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The smugglers had reigned a long time uncontrolled; the officers of the Customs were too few to encounter them; they rode in troops to fetch their goods, and carried them off in triumph in daylight; nay, so audacious had they grown, that they were not afraid of the regular troops that were sent into the country to keep them in awe; of which we have several instances. If any of them happened to be taken, and the proof ever so clear against him, no magistrate in the country durst commit him to gaol; if he did he was sure to have his house or barns set in fire, or some other mischief done him, if he was so happy to escape with his life ...
This is how the situation in 1749 was described by 'A Gentleman of Chichester' (in all probability the Duke of Richmond from Goodwood) who was present during the great Chichester Special Assize, at which some of the most notorious smugglers from Kent and Sussex were finally condemned to death. To understand why these conditions of lawlessness and intimidation had come about, we need to look back at the way control over our overseas trade had evolved through the centuries.
The right of the king to raise revenue from duties on goods carried into or out of this country goes back many centuries, and smuggling in one form or another is equally ancient. Over the years the legislation governing the rates of tax became enormously complicated, and the task of collecting the duty was the responsibility of the Custom House officers at the legal quays and recognised ports to which trading was restricted.
Then during the Civil War additional revenue was raised by imposing Excise Duty on certain goods manufactured within the country, such as candles and beer. This very unpopular tax on items in daily use was at first intended as a temporary measure, but it was found convenient to retain it and extend its scope. During the 18th century, therefore, many imported goods were liable to both Customs and Excise duties, and the net effect was often to double or even treble their cost. It was obviously to the advantage of everyone (except the government) if such items could be bought into the country free of tax. The higher the levels of tax, the greater the incentive to smuggle.
Restrictions of trade in certain items, designed to protect home industry or national security, had the same effect. It had been forbidden to export cannon from the Wealden iron works at the time of the Spanish Armada, for instance, and there were later restrictions on exporting Cornish tin or Cumbrian graphite; inevitably a lively smuggling traffic had grown up in each case. But it was the restrictions on the export of English wool which had the greatest impact.
In an attempt to protect our cloth industry, it was made illegal to export wool from other than designated ports, and for some years after 1662 this was a capital offence. The embargo was particularly irksome to wool producers on the downs and coastal marshes of of south-east England, and led predictably to widespread flouting of the restrictions. Around 1700 it is thought that 150,000 packs of wool per year were being shipped out illegally from Kent and Sussex, within days of a shearing.
The owling trade, as it came to be known, was often controlled by Huguenot families who had come to England as refugees from religious persecution, and who retained close links with their relatives across the Channel. The continental clothiers conspired with the English wool producers to ensure that the trade continued, and cargoes of lace and brandy were shipped back in part-payment for the prized high quality wool.
In 1713 two Frenchmen were caught in a typical incident at Fairlight near Hastings, while trying to negotiate a deal of this type. Moreover, foreign vessels, known as 'coopers', regularly lay for days off our south and east coasts, and even within the Tyne and Humber estuaries, acting as floating supermarkets.
The owling trade brought into being the first important smuggling gang, which was based at Mayfield in the Sussex Weald before 1720, and the farmers, shopkeepers and others involved built up the capital and business contacts from which the later import smuggling developed. Illegal shipments of wool and even live sheep continued through the 18th century, but after about 1720 the whole emphasis of the smuggling trade shifted to bringing in tea, spirits, tobacco and luxury items.
Several other factors contributed to the rapid expansion of smuggling after 1720, and to the degree of support for the trade at all levels of society. For one thing the economy of Kent and Sussex was in a depressed state. The sharp decline of the iron-smelting and cloth-making industries of the Weald had reduced many to acute poverty. A farm labourer could earn no more than seven or eight shillings for a full week's work, and was likely to be unemployed for part of the winter, whereas for a successful night's effort carrying contraband he could expect about ten shillings if everything went well.
The citizens of the towns along the coast were also in difficulties. Before the Norman Conquest the five prosperous ports of Sandwich, Dover, Hythe, Romney and Hastings and the two 'ancient towns' of Rye and Winchelsea had joined together to form the Cinque Ports Confederation. In return for providing the medieval kings with men and ships to form a navy, they had won important rights of self-government and immunity from the earliest form of Customs duty, a concession which their citizens intended to retain long after their contribution to the navy had ceased.
By 1700 both the head ports and the lesser members of the confederation, known as limbs, had fallen on hard times. The sea, on which their earlier prosperity depended, now filled their harbours with shingle or washed away protecting headlands. During the 16th century the seamen of Winchelsea had turned to piracy to replace the wine trade which had once brought them wealth. Smuggling offered them better prospects throughout the 18th century, and men from all the Cinque Ports were to be actively involved.
