Bristol is probably the unlikeliest site for a major port in the whole of the Kingdom; not only does its entrance lie many miles up a difficult and dangerous waterway with its menacing sandbanks and daunting tides, but the port itself is situated some seven miles from the sea reached by a long and winding journey up a muddy and treacherous river. It is therefore most surprising to discover that Bristol survived as a port let alone that for many centuries it was the second largest seaport in the country. Furthermore until the meteoric rise of Liverpool in the late 18th century it was acknowledged as the gateway to the Western oceans and the New World.
The port’s very situation had a considerable influence on the smuggling activities in and around Bristol. In broad terms it could be said that Bristol’s contribution to the illegal trade was more of a passive than active nature. The long and tortuous journey up the Avon militated against much smuggling activity of note. If for no other reason than the vessels were captive to the river with its muddy banks and tides, their passage was slow and there was no quick and easy method of escape.
Vessels bound for the port arrived at Hungroad, near the infamous Horseshoe Bend, some four miles from the city’s quays and wharves. It was at this place where the masters waited for a high tide before continuing up river through the spectacular scenery of the Avon Gorge, which surely must be the most splendid approach to any port in the world. It was at Hungroad that the Customs tide-waiters boarded the incoming vessels and stayed on board until all the cargo was discharged. They brought their own bed and ‘victuals’ and until the 1830s were even allowed to be accompanied by their wives! The very presence of these Customs officers had a salutary preventive effect though it must be said that they were bribed on many instances ‘to look the other way’.
Unlike most great sea-ports Bristol had its quays and later docks in the heart of the city. Other major ports such as Hull, Glasgow, Liverpool, Southampton and even London had their own special dock areas generally some distance away from the city centres. This has been a special feature of Bristol throughout the centuries, which makes it a unique maritime city and has excited visitors through the ages. Alexander Pope in 1732 found, ‘In the middle of the streets, as far as you can see, hundred of ships, their masts as thick as they can stand by one another, which is the oddest and most surprising sight imaginable...
’This close proximity to the city streets made the landing and sale of smuggled goods a relatively simple and safe operation; this fact is borne out by the number of seizures of smuggled goods made in the streets and houses surrounding the quays; they were far more numerous than any other large port. During the early 19th century when large docks with formidable high walls were being constructed in other major ports, the Bristol authorities were not only slow to recognise the changes but when they constructed their docks they were open-planned, which further assisted the illegal landing of goods and caused endless problems for the Customs to control properly and adequately.
There is a smuggling axiom that for the illegal trade to flourish there must be a close and ready market for goods in quantity; The South Wales smugglers serviced the rapidly growing industrial hinterland of the valleys. Bristol provided the market for the English side of the Channel. Not only did most roads in the West Country lead to Bristol but every Channel port, however small, had a regular link by sea with Bristol.
During the 18th century Bristol was a heavily industrial area with flourishing glass, paper, soap, brick and linen works besides the various trades associated with large ports - wines and spirits, tobacco, beer and ship-building. Furthermore there were several coalmines in the area, the colliers of which had long demonstrated their scant regard for all types of authority. Indeed during this period Bristol was notorious for its unruly mobs and its volatile populace.
Another factor to be considered is the Bristolians’ reputation for strong radical and independent views, which would suggest that they would greatly support the free-traders. This independent attitude can be seen very early in the port’s history. In 1203 King John imposed a duty of 15on all imports and exports and provided for officials to be appointed to deal with it ‘six or seven of the wiser and more learned men of substance in the port’. When one considers the importance of Bristol then as a port it is somewhat surprising to find no record of the port in any of the duty accounts. However, on closer examination the answer is quite simple — the Bristol merchants quite adamantly refused to pay the new duty!
The merchants had previously been allowed to collect their own Customs dues and they resented the appointment of King’s officials to act as collectors. They refused to appoint their ‘seven wise men’, continued their old practice and locked the poor and unfortunate collector in the castle keep. Two King’s justices sent to investigate suffered the same fate and it took an army to restore order.
