PAST CRIMESbags which was probably used as shrapnel shot, medical equipment and
window glass. A sword hilt has also been recovered, as well as slave
manacles, objects engraved with a fleurdelis and African glass trade beads,
which may relate to the ship’s earlier existence as a French slaveship. All the
finds date from the period just before 1718. There are no definitive pieces of
evidence, but the size of the ship, its location, and the large amount of
armaments point to its being Blackbeard’s flagship. Further ongoing work
including analysis of biological remains may help to confirm this, if some of
these prove to have an African origin.^14
Another form of maritime crime that was rife in the eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries was smuggling. Right across the southern coastal counties
of England, smuggling began to be a major industry. Vast quantities of spirits
and other goods were illegally imported (the price of gin being so low that it
was claimed some Kentish villagers used it for cleaning windows). Up to fifty
per cent of all the brandy drunk in England was said to have been smuggled. In
some places, smuggling was the only employment for most of the population–
in the Scilly Isles, for example. The stimulus for the massive increase in illicit
trade was the level of taxation and excise duty. The government was in urgent
need of money to fund the war against the American colonies and their French
and Spanish allies, and raising taxes on imports became an essential part of
national economic strategy. Some commodities, such as tea, were carrying
such heavy rates of duty that they were unaffordable for most of the
population, and the tax on salt was especially hard to bear for fishing
communities who needed salt to preserve their catches. The machinery for
collecting the taxes was cumbersome and inefficient–and enterprising people
soon saw ways to get round the officials. The multitude of small fishing and
trading boats and ships around the coasts of Britain, Holland and the Low
Countries, and France, with their experienced crews, their vessels and their
intimate knowledge of the coasts were wellplaced to engage in contraband
activities. Knowledge of the massive profits to be made encouraged many
erstwhile colliers and fishing boats to join the‘trade’ –most commodities
could be sold on for between 200400 per cent profit.
These men were ably supported by the rural populations inland. This was a
time of great rural poverty. Enclosures of common land, especially woodland,
had forced many people to the edge of starvation. They could no longer
pasture a cow or two, or keep a few pigs, or gather fuel to supplement their
diets or keep them warm. Much woodland, which had previously been a
source of extra food and materials for the poor, was being destroyed for
shipbuilding and charcoal burning to fuel the iron and gunpowder industries.