
Voices from the Old Bailey (18th Century Smuggling)(audio) - DanBC
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04d4sbs
======
DanBC
I'm submitting this because it's an interesting bit of history presented in a
nice format.

With the benefit of hindsight taxes on tea seem to have been a bad idea.

> Smuggling was a trade in the 18th century - sprawling from the brutal
> criminal underworld, to shops, to chic drawing rooms - brandy, tobacco,
> pepper, lace, French silks. But one commodity above all was worth killing
> for and facing the noose - tea.

> In fact two thirds of the tea which was drunk in Britain was smuggled in
> along the Southern coastline of Britain. Every single inhabitant of coastal
> ports like Rye would have known what was going on, probably most were drawn
> into it - and many ended up in the Old Bailey in London.

