Inside the Illicit Economy

From the moment governments began making money from levying duty on imported goods, a smuggling trade developed to avoid paying such taxes. Whilst the popular image of historic smuggling remains a romantic one, this book makes clear that the illicit trade could be a large-scale and systematic business that relied on the connivance of well-connected merchants. Taking the port of Bristol as a case study, the book provides the most sophisticated historical study ever undertaken of the smugglers’ tr