Smuggling & Smugglers in Sussex / The Genuine History of the Inhuman and Unparalleled Murders of Mr. William Galley a Custom-house Officer, and Mr. Daniel Chater, a Shoemaker, by Fourteen Notorious Smugglers, with the Trials and Execution of Seven of the Criminals at Chichester, 1748-9

by Anonymous

EXPORT SMUGGLING.

A few notes on the wool trade will best illustrate the origin of the illegal export of that article, of which Dryden in his “King Arthur,” says:—

Though Jason’s fleece was famed of old,

The British wool is growing gold,

No mines can more of wealth supply.

It keeps the peasant from the cold,

And takes for kings the Tyrian dye.

In the reign of Edward I., among the articles of inquiry before the jurors on the hundred rolls, 1274, was the illegal exportation of wool;[18] the Sussex return shows that it had been sent from Shoreham.[19] Soon after an export duty was imposed on English wool, of 20s. a bag (or 3l. of our money), increased to 40s. (or 6l.) in 1296; then lowered to half-a-mark a bag; and, ultimately, the higher duty was again imposed. At this time the price of the English wool was 6d. a pound (or 1s. 6d. of our money), and many English merchants transported themselves with it.

Attempts to prohibit the exportation of wool were, however, made by Edward III. That monarch had offered great facilities to the Flemings to establish the woollen manufactures in this country; in 1336 the mayors and bailiffs of Winchelsea, Chichester (and twelve other ports out of Sussex), were directed not to allow the export till the duty had been paid;[20] and he had so far succeeded, that the cloth produced in the year 1337 was sufficient to enable him to prohibit the wear of any cloths made beyond seas, and to interdict the export of English wool, under the penalties which then attached to capital felonies. His anticipations, however, were not realised. The merchants of Middlebourg, and afterwards of Calais, had great facilities for evading the English law; they clandestinely exported foreign cloths to England, and imported the wool smuggled out of this country.[21] The law was so severe that it became useless; the punishment of loss of life and limb was soon repealed. In 1341, Winchelsea, Chichester (and thirteen other ports not in Sussex), were named, from which wool might be exported, on payment of a duty of 50s. a sack;[22] and licenses were granted for all who should give 40s. upon a pack of wool of 240 pounds, beyond the due custom of half-a-mark a pack. The next step taken by Edward was to regulate the price of wool; and accordingly, in 1343, an Act was passed, fixing, for three years, the price of Kent, Sussex and Middlesex wool—the best wool being fixed at nine marks (or 8l. 3s. 6d. of our money), and marsh at 100s. (or 13l. 14s. 6d. of our money), showing the distinction between the two breeds of short and long woolled sheep in this country. Similar attempts at regulating the price were, from time to time, made by the Legislature. In 1353, they gave the King duty of 50s. a sack[23] on exported wool; and by the same statute, Chichester was one of the ten towns in England appointed as staples for weighing the wool. Ten years later, the staple was established at Calais, and there was a prohibition on exportation elsewhere; this so lowered the price of wool, that in 1390 the growers had three, four and five years’ crop unsold; and, in the next year liberty was given to export generally, on payment of a duty. In 1363, it was declared that all merchants and others, for their ease, might ship wools at Lewes, where the customers of Chichester were directed to take the customs.[24] In 1394, John Burgess, of Lewes, was pardoned for being at the port called Kingston, having at Goring by night shipped wool which had not paid customs, on the ship of Lawrence Blake, an alien [Pat., 18 Ric. II.] and two years after Thomas Kitte and Richard Barnard took on horses by night four sacks of wool, which the said Thomas and Lawrence Hildere had sold to a foreigner and promised to deliver: and Robert Smith, of Offington, Henry Elay, William Kitte, John Mitchelgrove, William Hobbin, John Mot, of Worthing, William Otham and William Garrett, lay wait for them the same night in the highway at Worthing, near the sea, opposite the port of Kingston, and took them with their horses and the wool, and detained them, but they paid 8 marks and more to help their cause [Pat., 20 Ric. II.]. In 1368, Chichester was still among the places for the staple; but in 1402 (4th Hen. IV.), the Lewes Burgesses prayed[25] that wool might be again weighed, for home consumption and for shipment, at that town as well as at Chichester, because they were near the sea, and a great part of the wool was grown near there, and the town and neighbourhood were inhabited by many great merchants.

