'Smugglers Alarmed' is a fine example of Callcott's work on a large scale but showing an unusually dramatic subject for him, in marked contrast to the pattern of serene marines, river and lake scenes he was previously best known for exhibiting, inspired by the manner of great Dutch 17th-century painters; see, for example, BHC1154 and BHC1809. The choice of a contemporary subject may have been driven by the artist's patron, Sir Thomas Heathcote, who was MP for Hampshire, a county notorious for smuggling. It provided a golden opportunity for Callcott to showcase a different aspect of his skills and, in particular, his supreme painting of the sky. The challenge was taken up and in the mid-1820s his great friend and rival J.M.W. Turner also began painting scenes with smugglers. The location is apparently an imaginary evocation of the English south coast. The cliffs shown may be based on those to the east of Hastings, though higher and more rugged.

The painting was Callcott's sole exhibit at the Royal Academy annual exhhibition in 1822, no. 272, in a period (1815-24) when he only showed generally large single works there rather than two or more smaller ones. The Heathcote family sold it in 1882 and at some following point it went to the USA, ending in the collection of a Connecticut bank, which presented it to a museum there in 1964. It returned to England after being deaccessioned and sold at Christie's, New York, in October 2007. The NMM acquired it after it failed to find a new buyer as lot 86 at Christie's, London, on 13 December 2012. It is signed with the artist’s monogram A.W.C. (lower left).