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Manuscript volume containing a treatise on the organisation and management of Her Majesty's Customs, [1713-1748], giving details of the roles of officers. The manuscript was largely based on a draft by William Dickinson, formerly one of the Commissioners, which was updated, according to the Sotheby's sale catalogue, by Bryan Fairfax, Commissioner of Customs in the reigns of Kings George I and II.

Letter from Adam Smith, 5 Feb 1778. Address: Edinburgh. Acknowledging the receipt of his commission as Commissioner of Customs for Scotland. 'I received the Commission on Monday the 2d ist: four days after my name had appeared in the Gazette: I am assured there is scarce an example of any such commissions coming to Edinburgh in less than four weeks after that publication'.

Autograph, with signature.

Letter from Adam Smith to William Strahan, Esq, MP, 20 Dec 1777, address: Edinburgh, New Street, Shoe Lane, London. Asks for information on the delay in his appointment as a Commissioner of Customs for Scotland. A postscript states: 'Neither you nor Mr [Thomas] Cadell have wrote me anything concerning the new Edition of My Book, is it Published? does it sell well? does it sell ill? does it sell at all?'

Autograph, with signature.

Manuscript volume containing a report signed by Thomas Irving, Inspector General of Customs, headed 'State of the navigation, revenues and commerce of Great Britain in the year 1790'. The report is addressed to William Pitt, Prime Minister, 12 Dec 1790.

Manuscript volume containing a collection of copy regulations and decrees relating to Venetian commerce, 1735-1739, some printed, including broadsheets on tarifs, and levies paid by couriers to Italian cities, and tables of duty paid on goods imported into and out of Verona, 1738-1739.

Manuscript volume containing a series of fifteen questions directed against the farming out of the customs, [1662], the first beginning 'If the customes or any other part of his Majestie's revenue settled by parliament should be farmed'.

Book contains full notes on the administration and officers of the Port of London, customs and excise, freights, smuggling, etc., arranged in alphabetical order, preceded by an index, 1842-1863.

Manuscript volume containing a memorandum proposing the re-establishment of the Composition Trade, c1675, by which foreign merchants were allowed to import goods for re-shipment to foreign parts on payment of a customs duty, and beginning 'The inhabitants of France, Spain, Flanders and other parts, finding that their merchant ships did not pass the seas with that security as those of England...'.

'An Establishment of the Officers of his Majesties Customes in London and Outportes w[i]th such Salaries [as] they Receive Quarterly. Anno 1675', including:

1. 'Port of London. The names of the Severall Officers...', notably Patent Officers, watchmen, Coast Waiters, Weighing Porters, Surveyors, Landwaiters, Tidesmen, Landcarriagemen, Noontenders, and Watermen - in the margin of f.3 is written 'Midsomer 1675'.
2. A list of the establishment of the officers in the outports, with the names of the officers. There are no separate headings for different occupations, but the names are given with the occupation following, e.g. Pad stow (f.19), 'Gilbert Marshall collect[er] & waiter... Tho[mas] Castell wait[er] & searcher att ye Gunnell...' The totals of the salaries for each town are listed on f.29. (46 ports are listed, 47 including London.)
3. 'The names of Patent Officers in the Port of London', with their yearly salaries.
4. 'The names of the Patent Officers in the Outportes', with their yearly salaries.
   The total for the yearly salaries of all the officers for London and the out ports is given as £49,908.12s.2d. Separate totals are given at the foot of each page, and at the end of each section.

Part of a copy of a letter, possibly a circular letter, dated at Whitehall, 9 Jul 1763, from the Secretary of State for the Southern Department to the Governor of an unidentified American colony, containing orders to execute the measures of the 'Act for the further improvement of his Majesty's Revenue of Customs and for the encouragement of officers making seizures and for the prevention of clandestine running of goods into any part of his Majesty's dominions' (3 Geo.III c.22). The writer enclosed copies - all wanting - of the act, of an order in council, and of a list of the ships stationed in America.

Manuscript volume, 1701-1704, containing the legal opinions of Sir Edward Northey, Attorney General, on cases submitted by the Treasury Board between 2 Oct 1701 and 29 Sep 1704 on matters including Customs and Excise, maritime law including the Navigation Act, prizes taken by Her Majesty's ships of war, the colonies, the Post Office, and the armed forces.

