Smuggler

“ But your gentleman smuggler is my abomination--your fellow that risks little but an exchequer process, and gains ten times what the others do, without their labour or their danger. Give me your bold, brave fellow, who declares war and fights it out. ”

“ Therefore every smuggler is a thief-general, who picks the pockets both of the king, and all his fellow-subjects. He wrongs them all; and above all, the honest traders: many of whom he deprives of their maintenance: constraining them either not to sell their goods at all, or to sell them to no profit. Some of them are tempted hereby, finding they cannot get bread for their families, to turn thieves too. And then you are accountable for their sin as well as your own: you bring their blood upon your own head. Calmly consider this, and you will never more ask, “What harm there is in smuggling?” ”

“ Thus, thanks to the Navy, the smugglers had been given a serious repulse in the most notorious district.
Then there was also the danger of collusive smuggling. For instance, when a smuggler had been frustrated from successfully landing a cargo of spirits from a small foreign vessel or boat he might go and give information to a Custom officer so that he might have the goods seized by the latter, the arrangement being that the smuggler should be paid a fair portion of the reward which the officer should receive for the seizure. ”

“ Since the old protective days, when the smuggler of the old school, with his fast vessels, his boldness and his pistols, waxed fat and prospered, customs laws have been simplified and duties have been wonderfully reduced; consequently, smuggling is no longer a trade, and such smuggling as still goes on, the effect of the old taint in the national blood, is mean, small, and petty by comparison. ”

“ The fog detained the ship for another twenty-four hours; and when the vessel arrived in London, the strain on the smuggler’s system had been so enormous that he was completely exhausted; his courage oozed out with his strength; and at last he gave himself up to the Customs’ officials, who had had a watchful eye on his suspiciously distressed-looking features.
Since the so-called ‘good old days’ of the novelist, smuggling has lost much of its attractiveness. ”

“ In July 1735, customs officers of the port of Arundel, watching the coast, expecting goods to be run from a hovering smuggler craft, were discovered by a gang of more than twenty armed smugglers, anxiously waiting for the landing, and not disposed for an all-night trial of endurance in that waiting game. They accordingly seized the officers and confined them until some boatloads of contraband had been landed and conveyed away on horseback. ”

“ I know all about it! All these 'foreign goods' are manufactured at the north and sent by agents all over the country. These agents dress and talk like sailors and assume a mysterious manner on purpose to be suspected of smuggling, because they know well enough fine ladies will buy much quicker and pay much more if they only fancy they are cheating Uncle Sam in buying foreign goods from a smuggler at half price."
"So, then, you are not a smuggler, after all!" said Mrs. Condiment, looking almost regretfully at the sailor.
"Why, ma'am, you know I told you you were accusing me wrongfully." ”

“ No, no; but the smugglers feared another peril. Revenue cutters were known to be cruising along the coast; more than ordinary vigilance was being exercised by a robbed Government.
The men upon the schooner knew that the revenue officers were up to many of their tricks and were posted as to many of their signals; false lights might gleam across the waters like an ignis fatuus luring on a famished traveler in the desert, and within the hour after their calling had been betrayed, every man might be in irons, and the cargo and the vessel would be confiscated. ”

“ Of the female smuggler who did never despair.
With her pistols loaded, she went on board,
By her side hung a glittering sword,
In her belt, two daggers, well arm’d for war,
Was the female smuggler, who never fear’d scar.
Not far they sailéd from the land,
When a strange sail put them all to a stand;
Those are the robbers, this maid did cry,
The female smuggler will conquer or die.
Close along side these two vessels came,
Cheer up, said Jane, we’ll board the same,
We’ll run all chances to rise or fall,
Cried the female smuggler, who never fear’d a ball.{246} ”

“ The word smuggler arouses in the mind the figure of a bold and desperate mariner searching the coast for a signal that all is safe to land his cargo. But as a matter of fact the men who ran the greatest risks were not the marine smugglers at all, but the land smugglers who received the tubs on the shore and conveyed them to a hiding place preparatory to the journey to London, whither the major part was perilously taken. Such were the Alfriston smugglers. These were the men who fought the revenue officers and had the hair's-breadth escapes. ”

