The Smugglers: Picturesque Chapters in the Story of an Ancient Craft

by Charles G. Harper

The result of this straightforward speech was the passing of an Act in 1823 which placed the moderate excise duty of 2s. 3d. a gallon on the production of spirits, with a £10 annual license for every still of a capacity of forty gallons: smaller stills being altogether illegal.

These provisions were reasonable enough, but failed to satisfy the peasantry, and the people were altogether so opposed to the regulation of distilling that they destroyed the licensed distilleries. It was scarce worth the while of retailers, under those circumstances, to take out licenses, and so it presently came to pass that for every one duly licensed dealer there would be, according to the district, from fifty to one hundred unlicensed.

And so things remained until by degrees the gradually perfected system of excise patrols wore down this resistance.

In the meanwhile, the licensed distillers had a sorry time of it.

Archibald Forbes, many years ago, in the course of some observations upon whisky-smugglers, gave reminiscences of George Smith, who, from having in his early days been himself a smuggler, became manager of the Glenlivet Distillery. This famous manufactory of whisky, in these days producing about two thousand gallons a week, had an output in 1824 of but one hundred gallons in the same time; and its very existence was for years threatened by the revengeful peasantry and proprietors of the “sma’ stills.” Smith was a man of fine physical proportions and great courage and tenacity of purpose, or he could never have withstood the persecutions and dangers he had long to face. “The outlook,” he said, “was an ugly one. I was warned, before I began, by my neighbours that they meant to burn the new distillery to the ground, and me in the heart of it. The Laird of Aberlour presented me with a pair of hair-trigger pistols, and they were never out of my belt for years. I got together three or four stout fellows for servants, armed them with pistols, and let it be known everywhere that I would fight for my place till the last shot. I had a pretty good character as a man of my word, and through watching, by turns, every night for years, we contrived to save the distillery from the fate so freely predicted for it. But I often, both at kirk and market, had rough times of it among the glen people, and if it had not been for the Laird of Aberlour’s pistols I don’t think I should have been telling you this story now.”

In ’25 and ’26 three more small distilleries were started in the glen; but the smugglers succeeded very soon in frightening away their occupants, none of whom ventured to hang on a second year in the face of the threats uttered against them. Threats were not the only weapons used. In 1825 a distillery which had just been started at the head of Aberdeenshire, near the banks o’ Dee, was burnt to the ground with all its outbuildings and appliances, and the distiller had a very narrow escape of being roasted in his own kiln. The country was in a desperately lawless state at this time. The riding-officers of the Revenue were the mere sport of the smugglers, and nothing was more common than for them to be shown a still at work, and then coolly defied to make a seizure.

Prominent among these active and resourceful men was one Shaw, proprietor of a shebeen on the Shea Water, in the wilds of Mar. Smugglers were free of his shy tavern, which, as a general rule, the gaugers little cared to visit singly. Shaw was alike a man of gigantic size, great strength, and of unscrupulous character, and stuck at little in the furtherance of his illegal projects. But if Shaw was a terror to the average exciseman, George Smith, for his part, was above the average, and feared no man; and so, when overtaken by a storm on one occasion, had little hesitation in seeking the shelter of this ill-omened house. Shaw happened to be away from home at the time, and Smith was received by the hostess, who, some years earlier, before she had married her husband, had been a sweetheart of the man who now sought shelter. The accommodation afforded by the house was scanty, but a bedroom was found for the unexpected guest, and he in due course retired to it. Mrs. Shaw had promised that his natural enemies, the smugglers, should not disturb him, if they returned in the night; but when they did return, later on, Shaw determined that he would at least give the distillery man a fright. Most of them were drunk, and ready for any mischief, and would probably have been prepared even to murder him. Shaw was, however, with all his faults, no little of a humorist, and only wanted his joke at the enemy’s expense.

The band marched upstairs solemnly, in spite of some little hiccoughing, and swung into the bedroom, a torch carried by the foremost man throwing a fitful glare around. The door was locked when they had entered, and all gathered in silence round the bed. Shaw then, drawing a great butcher’s knife from the recesses of his clothes, brandished it over the affrighted occupant of the bed. “This gully, mon, iss for your powels,” said he.

But Smith had not entered this House of Dread without being properly armed, and he had, moreover, taken his pistols to bed with him, and was at that moment holding one in either hand, under the clothes. As Shaw flourished his knife and uttered his alarming threats, he whipped out the one and presented it at Shaw’s head, promising him he would shoot him if the whole party did not immediately quit the room; while with the other (the bed lying beside the fireplace) he fired slyly up the chimney, creating a thunderous report and a choking downfall of soot, in midst of which all the smugglers fled except Shaw, who remained, laughing.

Shaw had many smart encounters with the excise, in which he generally managed to get the best of it. The most dramatic of these was probably the exploit that befell when he was captaining a party of smugglers conveying two hundred kegs of whisky from the mountains down to Perth. The time was winter, and snow lay thick on field and fell; but the journey was made in daytime, for they were a numerous band and well armed, and feared no one. But the local Supervisor of Excise had by some means obtained early news of this expedition, and had secured the aid of a detachment of six troopers of the Scots Greys at Coupar-Angus, part of a squadron stationed at Perth. At the head of this little force rode the supervisor. They came in touch with the smugglers at Cairnwell, in the Spittal of Glenshee.