ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the agency of local groups, when they reacted and responded to policies introduced to them by the state but pursued by a private company. Hence, the contested customs in the eighteenth century is an example of the possibilities for the localities to have a say and gain support for their arguments in a specific question, demonstrating what historians have called ‘state building from below.’ The chapter analyses the political contestation against the General Customs Lease Company between 1726 and 1761, using the Swedish towns as an example. The townspeople in general were greatly affected by the daily customs operations, and as merchants and craftsmen in the Swedish towns, they regularly came to confront the customs officers, employed by the private customs company. According to Janet Newman and John Clarke, political conflicts about public services serve to articulate a new sense of publicness; that is, the awareness of what ideas, people, and practices should be regarded as public.
