During the 18^th and early 19^th century in Britain, smuggling was a huge enterprise. Riding officers became one element in the government’s arsenal against smuggling. These mounted customs officers were established in 1690. Initially they patrolled only the southern coast. By the Georgian era, though, they patrolled the entire country.

Customs officials in port cities were known to be ineffective against smuggling, so riding officers patrolled the coast within their assigned territory to suppress smuggling. Their land-based efforts were supposed to offer an important adjunct to the navy’s thin-spread resources.

The Duties of a Riding Officer

Often working with other riding officers, they investigated both the transportation and location of smuggled goods, and seized them when possible. Riding officers also confronted bands of smugglers. The assistance of soldiers could be sought for making arrests. Soldiers’ availability for such support, though, was a different matter. Riding officers wore often injured or killed in the course of their duties.

Hardships of Riding Officers

Despite hopes to the contrary, riding officers never really made a notable dent in smuggling activity. Several factors contributed to their overall lack of efficacy.

Salary

A riding officer was earned between twenty and forty pounds a year, and could not supplement that amount with fees or gratuities. Considering domestic servants whose room and board with included in their compensation made more than this and that a riding officer was also expected to provide for his own horse, the amount was hardly a living wage. Much less an amount that would inspire men to risk life and limb. Thus, most riding officers were tradesmen who carried out their duties as riding officers during their spare time. Falsified records of their anti-smuggling efforts were not uncommon.  

Corruption

Faced with low salaries, insufficient man power, and the lack of popular support, it is not difficult to believe that some riding officers collaborated with the smugglers they were charged to stop.

Even when a riding officer captured smugglers, the justice system hardly supported they efforts. Though a riding officer could theoretically earn large bonuses for the conviction of a smuggler, the officer had to pay the costs of prosecutions out of his own pocket. Since local juries were frequently sympathetic to smugglers (or involved in the practice themselves) and Justices of the Peace were often in league with the smugglers, convictions were hard to come by. Thus, it was hardly worthwhile to make the effort of taking the case to court in the first place.

Conflict of interest

Unlike the militia whose bands did not serve in the region from which they were recruited, riding officers often did. Consequently, he might be pitted against friends and family in the course of his duties. At the very least, risked being a social outcast for his efforts. Not exactly the sort of situation to inspire one to zealously pursue one’s duty.

With so much stacked against them, it is not surprising that Sir William Musgrave, the Commissioner of Customs and Excise, in his annual report of 1783, declared that riding officers were of very little service and a great burden to the revenue of the Kingdom.