Authors: James McGee
The
favour was returned in the support that English free traders received from
Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Bonaparte is on record as declaring that
"during the war, all the information I received from England came through
the smugglers". He was so enamoured of the service they provided -
including the delivery of newspapers which, upon arrival in France, were taken
by courier to the Minister of Police in Paris - that he designated the port of
Gravelines the exclusive entry point for British free traders. Thus the City of
Smugglers was established.
"Free
trading" has always been a very profitable enterprise.
The
audacity of the smugglers, particularly those who operated along the Kent and
Sussex coastlines during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was
nothing short of remarkable.
The landing of contraband was not confined
to a couple of jack-the-lads and the odd rowboat. The Trade was carefully
controlled and financed, in many cases, by London merchants. Smuggling gangs
operated with impunity, often in broad daylight. Hundreds of men and beasts of
burden could be employed at any one time, forming caravans that delivered the
goods from the coast to warehouses on the outskirts of London. Pitched battles
between smugglers and Revenue men - who relied on troops for support and who
were often outnumbered - were not uncommon, resulting in many casualties and
deaths on both sides.
One
of the most profitable aspects of the smuggling business, however, was the
deployment of the guinea boats. The trade, most of it conducted under the
guidance of the house of Rothschild, was carried out in the manner described.
The sums involved beggared belief, with rowing galleys carrying up to 30,000
guineas at a time. In 1811, smugglers transported a total of almost 1,900,000
guineas or 49,000,000 francs. In today's money, that would equate to nearly
£65,000,000.
Fanny
Burney, the eighteenth-century diarist, referred to Deal as a "
sad smuggling town"
. I doubt the
townsfolk saw themselves in such a melancholy light. Deal's reputation for free
trading was second to none; its ties with the Trade went back to the early
1740s, and the town remained a thorn in the side of the authorities well into
the next century, with Deal boatmen playing a crucial role in both general
smuggling and the guinea trade. As a result, in 1784, under the direct orders
of Prime Minister William Pitt, a regiment of troops torched the entire Deal
fleet as it sought sanctuary from a storm on the shingle beach. The galleys
used by the guinea traders were so integral to the Trade that in
1812
the British
Government banned their construction.
The
character of Ezekiel Morgan is based loosely on the Kent smuggler, George
Ransley, leader of the Blues, one of the county's most infamous gangs. Ransley,
like Morgan, employed his own surgeon and a firm of lawyers. In 1826 Ransley
and his cohorts were convicted of the murder of a quartermaster of the Coast
Blockade (a forerunner of the Coast Guard); Ransley was transported to
Tasmania, where he ended his days as a free settler in Launceston.
Many
of the locations in the novel are real and were indeed used by smugglers. The
Smack Aground pub and the church at Warden Point on the Isle of
Sheppey,
did exist but are now long gone, demolished due to
severe coastal subsidence. But Warden Manor, home of Sir John Sawbridge and his
pigeon loft, is still there.
The
Admiral's residency at Deal was located on Queen Street; its strong room was
the repository for both navy and army pay chests, with bullion regularly being
landed in the town. In
1813,
for
example, HMS
Bedford
deposited 25 tons of gold and silver in bars, dust and coin. The building was
demolished in 1936 to make way for a cinema. A night club now occupies the
site.
The
oyster platforms at Seasalter and Whitstable were frequently used to offload
French prisoners of war so that they could be transferred ashore. I took the
inspiration for Jess Flynn's smallholding from Pye Alley Farm near Seasalter,
which was one of many houses that provided escapers with food and shelter. That
farm still stands.
Should
anyone wish to delve more deeply into the world of the smugglers, I would
recommend the splendid website run by author Richard Piatt. The site's address
is
www.smuggling.co.uk
.
Rochester
Museum is an excellent source for anyone wishing to know more about prisoners of
war and their life on the Medway hulks. The museum has under its roof a mock-up
of a prison hulk, complete with a "black hole", and is well worth
visiting. I'm indebted to the museum's curator, Steve Nye, who very generously
took time off from his busy schedule to answer my questions and give me the
guided tour.
I'm
also grateful to Gavin Daly from the University of Tasmania, whose article
"Napoleon and the City of Smugglers 1810-1814" set me on the right
track.
Little
has been written on the lives of prisoners in the hulks. Two books of note,
however, are Louis Garneray's
The Floating
Prison,
translated from the French by Richard Rose, and
The English Prison Hulks
by W. Branch
Johnson.