Falmouth Is Well Built, Has Abundance Of Shipping Belonging To It,
Is Full Of Rich Merchants, And Has A Flourishing And Increasing
Trade.
I say "increasing," because by the late setting up the
English packets between this port and Lisbon, there is a new
commerce between Portugal and this town carried on to a very great
value.
It is true, part of this trade was founded in a clandestine
commerce carried on by the said packets at Lisbon, where, being the
king's ships, and claiming the privilege of not being searched or
visited by the Custom House officers, they found means to carry off
great quantities of British manufactures, which they sold on board
to the Portuguese merchants, and they conveyed them on shore, as it
is supposed, without paying custom.
But the Government there getting intelligence of it, and complaint
being made in England also, where it was found to be very
prejudicial to the fair merchant, that trade has been effectually
stopped. But the Falmouth merchants, having by this means gotten a
taste of the Portuguese trade, have maintained it ever since in
ships of their own. These packets bring over such vast quantities
of gold in specie, either in MOIDORES (which is the Portugal coin)
or in bars of gold, that I am very credibly informed the carrier
from Falmouth brought by land from thence to London at one time, in
the month of January, 1722, or near it, eighty thousand MOIDORES in
gold, which came from Lisbon in the packet-boats for account of the
merchants at London, and that it was attended with a guard of
twelve horsemen well armed, for which the said carrier had half per
cent.
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