At this period licenses were freely granted for the export of wool to any part of the Continent, on payment of a heavy duty to the Crown. It was to evade this duty that the smuggling trade was carried on. When, in 1423,[26] it was enacted that no license should be granted to export the “slight,” i.e., the short “wools of Southampton, Kent, Sussex and York,” except to the staple at Calais, a still more direct encouragement was given to the men of the coast to evade the law; and, in 1436, wharves[27] were assigned for the shipping of wool, to avoid the damage done to the King by those who shipped their wools in divers secret places and creeks, “stealing and conveying the same, not customed, to divers parts beyond the seas, and not to Calais.” The shippers were required to find sureties and to bring back from Calais certificates of unlading there.

The price of wool fell considerably; and, in 1454, it was not much more than two-thirds of its price 110 years previously; the wool-growers were alarmed, and their representatives in the Commons complained of the great “abundance of wools, as well by stealth as by license, uttered into the parts beyond the sea,”[28] and prayed that wool might not be sold under certain prices; Shropshire marsh wool was fixed at fourteen marks; Kent at 3l., instead of 100s.; Sussex at 50s.; and Hants at seven marks a sack; whilst in the next reign (of Edward IV.) it was enacted that no alien should export wool, and denizens only to Calais.

In 1547, under Edward VI., complaints were made as to the falling-off in the amount of duty due to the crown; the irregularity with which it was paid; and the mode in which the price was artificially raised by the merchants. An enquiry was directed into the rate of subsidy due to the King, and the weight and quality of the wool in England and Calais;[29] and a bill was introduced for regulating the buying by staplers and clothiers. In the year 1548, the act against regrating was continued.

About this time, it would seem that the woollen manufacture existed both in the counties of Kent and Sussex.[30] In 1551, renewed attempts to improve the English manufacture were made. A body of Flemish weavers was settled at Glastonbury,[31] and supplied with wools; and the Legislature passed a very stringent act for regulating the times of buying wool—so stringent, indeed, that several of its clauses had to be repealed in 1553. Queen Elizabeth also favoured still more the immigration of foreign weavers. Although licenses were granted for the export of wools on payment of duty, and in October, 1560, we have an account of wools shipped legally to Bruges,[32] yet practically the merchants of the staple had obtained a monopoly of exportation.[33]

The loss of Calais, however, and consequently of the staple there, had most materially injured the English wool-grower and the merchants of the staple. The latter laid their complaints before Queen Elizabeth, in 1560, representing the injury they had sustained since the loss of Calais,[34] and obtained such redress as was within the power of the crown, namely, by license to export wool generally, on payment of export duty. A similar license had been granted to Lord Robert Dudley, which was renewed in 1562;[35] and in 1571 the act of Edward VI., putting restrictions on the home trade, was extended.

The Parliaments of Mary, Elizabeth and James granted the high duty of 1l. 13s. 6d. a sack on wool exported by natives, and double the amount by foreigners. It is noticeable that at this time short wools had become of still less value; and that the long Cotswold wool had come into the most favour.