The merchants’ ringleaders were ‘outlawed’ (their property and estates forfeited to the Crown) and were not only forced to pay the full outstanding duties but were also heavily fined. In 1387, the Collector of the ‘Great Port’ (there were only 13 in the Kingdom) of Bristol was ordered by the Exchequer to clear ‘the Severn Sea of pirates and divers persons who make large frauds on the King’s revenue’.
This is the first evidence that smuggling has a long history in the Bristol Channel. Just four years later the Collector, William Canynges, whose family later became influential merchants in the port, was told in no uncertain terms that the ‘many frauds’ that take place on the Western coasts should cease forthwith or else he would be made personally responsible for the revenue lost! Canynges commissioned a vessel at his own expense to cruise the coasts of his port (from Bridgwater to Chepstow) but there is no surviving evidence to show how successful this enterprise was.
However, in 1429 a ‘Custom House boat’ was stationed at the port —the first recorded Customs vessel. It is quite likely that this vessel (which cost £22 to build) was used to carry the tide-waiters up the river to meet the incoming vessels as they arrived at the mouth of the Avon; there are certainly no records of any seizures of smuggled goods made by its crew.
By the mid 17th century the single most important commodity entering the port was tobacco, much of it was for re-export. There were continual reports of ‘widespread frauds’ in the trade. John Fitzgerald, the Bristol Collector, was told that he was ‘to do all within his power to stamp out this pernicious trade’. Fitzgerald was in a slight dilemma because besides his official post he was also a fairly substantial merchant in the Newfoundland trade.
However, he was well aware that he had to show that something was being done. In six months from May 1661 no less than ten cases of ‘frauds’ were reported to London — more than had been reported in the previous ten years! The majority of the cases appeared to be tobacco for export but which had been merely re-landed further along the Bristol Channel. The Customs boat at Hungroad found four bales of tobacco ‘hidden along the banks of the river near Bedminster’. The Customs men had great difficulty in securing-the tobacco due to the ‘anger and tumult of the people, who gathered in great number, who brandished scythes, forks and battens’.
The Bristol merchant who was indirectly involved in this incident (he owned the offending vessel) was Rowland Thrupp, who was also the Customs Customer for Bristol. A ‘customer’ was a very ancient patent post, whose main function was to safeguard the duty collected and to act as an independent check on the collector. It was a most profitable situation with a large income derived from fees. Thrupp remained in his post despite very strong evidence that he was deeply involved in the tobacco frauds within the port.
In 1679 a Joshua Wright, who belonged to a prominent family of merchants in the port, wrote a long letter accusing several Customs officials in Bristol of being in league with ‘the fraudsters’ and also for taking large bribes. He maintained that there were many illegal landings of tobacco at the mouth of the river from vessels before they came to the wharves. He asserted that many officers ‘had grown rich on their ill-gotten gains’. His letter was taken seriously and two Treasury officials came down from London to investigate. They found a parlous state of affairs.
They found that there was practically no Customs control, goods were landed without prior payment of duty and according to their report ‘the last six tobacco ships had not been rummaged and no exact account made of the goods landed’. Several officials were suspended, the two main culprits ‘had escaped over the seas’ and surprisingly enough Wright was appointed to one of the vacant posts — the lucrative position of land-waiter. Perhaps that had been his objective all along?
Just one year later it was reported that a party of Customs officers had attempted to seize a large quantity of smuggled goods — brandy and tobacco — which was hidden in the Forest of Arne. However, they were set upon by the local villagers and were ‘opposed by riots and great violence’. Several of the officers were injured, one quite seriously and finally a troop of dragoons were called out to assist the officers and restore some order. Their arrival was slightly too late to secure the goods; they had been spirited away.
