"They Would Have a Law of Their Own": the Discourse on Smuggling at the Old Bailey, 1736-1814
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"THEY WOULD HAVE A LAW OF THEIR OWN": THE DISCOURSE ON SMUGGLING AT THE OLD BAILEY, 1736-1814 by Annie Tock Morrisette November 2013 Director of Thesis: Timothy Jenks Major Department: History This thesis examines the cases of 136 men tried for smuggling offenses at London's central criminal court during the long eighteenth century. Before the 1770s, the government portrayed smuggling as a crime against the nation, but after this time, the discourse changed significantly. At a time when smugglers actually were consorting with the enemy, the language of nationalism virtually disappeared from their trials and was replaced by the portrayal of smuggling as a crime of assault against revenue officers. The accounts of smugglers themselves also reveal a shift in emphasis. During the first part of the eighteenth century, smugglers referred to their trade in terms of tradition, and they were surprised to find themselves awaiting execution for such a commonplace activity. But after the 1770s, their language changes, too. Smugglers are increasingly reported to define smuggled goods as their private property and to suggest that revenue officers are in the wrong for seizing what is not theirs by right. This thesis argues that the changes in the discourse reveal both the revolutionary potential of smuggling and the ways authorities sought to change the conversation from one of national import to one of personal assault. "THEY WOULD HAVE A LAW OF THEIR OWN": THE DISCOURSE ON SMUGGLING AT THE OLD BAILEY, 1736-1814 A Thesis Presented To the Faculty of the Department of History East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Annie Tock Morrisette November, 2013 © Annie Tock Morrisette, 2013 "They Would Have a Law of Their Own:" The Discourse on Smuggling at the Old Bailey, 1736– 1814 by Annie Tock Morrisette APPROVED BY: DIRECTOR OF DISSERTATION/THESIS: _______________________________________________________ Timothy Jenks, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: ________________________________________________________ Wade Dudley, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: _______________________________________________________ Carl E. Swanson, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: _______________________________________________________ Newton Key, PhD CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY: _________________________________________________________________ Gerald J. Prokopowicz, PhD DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL: _________________________________________________________ Paul J. Gemperline, PhD For LaLa and Doc ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am pleased to have this opportunity to thank the members of my thesis committee, Timothy Jenks, Carl Swanson, Wade Dudley, and Newton Key, for their valuable insight and support throughout the duration of this project. Each brought a unique perspective and skillset to his advisory role, and the resulting thesis is much better for their contributions. I would also like to thank the Maritime Studies Program at East Carolina University for providing financial assistance during my studies. Thanks are also due to my parents, Jane and Steve Tock, for their unwavering support, encouragement, and patience over too many years of wrestling with this project. And, of course, many thanks to my husband, Adam, whose belief in me gets me through those crises of confidence that threaten to sabotage my creative and academic endeavors before they can be completed. And to all of the friends and colleagues who make grad school such a special experience, cheers! TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................................ iii Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................... iv Introduction: Smuggling in Eighteenth-Century England ...............................................................1 Chapter One: A Brief Historiography of Smuggling .....................................................................26 Chapter Two: The State’s Case, 1736–1753 ..................................................................................52 Chapter Three: The State’s Case, 1784–1814................................................................................72 Chapter Four: Smugglers’ Speech and Its Implications ................................................................93 Conclusion: Smuggling a Class Act? ...........................................................................................117 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................125 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................131 Introduction “I Have Bought an Anker Now and Then”: Smuggling in Eighteenth-Century England In 1767, John Wesley, a notorious opponent of smugglers whose Methodism helped reform the morality of the West Country, published a tract in London entitled A Word to a Smuggler.1 He specifically requested that the publication be given away, not sold. In this piece, Wesley railed against the evils of smuggling. He argued that smuggling was worse than pickpocketing and highway robbery because it was theft from England’s kind, fatherly king, George III. Further, smugglers, by denying the king his revenues, forced him to raise taxes, thereby taking money from every honest, law-abiding, tax-paying Englishman. In addition, the devilish business corrupted men’s souls to think that the activity they were engaged in, blatant theft in Wesley’s opinion, was no sin at all but perhaps only good business. To those who acknowledged the illegality of the action, but argued that they could otherwise not afford goods that they needed, Wesley exhorted, “If you could not live without it, you ought to die, rather than steal. For death is a less evil than sin.”2 In spite of Wesley’s energetic pleas, many men and women in England chose to live with their brandy, gin, tea, and tobacco, rather than to die, or live, without them. A surprising number of people participated in what they called the “free 1 According to historian Neville Williams, Wesley hated smuggling so much that he abstained altogether from drinking tea, as he could not be sure it wasn’t smuggled. Neville Williams, Contraband Cargoes: Seven Centuries of Smuggling (1959; repr., North Haven, CT: Shoestring Press, 1961), 123–124. 2 John Wesley, A word to a smuggler. This Tract is not to be sold, but given away (London, 1783?), 7. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. EAST CAROLINA UNIV. 25 Mar. 2010 <http://find.galegroup.com.jproxy.lib.ecu.edu/ecco/infomark.do?&contentSet=ECCOArticles&type=multipage&tab ID=T001&prodId=ECCO&docId=CW121114051&source=gale&userGroupName=gree96177&version=1.0&docLe vel=FASCIMILE> trade” by procuring and running goods, financing smuggling voyages, purchasing significant quantities of goods for resale, or simply buying an anker or two at harvest time.3 Smugglers did not need to read John Wesley’s pamphlet to recognize that their own interests were opposed to those of the national government. During a period in which many historians argue for a rise in nationalism, the burgeoning smuggling industry was inherently anti- nationalistic.4 Smugglers made their living at the expense of the national coffers. Historians estimate that in 1733 smugglers controlled at least one-third of all of England’s trade with France and Holland.5 Ten years later, more than two-thirds of the tea consumed in England had been smuggled, and approximately half of the population was in some way involved in the illicit business, either as smugglers or as consumers of smuggled goods.6 The situation did not soon improve for the government. By the 1770s, taxes had not been paid on nearly 70 percent of the tea in England.7 The government lost considerable revenue as a result of smugglers’ activities. Accordingly, the authorities created an increasingly large and sophisticated customs and revenue service to combat the smugglers. This force came into frequent and occasionally violent contact 3 An anker is the unit of measure smugglers commonly applied to alcohol. An anker is variously reported as between seven and ten gallons. Smugglers often transported alcohol in half-anker barrels that were easier for men to carry. 4 For example, Linda Colley’s Britons: Forging the Nation, argues that a new and strong British national identity formed between 1707 and 1837 as men and women from the diverse cultures of the British Isles unified in opposition to Catholic France. They may not have been able to define “British,” outside of a majority identification with Protestantism, but they could say that they were NOT French (which they associated with superstition and absolutism). Colley contends that this identification precipitated a rising tide of British nationalism. Her thesis has been hotly debated since its publication in the early 1990s; see, for example, Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837 (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1992); Gerald Newman, “Nationalism Revisited,” Journal of British Studies 35, no. 1 (1996): 188–127; and Laurence Brockliss and David Eastwood, eds., A union of multiple identities: the British Isles c. 1750–c.1850 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997). 5 G.D. Ramsay, “The Smugglers’ Trade: A Neglected Aspect of English Commercial Development,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth