Smuggler Nation (6 page)

The Browns of Providence profited handsomely from the flags-of-truce trade. But not all of the voyages they sponsored were successful: several of their ships were seized and condemned by the British admiralty courts at the Bahamas for engaging in “wicked, illegal unwarrantable, clandestine and prohibited trade.”
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For one ship, the
Speedwell
, it was the final of seven voyages to enemy ports; on this last trip, Rhode Island Governor Stephen Hopkins authorized that the
Speedwell
carry only one French prisoner of war to justify the journey.
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Robert Rogers reported from his visit to Rhode Island:

The form of government here is in all respects the same as in the colony of Connecticut. They are not, however, scrupulous in keeping up to the terms of their charter, often dispensing with it in some
pretty essential points, and taking liberties, not only detrimental to the other provinces, but even to the nation, especially in times of war, by carrying on an illicit trade with the enemy, and supplying them with the most material articles. This they have repeatedly done with impunity, to my certain knowledge, in the course of the late war, when many scores of vessels went loaded with beef, pork, flour, &c. under the pretext of flags … [and] could at any time be procured from their Governor, when at the same time perhaps they carried not more than one or two French prisoners, dividing the crew of one French merchantman they had taken, among a whole fleet of flags of truce, laden with articles more welcome to the enemy than all the prisoners, with the ship and cargo, they took from them.
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The British Navy took over responsibility for prisoner-of-war exchanges in 1761, putting an end to the flags-of-truce trading scam.

Illicit trade with the French was also carried out less directly through neutral Spanish, Danish, and Dutch Caribbean islands serving as intermediaries. The Dutch island of St. Eustatius became a bustling free port where American colonists brought provisions in exchange for French molasses. The Spanish settlement of San Fernando de Monte Cristi on the north coast of Hispaniola was particularly convenient, since it was contiguous with French territory. In June 1757, Lieutenant Governor De Lancey of New York forwarded evidence of a “pernicious trade” at Monte Cristi, in which American merchants would use Spanish go-betweens on the island to transfer goods to nearby French ports: “By this indirect Way his Majesty’s Enemies are supplied. What remedy to apply to this Evil may be difficult to say.”
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One British warship sent to investigate reported with great dismay that in early February 1759 twenty-eight of the twenty-nine vessels at the port were from the North American colonies. The British Board of Trade reported to the Privy Council later that year that all of the Northern colonies were involved in illicit trade with the French, noting that more than 150 ships from the continent had been identified “at one time in the Road of Monte Christi.”
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French ships even brazenly loaded their goods directly onto American vessels rather than first off-loading them on land.
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A few years later, in May 1761, thirty-six of the fifty vessels in port were reportedly from North America.
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A British army officer on the headquarters
staff in New York wrote in 1760: “The greatest part of the vessels belonging to the ports of Philadelphia New York and Rhode Island, are constantly employed in carrying provisions to and bringing sugars &c. from Monte Cristi; or the enemy’s islands.”
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Although increasingly alarmed by the provisioning of the French via Monte Cristi, British authorities nevertheless had to respect the island’s neutrality to avoid dragging Spain into the war.

On August 23, 1760, William Pitt summed up Britain’s frustrations in his instructions to provincial governors:

