Allusions have been made in previous chapters of this work to the fact that all Packets throughout the last century carried goods. Now this practice was expressly forbidden by a statute of Charles II.; but it does not appear that the prohibition had ever been enforced. Mr. Freeling, the Secretary of the Post-Office, stated in a report made about this time that he had been unable to trace the steps by which the trade had developed itself in the teeth of the statute, and that in his opinion the custom “was coeval with the Packet Service itself.” However that may have been, the trade was certainly of antiquity sufficient to have struck deep roots at Falmouth. It was carried on without the slightest concealment; and was indeed expressly sanctioned by the Government, though it remained, as it had always been, illegal. In reports made on the capture of Packets, the presence of goods on board the vessel was set down with no more comment than that of provisions. Indeed, so recently as in 1798, in a code of new regulations applicable to the Packet station at Falmouth, the trade had been explicitly recognized, and the only instruction given to the agent in regard to it was that he must satisfy himself that no Packet carried so large a quantity of goods, or stowed them in such a manner, as to put her out of trim. The Post-Office always looked unfavourably on this trade; and from time to time sought the assistance of the Treasury in abolishing it, and restricting the Packets to their proper use. But in those days of constant war, when the seas were unsafe for merchant vessels, and the ports now of one nation, now of another, were closed to English ships, the Government held that it would be inopportune to stop a commercial outlet on which many merchants of Bristol and other towns in the west depended for a chief part of their trade; and so the irregular system went on and grew unchecked. On the Lisbon station the trade seems to have been more important than on the West India boats, though it was very profitable on both. The West India boats carried out cheese, potatoes, boots, and shoes, and, curious addition to the list, fighting cocks, for which there was a brisk demand. The Lisbon Packets exported every kind of manufactured goods, often to the value of £4000 on a single voyage. These were by no means the speculations of the captain or of the officers alone. The seamen traded, each on his own account. Every man had his own stowage space reserved under the ceiling of the forecastle. Here his “ventures” were suspended, and no one claimed to interfere with them.