The burghers here, as in other places, consist of merchants,
shop-keepers, and artisans. Some of the merchants have got
fortunes, by fitting out privateers during the war. A great many
single ships were taken from the English, notwithstanding the
good look-out of our cruisers, who were so alert, that the
privateers from this coast were often taken in four hours after
they sailed from the French harbour; and there is hardly a
captain of an armateur in Boulogne, who has not been prisoner in
England five or six times in the course of the war. They were
fitted out at a very small expence, and used to run over in the
night to the coast of England, where they hovered as English
fishing smacks, until they kidnapped some coaster, with which
they made the best of their way across the Channel. If they fell
in with a British cruiser, they surrendered without resistance:
the captain was soon exchanged, and the loss of the proprietor
was not great: if they brought their prize safe into harbour,
the advantage was considerable. In time of peace the merchants of
Boulogne deal in wine brandies, and oil, imported from the South,
and export fish, with the manufactures of France, to Portugal,
and other countries; but the trade is not great. Here are two or
three considerable houses of wine merchants from Britain, who
deal in Bourdeaux wine, with which they supply London and other
parts of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The fishery of mackarel
and herring is so considerable on this coast, that it is said to
yield annually eight or nine hundred thousand livres, about
thirty-five thousand pounds sterling.

The shop-keepers here drive a considerable traffic with the
English smugglers, whose cutters are almost the only vessels one