transhipped to a coaster ; the casks had been placed
inside puncheons containing sugar, the consignment
landed as British refined sugar removed coastwise, and
the brandy thus taken into home consumption free of
duty.
Many ingenious ' concealments on the person ' were
discovered. One man was found to be wearing a corset
with eighteen quilted spaces, and a pair of drawers
secured at the ankles, carrying in all 24 pounds of tea.
Six men were captured wearing waistcoats, ' thigh pieces,'
and ' shin pieces.' Two of them had in these receptacles
nine parcels of lace each. The remaining four had eight
parcels each. Several Deal boatmen were found to be
fitted with ' shin pieces,' ' bustles,' ' stays,' ' thigh pieces.'
and ' cotton bags to fit the crown of the hat.' Each
boatman carried 30 pounds of tea.
A French sloop, laden with a fuU cargo of tobacco,
intended for the coast of Ireland, and carrying an Irish
pilot and an Irish supercargo, was driven by storm into
Douglas, Isle of Man, and captured.
A petty squabble between merchants and customs
1835-36] SMUGGLERS, OFFICERS, MERCHANTS 251
officers in Ceylon led to revelations of much illegal
trading in that colony. On September 20, 1835, Messrs.
Ackland and Boyd, merchants, landed at Colombo from
the barque Anne. They had six turkeys with them, and
it appears that they went on shore with these birds at a
place not approved by the Customs for the landing of
baggage and effects. A customs officer saw them land,
and insisted upon detaining the turkeys, although turkej'S
were duty-free, basing his action upon the circumstance
that landing had occurred at an unapproved place.
Ackland refused to allow him to seize the birds, and sent
them back to the ship. The officers then instituted
proceedings in the island Courts for obstruction. Ack-
land was acquitted, and when the report reached London
the Board expressed an opinion that the officers had
acted unwarrantably. Ackland and Boyd then com-
plained to the Board that entry had since been refused
to certain \\ines, imported by them from Tutticorin.
Inquiry elicited that the merchants had been evading
the Navigation laws by importing \\dne from France to
Colombo ' for exportation,' transhipping it to Tutticorin,
and then importing it thence as goods from a British
possession. (Subterfuges of this kind were common
during the times of restricted trade.) They pleaded that
other merchants were allowed to do this, and indeed it
seems, to one who reads between the lines, that Ackland
and Boyd's goods would never have been restricted but
for that unfortunate affair of turkeys. The Board
intimated that a new controller was on his way to Ceylon,
and that no doubt he would try to prevent squabbles
between merchants and officers, and evasions of the laws
of Navigation.
Cap. 60 of 6 and 7 Wm. IV. relaxed to a certain extent
the preventive regulations as to size of package and
tonnage of importing vessel, allowing spirits to be im-
ported in casks containing not less than 20 gallons, and
tobacco or snuff in packages not less than 300 pounds in
weight, and reducing the legal tonnage for import ships
252 PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1836-37
to 60 tons. It extended the powers of the Board with
regard to the granting of general transires for coasting
vessels. At the same time it empowered magistrates to
deal with petty cases of smuggling without an order from
the Board. This provision extended merely to cases in
which the goods seized, being spirits, did not exceed a
gallon, and, being tobacco, did not exceed 6 pounds.
The magistrates under such circumstances might inflict
fines not exceeding Ā£5, or imprisonment for not more than
one month.
In 1836 a steamer trading to London was found to
have her paddle-boxes lined so as to contain a consider-
able quantity of contraband goods. The smack Tam
0' Shunter was seized by the Coastguard at Padstow,
72 tubs of spirits being found concealed in spaces between
the cabin and the outer timbers. She was a coaster,
carrying coals.
During March, 1837, ^ curiously-built boat was found
on the beach at Bognor. She had no thwarts, and was
fiat-bottomed. Her bottom was pierced so that when
loaded she would sink just below the surface of the water.
A net was found on board, and it was evident that she
had been used for running tubs. When loaded, the net
had been laced from gunwale to gunwale to keep the
tubs in position, and she had then been set adrift. The
smugglers had unloaded her, and left her on the beach.
On March 14, 1837, the Sylvia revenue cruiser seized
the Good Intent schooner at Mount's Bay, on account of
the following concealments : 26 tubs in false lining near
sail-locker ; 138 tubs in a space formed by double bulk-
heads between hold and cabin ; 26 tubs in the coal-locker,
under the coals ; 148 tubs in a space formed by double
bulkheads between forepeak and hold ; 21 tubs under
flooring of forepeak. The bulkheads and flooring had
been newly tarred, so that the odour of the spirits should
not be apparent.
