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TOBACCO-SPIRITS, or DUTIES OR NO DUTIES.
The history of this wondrous affair is soon told. Certain
merchants have a large quantity of tobacco in the bonded
stores. They are informed, they ascertain, no matter which,
that no duties have by any law been imposed on tobacco — at all
events they imagine there is a doubt (though we are persuaded
that there is no doubt at all) about the matter, and they choose
to take the benefit of that doubt. Accordingly they apply to
the Naval Officer to have the tobacco delivered up to them, at the
same time stating that they will be answerable to him for the
duties that are leviable on the article. Is this equivocation ? We
offer no opinion. The question about duties is partly mooted in
Court in the course of obtaining a decision on a pending case
about evading duties on tobacco, nothing however of a conclusive
nature is elicited. The Naval Officer by this time becomes ac
quainted with the opinions which are getting disseminated, per
ceives the drift or the intention of the merchants with respect to
the tobacco. He applies to them for the duties. They say levy
and we will pay them ; if you do attempt to levy them we shall
contest the point. The Naval Officer replies, had he been aware
of the meaning and aim of the parties when they obtained the
tobacco, he should not have allowed them to remove it from the
bonded stores ; and further adds that he has received some inti
mation, that the transaction may lead to his being superseded
in his office. Unwilling that any advantage however consider
able, gained as their enemies said under dubious circumstances
should prejudice a Gentleman so universally respected, and on
whom no visitation of blame could with justice fall ; "the head
and front of whose offending" consisted in the transacting of the
business of the office in the ordinary way; the merchants consent
to the re-conveyance of the tobacco into the stores, without preju
dice to themselves, and on the understanding and with a notice
that they will bring an Action of Trover to recover possession by
course of law. . We don't mean to offer any comments on that
line of conduct with which the Naval Officer was threatened.
We wish to say nothing of the policy of making him the Middle
Man— rendering him the only sufferer — holding out menaces
against him, or of his being made the scape-goat of an efficient or
inefficient law-just as it may turn out. The Merchants, on
their part, acted liberally, we believe, too, of their own accord
without recommendation of direction from any one.
The SPIRIT transaction is altogether different in its nature and
in its features, though similar in its origin. The same Merchants
believing that the Proclamation respecting spirits was not less
ineffective than that relative to tobacco, endeavoured to land se
veral pipes and puncheons without going through the formalities
of putting them in the Bonded Stores, and paying the duties.
They were resisted by the Wharfinger, according to the instruc
tions of the Naval Officer. After some altercations the spirits
were abandoned by both parties, and left on the wharf. Mes
sages, letters, representations, &c. passed and re-passed between
the parties ; and the spirits were ultimately consigned into the
usual keeping. The question, therefore, of duties on them, re
mains for future decision.
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