The Customs Service in Bristol appeared to be beset and bedevil-led by more frauds than other ports. There were frequent internal enquiries with officers being suspended from duty but despite these frequent purges it was a most corrupt port. The largest fraud was uncovered in 1685 when the Collector, John Dutton Cole, exposed a massive collusion between the merchants and several officers. Over 22 persons were implicated and the enquiry resulted in the payment of fines in excess of 2,700. Several of the guilty officers were placed in the public pillory and no doubt suffered at the hands of their fellow citizens!
The Excise officers in the city were not idle and there were several seizures of tobacco and spirits from shops and houses in the myriad of streets and alleys that backed onto the wharves. One incident is particularly amusing, an Excise officer happened to miss his footing and he fell headlong into the cellar of an inn in Bridge Street. When he had recovered from his fall he decided to inspect the premises and found a quantity of brandy, rum and some bottles of sack that were not ‘permitted’ (all movements of duty-paid spirits and wine required an Excise permit as evidence of duty payment). The innkeeper, who rejoiced under the name of Boaz Pritchard (there was always a large Welsh colony in Bristol) argued rather in vain that the officer had no right to search his cellars. In this he was quite wrong. Excise officers had the right of entry and search to any premises where Exciseable goods were either produced or stored. Pritchard was heavily fined and the seized goods were put up for auction.
It was in 1717 that the Collector first petitioned for a smack to be provided to guard against smugglers ‘landing goods on the creeks and obscure places of this port’. This plea would be repeated countless times by the Bristol Collector and echoed by other Channel collectors throughout the rest of the century. He added that his officers had received information that goods were regularly being run on the Somerset coast right from Portishead to Uphill near Weston-super-Mare. He pointed out that he could get a vessel built for £120, which would cost £80 per annum to keep and this expenditure would be amply compensated by the value of the extra seizures. However, his appeal fell on deaf ears.
As if to justify this view, just 18 months later, the Bridgwater Collector reported to the Board in London that a Hamburgh vessel had gone ashore near the limits of his port and Bristol (possibly Brean Down or Burnham). It would appear that 370 casks of wine, 95 casks of brandy as well as a quantity of other goods were salvaged and placed under Customs seals. The master of the vessel had no money to pay the salvage claims and his agent in Bristol applied for permission to sell a portion of the cargo or to send them by sea to Bristol. However, the local ‘smugglers’ broke into the Customs cellars and helped themselves to some of the wine and brandy. The Board in London offered a reward for their capture and both collectors were told to use their utmost efforts to apprehend the offenders. The Bristol agent wrote to Earle, the local M.P. and asked him to use his influence to get troops sent to the area, ‘50 or 60 men carried off 6 casks of brandy and many bottles of wine ... The Customs would have searched for it but 40 or 50 villain's with Forks, Shovels etc opposed them, Swearing Bitterly they would murder every soul of ‘em ... we cannot leave them (the crew) to be Devoured by Beares’.
The London Board recommended that a troop of soldiers be sent from Bristol forthwith. Unfortunately the outcome of the incident is not known as the final papers have gone missing. It is interesting to note that it was not until 1776 that it was enacted that when wrecks are plundered, a penalty would be imposed on the hundred where the wreck occurred, though it must be said that this enactment had little practical effect on the wrecking habits of the West Country people.
The increased violence of the smugglers was clearly shown in 1725 when a gang was discovered unloading brandy and tobacco near Portishead Point. The Customs vessel, probably no more than a large rowing boat with a single sail, which had come inshore to seize the goods was soundly beaten off by the smugglers, all of whom were ‘heavily armed’.
The Customs men were powerless to intervene and were forced to watch, at a safe distance, the landing and subsequent escape of the ‘smuggling wherry’. By the time the Customs men had landed to search for the goods, they had long since disappeared. Perhaps as a result of this blatant and insolent act, a Naval vessel Fame was ordered to patrol the Channel from the Avon to Hartland Point. There is no evidence that the vessel made any substantial 74 seizures and in less than twelve months it was removed to other duties.