Manuscript volume containing the seal tariffs decided by the French Conseil d'Etat, Mar 1703, and entitled 'Tarif des droits du Sceau arresté au Conseil'. Includes lists of offices in provincial administration and tariffs of the provincial chancelleries presidiales. A later hand has added notes of an judgement of 20 Jul 1785 concerning seal tariffs.

Manuscript volume relating to trade in the Far East, 1691-1732, containing transcripts of letters, memoranda, exchange rates, lists of prices, and instructions for the prices of goods, compiled by a Captain of the East India Company trading between China, India and England. The volume includes an account of the state of trade in India by Sir Nicholas Waits, 1699; an account of the state of trade at Surat, India, by Samuel Lock, 1705; a Chinese merchant's advice relating to trade between India and China; various advice and directions for the purchasing of drugs, tea, musk, raw silk, ivory and beeswax; details of customs charges at Canton, 1704; instructions for the purchase of gold and pearls at Madras, India; orders and instructions given by the Directors of the East India Company; a description of the manufacture of lacquer in China, 1708, an essay on a hydrostatical method of discovering the fineness of gold, and an logarithmical table for finding the rate of exchange between dollars and pagodas, 1732, all by Isaac Pyke, Governor of St Helena.

Draft, with marginal notes, of A letter from a Member of Parliament...containing his reasons for being against the late Act for preventing the retail of spirituous liquors, published in 1736. The letter concerns the writer's reasons for not supporting this Act (9 Geo.II c.23 - 1736), although he had supported the 'Act for laying a duty upon compound waters' (2 Geo.II c.17-1729, repealed by 6 Geo. II c.17-1733). Many of the arguments in the letter, for and against the Act, are given in similar terminology in Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England, vol IX (1811), columns 1032-44, and more particularly columns 1059-1110.

Manuscript volume containing transcripts of directives issued by the Treasury Board and the Board of Customs, 1671-1678, including warrants petitions and legal documents relating to the customs. The documents are signed by statesmen including Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury; Thomas Clifford, 1st Baron Clifford of Chudleigh; Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds; Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington; Sir John Coventry; and Charles Bertie.

Customs declarations certificates, 1890-1893, comprising two certificates in Portuguese of a personal history nature (perhaps for emigration purposes), one dated 4 Sep 1890 and certified by Charles O'Donnell, British Consul in Lisbon, as being in the hand of Emygdio José da Silva, notary public of Lisbon, and the second of similar date in the same hand; and a third certificate in Spanish of 20 Dec 1893 relating to a cargo of soap from London on the Spanish vessel Molina, certified by John W. Witty, British Pro-Consul in Barcelona, as bearing the true signature of M. Martinez, Chief Collector of Customs, Barcelona.

'An accompt of his Majesties customes in the Port of London inwards and outwards from Lady-day 1672 to Midsumer following'. The document names John Thorpe, Philip Marsh, Michael Wicks and Euclid Speidell, and shows the sums paid on Spanish and sweet wines, French and Rhenish wines, currants, vinegar, cloth, calf-skins and leather, to a total of £78,391 1s. 3d. On the dorse is 'An accompt of the new impost coynage duty and petty farmes in the Port of London from Lady-day 1672 to Midsumer following'. Imposts are shown as being levied on many of the same articles, but include also coinage duty, wood, salt and spice farms, potashes, to a total of £23,015 13s. 0½d.

Manuscript relating to customs duties on alcoholic spirits imported to Quebec, Canada, 1762, entitled 'Account of all Spirituous Liquors paying Duty to His Majesty Entered inwards in the Port of Quebec in Canada between the 26th May & 31st August 1762, with the particular Quantity & Quality of Spirits & the Duties Levied thereon'. Signed by John Gray, Collector of Customs, and dated 31st Aug 1762. The manuscript is endorsed 'Amount of Duties on Spirituous Liquors. Quebec 31st Aug 1762.' The following ships are mentioned, together with their masters' names and the ports whence they had come: William and Sarah, Union, Sally and Lucy, William and Elizabeth, Juno, Hope, American, Success and La Rette.

Documents and papers, 1709-27, of Maurice Birchfield. Containing 12 items, mostly concerned with customs procedures for various parts of America.