Yes, as usual, there's something to be found in the timeless verse.
To be drowned or be shot
Is our natural lot,
Why should we, moreover, be hanged in the end---
After all our great pains
For to dangle in chains
As though we were smugglers, not poor honest men?
Tobacco smuggling is hardly a new thing, and the King's revenooers are, as always, thuggish and deadly.
Because if we didn't kill smugglers, people would take untaxed goods for granted, and the whole structure of society government would fall apart!
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