It is very unlikely that the Navy men received much assistance or information from the Customs. At this time the Customs probably detested the Navy more than they did the smugglers. They took great pleasure in interfering with the Navy’s operations as much as possible. Naval ships arriving from foreign ports were arrested and placed in quarantine, the movement of stores was frustrated and the Customs officers took great delight in rummaging Naval vessels. In some part the Customs officers were demonstrating the country’s anti-militarism but this was heightened by the knowledge that most Naval men were themselves inveterate smugglers and furthermore a fair percentage of the crew were convicted smugglers, who since 1704 had been released from prison sentences provided they joined the Navy.
The Excise officers in Bristol also suffered at the hands of the smugglers. In 1738 it was reported that ‘the unruly colliers in Kingswood’ were not only selling ale and cider that they had illegally produced but they were at the centre of the smuggling of brandy and rum. This ‘strange crew’, as the Excise supervisor called them, numbered in excess of 1,000 and all attempts to collect the Excise duty on the ale and cider had been resisted with utmost force and with the use of firearms.
Eventually the Army was called out to support the Excise officers and a full-scale military operation ensued. However, the problem was never really resolved as there were almost continual reports of ‘outrages’ later on in the century and they, in part, made up Bristol’s volatile crowds causing trouble well into the following century. Indeed during the famous or infamous Reform Bill riots of 1831 they played a leading part. It was during these riots that both the Custom House and the Excise Office were destroyed by fire.
An interesting insight into a more sedate type of smuggling is highlighted in 1735 when the Collector reported that ‘there were a number of women of fashion entering the port’, so much so that the Collector had felt it necessary to employ the wife of one of the tidewaiters to act as a female searcher’. He was probably referring to the number of women passengers returning from the American and West Indian colonies.
The Customs Board were already alive to the situation and had previously issued a general letter to all the ports suggesting that ‘women passengers carry customable goods about their person’ and that a female should be employed in whom ‘they could confide’! Almost as some justification of this action the Excise seized ‘a large quantity of silk and silk goods’ as it was being loaded onto a carriage at an inn in the city. The baggage belonged to the wife and daughters of a West Indian sugar planter, who had an estate near Bath. The baggage had already been cleared by the Customs. The incident caused quite a storm between the two Services with petitions and cross-petitions flying back and forth to London. Ultimately the Treasury had to intervene. The seizure of the goods was not maintained but released on payment of the duty and certainly no fine was imposed on the ladies. One could say that there was one law for the rich and one for the poor. Or perhaps it was more a case of having friends in high places!
The other side of the coin is vividly illustrated by the sad case of Thomas Body, who in 1760, was languishing in Bristol Gaol. He petitioned the Collector for his release on the grounds that he was the sole support of his mother and three sisters. Body had been convicted of smuggling just over one pound of tobacco and had been imprisoned because he could not pay the fine. Body claimed to be only 13 years old but the Customs doubted this, ‘his worldliness and knowledge are such that we consider him to be at least 16 years old’! Again the vital papers are missing so it is not known whether his petition was successful, but unless he was able to obtain the support of some person of substance he would have been unlikely to have been released.
In 1755 the Customs Board in London received an anonymous sum of £30 from ‘a merchant of Bristol’ — most probably ‘conscience money’ for a past misdeed. One wonders whether this merchant was a newly converted Methodist — the Wesley brothers had long been associated with Bristol. John Wesley was one of the few prominent public figures not prepared to condone smuggling. During his preaching tours he constantly exhorted against ‘the accursed thing, smuggling’. His hatred of the trade led him to refrain from drinking tea as the majority of this commodity was smuggled. Wesley considered ‘every smuggler is a thief general, who picks the pockets, both of the King and all his fellow subjects. He wrongs them all.’
The Bristol Channel pilots were a constant problem to not only the Bristol officers but to all the Customs along the Channel. They had a universal reputation as being smugglers par excellence and indeed few were ever caught at the trade. They had the best opportunity, they met incoming vessels at Lundy Island or frequently far beyond into the Western approaches. Their seamanship and knowledge of the Channel waters was without equal. And although they were in keen and cut-throat opposition with each other, they lived in a tight, secure and secretive community without the threat of informers.
