Kings Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 | Page 6

exporting commodities.
Before it is possible for any crime to be committed there must needs be
at hand the opportunity to carry out this intention; and throughout the
history of our nation--at any rate from the thirteenth century--that
portion of England, the counties of Kent and Sussex, which is adjacent
to the Continent, has always been at once the most tempted and the
most inclined towards this offence. Notwithstanding that there are
many other localities which were rendered notorious by generations of
smugglers, yet these two between them have been responsible for more
incidents of this nature than all the rest put together.
What I am anxious at first to emphasise is the fact that, although
smuggling rose to unheard-of importance as a national danger during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (and this is the period to which
we shall especially address ourselves presently as affording the fullest
and the most interesting information on an ingenious phase of human
energy), yet it was not a practice which suddenly rose into prominence
during that period. Human nature is much the same under various kings
and later centuries. Under similar circumstances men and women
perform similar actions. Confronted with the temptation to cheat the
Crown of its dues, you will find persons in the time of George V.
repeating the very crimes of Edward I. The difference is not so much in
degree of guilt as in the nature of the articles and the manner in which
they have been smuggled. To-day it may be cigars--centuries ago it was
wool. Although the golden age (if we may use the term) of smuggling
has long since passed, I am by no means unconvinced that if the
occasions of temptation recurred to carry on this trade as it was pursued
during the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries, there
would not be found many who would be ready to apply themselves to
such a task. To some extent the modern improvements in living, in
education, and increased respect for lofty ideals would modify this
tendency; and long years have awakened so keen a regard for the
benefits of law and order that the nefarious practice might not break out
immediately on a large scale. But when we speak of smuggling it is

perhaps more correct to speak of it as a disease which has not been
exterminated from the system, but is, as it were, a microbe that is kept
well under control and not allowed to spread.
Everyone who is familiar with English history is aware of the important
position which was occupied by the wool trade. Because of the
immense value to the nation of the fleece it was necessary that this
commodity should be kept in the country and not sent abroad. If in the
present day most of our iron and coal were to be despatched abroad
regardless of what was required by our manufacturers it would not be
long before the country would begin to suffer serious loss. So, in the
thirteenth century, it was with the wool. As a check to this a tax was
levied on that wool which was exported out of the country, and during
the reign of Edward III. attempts were made by the threat of heavy
penalties to prevent the Continent from becoming the receptacle of our
chief product. But the temptation was too great, the rewards were too
alluring for the practice to be stopped. The fleece was carried across
from England, made into cloth, and in this state sent back to us. Even in
those days the town of Middleburgh, which we shall see later to have
been the source of much of the goods smuggled into our country in the
grand period, was in the fourteenth century the headquarters abroad of
this clandestine trade. We need not weary the reader with the details of
the means which were periodically taken to stop this trade by the
English kings. It is enough to state that practically all the ports of
Sussex and Kent were busily engaged in the illegal business. Neither
the penalties of death, nor the fixing of the price of wool, nor the
regulating of the rate of duty availed in the long-run. Licences to export
this article were continually evaded, creeks and quiet bays were the
scenes where the fleece was shipped for France and the Low Countries.
Sometimes the price of wool fell, sometimes it rose; sometimes the
Crown received a greater amount of duty, at other times the royal purse
suffered very severely. In the time of Elizabeth the encouragement of
foreign weavers to make their homes in England was likely to do much
to keep the wool in the country, especially as there began to be
increased wealth in our land, and families