te that
practically all the ports of Sussex and Kent were busily engaged in
the illegal business. Neither the penalties of death, nor the fixing
of the price of wool, nor the regulating of the rate of duty availed
in the long-run. Licences to export this article were continually
evaded, creeks and quiet bays were the scenes where the fleece was
shipped for France and the Low Countries. Sometimes the price of wool
fell, sometimes it rose; sometimes the Crown received a greater amount
of duty, at other times the royal purse suffered very severely. In the
time of Elizabeth the encouragement of foreign weavers to make their
homes in England was likely to do much to keep the wool in the
country, especially as there began to be increased wealth in our land,
and families began to spend more money on personal comforts.

Even in the time of Charles I. proclamations were issued against
exporting wool, yet the mischief still went on. In the time of
Charles II. men readily "risked their necks for 12d. a day."[1] The
greatest part of the wool was sent from Romney Marsh, where, after
nightfall, it was put on board French shallops with ten or twenty men
to guard it, all well armed. And other parts of Sussex as well as Kent
and even Essex were also engaged in similar exportations.

But it is from the time of King Charles II. that the first serious
steps were taken to cope with the smuggling evil, and from here we
really take our starting-point in our present inquiry. Prior to his
time the Customs, as a subsidy of the king, were prone to much
variability. In the time of James I., for instance, they had been
granted to the sovereign for life, and he claimed to alter the rates
as he chose when pressed for money. When Charles I. came to the throne
the Commons, instead of voting them for the extent of the sovereign's
life, granted them for one year only. At a later date in the reign of
that unhappy king the grant was made only for a couple of months.
These dues were known as tonnage and poundage, the former being a duty
of 1s. 6d. to 3s. levied on every ton of wine and liquor exported and
imported. Poundage was a similar tax of 6d. to 1s. on every pound of
dry goods.

It was not till after the Restoration that the customs were settled
and more firmly established, a subsidy being "granted to the king of
tonnage and poundage and other sums of money payable upon merchandise
exported and imported." Nominally the customs were employed for
de