Pill, a small village on the banks of the Avon, was for several centuries the home of these intrepid mariners. It had long been a creek of the port of Bristol — in other words it was of sufficient importance to warrant the presence of a Customs officer. The first known Customs watch-house at Pill was built in 1693 (though there might have been an earlier building). The watch-house was re-built in 1850 and it still survives, though now in private occupation. Few pilots were ever convicted of smuggling, some of the ‘westermen’ were fined for minor smuggling. The ‘westermen’ were the mariners (usually a man and a boy) who brought the cutter back to Pill after the pilot had boarded an incoming vessel.
Every so often the Bristol officers would make a promiscuous search of the village and the cutters lying at the mud berths of the creek. In each of these forays the Customs men made a number of small seizures of tobacco or tea and the odd bottle of wine. However, it seems as if these small parcels of goods were left to be found in order to justify the search and to keep the authorities fairly happy with the situation — a grand cat and mouse game!
However, in 1763, Richard Neale — the officer at Pill — received some information about goods being regularly landed near Portbury. I take this to mean the stretch of coast where Avonmouth or the Royal Portbury Docks are now sited. The Collector took this information seriously and detailed a party of officers to watch the coast. They spent an abortive three days and three nights at the spot without any movement and they finally decided to leave. Some two weeks later the Collector heard that a large quantity of brandy and tobacco had been landed in the area from the Eleanor Warren a vessel bound from the West Indies.
The vessel was still in the port and it received a special rummage by the Customs. They found ‘Bottles of wine and sack’ hidden under ropes and sails. The master vehemently protested his innocence and stated that the goods were for ‘smuggling into the Indies’! Nevertheless they were seized and were subsequently found to have come from an Excise warehouse in the port.
The Excise had a little better success against the Channel pilots. One pilot, James Hall, was apprehended by an Excise officer in Easton-in-Gordano, near Pill because he was carrying a suspicious package. After a certain amount of argument as to whether the Excise officer had the right to see what was in the parcel, Hall was forced to disclose its contents — several small packages of tea totalling less than five pounds in weight. Hall was fined £2, which would have been of little consequence to him as the Channel pilots received more than that for piloting a vessel from Lundy. Incidentally they received their fee even if the master refused their services — pilotage from Lundy was compulsory. A report on Hall was passed to the Society of Merchants at Bristol who controlled the pilots but no further action was taken against Hall.
Some three years later, in 1763, the Excise cutter Lawton, which was based at Swansea for a period, sighted a pilot cutter acting suspiciously off Bull Point near Ilfracombe. Ignoring the signals to hove-to it set off up the Channel and the Lawton gave chase. The Channel pilot should have been odds-on favourite to escape but he was opposed by a most determined commander — John Pickering. Despite the pilot’s better knowledge of the Channel waters and a slightly faster vessel he was slowly being over-hauled. The pilot decided to off-load several ankers of brandy, this was a frequently used ruse to evade capture, cutter commanders were under strict orders to recover and secure such goods and the time spent on this operation invariably allowed the smuggling vessel time to escape.
Not this time though for Pickering ignored the casks and finally overhauled the cutter near Kingroad (at the mouth of the Avon). Four bales of tobacco and some packages of tea were found on board. The pilot (his name does not appear in the report) was heavily fined and indeed was very fortunate not to have his vessel seized.
Although it is very true to say that the majority of goods smuggled in the Bristol Channel were tobacco, brandy, rum and wines; it is quite clear that any commodity which would show a reasonable profit was likely to be smuggled. During the 1760/1770s such diverse articles as vinegar, starch, soap, candles and sail-cloth were seized at Bristol. Six casks of vinegar were taken off the Spanish vessel Phillipe y Maria in 1764.
