Excerpt from The King's Customs, Vol. 2: An Account of Maritime Revenue, Contraband Traffic, the Introduction of Free Trade, and the Abolition of the Navigation and Corn Laws, From 1801 to 1855 IN the history of the British Customs, as perhaps in the history of civilized Europe, the end of the eighteenth century may be said to mark the passing away of old things.' Our authors' first volume described a Britain in which the consumer was in a way at the mercy of the producer, the labourer defenceless against the employer; The consumer's only remedy lay in smuggling, the labourer's in riot. Almost every article of import was dutiable the income tax was unknown. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.