Mallet, Stephen;
(2024)
The business of smuggling in the eighteenth century: Anglo-French comparisons.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
Smuggling was a substantial business in Britain in the eighteenth century. The government banned trade in, or taxed, certain commodities, opening the door to smugglers to trade those products illegally, even as the government tried to discourage smuggling through penalties for law-breaking and to enforce the law by use of physical preventative measures. Across the Channel, in France, the situation was little different, although the historic proliferation of customs zones and land borders made government control if anything harder to achieve. France’s anti-smuggling enforcement was outsourced to the Fermes Générales, and their continuing lobbying resulted in restrictions and legal penalties not very different to those in Britain. In both countries there was a recognition that the tariff system worked against the prevention of smuggling. This thesis demonstrates that there was a strong business case for smuggling, with plentiful demand, a wide variety of sources of supply and, to transport the contraband, many people prepared to risk capture for a level of pay well above their normal rates. It looks at how the business was organised and financed, how it operated and who the main players in the value chain were, as well as presenting the complexity of legislation that created the smuggling opportunities and hindered law enforcement. Comparing Britain and France, it highlights the fact that the similarities were greater than the differences. The thesis also explores issues such as the ability to merge contraband commodities with legally imported goods, people’s attitudes to smuggling and the impact it had on local communities, and how governments reacted to the law-breaking. It becomes clear that today’s governments need to understand better the implications of legislation to tax or restrict imports, or continue to deal with the consequences.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | The business of smuggling in the eighteenth century: Anglo-French comparisons |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of History |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10198139 |
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