These restrictions operated very prejudicially on the trade; and in 1572 the Company of Woolmen petitioned the Queen to take off the restraints imposed by the act of the preceding year and by Edward VI.;[36] and five years afterwards (1577) the scarcity and high price were so great as to give rise to grave complaints against the merchants of the staple from the clothiers of Wilts, Worcester, Gloucester and Essex[37] (then the principal seats of the woollen manufacture). In August of that year commissioners were appointed in sundry counties to have the special oversight for the restraint of the unlawful buying and engrossing wool;[38] and towards the close of the reign of James I. (in 1621–24–26) bills were introduced prohibiting all exportation of wool.[39]

On April 17, 1630, Charles I. also published a proclamation against the export of wool, but still granted licenses. In 1647, in consequence of the high price, an ordinance passed wholly prohibiting the exportation of wool and Fuller’s Earth.[40] Again, on November 18, 1656, a further proclamation was issued against the exportation; yet it was avowed, by an authority writing in that year,[41] that, though the exportation was prohibited as almost a felony, there was nothing more daily practised. Nor was the loss, said he, in this case all the injury; for when honest men did “detect these caterpillars,” and endeavoured by due course of law to make stoppage thereof, and to have the offenders punished, so many were the evasions—such combination and interests in the officers who ought to punish; such favour had they in the courts of justice, and in general, such were the affronts and discouragements—that the dearest lover of his country, or most interested in trade, dared not to prevent that mischief which his eyes beheld to fall upon his nation.

After the Restoration, in 1660, an act was passed entirely prohibiting the export of wool; and in 1662, the illicit export was made felony. The severity of the punishment had no effect in discouraging the active spirits along the southern coast, and they readily risked their necks for 12d. a day. Seven years after the last enactment, it is stated that from Romney Marsh the greatest part of the rough wool was exported, being put on board French shallops by night, with ten or twenty men well armed to guard it; whilst in some other parts of Sussex, Hants, and Essex, the same methods were used, but not so conveniently.[42] In 1671, Mr. W. Carter declared that the misery of England was the great quantity of wool stolen out of England. Holland drew from Ireland whole ship-loads of wool, besides what came from England, being stolen out from the Kentish, Essex, and Sussex coasts. In the town of Calais alone, there had been at least, within two years, brought in forty thousand packs of wool from the coasts of Kent and Sussex; for Romney Marsh men were not content only with the exportation of their own growth, but bought wool ten or twenty miles up the country, brought it down to the seaside, and shipped it off;[43] and all attempts at effective prosecution of the offenders were defeated.[44]

In 1677, the landowners endeavoured, without success, to obtain a direct sanction for a legitimate export trade; and “Reasons for a Limited Exportation” were published. Andrew Marvel, writing in this same year, describes the owners as a militia, that, in defiance of all authority, convey their wool to the shallops with such strength, that the officers dare not offend them.[45]

After the revolution of 1688, the penalty of felony, imposed by the Act of Charles II., was thought too severe. Very few convictions had taken place under it; and, in 1698, a milder punishment was inflicted;[46] whilst, in 1698, a direct blow was aimed at the Kent and Sussex men by an enactment which lasted till our own day,[47] that no person living within fifteen miles of the sea, in those counties, should buy any wool before he entered into a bond, with sureties, that all the wool he should buy should not be sold by him to any persons within fifteen miles of the sea; and growers of wool within ten miles of the sea, in those counties, were obliged, within three days of shearing, to account for the number of fleeces, and where lodged.

All the care of the Legislature had been to no purpose; the coast men had set the law at defiance—openly carrying their wool at shearing-time, on horses’ backs to the seashore, where French vessels were ready to receive it—and attacking fiercely anyone who ventured to interfere. Mr. W. Carter himself was sharply attacked in 1688. Having procured the necessary warrants, he repaired to Romney Marsh, where he seized eight or ten men, who were carrying the wool on the horses’ backs to be shipped, and desired the Mayor of Romney to commit them. The Mayor—wishing, no doubt, to live a peaceful life among his neighbours—admitted them to bail. Carter and his assistants retired to Lydd, but that town was made too hot to hold them—they were attacked at night; adopting the advice of the Mayor’s son, they next day, December 13, came towards Rye. They were pursued by some fifty armed horsemen till they got to Camber Point; so fast were they followed, that they could not get their horses over Guilford Ferry; but, luckily, some ships’ boats gave them assistance, so that the riders got safe into the town, which had been “put into much fear;” and “had they not got into the boats,” says one of the witnesses, “Mr. Carter would have received some hurt, for many of the exporters were desperate fellows, not caring what mischief they did.”[48]

