modify this tendency; and long years have awakened so keen a regard
for the benefits of law and order that the nefarious practice might
not break out immediately on a large scale. But when we speak of
smuggling it is perhaps more correct to speak of it as a disease which
has not been exterminated from the system, but is, as it were, a
microbe that is kept well under control and not allowed to spread.

Everyone who is familiar with English history is aware of the
important position which was occupied by the wool trade. Because of
the immense value to the nation of the fleece it was necessary that
this commodity should be kept in the country and not sent abroad. If
in the present day most of our iron and coal were to be despatched
abroad regardless of what was required by our manufacturers it would
not be long before the country would begin to suffer serious loss. So,
in the thirteenth century, it was with the wool. As a check to this a
tax was levied on that wool which was exported out of the country, and
during the reign of Edward III. attempts were made by the threat of
heavy penalties to prevent the Continent from becoming the receptacle
of our chief product. But the temptation was too great, the rewards
were too alluring for the practice to be stopped. The fleece was
carried across from England, made into cloth, and in this state sent
back to us. Even in those days the town of Middleburgh, which we shall
see later to have been the source of much of the goods smuggled into
our country in the grand period, was in the fourteenth century the
headquarters abroad of this clandestine trade. We need not weary the
reader with the details of the means which were periodically taken to
stop this trade by the English kings. It is enough to state that
practically all the ports of Sussex and Kent were busily engaged in
the illegal business. Neither the penalties of death, nor the fixing
of the price of wool, nor the regulating of the rate of duty availed