On July I, 1837, the same revenue cruiser took the
Spartan schooner off Land's End. She had a hollow
1837-39] COLONIAL AND BRITISH SMUGGLING 253
beam under the cabin floor, and a double bulkhead
between the hold and the coal-hole. These spaces were
filled with compressed tobacco.
There was considerable smuggling at Sydney ; witness
the following seizures :
December 5, 1837. ā On the brig Gazelle, from Boston,
U.S.A., 1,211 pounds of tobacco.
June 9, 1838. ā On the Mary Ann, of London, 503
pounds of tobacco, 115 gallons of whisky, 45 gallons of
geneva.
September 14. ā On the ship Earl Durham, 478 pounds
of tobacco.
November 24. ā Found in possession of a dealer at
George Street, Sydney (had been shipped from bond for
exportation to New Zealand, and afterwards run), 356
pounds of tobacco.
Many seizures were made in the United Kingdom on
board Her Majesty's ships. We quote three specimens
only:
Portsmouth. ā Seventy pounds of tobacco, found con-
cealed between bulkheads on board H.M. cutter Seafiower,
from Jersey.
Dover. ā Sixty pounds of tobacco, 10 packages of cigars,
and 2 casks of spirits, found in the engine-room of H.M.
Post-Ofhce packet Widgeon.
Jersey. ā Two hundred and fifty-two pounds of tobacco,
part found ashore alongside H.M. Post-Office packet
Dasher, part in the engine-room (illegal shipment for
England) .
The collector of Colombo informed the Board that the
governor had prohibited the traffic hitherto carried on
wath passing vessels by the boatmen of Galle. The
Board concurred, while hinting that care had better be
taken as to the forfeiture of boats engaged in the trade,
the law not being fuUy applicable to such cases.
In 1839 the collector of St. Kitts reported that the
customs officer at Sandy Point pursued a smuggling boat,
overtook her, and stepped on board to seize certain ankers
254 PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1839
of gin. The smugglers, named respectively Lammond
and Parsons, took the officer by the neck and heels, gave
him a couple of swings, and, Lammond calling out
' Now is the time,' threw him into the sea. Then they
rowed off with the gin. They were afterwards arrested,
and Lammond was sentenced to twelve months im-
prisonment. Parsons was acquitted ā why is hard to
discover.
The Lady de Saumarez arrived at Southampton from
Jersey. Part of her cargo consisted of bundles of laths,
and in the middle of each bundle was found a roll of
tobacco, weighing about 4 pounds.
A peculiar fraud was discovered at the London Docks,
It was the practice to gauge quarter-casks of brandy for
duty by the ' diagonal,' a graduated rod being inserted
in the bunghole diagonally, so that its end touched the
bottom chimb of the cask, and the gallons being read as
marked on the rod. A shrewd merchant turned this to
account by importing casks the diagonal of which was
shortened artificially, the bung stave being depressed,
and the heads put in obliquely. By this means he had
succeeded in getting his casks through each at 3 gallons
less than the actual content (the usual content of a
brandy quarter-cask being 29 to 30 gallons).
On November 19, 1839, the tobacco manufacturers of
Edinburgh memorialized the Treasury, complaining of
the injury done to their business by smuggling, and
stating that they had reliable information of a recent
transaction at Leith, where over 2 tons of cavendish were
landed ; also that they were of opinion that the customs
staff at Leith, which had been recently reduced, required
strengthening. The Board reported on the petition,
stating that they believed smuggling had increased of
late. They had recently sent officers to search certain
suspected houses in Leith and Edinburgh, and five
seizures had been made (356 pounds of cavendish in all).
In connection with this paper there is a quotation from
the London tobacco brokers' circular, calling attention
1839-40] CONCEALMENTS AND EVASIONS 255
to the fact that the quantity of tobacco duty-paid
during the year ending October 5, 1839, was at least a
miUion pounds less than in the preceding year.
On November 20, 1839, four large cases were landed
at one of the London legal quays, from a vessel from
Hamburg, and entered on ' sight.' The Customs received
information that an attempt would be made to run these
goods, and produce four substituted cases for examina-
tion. The cases were opened at once, and found "to
contain about a ton of tobacco and cigars. The goods
were not seizable in a strictly revenue sense, being entered
on ' sight,' a method of declaring that the contents of
the packages are unknown to the importer, but they were
seized as infringing the laws of Navigation, being the
produce of Asia, imported from Hamburg in a foreign
ship.
