This is one of our smuggling routes.
Newport became the centre of an extensive business in piracy, privateering, smuggling, and legitimate trade.
The English retaliated by armed smuggling voyages.
The statute of 1630 forbidding the exportation of wool, followed by the Plague of 1665, led to a serious trade depression, while the former enactment resulted in the vast smuggling trade which spread along the coast, 40,000 packs of wool being smuggled to Calais from Kent and Sussex in two years.
A marine force was raised to stop smuggling; and the subtraction of coal during coaling operations was stopped by drastic legislation.