Nota bene: Here are the previous 11 installments — parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 — in my multi-part series on Adam Smith’s day-to-day duties as a commissioner of the Board of Customs of Scotland. Endnotes are below the fold.
Order #130 is dated either 15 November 1784 or 25 November 1784 (alas, the first digit of the day is cut off from my copy of the document) and is signed by three commissioners of the Board of Customs: Basil Cochrane (top signature), Adam Smith (middle), and David Reid (bottom). This terse but ominous order reads as follows:
“We desire you to hasten your Report, with the charge & answer of Mr. Anderson Landsurveyor, touching certain Inaccuracies in his Seizure Books, as directed by our order of the 28th of last Month, we see seeing no reason for the delay.”
Before proceeding, it is important to note that this order, like all the others in my sample thus far, opens with the word “Gentlemen,” which was the custom board’s standard salutation when writing to the outport’s principal executive officers, the Collector and the Comptroller, who were jointly responsible for supervising outport personnel. [1] More importantly (and more ominously), this order also refers to “certain Inaccuracies” found in the official records (“Seizure Books”) maintained by a local customs officer, “Mr. Anderson Landsurveyor”, i.e. the same Anderson who is mentioned in the previous order from my sample (#127). [2]
By way of background, a land surveyor was a senior outport officer stationed at the docks who directly supervised two groups of dockside officers: landwaiters (who tallied and unladed incoming cargoes) and tide waiters (who guarded arriving vessels). As part of his duties, the land surveyor was required to maintain detailed records of any contraband. The land surveyor’s register or “seizure book” was the official financial and legal record used to account for confiscated contraband, calculate officer bounties, and initiate Exchequer forfeiture proceedings. (See, e.g. Hoon 1968, p. 138 & p. 184.) Whenever a landwaiter or tide waiter discovered unentered, prohibited, or smuggled goods on a vessel or wharf, the seizure was reported to the land surveyor, who would conduct a physical count and measurement of the illicit goods and formally log the confiscated property into an official register (his seizure book). Any discrepancies or falsified entries in the seizure book would thus constitute a serious breach of the land surveyor’s duties.
In this case, the commissioners of the Board of Customs refer to their prior order (dated 28 October), which had required Anderson’s supervisors (i.e. the Comptroller and Collector of the outport where Anderson is stationed) to transmit a formal report containing the official charge against Anderson, along with his written defense (“with the charge & answer of Mr. Anderson Landsurveyor”). The commissioners instruct them to stop dilly-dallying (“We desire you to hasten your Report”), and for good measure, the commissioners conclude by stating that they “see no reason” for any further delay in this matter! Is the board “throwing shade” on the local outport officials, calling them out for their undue procrastination?
Although this concluding rebuke does not constitute a formal censure or admonishment of the local customs officials, it is as close to a reprimand as one can get. Stay tuned, for as we shall see in my next post, Adam Smith and his fellow commissioners will decide Anderson’s fate in the next order in my sample (Order #132).
[1] As I explained in a previous post (see here), every outport was led by a collector and a comptroller in order to prevent local corruption, embezzlement, or unauthorized collusion with merchants and smugglers. The collector acted as the chief financial executive officer of the port (he received incoming revenue, managed outport funds, and paid local salaries and bounties), while the comptroller acted as an independent auditor (he maintained a parallel ledger book known as the counter-roll recording every vessel entry, ecargo manifest, and duty payment to cross-check the collector’s primary accounting books. See generally Elizabeth Hoon, The Organization of the English Customs System, 1696-1786 (1968).
[2] According to Order #127, Anderson had seized two large casks of red port wine and was entitled to a reward of one-third of the value of the wine.
