Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T07:31:52.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

English Smugglers, the Channel, and the Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1814

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2012

Gavin Daly
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , January 2007 , pp. 30 - 46
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For the smuggling of English textiles into France, see Ellis, Geoffrey, Napoleon's Continental Blockade: The Case of Alsace (Oxford, 1981), 143–62Google Scholar; Daly, Gavin, Inside Napoleonic France: State and Society in Rouen, 1800–1815 (Aldershot, 2001), 188–94Google Scholar; and Dufraisse, Roger, “Contrebandiers normands sur les bords du Rhin à l’époque napoléonienne,” Annales de Normandie 11, no. 3 (1961): 212–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Among economic historians, see Cole, W. A., “Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 10 (1958): 395–410Google Scholar; Mui, Hoh-Cheung and Mui, Lorna M., “Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before 1784,” American Historical Review 84 (1968): 44–73Google Scholar, and “‘Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling’ Reconsidered,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 28 (1975): 28–43Google Scholar; Nash, Robert C., “The English and Scottish Tobacco Trades in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries: Legal and Illegal Trade,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 35, no. 3 (1982): 354–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The classic social history remains Winslow, Cal, “Sussex Smugglers,” in Albion's Fatal Tree: Crime and Society in Eighteenth-Century England, ed. Hay, Douglas, Linebaugh, P., and Thompson, E. P. (New York, 1975), 119–66Google Scholar. For general histories, see Williams, Neville, Contraband Cargoes: Seven Centuries of Smuggling (London, 1959)Google Scholar; Morley, Geoffrey, Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset, 1700–1850 (Newbury, UK, 1983)Google Scholar; Waugh, Mary, Smuggling in Kent and Sussex, 1700–1840 (Newbury, UK, 1985)Google Scholar. Of the few relatively recent scholarly contributions to eighteenth-century British smuggling, see Monod, Paul, “Dangerous Merchandise: Smuggling, Jacobitism, and Commercial Culture in Southeast England, 1690–1760,” Journal of British Studies 30, no. 2 (April 1991): 150–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Muskett, Paul, “English Smuggling in the Eighteenth Century” (PhD diss., Open University, 1986)Google Scholar.

3 See, e.g., Armitage, David, “Three Concepts of Atlantic History,” in The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, ed. Armitage, David and Braddick, Michael J. (Basingstoke, 2002), 11–27Google Scholar. For other “maritime worlds,” see, e.g., Horden, Peregrine and Purcell, Nicholas, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History, vol. 1 (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar; and Pearson, Michael, The Indian Ocean (London, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837 (New Haven, CT, 1992), esp. 1–9Google Scholar.

5 See, e.g., Cottrell, Stella, “The Devil on Two Sticks: Franco-Phobia in 1803,” in Patriotism: The Making and Unmaking of British National Identity, ed. Samuel, Raphael, 3 vols. (London, 1989), 1:259–74Google Scholar.

6 See, e.g., McLynn, Frank, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century England (London, 1989), 172Google Scholar.

7 Mui and Mui, “Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before 1784,” 59–61.

8 Monod, “Dangerous Merchandise,” 151.

9 McLynn, Crime and Punishment, 172.

10 See Mui and Mui, “Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before 1784.”

11 McLynn, Crime and Punishment, 182; Nash, “The English and Scottish Tobacco Trades.”

12 McLynn, Crime and Punishment, 179.

13 Cole, “Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling,” 396.

14 See Mui, Hoh-Cheung and Mui, Lorna H., “William Pitt and the Enforcement of the Commutation Act, 1784–1788,” American Historical Review 76, no. 300 (1961): 447–65Google Scholar.

15 Cole, “Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling,” 408.

16 Mui and Mui, “‘Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling’ Reconsidered,” 29, and “Smuggling and the British Tea Trade before 1784,” 53.

17 For French maritime commerce during the Napoleonic Wars, see Crouzet, François, “Wars, Blockade and Economic Change in Europe, 1792–1815,” Journal of Economic History 24, no. 4 (1964): 567–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Daly, Inside Napoleonic France, 134–46; Butel, Paul, “Crise et mutation de l’activité économique à Bordeaux sous le Consulat et l’Empire,” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 17 (1970): 540–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Cole, “Trends in Eighteenth-Century Smuggling,” 401.

19 See Glover, Richard, Britain at Bay: Defence against Bonaparte, 1803–1814 (London, 1973), 77–124Google Scholar; see also Waugh, Smuggling in Kent and Sussex, 32, 78.