The following statement appeared in the Hampshire
Telegraph : ' The Adelaide revenue cutter has recently
been twenty-three weeks in this harbour (Portsmouth)
refitting, in which time she was recoppered, and supplied
from London with a new set of rigging. A continuance
of such gross robbery on the Government ought immedi-
ately to be remedied, and these craft should be sent to
the dockyard for stores and repairs in future. Had this
been the case in the present instance the vessel in question
would not have been delayed m^ore than ten days or a
fortnight.'
A seizure was made at one of the Irish ports of a quantity
of English-manufactured arms, packed in large cases, the
arms being concealed beneath parcels of snuff-boxes and
corkscrews.
The Deal punt Canning was seized at Deal. She had
been ostensibly engaged in catching shellfish, but was
found to have sixteen large tin cases of spirits concealed
beneath her bottom boards.
A number of tin cases, each containing 63 pounds
tobp.cco, were found in the water-tank on board an
American trader.
256 PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1840-41
An Ordinance of the island of Mauritius, issued on
March 2, 1840, had prohibited the importation, culture,
or sale of a substance called ' gandia, ' formerly much used
by the labouring population of that colony. The
Ordinance described it as a most pernicious drug, causing
furious excitement. Forty-two bales, weighing in all
1,907 pounds, were seized by the collector of Port Louis,
but, it being proved that the goods had been shipped at
Bengal prior to the issue of the Ordinance, the Board
allowed them to be exported.
In 1 841 new regulations were issued with respect to
British 'open boats,' as below :
Between
Beachy Head
and North
Foreland.
Fast rowing-boats might
not go more than
Open boats for sailing
and rowing, under 15
tons
Open boats for sailing
and rowing, 15 tons
and above
Decked vessels, under
15 tons
4 leagues
from coast
4 leagues
from coast
4 leagues
from coast
4 leagues
from coast
On any
other part
of coast.
Along
coast.
6 leagues
from coast
8 leagues
from coast
20 leatrues
>50 leagues
I
8 leagues \ j^ ^
rom coast j ' Ā°
from
12 leagues
from coast
Around
coast
(Extra privileges might be granted to fishing-boats if the
masters were of good character.)
A vessel which had brought herrings from the Orkneys
was seized in the Dunfanaghy district (Donegal), it being
found that she had 187 bales of tobacco on board (about
10,000 pounds).
A large seizure of pirated books was made at Kingston,
Jamaica, including parcels of volumes under the following
cities : ' Nicholas Nickleby,' ' Ohver Twist,' ' Pickwick
Papers,' ' Sketches by Boz,' ' Miss Austen's Novels,'
' History of Rome,' ' Smollett's Works,' ' Chitty's Medical
i84i] COLONIAL SMUGGLING 257
Jurisprudence/ ' The Pathfinder/ ' Moore's Life of
Byron/ ' Fielding's Works/ ' Mrs. Hemans' Poetical
Works/ etc., etc. This seems to have been a bad case,
for the goods were entered ' on sight,' and it was after-
wards found that the importer had a complete invoice.
But the Board allowed the goods to be returned to
the United States.
Below is a copy of the seizure list of Sydney, N.S.W.,
in 1841 :
May 12, 1841. ā 22 gallons brandy m the Commercial
Inn, smuggled thither by the waiter.
102 pounds tobacco near the Queen's Wharf (seized by
police).
May 26. ā 70 barrels beef and pork on the Lapwing
from New Zealand, entered as ' British.' Had been
originally sent from London to New Zealand, but had
lost their ' British ' privileges through being landed there,
New Zealand not being at the time a Crowni colony.
Ju?ie 4. ā 42 gallons brandy, seized by a civihan in
Rushcutter's Bay. (The goods had been landed from a
boat belonging to a passing Calcutta trader. The boat
escaped with a number of other casks, but was afterwards
captured and seized ā the casks not found.)
September 4. ā 13 gallons brandy in a house in Erskine
Street, Sydney.
49 cases spirits in a public-house in King Street, Sydney.
September 6. ā 74 gallons spirits and 60 pounds tobacco
in a house in Erskine Street, Sydney. 174 gallons spirits
in a public-house in Erskine Street.
September 16. ā 154 pounds tobacco at Kissing Point,
Parramatta River.
November 23. ā 84 pounds snuff and 6 pounds cigars on
the Lady Raffles, from New Zealand.
Most of the goods thus seized formed part of a huge
run previously made by a notorious smuggler. It appears
that a cargo of spirits and tobacco had been shipped
duty-free from bond in Sydney for New Zealand, and
the smuggler in question had effected the re-landing and
n- 17
258 PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1841-42
distribution of the whole consignment. ' Robert Hender-
son,' said the report, ' has been long suspected, but living
until lately in a wild and extensive harbour twenty-one
miles north of Sydney by sea and seventy by land, so
many obstacles have presented themselves in the way of
detection that nothing before has been brought against
him.'