The goods were not hidden as such but rather had not been reported to the Customs. It is surely no coincidence that only twelve months earlier an additional Customs duty had been placed on foreign vinegar, which made it almost as costly as wine. During this period there were a number of small seizures of starch mainly from the numerous cross-Channel market boats that berthed at or near the Welsh Back. This would seem to suggest that the starch was smuggled out of Ireland and either landed at one of the small Channel ports where the Customs presence was slight or been transferred at sea. It was quite difficult to distinguish starch from flour, a point recognised by the Customs Board and so they issued special instructions to their staff:‘Put it in a tumbler of water, which if Starch will sink to the Bottom and form a hard substance, and if Flour will then turn into Paste and may be drawn into a kind of string like doe (dough] and further by Starch being much whiter than flour’.
In theory illegal imports of sail-cloth should have been far easier to discover if only on account of its bulk. Since 1713 there had been an import duty on sail-cloth and duty-paid cloth was stamped by the Customs using large wooden stamps to mark the cloth (these stamps were often two feet square and had the name of the port marked, several have survived).
In 1748 Irish sail-cloth was made dutiable and suddenly all English vessels arriving from Ireland with such sails had to pay duty, which was quite considerable. During the next ten years there were several seizures of sails from the many vessels arriving from Ireland. Quite a number of ruses were tried to avoid the duty — even forged ‘duty-paid’ stamps — but most seizures were made from the sail-cloth either being hidden in the cargo or concealed with old sails.
There was one clever concealment that certainly deserves a mention. It was discovered on the Catherine Lacey from Cork. The new sails bad been carefully secured to the sides of the vessel well below the waterline so that they were not visible either from the deck or from the quay. However, as the cargo was discharged the vessel lightened and rose higher out of the water and 80 thus revealed the sail-cloth. It does seem rather strange that after all the trouble the master had taken to hide the sails he should have forgotten such an obvious fact.
Because of the extensive smuggling of candles, soap and starch, the legal minimum size for imports was raised to 224 pounds. By this stroke of a legal pen any small quantities of such goods found on board, whether they were hidden or not, became liable to seizure. Perhaps a somewhat inequitable measure but similar restrictions applied to tobacco, tea and spirits. At least such enactments did wonders for the seizure records of the port!
Help for the beleaguered Customs staff also came in a different form — the information the Collector received from London was frequent and quite detailed in content. For example in 1775 he was notified that there were four vessels from Cardigan, each loading salt in Ireland and it was stated that it was their intention to land it illegally on the Bristol Channel coasts — what was missing was the precise location. Just one month later another letter arrived from London informing him that the Elizabeth Jane from Holland was bound for Ireland with a cargo of spirits and tobacco concealed in a false bottom; furthermore it was believed that the goods were destined to be landed somewhere in the Bristol Channel. And yet again, barely two months later, further information was supplied about a vessel from the Channel Islands with a cargo of tea, spirits, and ‘French goods’ was due in the Bristol Channel ‘within the next two weeks’. Unfortunately there is no evidence to show that any of this information resulted in any seizures.
It was very clear that the London Board had set up a good channel of information from abroad and indeed their network of informers improved over the next 30 or so years. But it did prove to be quite expensive. They paid a certain Emmanuel Mathias no less than £312-18s-8d for ‘expenses incurred on gathering information on the Continent.’ According to a note in the margin of the account Mathias was ‘a merchant of Bristol and known to the Collector at that port’ — almost as if that was some sort of approval for such a large payment. The Collector at the time was Daniel Harson, who had previously been a dissenting minister and had obtained his plum post by marrying the previous Collector’s daughter! Harson was not a particularly successful or popular official. He managed to antagonise his staff and the merchants alike and he caused considerable friction with the port’s trading community. Probably as a result of the merchant’s complaints to the Treasury, the Customs Board found it necessary to order Harson and his staff ‘to behave soberly, civilly and with good manners towards each other as well as to the merchants.’
