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The History of Leith, From the Earliest Accounts to the Present Period; With a Sketch of the Antiquities of the Town
The History of Leith From the Earliest Accounts to the Present Period With a Sketch of the Antiquities of the Town Author:Alexander Campbell General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1827 Original Publisher: Reid Subjects: Leith, Scotland Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.c... more »om where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: These duties, moderate as they appear to be, were often evaded, or rather, we may almost venture to say, seldom paid. The mode of collecting a tax of this kind, would, we may presume, in that age of barbarity and ignorance, be extremely slovenly and inefficient; and it is not by any means unlikely, that the one-half of a ship's cargo would be landed and away, beyond the possibility of being retaken, if indeed it was ever looked after in such cases, before any king's officer was aware of her being in the harbour; and it is also probable, that when a vessel arrived, every one who had goods on board of her would rush into the ship, and proceed to carry off their property, if portable, without consulting those appointed to collect the duties, who again, we may conceive, would be employed in running about the vessel, from one to another, sweating and swearing, and demanding payment of the customs, sometimes succeeding in their applications, but no doubt oftener refused. In the meantime, and in the midst of this bustle and uproar, the harassed and distressed officers would have the mortification to see the greater part of the cargo disappear. ing, by piecemeal, into the different closes on the shore, unanointed and unannealed. Occasionally, it is pro. bable, they would make a desperate and furious sally after a lot which seemed to be of unreasonable dimensions, and which was just evanishing into the jaws of the Burgess Close, when the consequences would likely be an obstinate and fruitless battle. As the of. ficers would of course be obnoxious to the popula...« less