MARITIME HISTORY 



1780 and 1788 four Falmouth packets were seized for having smuggled goods on board, but the Post 

 Office continued to pay the owners for the hire of the ships while under arrest. Parliamentary 

 enactments were severe enough, but generally the departmental authorities acted almost as if in 

 collusion. Persons prosecuted could always compound with the commissioners of customs at a rate 

 which left them still a profit, and it was to the interest of customs sloops at sea and customs officers 

 ashore to seize half a cargo l with no trouble, risk, expense, or delay of prosecution, and to let the 

 delinquents go with the remainder to bring more grist to the mill another day. In the case of the 

 Falmouth packets a seizure was regarded almost as an outrage. Smuggling had been carried on by 

 them during the whole century, and the scale of pay for the men was low, being regulated by the 

 overt indulgence granted to them to carry on what was euphemistically called private trading. 2 

 On the rare occasions when seizures were made, the consignees or owners usually had but to 

 petition for the return of the articles to have their prayer granted. . 



In 1783 a Parliamentary Committee reported that smuggling was carried on 'with the most 

 open and daring violence in every accessible part of the coast,' and that in some places batteries had 

 been thrown up to protect the runs. 3 This is no doubt a reference to the battery erected by the 

 famous John Carter, of Prussia Cove, from which he actually fired on H.M.S. Fairy, which there- 

 upon sent in her boats to destroy it. At this time there were known to be six large vessels of from 

 70 to 250 tons working across Channel from South Cornwall, while the revenue cruisers were but 

 small sloops hired by the local customs officials ; nor could the cruising men-of-war be expected to 

 give anything more than occasional co-operation. Between 1777 and 1780 there were only two 

 revenue cruisers on the seaboard, one being attached to Falmouth, and the other to St. Ives. Then 

 additional sloops were placed at Falmouth and St. Ives, and new ones at Looe, Penryn, and Scilly. 

 The committee noticed that East Indiamen were met on entering the Channel by a swarm of small 

 vessels which took dutiable goods from them. There is no doubt that some of the more intelligent 

 smugglers acted as government spies in the French ports, and were sure of underhand protection in 

 England, as in the case of ' Cruel Coppinger.' 4 By 1800 the trade had become so methodical that 

 the smugglers employed their own commercial travellers, and it was estimated that more brandy and 

 rum were smuggled into Cornwall, Dorset, and Devon, than came into the port of London. 5 



The close of the Napoleonic wars saw the beginning of the end of smuggling. The 

 exhaustion of the treasury induced the government to try new methods of repression, and there 

 were now men available in any number to line the coast. In 1818, at the suggestion of Captain 

 William McCulloch, R.N., the ' coast blockade ' of Kent and Sussex was instituted, forming a 

 chain of posts within hail of each other, and, in a modified form, the system was extended to the 

 remaining counties. The navy men were not open to the intimidation, and were less amenable to 

 the bribery, that had coerced or persuaded their civilian predecessors ; therefore an era of evasion 

 and trickery succeeded the open and defiant violence with which cargoes had previously been run. 

 The Scillies, which had long been a sort of clearing-house for smuggled goods, at once felt the 

 effects, and a subsequent famine was attributed to the loss of ' the chief support ' and the excellence 

 of the coast blockade. 6 It had been intended that the coast blockade service should be carried on 

 entirely by seamen of the navy, but the hardships and the severe restrictions as to social intercourse 

 with their neighbours locally caused them to show so much distaste for it that civilians of all kinds and 

 trades had to be enrolled. The results were not satisfactory ; desertion and collusion became 

 prevalent, and in 1829 the formation of a mixed civilian and naval force under the name of coast- 

 guard was commenced. At first this was under the control of the customs department, but in 

 1831 it was transferred to the Admiralty and became naval in organization. Before 1845 the force 

 was maintained purely for revenue protection, but in that year there was a regulation that every 

 seaman appointed should bind himself to serve in the fleet upon an emergency, and this was the first 

 step in the fashioning of the present coastguard. The change was completed by 19 and 20 Viet. 

 c. 83, which authorized the Admiralty to maintain a force of 10,000 men as a reserve for the navy, 

 composed of men who had served in it, and liable to be called upon to rejoin it. From May, 1857, 

 the districts were placed under the command of captains of the navy, and the coastguard is now far 

 more a military than a revenue force. 



A seaboard population engaged in smuggling is not likely to be sensitive about the ethics of 

 wrecking, and the Cornish reputation went from bad to worse during the eighteenth century. In 



1 Which was all on which the officers would get any reward. 



'In 1810 the unexpected ' severity ' of some customs officers caused a mutiny among the crews of the 

 .' packets. 



3 Parl. Papers (1783) vi, 58. 4 S. Baring Gould in Western Antiquary, xi, 155. 



'Stowe MS. 86 c, f. 38. See also for smuggling, Cornish Mag. i, 112 ; Hon. H. N. Shore, Smuggling 

 Days and Smuggling Ways ; Osier, Life of Lord Exmouth ; Boase, Coll. Cornub. and local historians generally. 



6 The Rev. J. Troutbeck, the chaplain appointed by the duke of Leeds and one of the historians of the 

 island*, was compelled to resign and leave because implicated in a smuggling transaction. 



507 



