ABSTRACT
Another statute " for preventing frauds and regulating abuses in his Majesty's customs" enabled the Crown, in 1662, to appoint further " places, ports, members, and creeks for discharge and shipment of goods."4 "Sea-coal, stone, and bestials " 5 were now specified as articles of free export as well as fish. Early during the next century, it was found that, owing to a great increase of trade, the legal quays and wharfs, appointed in pursuance of these Acts, were of insufficient extent, and that great delays were therefore occasioned
1 Johnson gives Old Fr. craier, Low Lat. crayera, a small war vessel with one mast. Shakespeare (Cymb.) uses this word-" Who ever yet could sound thy bot-
tom? find The ooze, to shew what coast thy
sluggish crare Might easiest harbour on ? " 2 Chester. 3 In Queen Elizabeth's reign the
customs were farmed and only produced 14,000/. yearly, a sum afterwards increased to 50,000/. In 1613 they produced 110,000/. From the farmers they were transferred to the management of a Board of Commissioners so lately as 1671.—De Hamel's Int. to Customs Consolidation Act, 1853.