The new law was not, at first, much more efficient. Mr. Henry Baker, the supervisor of these counties, writing on his tour from Hastings, on September 18, 1698, refers the customs department to some observations he had made in relation to the “owling”[49] and smuggling trades; and in his letter of April 25, 1699, he states that in a few weeks there would be shorn in Romney Marsh (besides the adjacent parts in the level) about 160,000 sheep, whose fleeces would amount to about three thousand packs of wool, “the greatest part whereof will be immediately sent off hot into France—it being so designed, and provisions, in a great measure, already made for that purpose.”[50] All that the new law seems to have done at first was to send the wool grown by the Sussex and Kent men some fifteen miles up the country, to be thence recarried to the sea and shipped.

Under the new act, seventeen surveyors were appointed for nineteen counties; and 299 riding officers, whose salaries and expenses came to £20,000 a year. They seized only 457 packs of wool, got only 162 packs condemned, and had 504 packs rescued. In Kent, sixty-five packs were seized and eight only condemned; in Sussex, twenty-six were seized, and twelve condemned.[51]

The illicit exportation of wool was never stopped; and, in 1702, Mr. William Symonds, of Milton, near Gravesend, in his “New Year’s Gift to the Parliament: or, England’s Golden Fleece preserved, in Proposals humbly laid before the Present Parliament,”[52] makes twenty-five proposals to prevent the exportation of wool, which was illicitly carried on to a great extent; and, by the first, he suggests six staples, or registry offices, at Ashford, Faversham, Maidstone, Tunbridge, Gravesend, and Dartford, for the prevention of clandestine export from these places.

In 1717, an act passed, directing that smugglers of wool, who should be in prison, and should not plead, might have judgment against them, and, if they did not pay the penalty, might be transported;[53] and yet, on May 19, 1720, it was necessary to issue a proclamation for enforcing the law.

In 1731, and in the five following years, the manufacturers petitioned for greater vigilance against the clandestine exportation of wool; it being alleged that the great decay of the woollen manufactures was, beyond dispute, owing to the illegal exportation of wool, of which 150,000 packs were supposed to be shipped yearly; and it was “feared that some gentlemen of no mean rank, whose estates bordered on the seacoast, were too much influenced by a near but false prospect of gain,” to wish for the application of a remedy proposed, viz., the registration of all wool at shearing-time, and a complete system of certificates till it was manufactured; “so that no smuggler or owler would venture to purchase it, by reason he would have no opportunity of sending it abroad in the dark.”[54]

In the preamble to the Act of 1739,[55] it is expressly avowed that, notwithstanding the penalties imposed for eighty years, the exportation of wool, unmanufactured, was “notoriously continued.” The stringent law of 1698 had failed in its object, and when, in 1787 (in opposition to the demands of the Lincolnshire wool-growers for power to export their produce), the manufacturers brought in a bill to prevent the illicit exportation, because of the then increasing practice of smuggling British wool into France, and the inefficiency of the laws to prevent it; and when, as a remedy, it was proposed to extend the restrictions imposed upon Kent and Sussex to the entire kingdom, the opponents of the bill shrewdly asked:—“How it was the manufacturers could act so absurdly, to demand an extension of laws relating to those two counties, when it was supposed that the greatest quantities of wool were smuggled from those parts?”[56]

The habit of export smuggling, then, has been, for some hundreds of years at least, part of the system under which the middle and lower classes in Sussex have been trained. Large fortunes were made by it in East Sussex, and it came to an end only during the last war with France.