Large quantities of sand were brought from the seashore, until, unfortunately for the housewives, some inquisitive official found that it hailed from the West Indies.
Or again, devious routes were resorted to.

Sugar was smuggled from London into Germany by way of Salonica, that being now almost the only neutral port open to British commerce.

Thence it was borne in panniers on the backs of mules over the Balkans to Belgrade, where it was transferred to barges and carried up the Danube.

Another illicit trade route was from the desolate shores of Dalmatia through Hungary.

The writer of a pamphlet, "England, Ireland, and America," states that his firm then employed 500 horses on and near that coast in carrying British goods into Central Europe, and that the cost of getting them into France was "about L28 per cwt., or more than fifty times the present freight to Calcutta." In fact, the result of the Emperor's economic experiments may be summed up in the statement of Chaptal that the general run of prices in France was higher by one-third than it was before 1789.
Now the merest tyro might see that the difference in price above the normal level was paid by the consumer.