Below is a copy of the seizure list for the Jaffna district,
Ceylon, for the first four months of 1841 :
January 25, 1841. ā 2 shawls, on board a ' dhoney ' at
Manar.
January 28. ā 13 skeins silk thread, concealed among
rice on a dhoney.
February i. ā 32 bags rice, landed without report.
February 7. ā 14 silk handkerchiefs and i silk shawl,
for being landed on a Sunday.
ā February 8. ā 22 hundredweight of coriander seed and
1 hundredweight of garlic, imported in a vessel of less
than the legal tonnage.
March 12. ā 34 pieces cloth, transhipped without entry.
March 24. ā 3 chelas and i somen (manufactures of
India).
April I. ā 15 bags rice and a quantity of paddy (tran-
shipped without entry).
April 7. ā 6 whips, 5 pairs shppers, 17 pieces soap,
32 chowries, 4 shawls, 16 pieces cloth, 40 handkerchiefs,
2 wrappers, 2 looking-glasses, imported in a vessel of less
than the legal tonnage.
April 8. ā 30 pounds coffee (prohibited goods), 7 yards
cloth, at Point Pedro (not reported).
April 22. ā 4 shawls, for being unstamped.
In 1842 the revenue cruiser Vulcan seized the French
smack Le Courier off Weymouth. She had arrived in
ballast, and on rummaging her the revenue men found
that she was provided with most ingenious ' conceal-
ments.' Between the ballast and the keelson was a
false keelson, fitted with ten tanks containing spirits,
each tank having an aperture leading into the next tank.
1842] CEYLON, WEYMOUTH, AND SYDNEY 259
The vessel's pump was aft, and within the lining of the
pump was a tube that extended from the end tank to the
deck. Forward an ' air tube ' extended from the deck
to the false keelson, and along the tops of the tanks.
Filling and emptying might be performed through the
pipe that passed up the pump-hning aft (see diagram).
A few weeks later the Weymouth tide-surveyor seized
the schooner Sea Flower for being fitted up with various
elaborate concealments.
There were many seizures of British-made soap at
JCe * /^ ^ Ā»
./Ceel.
jSscdtO?!
J5L9. ^/r.?ti^e, cjnvmt^uatiihr u/'^ fJii ^i-^ Utipemh^Jort^/ar^
^js^/rini Qui- & mam Jier/j-jn . 4/?* ///Ā».ā
^,As^ Atf^ n/wcJ^JXt/uJfi. mim JSin: a^^J f,,-.- A f'ir..
Irish ports in 1842. There was an excise duty on soap
manufactured in Great Britain, and when such soap was
shipped for Ireland a drawback equal to the duty was
paid to the shipper. When this drawback was paid the
Excise granted a ' sufferance,' which went -wdth the goods.
If the sufferance were not produced in Ireland, the goods
were seizable, it being presumed they had been manu-
factured in Great Britain, and shipped without paying
the excise duty.
26o PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1842
On the night of December 5, 1842, the officers at
St. John, N.B., seized fifteen casks of rum on the high-
way outside the to^\^l. Soon after they were attacked by
a crowd of armed people, who tried to rescue the goods.
The officers fought their way successfully, and captured
lour of their assailants.
As population increased in the Australian colonies,
smuggling became rife. On May 30, 1842, the commander
of the revenue cutter stationed at Sydney reported to
the Board his recent cruise to Trial Bay to intercept the
Velocipede, a schooner which had cleared out from Sydney
to New Zealand with a cargo of 100 casks spirits, 59 kegs
tobacco, 7 cases cigars, and i case snuff, shipped duty-free
from bond. The Velocipede had been informed against
after clearance, as not bound to New Zealand at all, but
merely on a cruise, to return in a few days, and run her
cargo somewhere between Smoky Cape and the entrance
to the McLean River. The cutter's crew sighted her
hovering off the coast, boarded her, and found that her
cargo was still intact. The master stated he had been
to New Zealand, and, finding that there was no sale for
his goods, had decided to go to Singapore. (If he had
really been to New Zealand and back, he had made a
remarkably fast voyage. And why he should have called
at Smoky Cape on his way to Singapore was past mortal
understanding.)
