delicate and brilliantly tinted textures of southern looms, and
to keep in the country the raw material on which most of our own
looms were employed. It was now fully proved that, during eight
years of war, the textures which it was thought desirable to keep
out had been constantly coming in, and the material which it was
thought desirable to keep in had been constantly going out. This
interchange, an interchange, as it was imagined, pernicious to
England, had been chiefly managed by an association of Huguenot
refugees, residing in London. Whole fleets of boats with illicit
cargoes had been passing and repassing between Kent and Picardy.
The loading and unloading had taken place sometimes in Romney
Marsh, sometimes on the beach under the cliffs between Dover and
Folkstone. All the inhabitants of the south eastern coast were in
the plot. It was a common saying among them that, if a gallows
were set up every quarter of a mile along the coast, the trade
would still go on briskly. It had been discovered, some years
before, that the vessels and the hiding places which were
necessary to the business of the smuggler had frequently afforded
accommodation to the traitor. The report contained fresh evidence
upon this point. It was proved that one of the contrabandists had
provided the vessel in which the ruffian O'Brien had carried Scum
Goodman over to France.

The inference which ought to have been drawn from these facts was
that the prohibitory system was absurd. That system had not
destroyed the trade which was so much dreaded, but had merely
called into existence a desperate race of men who, accustomed to
earn their daily bread by the breach of an unreasonable law, soon
came to regard the most reasonable laws with contempt, and,
having begun by eluding the custom house officers, ended by