Normality of Smuggling

Through this all-pervading system smuggling acquired a stamp of normality, which was of great importance, especially for Napoleon's subsequent policy, and which forms yet another significant example of the general contrast between appearance and reality by which the policies were dominated. On both sides the smugglers were used as ordinary means of commercial intercourse in cases where it was not desired to recognize a traffic which could not be done away with. In this case the French made use of the English word in the slightly corrupted form of 'smoggler'. Boucher de Perthes, who was sub-inspector of customs at Boulogne in 1811 and 1812, in a letter from there defines them as 'contrabandists of their (the British) nation, who are attached to our police and who at the same time carry on a traffic in prisoners of war and guineas, people of the sack and the rope, capable of everything except what is good'. In another letter he relates how they smuggled French brandy into Great Britain, as well as guineas out of that country, besides acting as spies for both sides. Two or three letters from Napoleon are particularly striking as to the normality of these transactions. In a warning that has already been mentioned, one of the many received by King Louis of Holland, the Emperor writes (April 3, 1808): 'If you need to sell your gin, the English need to buy it. Settle the points where the English smugglers are to come and fetch it, and make them pay in money but never in commodities.' In a letter two years later (May 29, 1810) to Gaudin, his minister of finance, he develops in the following way the trade which is carried on with the help of the 'smogglers': 'My intention is to favour the export of foodstuffs from France and the import of money from abroad. At the same time it should be possible to impose a pretty stiff fee, which should be fairly profitable... For that matter I should be very much inclined to let the smugglers in only at Dunkirk, unless current practice required that they should also be received at Flushing.' Thus the whole line of thought as it appears in this letter is almost grotesque; the influx of money is to be effected by smugglers, who are to be treated with such consideration that even their habits are respected. This last is especially striking when compared with Chaptal's account of Napoleon's behaviour toward the legitimate trade, how he wished to command it like a battalion and ruthlessly directed it now here, now there. But the smugglers were necessary for the prosperity of Dunkirk and made that town exempt from the general crippling of economic life in the ports; it was therefore a serious matter for the town to see the smugglers moved from there, as Napoleon threatened to do in 1811.

Naturally enough, this good-will toward the smugglers was displayed only when they served the interests of the government policy; apart from this there prevailed a war to the knife. On the other hand, the normality was not limited to these cases, but held good over the whole line; and the governments maintained an unequal struggle against the smugglers. In one passage Mollien speaks of the futility of the efforts of 20,000 customs officials, whose posts were known, to guard a frontier threatened by more than 100,000 smugglers, who were supposed to have good connexions in Paris and were favoured by the population besides. According to Bourrienne's statement, there were no fewer than 6,000 smugglers in Hamburg alone, a figure, of course, which can make no higher claims than those of Mollien to express anything more than a general notion of the enormous scope of the smuggling.