This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler [Picture: “The Gentlemen go by”] THE SMUGGLERS PICTURESQUE CHAPTERS IN THE STORY OF AN ANCIENT CRAFT BY CHARLES G. HARPER “_SMUGGLER_.—_A wretch who_, _in defiance of_ _the laws_, _imports or exports goods without_ _payment of the customs_.”—DR. JOHNSON ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL HARDY, BY THE AUTHOR AND FROM OLD PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS [Picture: Title page] LONDON: CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD. 1909 * * * * * PRINTED AND BOUND BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY. PREFACE _OPINIONS have ever been divided on the question of the morality_, _or the immorality_, _of smuggling_. _This is not_, _in itself_, _remarkable_, _since that subject on which all men think alike has not yet been discovered_; _but whatever the views held upon the question of the rights and wrongs of the_ “_free-traders_’” _craft_, _they have long since died down into abstract academic discussion_. _Smuggling is_, _indeed_, _not dead_, _but it is not the potent factor it once was_, _and to what extent Governments are justified in taxing or restricting in any way the export or the import of goods will not again become a living question in this country until the impending Tariff Reform becomes law_. _There have been those who_, _reading the proofs of this book_, _have variously found in it arguments for_, _and others arguments against_, _Protection_; _but_, _as a sheer matter of fact_, _there are in these pages no studied arguments either way_, _and facts are here presented just as they are retrieved from half-forgotten records_, _with no other ulterior object than that of entertainment_. _But if these pages also serve to show with what little wisdom __we are_, _and generally have been_, _governed_, _they may not be without their uses_. _England_, _it may surely be gathered_, _here and elsewhere_, _is what she is by sheer force of dogged middle-class character_, _and in spite of her statesmen and lawgivers_. _CHARLES G. HARPER_ _PETERSHAM_, _SURREY_, _July_ 1909. CONTENTS