20 Lavery, Brian, Nelson's Navy: The Ships, Men and Organisation, rev. ed. (London, 1990), 274Google Scholar.

21 Chatterton, E. K., King's Cutters and Smugglers (London, 1912), 191Google Scholar.

22 Archives Nationales (AN), F7 8360, extract of the minutes of the secretary of state, Saint Cloud, 25 June 1810.

23 Some of the Napoleonic police and administrative documents on the establishment and running of the “city of smugglers” are reproduced in Delbecq, Doctor, “La ville des smogglers à Gravelines de 1811 à 1814,” Mémoires de la Société Dunkerquoise 56 (1911): 261–365Google Scholar.

24 AN, F7 8358, report of the minister of manufactures and commerce on smuggling at Gravelines, Paris, 24 March 1813.

25 Crouzet, François, L’économie britannique et le Blocus continental, 1806–1813 (Paris, 1958), 2:526–69Google Scholar; Tulard, J., Dictionnaire Napoléon, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Paris, 1999), 1:240, 245, 247–48Google Scholar.

26 AN, F7 8359–60, compiled from monthly tables on “Etat des Bâteaux entres et sortis de l’enceinte du Fort-Phillipe, au Port de Gravelines, et des valeurs qu’ils ont importés et exportés.”

27 For the following, see Daly, Gavin, “Napoleon's Lost Legions: French Prisoners of War in Britain, 1803–1814,” History 89 (July 2004): 361–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Abell, Francis, Prisoners of War in Britain, 1756 to 1815 (London, 1914), 391Google Scholar.

29 Rattenbury, John, Memoirs of a Smuggler, compiled from his dairy and journal: containing the principal events in the life of John Rattenbury (London, 1837), 50–51Google Scholar.

30 AN, FF2 50, list of French prisoners of war who had broken their parole and returned to France up to 20 November 1811.

31 AN, F7 8359, Deal commonly appears in the police reports on French prisoners and British smuggling vessels.

32 The National Archives (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), CUST 143/16, commissioners of the Treasury to the Lords of the Admiralty, London, 25 August 1807.

33 For smuggling across the Rhine during the Napoleonic era, see Ellis, Napoleon's Continental Blockade, 143–62; Dufraisse, “Contrebandiers normands sur les bords du Rhin,” 212–16.

34 Waugh, Smuggling in Kent and Sussex, 65.

35 Young, Arthur, General View of the Agriculture of the County of Sussex (Newton Abbot, UK, 1970), 404–5Google Scholar.

36 Quoted in Chatterton, King's Cutters and Smugglers, 185.

37 TNA: PRO, ADM1/4295, secretary of the Treasury to secretary of the Admiralty, London, 19 November 1807.

38 TNA: PRO, ADM 1/3689, affidavit of Robert Mobbs accompanying letter from the collector of customs at New Haven to secretary of the Customs Board, 27 July 1813.

39 TNA: PRO, CUST 68/19, collector and controller of customs at Penzance to Customs Board, Penzance, 31 December 1804.

40 See Muskett, “English Smuggling in the Eighteenth Century,” 104; Williams, Contraband Cargoes, 167–69; Waugh, , Smuggling in Devon and Cornwall (Newbury, UK, 1991), 22Google Scholar.

41 Rattenbury, Memoirs of a Smuggler, 24–61.

42 TNA: PRO, 30/9/151, John Croker to Charles Abbot, chief secretary of Ireland, Carlow, 4 January 1802.

43 Parliamentary Papers, “Bill for the more effectual Prevention of Smuggling,” 1805, vol. 1, 149.

44 TNA: PRO, ADM 1/4293, “Case and Opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor General concerning an act of Parliament concerning smuggling on the island of Guernsey,” 30 October 1805.

45 TNA: PRO, ADM 1/3868, secretary of the Customs Board to secretary of the Admiralty, London, 16 January 1807; TNA: PRO, ADM1/4294, secretary of the Treasury to secretary of the Admiralty, London, 9 July 1807.

46 TNA: PRO, CUST 105/102, collector and controller of customs at Guernsey to commissioners of the Customs Board, 8 September 1808.

47 TNA: PRO, CUST 105/1, collector and controller of customs at Jersey to commissioners of the Customs Board, 24 January 1810.

48 TNA: PRO, CUST 68/19, collector and controller of customs at Penzance to Customs Board, Penzance, 3 March 1807.

49 See, e.g., TNA: PRO, CUST 54/13, collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, London, 3 December 1800.

50 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/21, collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, Dover, 10 November 1807.

51 TNA: PRO, ADM 1/4293, collector and controller of customs at Dover to secretary of the Customs Board, Dover, 14 June 1805.

52 Quoted in Glover, Britain at Bay, 161.

53 Delbecq, “La ville des smogglers.”

54 AN, F7 8359, “Etat nominatif des négociants qui ont demandé et obtenu des cartes pour commencer avec les smugglers à Gravelines.”

55 Monod, “Dangerous Merchandise,” 151.

56 Williams, Contraband Cargoes, 169.

57 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/14, Captain Amos, commander of the revenue cutter, the Swallow, to commissioners of the Customs Board, 18 November 1801.

