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
sees in the harbour of Boulogne, if we except about a dozen of
those flat-bottomed boats, which raised such alarms in England,
in the course of the war. Indeed they seem to be good for nothing
else, and perhaps they were built for this purpose only. The
smugglers from the coast of Kent and Sussex pay English gold for
great quantities of French brandy, tea, coffee, and small wine,
which they run from this country. They likewise buy glass
trinkets, toys, and coloured prints, which sell in England, for
no other reason, but that they come from France, as they may be
had as cheap, and much better finished, of our own manufacture.
They likewise take off ribbons, laces, linen, and cambrics;
though this branch of trade is chiefly in the hands of traders
that come from London and make their purchases at Dunkirk, where
they pay no duties. It is certainly worth while for any traveller
to lay in a stock of linen either at Dunkirk or Boulogne; the
difference of the price at these two places is not great. Even
here I have made a provision of shirts for one half of the money
they would have cost in London. Undoubtedly the practice of
smuggling is very detrimental to the fair trader, and carries
considerable sums of money out of the kingdom, to enrich our
rivals and enemies. The custom-house officers are very watchful,
and make a great number of seizures: nevertheless, the smugglers
find their account in continuing this contraband commerce; and
are said to indemnify themselves, if they save one cargo out of
three. After all, the best way to prevent smuggling, is to lower
the duties upon the commodities which are thus introduced. I have
been told, that the revenue upon tea has encreased ever since the
duty upon it was diminished. By the bye, the tea smuggled on the
coast of Sussex is most execrable stuff. While I stayed at
Hastings, for the conveniency of bathing, I must have changed my
breakfast, if I had not luckily brought tea with me from London:
yet we have as good tea at Boulogne for nine livres a pound, as
that which sells at fourteen shillings at London.
The bourgeois of this place seem to live at their ease, probably
in consequence of their trade with the English. Their houses
consist of the ground-floor, one story above, and garrets. In
those which are well furnished, you see pier-glasses and marble
slabs; but the chairs are either paultry things, made with straw
bottoms, which cost about a shilling a-piece, or old-fashioned,
high-backed seats of needle-work, stuffed, very clumsy and
incommodious. The tables are square fir boards, that stand on
edge in a corner, except when they are used, and then they are
set upon cross legs that open and shut occasionally. The king of
France dines off a board of this kind. Here is plenty of table-linen
however. The poorest tradesman in Boulogne has a napkin on
every cover, and silver forks with four prongs, which are used
with the right hand, there being very little occasion for knives;
for the meat is boiled or roasted to rags. The French beds are so
high, that sometimes one is obliged to mount them by the help of
steps; and this is also the case in Flanders. They very seldom
use feather-beds; but they lie upon a paillasse, or bag of straw,
over which are laid two, and sometimes three mattrasses. Their
testers are high and old-fashioned, and their curtains generally
of thin bays, red, or green, laced with taudry yellow, in
imitation of gold. In some houses, however, one meets with
furniture of stamped linen; but there is no such thing as a
carpet to be seen, and the floors are in a very dirty condition.
They have not even the implements of cleanliness in this country.
Every chamber is furnished with an armoire, or clothes-press, and
a chest of drawers, of very clumsy workmanship. Every thing shews
a deficiency in the mechanic arts. There is not a door, nor a
window, that shuts close. The hinges, locks, and latches, are of
iron, coarsely made, and ill contrived. The very chimnies are
built so open, that they admit both rain and sun, and all of them
smoke intolerably.
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