it
was but one of several.
So late as 1840, forty-eight per cent. of the French silks brought into
this country were said to have paid no duty; and for years afterwards
silk-smugglers, swathed apoplectically in contraband of this description,
formed the early steamship companies’ most regular patrons.
The seaside holiday-maker of that age was an easy prey of pretended
smugglers, cunning rascals who traded upon that most wide-spread of human
failings, the love of a bargain, no matter how illegitimately it may be
procured. The lounger on the seaside parades of that time was certain,
sooner or later, to be approached by a mysterious figure with an
indefinable air of mystery and a semi-nautical rig, who, with many
careful glances to right and left, and in a hoarse whisper behind a
secretive hand, told a tale of smuggled brandy or cigars, watches or
silks. “Not ’arf the price you’d pay for ’em in the shops, guv’nor,” the
shameless impostor would say, producing a bundle of cigars, “but the real
thing; better than them wot most of the shops keep. I see you’re a gent.
as knows a good smoke. You shall ’ave ’em”—at some preposterously low
price. And generally the greenhorn did have them; finding, when he came
to smoke the genuine Flor de Cabbage he had bought, that they would have
been dear at any price. To that complexion of mean fraud did the old
smuggling traditions of courage, adventure, and derring-do come at last!
The modern coastguard, known technically as the First Naval Reserve, is
still under Admiralty control, but proposals are, it is understood, now
afoot for entirely altering its status, and for reorganising it as a
purely civil force, under the orders of the customs and excise
authorities. At present the coastguard establishment numbers some 4,200
officers and men, and is understood to cost £260,000 a year. It is not,
perhaps, generally understood that the coastguardman is really a
man-o’-war’s man, attached to a particular ship, and liable at any moment
of national emergency to be called to rejoin his ship, and to proceed on
active service.
It is not really to be supposed that the coastguard succeed in entirely
suppressing smuggling, even in our own times. Few are the articles that
are now subject to duty, and the temptation is consequently not now very
great. Also, the landing of such goods as tea, tobacco, and spirits in
bulk would readily be detected; but smuggling of spirits and of tobacco
in small quantities is commercially remunerative while the duties are as
high as from 11_s._ to 17_s._ a gallon, and from 3_s._ 6_d._ to 5_s._ a
pound in respect of tobacco and cigars; while large quantities of that
entirely modern article, saccharine, on which there is a duty of one
shilling and threepence an ounce (with a minimum legal weight on import
of eleven pounds, designed to render clandestine traffic in it
difficult), must, in the very nature of things, be illegally introduced.
That there will be a phenomenal increase of smuggling when the inevitable
happens and protection of the country’s trade against the foreigner is
instituted, seems certain. It will seem like old times come again.
* * * * *
THE END
INDEX
(_Individual smugglers indexed only when mentioned at length_.)
