SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



from the oates,' and so on. It would seem, however, that in most of these 

 cases the daily wage was in addition to meat and drink. 



In curious contrast to this peaceful and prosperous picture of one of 

 the great manor-houses of the county is the record of poverty, disaster, 

 and lawlessness occurring in other parts of Sussex in the seventeenth and 

 eighteenth centuries. The decay of the iron trade, 860 plague, small-pox, and 

 war, and the familiar calamity of inundation and vanishing harbours all 

 contributed to the general depression. 861 ' Extraordinary poverty ' was recorded 

 in Hastings at the opening of the year 1688 ; 262 Rye was visited by plague in 

 1625, and by small-pox in 1634-5 and 1654-5, and between 1630 and 1640 

 the burials in the town exceeded the baptisms by one hundred and fifty-eight. 863 

 In 1637 the justices of the Downish division of Pevensey rape reported that 

 they had apprenticed thirteen children ' notwithstanding the infection of the 

 plague almost in their midst.' 264 In 1712 the townsfolk of Lewes paid izs. 

 to several men for ' watching to prevent Mr. Holmwood from bringing his 

 son up in the town with small-pox,' and in 1730 the borough was visited by 

 epidemic and fire. 866 Since the fifteenth century Chichester had been 

 famous for its malt-making and needle-making, but the Civil War swept the 

 latter industry away, so that Spershott, writing in the year 1725, noted that 

 the master needle-makers who kept journeymen and apprentices were reduced 

 to one, 366 and by the middle of the eighteenth century the making-houses 

 had nearly all vanished owing to the greed of the maltsters, who bought their 

 grain cheap and sold the malt dear. 867 



But if legitimate trade in some of its branches was deserting the county, 

 contraband was never more flourishing. Smuggling had, of course, been rife 

 in Sussex from a very early date, and the mercantile policy of the fourteenth 

 and fifteenth centuries had not tended to lessen the temptation to illicit 

 exportation. Export smuggling was continued until the close of the 

 Napoleonic wars at which date it included the carrying of letters and 

 newspapers to Buonaparte and large fortunes were said to have been made 

 by it in East Sussex ; 268 but in the eighteenth century import smuggling 

 was possibly even more important. Tea and brandy were the chief con- 

 traband articles; 869 in September, 1735, a correspondent of Sir Robert 

 Walpole recalls the fact that about a year previously he had noted in visiting 

 his relatives in Kent and Sussex that wherever he went ' they drank no tea 

 but what was run.' !6 



In addition to custom and excise officers, parties of dragoons and 

 Admiralty sloops were frequently employed against the 'owlers.' 261 In June, 



140 Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 204 ; cf. also the petition for a tax on foreign iron in 1661 ; Add. MS. 33058, 

 fol. 8 1. 



"' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. xiii, App. pt. iv, passim ; Add. MS. 33058, fol. 140 ; Lower, Hist, of Suss. 

 77 et seq. 



"' Suss. Arch. Coll. xxiii, 97. " Holloway, Hist, of Rye, 311. 



w Col. S.P. Dem. 1637, p. 273. 



154 Horsfield, Hist, cf Levies, i, 208 ; cf. L. F. Salzmann, Hist. ofHailsham, for outbreaks ol small-pox in 

 the eighteenth century. 



** Suss. Arch. Coll. xxx, 148-60 ; cf. Hay, Hist, of Chichester, 330 and 366. 



'" Hay, Hist, of Chichester, 330 and 366. 1M Suss. Arch. Coll. xiv, 62. 



859 Cal. of S.P. Treas. 1731-4, pp. 244, 620, &c.; 1720-8, p. 181 ; and Treas. Papers, 1722, 

 vol. 241, No. 7 (z). 



160 Cal. of S.P. Treas. 1735-8, p. 47. 



161 Ibid. 1720-8, p. 57; i735-8,pp. 8, 18, 69, 72, 540; 1742-5, pp. 380,448,671,752. 



199 