58 TNA: PRO, ADM1/4293, commissioners of Excise to lords commissioners of the Treasury, London, 27 October 1804.

59 Young, Agriculture of the County of Sussex, 404–5.

60 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/26, collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, Dover, 4 May 1812.

61 TNA: PRO, CUST 105/1, collector and controller of customs at Jersey to Captain Pearce of the Hart revenue cutter, Jersey, 16 April 1810.

62 TNA: PRO, CUST 31/12, commissioners of the Customs Board to collector and controller of customs at Rye, London, 20 April 1813.

63 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/25, petition from Samuel Cohen from Barking in the County of Essex to the commissioners of Customs, 26 April 1811.

64 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/26, for Customs correspondence on English fishing vessels caught on smuggling trips to Gravelines.

65 Ibid., tider at Folkestone to collector and controller of customs at Dover, Folkestone, 30 April 1812; collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, Dover, 1 May 1812.

66 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/25, collector of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, Dover, 18 May 1800.

67 TNA: PRO, CUST 60/13, landing waiter at Poole to commissioners of Customs, Poole, 27 October 1807.

68 See AN, F7 8359, “Etat nominatif des négociants qui ont demandé et obtenu des cartes pour commencer avec les smugglers à Gravelines.”

69 TNA: PRO, CUST 31/12, secretary of the Customs Board to Captain Sayers, London, 3 February 1813; secretary of the Customs Board to collector and controller of customs at Arundel, London, 27 April 1813.

70 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/21, collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of the Customs Board, Dover, 10 November 1807.

71 TNA: PRO, CUST 31/12, secretary of the Customs Board to collectors and controllers of ports in Cornwall, London, 30 July 1812.

72 TNA: PRO, CUST 54/21, collector and controller of customs at Dover to commissioners of Customs, Dover, 10 November 1807.

73 TNA: PRO, CUST 68/19, collector and controller of customs at Penzance to Customs Board, Penzance, 6 November 1807.

74 TNA: PRO, CUST 31/12, secretary of the Customs Board to secretary of the Treasury, London, 30 December 1812.

75 Colley, Britons; Newman, Gerald, The Rise of English Nationalism: A Cultural History, 1740–1830 (New York, 1987), esp. 74–77Google Scholar.

76 Newman, The Rise of English Nationalism, 75.

77 For anti-French propaganda, see Cottrell, “The Devil on Two Sticks.”

78 Semmel, Stuart, Napoleon and the British (New Haven, CT, 2004), esp. 1–7, 19–37, 72–106Google Scholar.

79 Eagles, Robin, Francophilia in English Society, 1748–1815 (Manchester, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

80 Rainsford, Dominic, Literature, Identity and the English Channel: Narrow Seas Expanded (Basingstoke, 2002), 10CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

81 Quoted in Ibid., 10.

82 Ibid., 47.

83 For the experience of English shipping and the Norman ports during the Peace of Amiens, see Daly, Inside Napoleonic France, 139–41.

84 Gee, Austin, The British Volunteer Movement, 1794–1814 (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cookson, J. E., “The English Volunteer Movement of the French Wars, 1793–1815: Some Contexts,” Historical Journal 32, no. 4 (1989): 867–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Colley, Linda, “The Reach of the State, the Appeal of the Nation: Mass Arming and Political Culture in the Napoleonic Wars,” in An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689 to 1815, ed. Stone, Lawrence (London, 1994), 165–84Google Scholar, and Britons, 293–319.

85 Colley, Britons, 306, 379.

86 Cookson, “The English Volunteer Movement,” 887.

87 Lavery, Nelson's Navy, 274–76.

88 Lloyd, Christopher, ed., The Keith Papers, vol. 3 (London, 1955), 132Google Scholar.

89 Ibid., 153.

90 On the British Volunteers and enlistment, see Cookson, “The English Volunteer Movement”; Gee, The British Volunteer Movement, esp. 149–69; Colley, “The Reach of the State,” 176–78.

91 Lloyd, The Keith Papers, 3:132; Gee, The British Volunteer Movement, 156.

92 TNA: PRO, ADM1/4294, Secretary of the Treasury to secretary of the Admiralty, 9 July 1807.

93 Colley, “The Reach of the State,” 177.

94 Waugh, Smuggling in Kent and Sussex, 17.

95 Philip, Roy, The Coast Blockade: The Royal Navy's War on Smuggling in Kent and Sussex, 1817–1831 (Horsham, UK, 1999)Google Scholar.

96 Febvre, Lucien, “Frontière: The Word and the Concept,” in A New Kind of History: From the Writings of Febvre, ed. Burke, Peter (New York, 1973), 215Google Scholar.

97 For the survival of French coastal shipping and fishing in the Channel, see Daly, Inside Napoleonic France, 137–51.