The Commanders of His Majesty’s Forces, and Fleets, in North America and the West Indies, having transmitted repeated and certain Intelligence of an illegal and most pernicious Trade, carried on by the King’s Subjects, in North America, and the West Indies, as well to the French Islands, as to the French Settlements on the Continent of America … by which the Enemy is, to the greatest Reproach & Detriment of Government, supplied with Provisions, and other Necessities, whereby they are principally, if not alone, enabled to sustain, and protract, this long and expensive War; … In order, therefore, to put the most speedy and effectual Stop to such flagitious Practices … so highly repugnant to the Honor, and well-being, of this Kingdom, It is His Majesty’s express will and pleasure, that you do forthwith make the strictest Enquiry into the State of this dangerous and ignominous Trade.
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The reply to Pitt from Governor Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island was particularly candid, noting that the colony’s ships “have indeed carried Lumber and Dry Goods of British Manufacture to sell to the French, and in Return have brought back some Sugars, but mostly Melasses.” He also acknowledged that it was “highly probable” that some vessels officially headed for friendly ports instead “deviated from the Voyage pretended,” stopping at French ports. But because these voyages were clandestine, the identity of the smugglers “may never come to the Knowledge of any Officers of the Colony, by whom they are sure to be prosecuted should they be discovered.” Hopkins also delicately noted that the earnings made from this illicit trade helped the colony purchase British manufactures—thus ultimately benefiting Britain.
Hopkins concluded with a promise to “put a total stop” to the trade with the French.
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Predictably, Hopkins’s letter was not well received. Rhode Island’s colonial agent in London reported back to the governor that “some of our leading men have taken great disgust at the trade with the French mentioned in thy letter.”
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The port of New York was even more active than Rhode Island in trading with the enemy. Far from being a business of the socially marginal, such commerce involved not only the city’s merchant elite but also the political class—including the mayor and the families of Supreme Court justices.
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At the same time, New York served as the communications and supply hub for British forces, and it was the leading colonial privateering port—significantly outperforming all other British-American ports in terms of enemy ships captured or destroyed. As historian Thomas Truxes documents in detail, New York’s wartime prosperity was based on the twin pillars of British military spending and illicit provisioning.
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In some cases, colonial privateers who were officially commissioned to disrupt enemy supplies would instead lend protection for vessels selling goods to the enemy.
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This would sometimes involve going through the make-believe theatrics of “capturing” an enemy vessel while in practice actually offering an escort.
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A code of silence in the city made informers scarce and frustrated investigations. Would-be informers had good reason to keep quiet. When one local informer, George Spencer, dared to come forward in 1759 claiming to have evidence of fraudulent paperwork masking illicit trade with the French via the island of Hispaniola, he was promptly arrested on trumped-up charges (thanks to an arrest warrant supplied by a complicit court clerk) and attacked by a mob of sailors while being escorted to the jailhouse. Bruised and battered, Spencer sat in jail for 27 months. He fled the city soon after his release.
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“So many people I suspect have been interested in this illicit Trade from this place,” New York’s Lieutenant Governor Cadwallader Colden wrote in a letter to Jeffery Amherst, commander of British forces in North America, on April 23, 1762, “that it is very difficult to find Persons to execute any orders who have not connections with them, or who are not afraid of their resentment, so that however solicitous I be to bring the guilty to consign punishment, and to put an entire
stop to the pernicious Trade, my endeavors may not have the desired effect.”
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New York’s merchants, Colden complained, were “accustomed to despise all laws of trade.”
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And he was determined to change their illicit ways—so much so that at one point he imposed an embargo on the New York port and brought criminal charges against eighteen merchants. On May 29, 1762, fifty-four of the city’s merchants signed a petition to Colden promising to stop trading with the enemy and pleading with him to relax his crackdown.
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Much to their dismay, however, the end of the war the following year did not stop the British squeeze on smuggling. As we’ll see in the next chapter, it was, in fact, just the beginning. To make matters worse, the end of the war brought with it a sharp economic downturn, adding to colonial anxieties about diminished smuggling revenues. The boom years of illicit trading and war profiteering were now over.

2
The Smuggling Road to Revolution

THE STANDARD, FAMILIAR NARRATIVE
of the roots of the American Revolution is that it was about defending freedom and protesting taxes. But a too-often-overlooked aspect of this was the freedom to evade taxes in the form of smuggling. Smuggling was certainly not the only contentious issue in the years leading up to the War of Independence, but it is striking how much of colonial outrage toward the British crown was directed at customs agents and their crackdown on illicit trade. The enforcement of trade laws was the most concrete, visible manifestation of imperial presence in the colonies. And the violation of these laws and the increasingly hostile reaction to their enforcement were the most concrete expressions of colonial opposition to imperial rule. Growing resentment toward the king’s customs became a unifying cause in the otherwise fragmented and loosely connected American colonies.

This chapter recasts the founding story as a smuggling story. This does not mean reducing everything to a battle over smuggling, of course. But it does place it more front and center than in conventional accounts.
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British reform efforts, including a crackdown on smuggling that began in the early 1760s, played no small part in fueling calls for independence in the American colonies. Not surprisingly, Boston—the port city that experienced the highest number of customs seizures in the 1760s and 1770s—was also at the forefront of the colonial
challenge to British rule.
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For many, the lofty rallying cry of “freedom” really meant freedom to smuggle—or at least freedom from harassment by overzealous customs inspectors. It was not so much Britain’s burdensome trade and tax rules that provoked such outrage in the colonies. Rather it was the attempt for the first time to strictly enforce the rules—and thus threaten long-established smuggling activities—as well as the crass opportunism and abuses on the part of customs officials doing the enforcing. Britain’s belated efforts to build up a credible customs capacity in the colonies provoked an intense backlash and ultimately backfired. It turned out that the reach of the British Empire was far greater than the strength of its grip. When the empire suddenly tried to tighten the grip—putting a squeeze on illicit trade and alienating colonists with heavy-handed enforcement tactics—Britain lost it entirely.

Crackdown and Backlash

Decades of British tolerance of smuggling turned to hostility as the Seven Years War came to an end. Alarm replaced apathetic neglect. Old accommodations gave way to confrontation. Now the imperial mind-set in London was to treat all American merchants as potential smugglers. Regardless of how much smuggling was actually going on, concerns about smuggling provided the pretext for tightening the screws on colonial trade. The British increasingly treated colonial merchants as smuggling suspects, harassing their business and subjecting them to more invasive scrutiny. With a mandate from London to clamp down on smuggling and increase revenue, some of the new inspectors deployed to the colonies treated this as license to loot, making busts on technicalities and enriching themselves with a portion of the proceeds from the seized goods. This upset the old unstated rules of the game in the American colonies and helped set the stage for open rebellion. British and colonial interests were now on a collision course. Until the 1760s, the collision was averted through lax enforcement. In other words, the colonists accepted British rule because it did not actually involve much enforcing of the rules. And as long as the colonies formally acquiesced to British authority, the imperial administrators showed little enthusiasm and stamina for vigorous enforcement.