So great was the panic occasioned by these arrests, that a shop-keeper, reported to be worth £10,000, absconded on information of having bought goods of the smugglers.[85] In 1779 it became necessary to pass another act against smuggling; and, in a pamphlet making the new law known,[86] it is stated that the practice of smuggling had made such rapid strides from the sea-coasts into the very heart of the country, pervading every city, town, and village, as to have brought universal distress on the fair dealer; that the greater part of the 3,867,500 gallons distilled annually at Schiedam, was to be smuggled into England; that a distillery had lately been set up for making Geneva, for the same purpose, at Dunkirk; that the French imported five or six millions of pounds of tea, the greatest part of which was to be smuggled here;[87] that the trade of Dunkirk (where, and at Flushing, the Sussex smugglers, so late as thirty years since, had regular resident agents) was mostly carried on by smugglers, in vessels not only large, but so well constructed for sailing, that seldom one of them was captured; that in many places near the sea, the farmer was unable to find hands to do his work, whilst great numbers were employed in smuggling goods from one part of the country to another; and that the smugglers paid for what they bought in cash, or by the illicit exportation of English wool, no other articles of any consequence being carried abroad by them. Although the illicit trade in the bulky article of wool came to an end with the commencement of the war of 1793, yet the trade in tea, silks, tobacco, and spirits continued; and, after the close of the war, was largely carried on. By degrees, tea was not easily got, and the duty on silks left little profit to the smuggler. Spirits increased in value, by being some forty per cent. over proof, and tobacco still, however, gave a profitable return, and lives were freely risked.[88]