It was not just in Kent and Sussex that the mass of people lived in poverty. 18th century society was rigidly stratified; the labouring poor had little opportunity to improve their lot, or even to move out of the parish of their birth. Smuggling, like poaching, was to some extent a form of social protest against the harshness and drabness of this existence. At the other end of the social scale, most of the landed gentry grew richer as the century progressed. Public appointments were frequently filled through patronage, and corruption was rife. Sir Robert Walpole, as Whig Prime Minister from 1721 to 1742, built up his private fortune while at the same time working hard to introduce order into the collection of revenue.
There were other reasons for widespread public disaffection. In 1714, following Queen Anne's death England accepted Hanoverian George I as king, but there were many who regarded the exiled James Stuart as the legal claimant to the throne. Disaffection among Jacobite supporters smouldered on, to surface in the unsuccessful rising of the Old Pretender in 1715. There is abundant evidence of links between Jacobite sympathisers and the smugglers.
The Mayfield gang are said to have drunk King James' health in 1715; in 1721 an extraordinary conspiracy was hatched which aimed to seize King George, the Tower and the Bank of England. The participants included a Sussex baronet called Goring, and a smuggling gang known as the Waltham Blacks (the leaders were later banished). In 1774, when Bonnie Prince Charlie and troops under Marshal Saxe were in Dunkirk and poised to invade England, three Jacobite sympathisers from West Sussex were among those who tried to join the prince in France. (In the event the three were betrayed when they sought the help of the smugglers at Hooe near Pevensey, in their attempt to cross the Channel.) When the next year Bonnie Prince Charlie won support in Scotland and led his followers as far as Derby on the road to London, the government prudently sent several army units to the know smuggling strongholds in Kent and Sussex. Jacobite hopes were to be finally extinguished by defeat at Culloden in 1746.
At all times the main factor behind the huge expansion of smuggling was the high level of import duties, brought about by the need to raise revenue to fight a succession of wars. The conflicts of the early 18th century had only limited impact on our trade, but a damaging struggle began in 1739, and warfare continued during forty-four of the following seventy-five years. All these struggles involved war at sea, and France was our enemy on most occasions. As a result, not only were heavy duties imposed on trade, but French privateers regularly attacked shipping along the Channel coast.
The first climax of smuggling activity came during the 1740s, when the country was beset by Jacobite disaffection within, and the War of the Austrian Succession overseas. It seems likely that up to a quarter of our overseas trade was being smuggled at this time, though no statistics exist. With the return of peace in 1748, some reductions in duty, and the series of trials which broke up Kent and Sussex gangs, there was a lull in operations for some years. Then came the Seven Years War, fought in four continents, and the even more damaging War of American Independence. Duties had once again climbed to ridiculous heights. The country was denuded of the manpower needed to control widespread lawlessness, and smuggling reached a second peak around 1780. It was then rapidly reduced by the intervention on William Pitt, who cut the duty on tea from 129% to 12.5% in 1784 (and increased Window Tax to make good the resulting deficit).
The French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars which lasted (with one brief intermission) from 1793 to 1815, led to certain new forms of smuggling. French aristocrats were helped to flee to England during the terrible days after the French Revolution. Another item smuggled out of France at this time was part of the Duke of Orleans' collection of pictures, shipped into this country as wine by Sir Thomas Moore Slade, using his authority as Agent-Victualler at Chatham Dockyard.
The seamen of Deal and Folkestone specialised in running gold guineas to France, where the currency had collapsed and the money was needed to pay Napoleon's troops. It is known that City bankers were behind this lucrative speculation, when a guinea worth twenty-one shillings in England could fetch thirty shillings in Paris. Meanwhile, the numerous French prisoners, often held in terrible conditions on prison hulks in the Thames estuary, were helped to escape by Kent oyster fishermen. Many smugglers found lucrative employment as spies or double-agents, and some became naval pilots.
A third and short-lived peak of smuggling began with the return home of some 250,000 soldiers and seamen after the victory at Waterloo. Many had difficulty in finding alternative employment, though the early stages of the Industrial Revolution were creating new opportunities in the Midlands and North, and the first fashionable coastal resorts were developing. In rural Kent and Sussex poverty and unemployment continued, and were to lead to riots and emigration during the 1830s. What finally eliminated organised smuggling was the establishment of an effective preventive service, combined with the change to free trade policies after 1840.
As the level of smuggling activity fluctuated over the years from 1700 to 1840, so too did the profitability of particular items. The smugglers were opportunists, prepared to handle a wide range of goods. Luxury items, such as fine wines, silk, lace, fashionable clothes, glass and china were often brought in to order (as an invoice found among goods seized at Newhaven in 1822 was to show). Among the more prosaic items sometimes carried were salt and pepper. Tea, spirits and tobacco were the staples of the trade, but spices, coffee, chocolate, playing cards, jewellery and even human hair appear among the many items seized.