“ I am determined to stop this wholesale smuggling. If none of you are capable of doing the work for which you are liberally paid, I'll have to get somebody to do the work for you. Do you understand?"
"But, sir," began one of the inspectors, humbly, "we've done our best—"
"And accomplished nothing!" snapped the Collector.
"How could we, sir? The smuggler you want us to catch does not resort to the usual tricks such people adopt to avoid paying duty on the diamonds and other precious stones, which you say are smuggled into this country. ”

“ Private smuggling is just the same with picking of pockets. There is full as much harm in this as in that. A smuggler of this kind is no honester than a pickpocket. These may shake hands together.
3. But open smugglers are worse than common highwaymen, and private smugglers are worse than common pickpockets. For it is undoubtedly worse to rob our father, than one we have no obligation to. And it is worse still, far worse, to rob a good father, one who sincerely loves us, and is at that very time doing all he can, to provide for us, and to make us happy. ”

“ The magistrates and officers of seaport towns were in general so deeply implicated in the trade themselves, that smuggling had a fairer chance than the law, in any case that came before them, and never was a more hopeless enterprise undertaken, in ordinary circumstances, than that of convicting a smuggler, unless captured in flagrant delict. ”

“ Any story of smuggling has always had a certain fascination for me. I became interested at once, and forgot my fatigue and my longing for bed. I thought it seemed a whimsical thing that I should live over a reputed smuggler’s passage, and now find in an old friend a modern “preventive man.”
“That must be an interesting job,” I said. “Tell me as much as you can. I needn’t tell you I have sense enough to keep my mouth shut.”
“I know you will. You see, the natives, especially the wealthy ones, will have the stuff, and they simply don’t care what they pay. ”

“ And yet, when acting on my cables, the smuggler coming down the New York gang-plank was snapped up by my old comrades and searched, nothing was found. This mystery, for mystery it was, occurred a score of times. At last we learned the trick. The particular room occupied by the smuggler was taken both ways for a round dozen trips ahead. There were seven members of the smuggling combine. When one left the room, his voyage ended, and came ashore in New York, another went duly aboard and took possession for the return trip. The diamonds had not gone ashore. ”

“ Not without smugglers, I fancy, Mr. Marble, if contriving to get other people's property without their knowledge, can make a smuggler. I never saw a more thorough-looking thief than the chap we have nick-named the Dipper. ”

“ The romance of smuggling has very largely engaged the attention of every description of writers, but we do not hear so much of its commercial aspects, although it must be evident that for men to dare so greatly as the smugglers did with winds and waves and with the customs’ forces, the possible gains must have been great. Time and again a cargo of tea or of spirits would be seized, and yet the smugglers be prepared with other ventures, knowing, as they did, that one entirely successful run would pay for perhaps two failures. ”

“ The most outstanding chapter in the whole history of smuggling is that of the cold-blooded “Murders by Smugglers” which stained the annals of the southern counties in the mid-eighteenth century with peculiarly revolting deeds that have in them nothing of romance; nothing but a long-drawn story of villainy and fiendish cruelty. It is a story that long made dwellers in solitary situations shiver with apprehension, especially if they owned relatives connected in any way with the hated customs officers. ”

“ The earliest conflicts of interests between smugglers and the Government were concerned with the export of goods, and not with imports. We are accustomed to think only of the import smuggler, who brought from across Channel, or from more distant shores, the spirits, wines, tea, coffee, silks, laces, and tobacco that had never yielded to the revenue of the country ”

“ Notwithstanding all the unceasing vigilance of the officers and men employed, smuggling is carried on all along the coast, from Deal to Cornwall, to as great a degree as the public require. Any attempt to smuggle this Fact may answer the purpose of a party, or a particular system, but it will never obtain belief.
“It was only a few days since that a party p. 242of coast-blockade men (we believe belonging to the Tower, No. 61) made common cause with the smugglers, and they walked off altogether!” ”

