been paid on tobacco and spirits, even if you omit to include the
amount which should have accrued from lace and other commodities, and
you may begin to realise the seriousness of the smuggling evil as
viewed by the Revenue authorities.

It was noted that a great deal of this contraband stuff was fetched
over from Flushing and from Middleburgh, a few miles farther up on the
canal. The big merchant sailing ships brought the tea from the East to
Holland, France, Sweden, and Denmark. But the Dutch, the French, the
Swedes, and the Danes were not great tea drinkers, and certainly used
it in nothing like the quantities which were consumed in England. But
it was profitable to them to purchase this East Indian product and to
sell it again to the smugglers who were wont to run across from
England. It should be added, however, that the species of tea in
question were of the cheaper qualities. It was also frankly admitted
in evidence that many of the civil magistrates, whose duty it was to
grant warrants for the arrest of these delinquents, were intimidated
by the smugglers, while the officers of the Customs and Excise were
terrorised.

At this period of the smuggling era, that is to say prior to the
middle of the eighteenth century, most of the smuggled tea was brought
over to the south coast of England in Folkestone cutters of a size
ranging from fifty to forty tons burthen. These vessels usually came
within about three or four miles of the shore, when they were met by
the smaller boats of the locality and the goods unladened. Indeed the
trade was so successful that as many as twenty or thirty cargoes were
run in a week, and Flushing became so important a base that not merely
did the natives subsidise or purchase Folkestone craft, but
ship-builders actually migrated from that English port to Flushing and
pursued their calling in Dutch territory. As to the reward which the
smugglers themselves made out of the transaction, the rates of payment
varied at a later date, but about the years 1728 and 1729 the
tea-dealers paid the men eight shillings a pound for the commodity.
And in spite of the seizures which were made by the Revenue cutters
and the land guard, yet these losses, admitted a witness, were a mere
trifle to the smugglers. In fact he affirmed that sometimes one
tea-dealer never suffered a seizure in six or seven years. We can
therefore readily believe that the financiers netted a very handsome
profit on the whole, and th