ACTS OF PARLIAMENT, 7, 14, 17, 23, 27, 34–6
Arundel, Conflict at, 29
* * * * *
BARHATCH, 104
Beccles, Outrage at, 113
Bedhampton Mill, near Havant, 107–109
Beer, 125, 183, 187, 191–4, 199
Blackwater, The, 114
Blakeney, 116
Bo-Peep, Fatal conflict at, 98–100
— Conflict at, 100
Borstal Hill (near Canterbury), Fatal conflict at, 80
Bradwell Quay, 114
Braemar, 217
Branscombe, Epitaph at, 125
Budleigh Salterton, Conflict at, 198
Bulverhythe, Fatal conflict at, 102
Burns, Robert, 202
* * * * *
CAISTER, CONFLICT AT, 30, 115
Camber Castle, Fatal conflict at, 101
Canvey Island, 113
Carter family, smugglers, of Prussia Cove, 165–82
— Henry, 169, 172–83
— John, 169–72, 174
Carter, Wm., customs officer, 15
Castle, Mr., excise officer, murdered, 68
Chater, Daniel, Murder of, 49-60
“Chop-backs,” 78–80
Coastguard, The, 239, 246
Colchester, Outrage at, 113
“Cruel Coppinger,” 129–36
Cuckmere, Conflict at, 29
* * * * *
DALNASHAUGH, 224
Diamond, John, smuggler, 49, 53, 54
“Dog and Partridge,” Slindon Common, 63–7
Dover, Fatal conflict at, 98
Dymchurch, Conflict at, 96
* * * * *
EASTBOURNE, FATAL CONFLICT NEAR, 97
— at, 101
Ewhurst, Smugglers’ hiding-places at, 102–104
Export smuggling, 2, 12–23
* * * * *
FAIRALL, SMUGGLER, 70–72
Fairlight Glen, Fatal conflict at, 100
Ferring, Conflict at, 22
Four Brothers, smuggling lugger, Fatal conflict with, 87–92
Fowey, Conflict at, 139
“Free-traders,” a term for smugglers, 39
Fuller’s-earth, 23
* * * * *
GALLEY, WILLIAM, MURDER OF, 49–61
Gibson, William, smuggler, 162–4
Glenlivet, 209, 215
Gloves, evasions of glove-smugglers, 229
Goudhurst, Attack by smugglers on, 42–4
Gray, Arthur, 40
Greenhay, Conflict at, 29
“Green Man,” Bradwell Quay, 114
Grinstead Green, Outrage at, 41
* * * * *
HARLEY, JOHN, Epitaph on, 125
Harting Combe, 55
Hartland, 134
Hastings, Epitaph at, 87
— Murder at, 86
— Outrage off, 79
Hawkhurst Gang, 40–73
— Outrage at, 41
Hawkins, Richard, Murder of, 63–7
Herstmonceux Castle, Ghostly drummer of, 84
Highdown Hill, near Worthing, 104
Hove church-tower as smugglers’ store, 81–3
— Conflict at, 83
Hunstanton, Epitaph at, 117
Hurstmonceux Castle, Ghostly drummer of, 84
* * * * *
“INDIAN QUEENS,” THE, NEAR BODMIN, 189
Informers, 30–34, 65
* * * * *
JACKSON, WM., SMUGGLER, 51–4, 62
James, G. P. R., on smuggling, 44, 73–7
James, Thos., Epitaph on, 148
Johnson, Dr., on Commissioner of Excise, 36
— on smugglers (see Title-page)
Johnson, Thomas, smuggler, 156–62
* * * * *
“KING OF PRUSSIA,” PORTH LEAH, OR PRUSSIA COVE, 165–72
Kingsmill, George, smuggler, shot, 43
— Thomas, smuggler, 43
— executed, 70, 72
Kingston-by-the-sea, Conflict at, 29
Kinson, Epitaph at, 119
Kipling, Rudyard, “smugglers’ song,” 45
Knill, John, 149
* * * * *
LACE, SMUGGLING OF, 19, 233
Lady Holt Park, 54, 57–9
Langston Harbour, 107
Leghorn hats, Smuggling of, 236, 243
Lewis, Wm., Epitaph on, 124
_Lively_, smuggling lugger, Conflict with, 190
“Lobster Smack,” Canvey Island, 114
Lulworth, Conflict near, 121
* * * * *
MAIDSTONE, MURDER BY SMUGGLER AT, 45
Maker, near Plymouth, 138
Mark, Robert, Epitaph on, 147
“Miller’s Tomb,” near Worthing, 104–106
Mills, John, smuggler, 63–7
Mills, Richard, the elder, 55, 58, 62, 66
— the younger, smuggler, 56, 62, 66
