Collector of customs

“ For the collection of the customs there is a collector in each district, a surveyor in the larger parts, and a general board of appraisers to hear appeals against decisions of the collectors with regard to the dutiability of imported goods. ”

“ XXIV. And it is hereby further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That every master or person having the charge of any ship or vessel shall, before he departs from any British colony or plantation where he receives his lading, take a certificate under the hands and seals of the collector or other principal officer of the customs there (which certificate such officers are hereby required to grant without fee or reward) that bond hath been given, pursuant to the directions of this or any other act of parliament, as the case shall require ”

“ All customs, be they old or new, are no other but the effects and issues of trades and commerce with foreign nations; but all commerce and affairs with foreigners ... are made by the absolute power of the king ”

“ Therefore, he says to himself, what a very wise and good king rules this happy country. I will enter, for there is no “customs.” But if, having entered the country on this understanding, the king levies customs without having a Customs House, that traveller will recall what he said about the king and will depart, cursing that king and spreading his ill-fame so that no more travellers or elephant hunters will come near him. Therefore, I ended, the whole matter resolves itself into this: Have you a Customs House or have you not? Here I peered diligently about as if searching among the huts. ”

“ By the late act, the officers of the customs are “impowered to enter into any house, warehouse, shop, cellar, or other place, in the British colonies or plantations in America, to search for or seize prohibited or unaccustomed goods,” &c. ”

“ The Truly Sacred Lord who has established the Divine Dynasty, has also established custom-houses wherever the country is quiet, and by his law all merchants who pass these must pay the regular duties, and your merchant in daring to force his way through and evade the payment of customs, and you in coming here and making a disturbance and squeezing the money back, have behaved in a manner at utter variance with propriety.... ”

“ Customs is a slender, dark-haired expert sitting in a small room in New York appraising the value of a treasure in diamonds. It is a chemist in a laboratory checking the quality of a foreign import—and its dutiable value—and arriving at a decision which may mean life or death for an American business in a highly competitive market. ”

“ All merchants may enter or leave England unharmed and without fear, and may stay or travel within it, by land or water, for purposes of trade, free from all illegal exactions, in accordance with ancient and lawful customs. ”

“ The common people, who went up into the interior to trade, fell in with their customs with a degree of plasticity and an air of gaiety and full assent, which no other foreigners have, at least to the same extent, shown. ”

“ Two months were then spent in drawing up “Ordinances” which were finally solemnly read to the whole people assembled in the churchyard, and received their unanimous [225] consent. And lastly a month later, on October 12, the organization of the Merchant Guild for the regulation of trade was completed and its officers elected; the newly made Common Seal [424] was inspected; and the community ordered that a record of all their laws and free customs should be written for perpetual remembrance in a roll to be called Domesday. ”

“ Most possessors of shops made their own goods for sale, assisted by slaves or free apprentices. Every workman taught his own trade to his children, and these in their turn would instruct theirs; families which had an hereditary profession, or from generation to generation had gathered bands of workmen about them, formed themselves into various guilds, or, to use the customary term, into tribes, governed by chiefs and following specified customs. ”

“ When such duties are imposed, not according to the bulk or weight, but according to the supposed value of the goods, they become properly a sort of inland customs or excise, which obstruct very much the most important of all branches of commerce, the interior commerce of the country. ”

“ But the tradition of unified Customs, now nearly a century old, has immense potency, and unless it is fearlessly scrutinized and challenged, may be able, reinforced by the passions excited by the great controversy over Free Trade and Protection, to defy the warnings writ large upon the page of history. ”

“ Customs officers are presumed to be acquainted with the ordinary meaning of words, and may also be presumed to have some familiarity with trade designations, and the customs of dealers. They are not, however, supposed to be chemists, scientists, or professional men, nor to be conversant with the terms of particular arts. ”

“ With this distinction, the ancient duties of customs were imposed equally upon all sorts of goods, necessaries as well as luxuries, goods exported as well as goods imported. Why should the dealers in one sort of goods, it seems to have been thought, be more favoured than those in another? or why should the merchant exporter be more favoured than the merchant importer? ”

“ And if any colonist runs away to another patroon, or, contrary to his contract, leaves his service, we promise to do everything in our power to deliver the same into the hands of his patroon or commis that he may be prosecuted there according to the customs of this country, as occasion may require. ”

“ Great numbers of foreigners and people from the provinces visited the capital, and the return of luxury and the revival of old customs gave occupation to a variety of tradespeople who could get no employment under the Directory or Consulate, such as saddlers, carriage-makers, lacemen, embroiderers, and others. ”

“ For what, Sir, can be more glaringly absurd than to hear a merchant clamouring for the enforcement of the prohibitive laws, and the exclusion of foreign trade, at the very door of a shop filled with English goods, clandestinely imported? ”

“ On the imposition of uniform duties of customs the power of the Parliament to impose duties of customs and of excise, and to grant bounties on the production or export of goods, shall become exclusive. ”

“ Before proceeding to describe the methods of cultivation employed, it is desirable to glance at a custom which, there is reason to suppose, is connected with that remote period when the English were not de jure masters of the soil, but occupied the position of colonists, who either expropriated the original inhabitants or entered upon possession of land as res nullius, to which they had established no solid claim by prescription. ”

“ All denizen [foreigner permitted to reside in the realm with certain rights and privileges] and alien merchants may buy and sell goods and merchandise, in gross, in any part of the country, despite town charters or franchises, to anyone except an enemy of the King. ”

