THE THIRD ANGLO-FRENCH DUEL 149 



as most did, for two summers and a winter and served 

 several masters in succession ? or refused to return home ? or 

 disappeared? or died? What, too, if forty shillings were 

 deducted and the home fare was, as it sometimes was, twenty 

 shillings ? The answers to these questions lent a new signifi- 

 cance to the old adage Beati possidentes ; employers were 

 enriched, and this measure failed to do what it was meant to 

 do almost as signally as Ogle's master-stroke. What success 

 was attained was due to a second measure forbidding un- 

 licensed ships' captains to take passengers to the United States 

 of America. Over this measure the new custom-house and 

 Vice-Admiralty Court watched. 



The institution of a custom-house (1764) introduced Perman- 

 a regular revenue, which, during the eighteenth century, e ^ t e a i^ or 

 rarely exceeded 1,000, or the cost of its collection. The symbolized 

 naval officer, who was instituted in 1741, had no regular r^tom- 

 revenue to depend on, but eked out a precarious livelihood house, 

 by means of casual half-crowns scornfully tossed to him by 

 those sea-captains who graciously allowed him to pry into 

 their cocquets and dockets. From the very first (1764) the 

 new custom-house officials collected one-half of their salaries 

 out of customs' dues; and under an Act passed in 1764 

 smugglers' ships and goods, which in Newfoundland meant 

 New England rum-ships and French West Indian rum, were 

 divided in equal thirds between King, Governor, and prose- 

 cutor, the prosecutor's third supplying the other half of the 

 salaries of these officials. Towards the close of the great 

 war customs' dues not only paid the whole cost of the 

 custom-house, but returned a net surplus of 11,000 per 

 annum (1816). The very institution, which changed con- 

 tinental colonies into alien states, began to invest Newfound- 

 land with the essential attributes of a colony. Progress 

 and permanence in fiscal matters led to other permanent 

 institutions, of which landed property was the symbol 

 and archetype. 