Moon, John, Epitaph on, 86
“Moonshine,” a term for smuggled spirits, 139
“Mount Pleasant” inn, near Dawlish, 126
Mylor, Epitaph at, 148
* * * * *
OLLIVER, JOHN, miller, 104–106
Owlers, The, of Romney Marsh, 3, 12, 14–23
* * * * *
PARHAM PARK, 65
Patcham, Epitaph at, 85
Paulson, Henry, midshipman, Epitaph on, 125
Paulet, Harry, smuggler, 162
Peddar’s (or Padder’s) Way, 118
Pett, Smugglers drowned at, 95
Pewit Island, 114
Polperro, 140
Poole, Outrage at, 48, 70
Potter, Tom, smuggler, 141
Preventive Water Guard, The, 239–44
Pring, Wm., smuggler and informer, 65
Privateers for prevention of smuggling, 37
Profits of smuggling, 9
Prussia Cove, 148, 165, 169–72
* * * * *
RAKE, 54–62
Ransley Gang, The, 73
Rattenbury, Jack, smuggler, 123, 183–99
“Red Lion,” Rake, 54–62
“Red Lion,” Rye, 44
Rockcliffe Cross, Fatal conflict at, 226
Romney Marsh, 95
— wool-smuggling, 15–19
— Conflict on, 15–17 23
“Royal Oak,” Langston Harbour, 107
Ruxley Gang, 79
Rye, Conflict at, 94
— Outrage at, 44
* * * * *
SACCHARINE, SMUGGLING OF, 247
St. Aldhelm’s Head, Fatal conflict at, 122
St. Ives, Cornwall, 149
St. Peter-upon-the-Wall, 114
Scales, Daniel, Epitaph on, 85
“Sea Cocks,” The, 40
Seacox Heath, 40
Seaford, Murders by smugglers at, 45
Seaton, Epitaph at, 125
Shaw, whisky smuggler, 211–14
Sheerness, Wool robbery near, 41
“Ship,” Woolbridge, 12
Shoreham, Outrage at, 41
Silks, Smuggling of, 19, 232, 243, 245
Smith, Adam, on smuggling, 153
Smith, George, of Glenlivet, 209–212 215
Smith, Sydney, on taxation, 5
Smugglers, Distinction between landsmen and seamen, 112
Smugglers’ labourers, Pay of, 10, 14
Smuggling, Growth of in eighteenth century, 24
— Pamphlet denouncing, 154-157
— Profits of, 9
Snargate church as smugglers’ store, 96
Southampton Water, 109
Spirits, Smuggling of, 9, 28, 80, 83, 88, 95, 96–105 115, 121, 127, 132,
138, 139, 143, 162, 171, 181, 187, 195, 198, 201–227 243, 244–7
Spittal of Glenshee, 213
“Stinkibus,” a term for spoiled spirits, 128
Swain, Joseph, Epitaph on, 87
* * * * *
TALLAND, EPITAPH AT, 147
— Smuggling pranks at, 143–46
Tandridge, Epitaph at, 85
Tea, Smuggling of, 24, 28, 31, 33, 47-9, 63, 88, 113, 119, 152, 243, 244
Tobacco, Smuggling of, 23, 83, 88, 110, 230-232 243, 247
Todman, Thomas, Epitaph on, 85
Trotman, Robert, Epitaph on, 119
* * * * *
WAREHORNE, 96
Warren, The, near Dawlish, 126–128
Watches, Smuggling of, 230, 237
Webb, Wm., Epitaph on, 117
Welcombe Mouth, 130, 134
Wendron, 148
Westfield, Epitaph at, 86
Whisky smuggling, 201–227 243
“White Hart,” Rowlands Castle, 50–54
Whitesand Bay, near Plymouth, Fatal conflict at, 140
“Wiltshire Moonrakers,” 120
“Windmill,” Ewhurst, 103
Wool, Exportation of forbidden, 3, 12–14
— Duties on, 12–14
— Smuggling of, 3, 12–23
Wreckers, 133, 167
Wyke (near Weymouth), Epitaph at, 124
* * * * *
YAWKINS, 205–207
* * * * *
* * * * *
_Printed and bound by Hazell_, _Watson & Viney_, _Ltd._, _London and
Aylesbury_.
NOTES.
{66} “Gregory’s Gang” was a noted band of thieves and housebreakers,
active about 1730–35. Dick Turpin was at times associated with them.
See “Half Hours with the Highwaymen,” vol. ii., p. 177.
{173} “Autobiography of a Cornish Smuggler.” (Gibbings & Co., Ltd.,
1900.)
{194} By smuggling, presumably.