“ But for the abovesaid liberties and free customs the merchant vintners aforesaid have granted to us that on each tun of wine which they shall bring or cause to be brought within our realm or power, and whereon they shall be bound to pay freight to mariners, they shall pay by name of custom to us and our heirs, beyond the ancient customs due and paid in money whether to us or to others, 2s. ”

“ Customs shall, according to the necessity of carrying out duties in compliance with laws and regulations, strengthen Customs personnel construction and make them possess good political and operational qualifications. ”

“ And we will that the aforesaid merchant vintners, in respect of wines whereon they shall have paid to us the aforesaid custom of 2s. in one place of our realm or elsewhere within our power, shall be entirely free and quit of payment of the aforesaid custom of 2s. in all other places of our said realm and power; provided that for other merchandise whatsoever which they shall happen to employ within our realm and power they be held to pay to us the same customs which the rest of the merchants shall pay to us for such merchandise. ”

“ It is no part of our intention to trace the history of the levying of customs through different reigns and in different ages, but it is important to note briefly that the evading of these dues which we designate smuggling, is one of the oldest offences on record. ”

“ The customs inward of all commodities are ten in the hundred, and the custome is paid in wares also that you buy: for the same wares in barter you pay also ten in the hundred, at the lading of the wares. [Marginal note: Other smal customs you pay besides, which may be at two in the hundred: and for Consulage you pay two in the hundred.] But if you sell for mony, you pay no more custome but the ten aforesaid, and one and a halfe in the hundred, which is for the custome of the goods you lade for the sayd mony, for more custome you pay not. ”

“ And if we do but look back a little, to a few Generations past, we may soon find what high Advantages have accrued to His Majesty in His Customs; and to the Kingdom in general, by the Cloathing-trade, being lively managed by the Merchants, and what worthy and noble Companies of Merchants, have been Associated and Incorporated ”

“ The growth of customs dues in the last years of the seventeenth century, and so onward, in a vicious progression until the opening years of the nineteenth, was not in any way owing to consideration for home traders, or to a desire for the protection of British industries. They grew exactly in proportion as the needs of the Government for revenue increased ”

“ It is only through the establishment and transmission of customary standards that one generation is in any way superior to its predecessors. Customs, in civilized life, include all the established effective ways of civilization, its arts, its sciences, its industries, and its useful modes of coöperation. ”

“ Those who study the statistics of our export trade will recognize that if we lost the custom of our colonies—and this we should be likely to do if we lost the colonies themselves—the consequences to our commerce would be very serious. ”

“ If to leavy the payment of these Duties could be most exactly performed, Princes might strangely practice one upon another; wherefore since they cannot, the people pay no more then they cannot with greater safety upon the whole matter save, nor observe any more of these Laws, then they cannot elude.
11. The Inconveniences of the way of Customs, are, viz.
1. That Duties are laid upon things not yet ripe for use, upon Commodities in fieri, and but in the way of their full improvements, which seems the same ill-husbandry, as to make fuel of young Saplings, instead of Dotards and Pollards. ”

“ Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their subjects, who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother country, and who have occasion for no other license than the common despatches of the custom-house. ”

“ And We do, by the Advice of Our Privy Council, declare and enjoin, that the Trade with the said Indians shall be free and open to all our Subjects whatever; provided that every Person, who may incline to trade with the said Indians, do take out a Licence for carrying on such Trade from the Governor or Commander in Chief of any of Our Colonies respectively, where such Person shall reside ”

“ For many years past a number of persons have driven a thriving trade in a singular branch of commerce, no less than buying up cast court dresses and second-hand uniforms for exportation to the colonies. ”

“ This customs tax worried the old gentleman at times. Before this trip he had always believed in a protective tariff, but now he referred to the United States customs as a species of brigandage worse than that of Il Duca himself. ”

“ And when 'imports' or 'importation' is applied to men, as is the case in some acts of Congress, and in the ninth section of the first article of the Constitution, it is to men or 'persons' who are property and passive, and brought in against their will or for sale as slaves,-brought as an article of commerce, like other merchandise. ”

“ Collectors of the customs throughout the United States, by the tenth section, are empowered to take into custody specie, or any articles of domestic growth or manufacture, under these circumstances, when deposited in unusual places, in unusual quantities, in places where there is reason to believe they are intended for exportation in vessels, sleighs, or other carriages, or in any manner apparently on their way towards the territories of foreign nations, or a place whence such articles are intended to be exported. ”

“ When we have issued a complete series of county and provincial collections, we can then, and then only, afford to expend our energies on foreign work, which it rightly belongs to other countries to carry out. ”

“ The one or two attendants in blue coats and red turbans, and sashes with large brass plates upon them, waiting in the background, are the messengers, with which all Government officials are liberally supplied. The Collector is the practical ruler of the locality over which he is set to preside, and situations are constantly arising which demand a great deal of tact and wise judgment. ”

“ We have here an all-sufficient foundation of the right of the crown to regulate commerce among the colonies, and of the right of the colonists to inhabit and to inherit land in each and all the colonies. ”

“ At the same time, this kingdom, as the supreme governing and legislative power, has always bound the colonies by her laws, by her regulations, and restrictions in trade, in navigation, in manufactures, in every thing, except that of taking their money out of their pockets without their consent. ”

“ The King’s Customehouses, ought to be so many locks and Keys to the Kingdome, to let what is warrantable and lawful to come in, and to keep out what is forbidden its entrance, and to prevent the great abuses that are so frequently complained of, both in the Exportation of our Prohibited goods, and the Importation of Forreign goods forbidden by Law ”