actually engaged in smuggling all sorts of goods out of these ships. Perhaps it was a lurking sympathy with the men engaged in a trade with which his earlier years had been so intimately associated that made Captain Cockburn suggest that it was because the Dutchmen brought such large quantities of fish into Billingsgate that the English fishermen found their work unprofitable, and were accordingly driven to devote themselves to smuggling. But from evidence in other documents it would certainly seem that Cockburn was speaking the truth and that the fishing industry was not a very good livelihood at that time.
Then, secondly, there was the smuggling that was carried on by the trading sailing ships from abroad. Great quantities of goods were being run into the country by colliers—they were usually brig-rigged—by corn-ships, packet-boats from the Continent and other vessels trading with Holland. At least, one thousand five hundred vessels were engaged in this trade, "and," added Cockburn, "he scarcely ever knew one of them return without some prohibited or high duty goods." The smuggling from these vessels was done in various ways. There were the pilot-boats and fishing craft which frequently met them near the coast, as already explained. Another way was for the merchantmen to put into harbours, roadsteads, and rivers, where they lay at anchor under pretence of waiting for orders. Another method still, that was as simple as it was successful, consisted of landing their goods at outports on such holidays as the King's birthday, &c., when the Revenue officers were absent. Cockburn admitted that he had done this himself and had run great quantities of brandies, teas, and Spanish liquorice even as much as nearly a ton of the latter at a time. But besides these two classes there was a third. The whole of the coasting trade in those days was of course done in sailing ships; and inasmuch as there were no railways for carrying merchandise there was a good deal more encouragement for the sailing ship owner than there is to-day. The methods of smuggling adopted by these coasters was a little more complicated, and this was done by such means as fraudulently obtaining permits, by cockets clandestinely obtained, by false entry of one sort of goods for another, and by corrupting the Customs' officers. To prove his case the captain gave the following examples, all of which he had himself employed since the year 1738!
As regards the obtaining of permits fraudulently, he said that he had gone to Dunkirk, taken aboard 2040 gallons of French brandy and cleared for North Bergen in Norway. Of course he had no intention whatever of steering for that port, but in case he met any of the Custom House sloops as he approached the English coast, it would be convenient to show this clearance and so prevent his brandy being seized. From Dunkirk, then, he sailed across the North Sea and ran up the river Humber. There, by previous arrangement, one of those keels which are so well known in the neighbourhood of the Humber and Trent met him. The keel had been sent from York down the Ouse with permits to cover the brandy. The keel was cleared by a merchant at York, who obtained permits for conveying to Gainsborough a quantity of French brandy equal to that which Cockburn had on board his ship, though in fact the keel, notwithstanding that she obtained these permits, set forth with no brandy in her at all.
It was the point where the Ouse crosses the Trent at right angles that had been arranged as the trysting-place, and there the keel took on board from Cockburn the brandy which had come from Dunkirk. Cockburn himself nailed the permits on to the heads of the casks, which in due course were taken by the keel, when the flood tide made again, to Gainsborough some distance up the Trent. Arrived there the casks were properly taken into stock and entered in the Custom House books as if the brandy had been actually brought down from York and had previously paid duty. On this one venture the garrulous skipper admitted that he cleared a profit by the brandy of £250 per cent., which was a remarkably handsome reward for so short a voyage as from Dunkirk.
Port wines, he said, were purchasable at Dunkirk because these had been taken from English merchantmen by privateers; and since there was little or no market for such wines in Spain they were brought into Dunkirk, whither resorted the smugglers eager to buy them. He proceeded also to explain another method of cheating the customs. Large quantities of very inferior British brandy were taken on board a ship and clearance was obtained for some other English port, but instead of proceeding to the latter the vessel would run across to Dunkirk or Holland, where she would unload the cheap brandy, and in its place take on board some high-priced French brandy equal in quantity to the British commodity which had been put ashore at the French port. After this, with now a much more valuable cargo, the vessel would put to sea again and make for that British port for which originally she had cleared. And as to the practice of bribery, he himself had several times bought permits from the Excise officers to cover smuggled brandy and tea. On one occasion he had paid an officer fifty guineas for a permit to cover a certain quantity of tea and brandy about to be run into the country.
Next came Captain Ebenezer Hartley, who had also formerly commanded a ship that was engaged in smuggling. He had known of large quantities of muslins and silks brought into the country on board East Indiamen. These goods were smuggled by throwing them through the port-holes at night into boats waiting below, alongside the ship, or whilst the Custom officer was being entertained on board with food and drink. Sometimes, he said, this was even done under the very eyes of the Revenue officer, who took no notice of it. He recalled an incident in an earlier part of his life when he had sailed from England to Holland, in which country he had filled up with twenty-six casks of oil. After that his orders were to cross the North Sea and meet a certain vessel which would await him off Aldborough. This last-mentioned craft would give Hartley's vessel the signal by lowering her jib three times.
A more tragic story was related by George Bridges, a tidesman of the Port of London. He showed that it did not always "pay" to be diligent in one's duty, for he quoted the case of a Captain Mercer, in the employ of the Custom House, who did now and then make a seizure, but he "was broke for doing his duty"; and when Mercer came into Cork on the occasion in question, the mob set upon him so that he was compelled to escape into the sheriff's house. The mob then surrounded the house in their thousands until the sheriff interceded with them. They were wild with fury and threatened to pull the house down, until the sheriff gave them his oath that Captain Mercer should never again be guilty of seizing the wool which the smugglers had endeavoured to export. But the mob afterwards went to Passage and took hold of a Custom House officer named May. They brought him forth from his house, cut out his tongue, and cut off his ears, one of which the witness said he remembered seeing nailed on to the Cork Exchange. They dragged the man with a rope round his neck, gave him several blows, hurled him into the river, and finally the poor fellow died of his ill-treatment. Although handsome rewards were offered for the discovery of the offenders, yet no one ever came forward.
One could quote similar instances of the vehemence of the smugglers from other sources. For instance, on February 2, 1748–49, the Collector of the Port of Penzance wrote to the Board to give them some idea of the people among whom he had to work. "The insolence," he said, "of some of the smuglers [sic] and wreckers in this neighbourhood is run to such a heighth, that tho our officers have from time to time secured severall Hogsheads, it has been by force taken from them [again], 'and the officers forced to save their lives.'" Writing again on the 14th December, the same correspondent added that "the smugglers never behaved with more insolence than at present, or was it ever known to be carried on with more audaciousness," mentioning also that the previous night the snow[5] Squirrel of North Yarmouth had driven ashore loaded with a cargo of brandy. The country-folk had immediately boarded her, stripped the master of everything valuable, and then carried off all the brandy they could lay their hands on, and, in their haste, had set fire to the rest of the cargo, so that at the time of writing the whole ship was in flames. He mentioned also a couple of months later the difficulty he had to secure arrests of smugglers, for even when he had obtained warrants for the apprehension of eight most notorious men, the constables excused themselves from doing their duty in serving the warrants, and pretended that the eight men had absconded.
And anyone who cares to examine the Treasury Books and Papers for this period will find similar cases. In July of 1743 some smugglers had seized the Custom House boat at Dover and coolly employed her for their own purposes in running tea. The Custom officers deemed matters to be in such a state that
