That the preventive service did not prevent, and did not at first even seriously interfere with, smuggling, was the contention of many well-informed people, with whom the Press generally sided. The coast-blockade, too, was—perhaps unjustly—said to be altogether inefficient; and was further said, truly enough, to be ruinously costly. Controversy was bitter on these matters. In January 1825 The Times recorded the entry of the revenue cutter, Hawke, into Portsmouth, after a cruise in which she had chased and failed to capture, owing to heavy weather, a smuggling lugger which successfully ran seven hundred kegs of spirits. To this item of news Lieutenant J. F. Tompson, of H.M.S. Ramillies, commanding the coast-blockade at Lancing, took exception, and wrote to The Times a violent letter, complaining of the statements, and saying that they were absolutely untrue. To this The Times replied, with considerable acerbity, on February 3rd, that the statement was true and the lieutenant’s assertions unwarranted. The newspaper then proceeded to “rub it in” vigorously: “There is nothing more ridiculous, in the eyes of those who live upon our sea-coasts, than to witness the tender sensibilities of officers employed upon the coast-blockade whenever a statement is made that a smuggler has succeeded in landing his cargo; as though they formed a part of the most perfect system that can be established for the suppression of smuggling. Now be it known to all England that this is a gross attempt at humbug. Notwithstanding all the unceasing vigilance of the officers and men employed, smuggling is carried on all along the coast, from Deal to Cornwall, to as great a degree as the public require. Any attempt to smuggle this Fact may answer the purpose of a party, or a particular system, but it will never obtain belief.
“It was only a few days since that a party of coast-blockade men (we believe belonging to the Tower, No. 61) made common cause with the smugglers, and they walked off altogether!”
Exactly! The sheer madness of the Government in maintaining the extraordinary high duties, and of adding always another force to existing services, designed to suppress the smugglers’ trade, was sufficiently evident to all who would not refuse to see. When commodities in great demand with all classes were weighted with duties so heavy that few persons could afford to purchase those that had passed through His Majesty’s Custom-houses, two things might have been foreseen: that the regularised imports would, under the most favourable circumstances, inevitably decrease; and that the smuggling which had already been notoriously increasing by leaps and bounds for a century past would be still further encouraged to supply those articles at a cheap rate, which the Government’s policy had rendered unattainable by the majority of people.
An account printed by order of the House of Commons in the beginning of 1825 gave details of all customable commodities seized during the last three years by the various establishments formed for the prevention of smuggling: the Coastguard, or Preventive Water-guard; the Riding-officers; and the revenue cruisers and ships of war.
In that period the following articles were seized and dealt with:
The cost of making these seizures, and dealing with them, was put as follows:
| £ | s. | d. | |
| Law expenses | 29,816 | 19 | 4¾ |
| Storage, rent of warehouses, etc. | 18,875 | 14 | 10½ |
| Salaries, cooperage, casks, repairs, etc. | 1,533,708 | 4 | 10 |
| Rewards to officers, etc. | 488,127 | 2 | 11½ |
| £2,070,528 | 2 | 0¾ |
The produce of all these articles sold was £282,541 8s. 5¾d.; showing a loss to the nation, in attempting during that period to suppress smuggling, of considerably over one million and three quarters sterling.
This return of seizures provides an imposing array of figures, but, amazing as those figures are by themselves, they would be still more so if it were possible to place beside them an exact return of the goods successfully run, in spite of blockades and preventive services. Then we should see these figures fade into insignificance beside the enormous bulk of goods that came into the country and paid no dues.