“ Nor were these gentry one whit less fearless, enterprising, and lawless than their brethren of the sea.
We have not yet done, however, with all the ramifications of this vast and magnificent league, for it extended itself, in the districts where it existed, to almost every class of society. Each tradesman smuggled or dealt in smuggled goods; each public house was supported by smugglers, and gave them in return every facility possible; each country gentleman on the coast dabbled a little in the interesting traffic; almost every magistrate shared in the proceeds or partook of the commodities. ”

“ We're revenue officers, looking for a notorious smuggler named Cranston, who operates around this section. We had positive information that he meant to cross over from Canada in a boat that answered the description of yours to a fraction; and as it's the habit of these smugglers to adopt all sorts of disguises, from honest, hard-working fishermen, to anything else that suits their fancy, we guessed they'd taken to wearing khaki to make us believe they were a party of the militia out for a cruise. ”

“ Many a respectable family I have known that would privately have encouraged a smuggler, and, in consequence, were beset continually by mock smugglers, offering, with airs of affected mystery, home commodities liable to no custom-house objections whatsoever, only at a hyperbolical price. ”

“ Dr. Johnson’s definition of a smuggler appears on the title-page of the present volume. It is not a flattering testimonial to character; but, on the other hand, his opinion of a Commissioner of Excise—and such were the sworn enemies of smugglers—was much more unfavourable. Such an one was bracketed by the doctor with a political pamphleteer, or what he termed “a scribbler for a party,” as one of “the two lowest of human beings.” ”

“ I will give a handsome reward to any one who brings reliable information which leads to that desirable result.”
“I am afraid that, although one or two smugglers may be captured, others will soon take their places; as while the present high duties on spirits, silks, and other produce of France exist, the profit to be made by smuggling will always prove a temptation too strong to be resisted,” observed my father. “If the smugglers find that a vigilant watch is kept on this part of the coast they will merely carry on their transactions in another part.” ”

“ To-day many descendants of these old smugglers remain our foremost fore-and-aft sailors, yet engaged no longer in an illicit trade but in the more peaceful pursuits of line fishermen, oyster dredging, trawling during the winter, and often shipping as yachts' hands during the summer.
But because we are to read fact and not fiction we shall scarcely find the subject inferior in interest. Truth often enough is stranger, and some of the tricks and devices employed by the smuggling communities may well surprise us. ”

“ The reward payable for a smuggler convicted and transferred to the Navy amounted to £20. And here let it be added that the persons liable to arrest in regard to smuggling were: (1) Those found on smuggling vessels; (2) Those found unloading or assisting to unload such craft; (3) Those found to be carrying away the landed goods or concerned in hiding the same. But before conviction it was essential to prove that the seized spirits were foreign; that the vessel had come from foreign parts; that the party who [Pg 296] detained the smugglers was a Customs Officer ”

“ If they had been carried across the boundary in such a way as to avoid a port of entry, we suppose that the offence of smuggling would have been complete when they passed the line, although the smuggler might repent and afterwards report for payment of duties. ”

“ Of course a smuggler has to take his chances with the revenue cutters he is liable to meet along the coast, as well as with the Custom House authorities, and I should think that constant fear of capture would have made him sly and cautious ”

“ Among these recorded incidents are the attack of Goudhurst Church by the smugglers, its defence by the peasantry, the pursuit, and defeat of the free-traders of those days by the Dragoons, the implication of some persons of great wealth in the most heinous parts of the transaction, the visit of Mowle, the officer, in disguise, to the meeting-place of his adversaries, his accidental detection by one of them, and the bold and daring manœuvre of the smuggler, Harding, as related near the close of the work. ”

“ Moreover the smugglers are seldom the proprietors of the goods, but are employed by the merchants themselves, who pay them so much a hundred-weight for their risk and labour. When surprised, for without a surprise they may be said to be never overtaken by the coast guard, the smugglers instantly abandon their boat, and fling themselves into the lake, and swim for their lives beneath a rain of rifle balls. ”