This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler

THE SMUGGLERS

PICTURESQUE CHAPTERS INTHE
STORY OF AN ANCIENT CRAFT

BY

CHARLES G. HARPER

“Smuggler.—A wretch who,in defiance of
the laws, imports or exports goods without
payment of the customs.”—Dr. Johnson

ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HARDY, BY THEAUTHOR
AND FROM OLD PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS

London:CHAPMAN & HALL, Ltd.

1909

p. ivPRINTED ANDBOUND BY
HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.

p.vPREFACE

Opinions have ever beendivided on the question of the morality, or theimmorality, of smuggling.  This is not,in itself, remarkable, since that subject onwhich all men think alike has not yet been discovered; butwhatever the views held upon the question of the rights andwrongs of the “free-traders’”craft, they have long since died down into abstractacademic discussion.  Smuggling is,indeed, not dead, but it is not the potentfactor it once was, and to what extent Governments arejustified in taxing or restricting in any way the export or theimport of goods will not again become a living question in thiscountry until the impending Tariff Reform becomes law. There have been those who, reading the proofs of thisbook, have variously found in it arguments for, andothers arguments against, Protection; but,as a sheer matter of fact, there are in these pages nostudied arguments either way, and facts are here presentedjust as they are retrieved from half-forgotten records,with no other ulterior object than that ofentertainment.  But if these pages also serve to showwith what little wisdom p. viwe are, and generally havebeen, governed, they may not be without theiruses.  England, it may surely be gathered,here and elsewhere, is what she is by sheer force ofdogged middle-class character, and in spite of herstatesmen and lawgivers.

CHARLES G. HARPER

Petersham, Surrey,
      July 1909.

p.viiCONTENTS