English smuggling in the eighteenth century
Three main areas are addressed: smuggling as a commercial activity; as a form of social crime; and as a problem of policing. The claim that the violence of the Sussex smugglers in the 1740s was atypical is scrutinised, adopting a comparative approach between regions and over time, and it is argued that force was a rational response adopted by many smugglers when their interests were threatened. The contrabanders extended their penetration of legal markets and distribution networks in the second half of the eighteenth century, but this was accompanied by increasing levels of violence. Studying the confrontations between the smugglers and the preventive forces raises the question of how violent a society England was. The discussion is moved away from the homicide statistics to armed defence and calculated intimidation. The use of violence as a business stratagem raises questions concerning the smugglers' status as 'social criminals.' Illicit importation enjoyed high levels of popular support, but whether contemporaries saw the pursuit of the contraband trade as legitimising murder and mayhem, remains debatable. The adversarial model, in which smugglers are pitted against the forces of the revenue, and represented
Muskett, Paul
Policing; Law enforcement; Customs; Excise
English smuggling in the eighteenth century. Three main areas are addressed: smuggling as a commercial activity; as a form of social crime; and as a problem of policing. The claim that the violence of the Sussex smugglers in the 1740s was atypical is scrutinised, adopting a comparative approach between regions and over time, and it is argued that force was a rational response adopted by many smugglers when their interests were threatened. The contrabanders extended their penetration of legal markets and distribution networks in the second half of the eighteenth century, but this was accompanied by increasing levels of violence. Studying the confrontations between the smugglers and the preventive forces raises the question of how violent a society England was. The discussion is moved away from the homicide statistics to armed defence and calculated intimidation. The use of violence as a business stratagem raises questions concerning the smugglers' status as 'social criminals.' Illicit importation enjoyed high levels of popular support, but whether contemporaries saw the pursuit of the contraband trade as legitimising murder and mayhem, remains debatable. The adversarial model, in which smugglers are pitted against the forces of the revenue, and represented
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