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.