Note 413 — Chapter V

For evidence of the extraordinary extent to which smuggling was formerly carried, and that not secretly, but by powerful bodies of armed men, see Parliamentary History, vol. ix. pp. 243, 247, 1290, 1345, vol. x. pp. 394, 405, 530, 532, vol. xi. p. 935. And on the number of persons engaged in it, compare Tomline's Life of Pitt, vol. i. p. 359: see also Sinclair's History of the Public Revenue, vol. iii. p. 232; Otter's Life of Clarke, vol. i. p. 391. In France, the evil was equally great. M. Lemontey says, that early in the eighteenth century, ‘la contrebande devenait une profession ouverte, et des compagnies de cavalerie désertèrent tout entières leurs étendards pour suivre contre le fisc cette guerre populaire.’ Lemontey, Essai sur l'Etablissement monarchique de Louis XIV, p. 430. According to Townsend, there were, in 1786, ‘more than 1500 smugglers in the Pyrenees.’ Townsend's Journey through Spain, vol. i. p. 84.