The American Revolution or ‘Rebellion’ as it was known then, caused considerable extra work for the Bristol officers. Vessels bound for the West Indian or American colonies were ‘to be rummaged very closely and any letters going to persons in the provinces actually in rebellion’ were to be detained. Also persons arriving from America were required to be strictly examined and their letters and papers sent directly to London. Even after the Republic had been declared, some of the Bristol officers refused to clear a French vessel which had goods for the United States. They were informed by no less a body than the Privy Council that foreign vessels may now trade with the newly recognised American Republic, hitherto they had been forbidden to trade under the old Navigation Acts.
During the 1780s the pattern of smuggling in the port did not greatly change. There were a considerable number of small seizures of tobacco and spirits and they appeared to be made from the regular trading vessels to Bristol from the other Channel ports. Two Spanish sailors were caught ‘hawking their wares around the streets’. It would seem that they were trying to sell some bottles of wine and brandy. Their defence, put forward by a Bristol merchant (the Spanish Consul?), was that they were so poorly paid and had large families to support that they had little alternative than to indulge in ‘some venturing’.
Nobody was impressed by this excuse and both men were dragged off to serve in the Navy. An Excise officer found 25 pounds of tea ‘secreted under wood shavings in a timber yard off Queen’s Square’. Considering that this was virtually within sight of both the Custom House and the Excise Office, one gains the impression that it was not too difficult to land goods from vessels whilst they were in port. The Collector, John Powell, was forced to admit to an Inspector from London that ‘this port is the most open in the Kingdom and even given twice the officers it would still be difficult to stop the trade.’ Powell was a hard taskmaster, who tried to instill some urgency into his officers, perhaps his previous experience as ‘a medical man on a slave ship’ had some bearing on this.
There was only one seizure of note during the decade. In May 1787 an Irish vessel Jeanne arrived from Dublin with a cargo of foodstuffs and cattle. It was rummaged by the Customs on arrival, who found nothing untoward. Then three days later they returned and searched the vessel (perhaps they were acting on information?), this time they discovered a rather clever concealment between the bitts and stern. The entrance to this space was carefully ‘tarred and let into the planking’. It was less than half full but still contained sixteen small bales of tobacco and six casks of rum. The master was Michael Barry, who claimed to be a Frenchman and that his ‘proper’ name was Dubarry. Indeed he produced papers that showed that he resided at Lorient. The Customs Solicitor advised against prosecution on the grounds that the Smuggling Acts did not cover foreigners and that it would be long and time-consuming to prove that Barry or Dubarry was not what he said.
So he escaped without a penalty to carry on his smuggling trade. It is interesting to note that Barry did not carry a passport. During the 1780s passports were introduced, each one signed by the Secretary of State and indeed by 1798 no foreigner was allowed to leave the country without producing a passport, which had to be signed by the Collector before the person was allowed to embark. Such was the state of smuggling in 1782 that the Customs Board issued a strong letter to all collectors. It is worth recording in full: Custom House, London. 5th January 1782 ‘The enormous Increase of Smuggling, the Outrages which it is carried on, the Mischiefs it Occasions to the Country, the Discouragement it Creates to all fair Traders and the Prodigious Loss the Revenue Sustains by it. We are desirous to give a Great Cheque to this National Evil but are much dismayed by our officers want of success in making captures, this Defect would not have been so if the Instructions and Orders given by this Board had been duly observed.
We therefore enjoin you to carefully peruse these Orders and ensure that the officers apprehend their contents unless they ignore them at their peril’. There is no evidence that this exhortation had any material effect on the number of seizures! Perhaps one might comment that smuggling looked vastly different from the comfort and safety of a seat in the London Custom House compared with facing the fury and violence of the smugglers on a lonely clifftop or beach in the dead of the night. Considering the meagre pensions paid by the Customs Boards to widows and to officers seriously injured in line of duty, it is not really surprising that the majority of officers decided that caution and circumspection were the best courses of action.
However, the Board members and their officials — all of whom had obtained their positions by patronage — viewed the officers’ actions or lack of it smacked of cowardice! Nevertheless there were many brave officers who operated against quite overwhelming odds and often suffered grievously for their dedication to duty. Bristol, in any case, had never been in the forefront of ‘seizing ports’. The principal ones, in order, were London, Yarmouth, Harwich, Dover, Sandwich, Southampton, Cowes, Plymouth and St Ives. Towards the end of the century the port’s trade was suffering badly, due to the strong competition of both Glasgow and Liverpool and Wilberforce’s campaign against the slave trade.
The Collector remarked, in 1796, that the number of vessels using the port had decreased by over one quarter and that tobacco imports had slumped dramatically. It was quite clear that the palmy days of the port had disappeared and during the next century its trade would fall even further. By 1800 the Customs staff at the port numbered less than thirty with a waiter at Portishead and one at Uphill — a reduction of well over 50%.
As the century drew to a close there was a last flurry of seizures. In 1798 no less than twenty ankers of brandy and rum were found hidden along the banks of the Avon near Hungroad. The Customs boat at Pill had discovered the goods by ‘creeping’ (that is by dragging or sounding for sunken goods or searching holes and gullies along the shore). Of course there was no way of discovering where the goods had come from or indeed who were the owners. In the same year the Customs boarded the Rodney from Newport loaded with coal.
The boatmen found several bales of tobacco and two casks of spirits under the cargo. William Jones, the master, was forced to admit that he had obtained the goods from ‘an American vessel near Flat HoIm’.
It is not known whether the Rodney was seized and condemned. However, the Collector was reminded by London as to the regulations for breaking-up condemned vessels. It would appear that such condemned vessels were being sold and ‘old and worn vessels’ destroyed in their place.
The instructions were clear. ‘The ballast, masts, pumps and bulk-heads were to be taken out, the decks stripped and ripped fore and aft, the beams cut asunder, the bottom planks ripped off, the keels cut into four pieces and the stern posts into three’. Rowing boats that were condemned were to be cut through the thwarts, the hulls sawn into four parts and the stems and sterns cut into two. Quite a comprehensive job if the instructions were followed to the letter of the law!
It falls to the Excise to have the final word on smuggling in Bristol. It was in November 1799 late in the evening when two Excise officers were walking along St Thomas Street in the Redcliffe district of the port when they noticed a hand-cart being pushed along the street towards them. It was heavily loaded but its contents was covered by sacking.
The officers moved to approach the two men who were pushing the cart and challenged them to produce their Excise permit (though in fact the movement of dutiable goods was strictly prohibited during the hours of darkness — for obvious reasons). According to the report the men did not stop and though chase was given they managed to disappear amongst the numerous alleys. The cart contained four half bales of tobacco, two packages of tea and three small casks of rum. Needless to add it was never discovered where the goods had come from. Indeed very little effort was made by the authorities — long experience had taught them it was a wasteful experience.
It is interesting to note that there were two Excise officers at this seizure. Perhaps they had taken to patrolling in pairs for safety especially in the Redcliffe district, which had for long been a quite notorious area. Joined to the rest of the city by Bristol bridge, the place teemed with workshops, warehouses and inns and was an ideal spot for the sale and distribution of smuggled goods. Few of the old inns remain but the Ostrich in Guinea Street, built in the mid 18th century, is reputed to have been involved in the smuggling activities of the port. There is an entrance to a cave at the rear of the inn, which might have given access to the labyrinth of caves in Redcliffe Hill.
These caves were quarried for the sandstone which was used in the glassworks and they were also doubled as a storehouse of smuggled goods. The Excise seizure is a fitting end to this chapter on Bristol’s smuggling past as it epitomised the nature of the illegal trade in the port. Smuggled goods being trundled through the streets almost as if the Customs and Excise authorities did not exist — a truculent show of independence almost bordering on insolence. One must wonder that if the port had been situated on the other Channel with far greater opportunities to smuggle, I am sure its citizens and mariners would have revelled in the smuggling trade.
