The southern counties were first used for an illicit export trade in wool; and, till after the reign of Charles I., it was only during our wars with France, Holland and Spain, when the products of those countries were prohibited here, that there was an illicit import trade of any magnitude.
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out of this country.[21] The law was so severe that it became useless; the punishment of loss of life and limb was soon repealed.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.