Nothing could be done. There was no absolute proof
that he intended to smuggle, yet there were many grounds
of suspicion. For instance, the cutter found a large
schooner, belonging to the owners of the Velocipede,
lying at anchor in Trial Bay. The master stated he had
come for a cargo of cedar, but it did not appear that any
such cargo was in waiting. Later, too, it was found that
the Velocipede had hovered on the coast of Broken Bay,
and been warned off by fires, lit ashore by confederates
who had observed that the revenue men were on the
alert. Nothing could be done, but the cutter followed
the Velocipede along the coast till she lost sight of her in
1842]
AUSTRALIAN AND BRITISH FRAUDS 261
the darkness, and then a gale sprang up, and the cutter
returned to Sydney. There is nought to show what
became of the Velocipede, but it is likely she ran back to
Trial Bay, and transhipped her goods into the coasting
schooner, or landed them in some secret place where they
would be safe till the receivers arrived.
It is evident that the colonial revenue men made many
gross blunders. On November 6, 1842, Captain Nagle,
of H.M. colonial brig Victoria, while lying at Kapiti,
Cook's Straits, New Zealand, was informed by certain
Maoris that they had witnessed a run of contraband, and
that the goods had been taken to a store kept by one
Mayhew, a merchant who acted also as American vice-
consul. Nagle accordingly went to Mayhew's store, and
seized a great roll of tobacco and 200 gallons of rum.
He left the goods with the sub-collector of Wellington for
condemnation, and then it was found that Mayhew had
cleared the rum from bond, and paid the duty on it, and
that the tobacco had been imported prior to January i,
1842, when it was exempt from duty. So the goods had
to be restored.
The year 1842 is memorable from a Customs point of
view as that in which an immense system of fraud, con-
nived at, and partly suggested, by certain officers of the
Port of London, was laid bare. It is necessary to go back
a year or two to describe fully the circumstances of the
case. It appears that for a considerable time there had
been much confidential intercourse between many of the
London landing-waiters and certain wealthy city men
who were importers of French silks, gloves, and lace.
The waiters had the entree of the merchants' parlours,
their wives were frequent purchasers on credit at the
merchants' wholesale stores, and able to procure expensive
dresses and all kinds of costly frippery for themselves and
friends, the goods being charged to them at wholesale
prices, and payment rarely pressed for. Some of the
waiters kept up most expensive establishments, and were
heavily in debt, their bills being backed by their merchant
262 PERIOD OF GRADUAL RELAXATIONS [1842
friends. The result was wholesale fraud and unblushing
connivance. Of course we can but quote from evidence,
but it should be stated that undoubtedly only a few of
the frauds committed came to light, and there is every
reason to believe that though only a few landing-waiters
were exposed and punished, the landing department was,
and had for many years been, utterly corrupt, that the
superior officials had winked at their subordinates' mis-
doings and indirectly shared in the proceeds, and that one
or two members of the Board were not above suspicion.
The arch-villain of the piece was a landing-waiter
named Burnby. The general course of his conduct may
be best displayed by a few quotations from his own and
his accomplice's confessions. In 1837 he induced a
landing-waiter named Homersham to join him in a
profitable scheme of connivance, which consisted in
allowing prohibited machinery to be exported. As our
readers will have gathered, the exportation of many kinds
of machinery was forbidden by law, and consequently
attempts were frequently made to export such goods
surreptitiously, very high prices being obtainable in
foreign countries. Burnby and Homersham established
an understanding with certain manufacturers and foreign
buyers, and no doubt made a deal of money. Soon they
gained another connection, the merchants exporting
dummy packages, and the officers certifjnng that the
packages contained goods entitled to drawback. In 1839
they connived at the introduction at St. Katherine's
Dock of a large quantity of cigars in cases entered as
containing marble. In 1840 their proclivities had become
so well known that a clerk employed by one of the houses
in the City approached Homersham with an inquiry as to
whether they ' could do business, ' and a fresh arrange-
ment was at once made. The firm imported a large con-
signment of gloves. Homersham took an exact account
of them in his ' rough book,' entering the particulars in
pencil. It was quite usual at the time for the landing-
waiters to ' give credit,' by examining and delivering
1842] FRAUD AND TREACHERY 263
goods before the duty was paid. Homersham acted thus
with the gloves. As soon as they had reached the ware-
house and been dispersed among the other stock, Homer-
sham was apprised. Then he erased the correct account
in his rough book, and made a fresh entry of the goods,
which showed them at about half the proper quantity.
The firm entered them, and paid duty according to the
new account, and then divided the amount saved between
themselves and the officers concerned. Thus things went
merrily on. Soon the waiters came in touch with a large
firm of silk importers (afterwards exchequered for
Ā£35,000), and then with another firm, so that they seemed
to be on the highway to fortune. (Yet it appears that