# Manx Primary Source Archive — Transcription

**Source image:** `20260219_141014.jpg`  
**Transcribed:** 2026-02-25 19:26  
**Method:** Automated (Claude Batch API — claude-opus-4-6)

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from the Island, be Seized by the Officers of the Revenue,
the remaining Third, according to the received Opinion
of the Smugglers themselves, affords them a Saving Trade.
How far Short of this proportion the Seizures have
been may appear to Your Lordships, who have under
Your Eye the Reports of every Branch of the Revenue,
but cannot be known by your Memorialists, who have
only a partial Return, and that a very small one,
to apply to for Information. And that as the success
of this Trade depends in a great measure upon the
Confidence that subsists between the People in the
Isle of Man, and the Smugglers on Shoar, as well as
upon the facility with which Debts are recovered in
the Sherifs Courts, and Courts of Borrughs near the Coast,
it being a certain Fact that the Attention of those
Courts have been much taken up in Suits that have
arisen between Merchants in the Isle of Man, and their
Agents, with Persons who were indebted to them for
Smuggled Goods—Your Memorialists submit it to
your Lordships Consideration whether it might not
be productive of Good Effects to take away, by some
Law, all possibility of recovering any Debts founded
upon, and arising from their Smuggling, and
illicit Contracts and Transactions.

That as Your Memorialists have received
certain Information that Insurances to the
Amount