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Quelch jumped to the conclusion that the stranger was a brigand bent on depriving him of his property, and he held on to the bag with such tenacity that the douanier naturally inferred there was something specially contraband about it.
"Every man ston' with his hands to his sides, and ask of they sojjers for a pinch of bacca." This made them laugh, till Captain Nettlebones strode up. "In the name of his Majesty, surrender, all you fellows. You are fairly caught in the very act of landing a large run of goods contraband. It is high time to make an example of you. Where is your skipper, lads? Robin Lyth, come forth."
The laborers manage to purloin small quantities, which they sell to contraband dealers in the larger towns. The government forbids private traffic in gold dust, and punishes offences with severity; but the profits are large and tempting. Every gold miner must send the product of his diggings to the government establishment at Barnaool, where it is smelted and assayed.
People who smuggle come over in the cabins of the finest ocean liners, and the old-time contraband importer, of the sort we read of in "Cast Up By The Sea," who brings a little lugger into some obscure port under cover of a black night, has entirely disappeared.
The American claim was that not only private seizure of enemy's goods at sea should be prohibited, but that all private property of the enemy at sea should be entitled to the same protection as on land prizes and prize courts being thus almost abolished, and no private property of the enemy anywhere being liable to confiscation, unless contraband of war.
Sweden, who had vainly demanded from Napoleon the possession of Norway and a large supply of money, assumed a tone of indignation, threw open her harbors to the British merchantmen, and so openly carried on a contraband trade in Pomerania that Napoleon, in order to maintain the continental system, was constrained to garrison Swedish-Pomerania and Rugen, and to disarm the Swedish inhabitants.
The swinging seas of this northern ocean revived thoughts of the long-ago exploits of Sebastian Cabot, the discoverer of Newfoundland, and of his own sea-dog ancestors, those rough-riders of the sea who had defied the banks of Sable Island and returned to St. Peter's Port with their rich cargoes of contraband, looking innocent as kittens, while the ship was bursting with fur, fin and feather.
Here there was a civil enough company of Seafaring men, Mates, Pilots, Supercargoes, and the like, with some Holland traders, and, if I mistake not, a few Smugglers that had contraband dealings in Cambrics, Steenkirks, Strong waters, and Point of Bruxelles.
Some of the Neapolitan officers embarked in really large commercial operations, going shares with the custom house people who were there to enforce the law, and making their soldiers load and unload the contraband vessels. The Comte de , a French officer on Murat's staff, was very noble, but very poor, and excessively extravagant.
And then to add to the existing complications a Customs vessel, the Fei Hoo, was seized by the French as she was landing stores for a lighthouse in Formosa. They would not let her go, saying she had landed letters as well as stores. Perhaps she did no one can say but contraband mail on board or not, she had important duties to perform.
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