For most of the 18th century the best returns came from smuggled tea. This was cheap to buy and easy to handle (it came suitable packaged in oilskin bags). Around 1740 the cheapest grades of tea could be bought in Holland for sixpence per pound, and sold in England for three or four shillings per pound, compared with the lowest legal cost of five shillings. Not surprisingly England was then drinking more than three times as much smuggled tea as that legally imported. In a bid to stop this rampant law breaking, the government cut the duty on tea dramatically in 1745. It is one of the ironies of the smuggling story that when the Hawkhurst gang rescued their tea from Poole Custom House in 1746, in a venture for which a number paid with their lives, their profit margin on the cargo had been drastically reduced.
Higher duties were soon reimposed, however, and by 1780 the legitimate dealers (including a certain Richard Twining) lobbied the government for protection against unfair competition and the practice of adulterating tea with hedgerow leaves. William Pitt then destroyed the profitability of tea smuggling by removing most of the duty in 1784. However, in the three years immediately before this reform, Excise officers estimated that over 2,550,000 pounds of tea had been fraudulently landed on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, or one third of all the tea smuggled into the whole of England and Wales.
Tobacco smuggling replaced the illegal tea trade after 1800, and this was particularly profitable around 1820, when the duty stood at four shillings per pound. At one point it was estimated that tobacco costing one hundred pounds in Flushing was worth ten times as much in England. The duty on tobacco remained high throughout the 19th century, as indeed it still is. Much of the tobacco was brought into the main ports by documentation frauds rather than run on open beaches. Most came in leaf form or as stalks (for snuff), and was either manufactured illegally or infiltrated into the legal trade. Supplies came from America, either directly or via Ireland, so it was the west coast and the Bristol Channel ports which played most part in this trade.
French brandy was always a favourite item of contraband. Its import was forbidden during the years of war with France, and at other times it carried a duty of one pound per gallon. Gin (or Geneva) originated in Holland, and had become popular in England during the reign of William and Mary. It carried no duty to begin with, and this led to the epidemic of drunkenness we know best through the drawings of Hogarth. After 1736, gin too paid duty of one pound per gallon, and it was soon to become the most popular item of contraband on the coasts of England nearest to Holland.
Rum from the West Indies was also smuggled, but much less frequently. The spirits came packaged for handling (and sinking when necessary) in small kegs known as tubs. A tub normally held one half anker, or between three and a half and four gallons, and to increase its value further, the spirit was usually 70% over proof. It had therefore to be 'let down' after landing, by the addition of water and caramel colouring, an operation which could create problems. It also meant that enthusiasts for the raw spirit sometimes died of alcoholic poisoning after a cask was broached. More gin than brandy was brought in on the south coast because of its proximity to Holland. According to estimates made by Excise officers around 1780, well over half of all the contraband gin brought ashore in England and Wales was being landed in Kent and Sussex, a grand total of 1,808,000 gallons in three years. By contrast, 552,000 gallons of brandy were run here over the same period, a mere 14% of the national total.
Although smuggling was more important on the Kent and Sussex coasts than anywhere else in the country, virtually every accessible beach from west Cornwall to north Scotland was used at one time or another. The shores of Essex and East Anglia, the bays near Whitby in North Yorkshire, the lonely sands of Northumberland and the Scottish harbours near Montrose were favourites along the east coast. Danish and Scandinavian seamen took part in the trade, and the scale of smuggling led to the growth of supply industries on the continent. France and Holland imported tea almost solely to support the smugglers. Tobacco factories were set up at Flushing and Nieuport, and distilleries at Schiedam and Dunkirk to the same end. When it became illegal to build the specialised vessels or make the ropes and casks used for the trade in England, those industries also crossed the Channel.
The shores of Poole Harbour and Christchurch Bay were particularly important further west, and smuggling in Devon and Cornwall was to continue long after it had been brought under control further east. One reason for extensive smuggling along our western coasts was the existence of islands outside Customs control, which could act as depots for the trade. The Channel Islands, and especially Guernsey, flourished as supply bases until effective Customs control was established in 1805. Thereafter, the merchants and manufacturers of specialised containers moved operations to Cherbourg, Roscoff and the Brittany coast. The economy of the Scilly Isles declined disastrously once Customs control was extended there in 1828, and for a time Lundy and other small islands in the Bristol Channel became bases for the trade. The Isle of man acted as depot for contraband shipped into North Wales, the Wirral and the Solway coasts until 1765, when the full duties were imposed; thereafter Ireland became the chief base for operations, and remained the main source of contraband tobacco until after 1850.