Kings Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 | Page 5

the Minutes of the Board of Customs, General Letters of
the Board to the Collectors and Controllers of the various Out-ports,
Out-port Letters to the Board, the transcripts from shorthand notes of

Assizes and Promiscuous Trials of Smugglers, a large quantity of MSS.
of remarkable incidents connected with smuggling, miscellaneous notes
collected on the subject in the Library of the Customs House,
instructions issued at different times to Customs officers and
commanders of cruisers, General Orders issued to the Coastguard,
together with a valuable précis (unpublished) of the existing documents
in the many Customs Houses along the English coast made in the year
1911 by the Librarian to the Board of Customs on a round of visits to
the different ports for that purpose. These researches have been further
supplemented by other documents in the British Museum and
elsewhere.
This volume, therefore, contains within its pages a very large amount
of material hitherto unpublished, and, additional to the details gathered
together regarding smuggling methods, especial attention has been paid
to collect all possible information concerning the Revenue sloops and
cutters so frequently alluded to in those days as cruisers. I have so often
heard a desire expressed among those interested in the literature of the
sea to learn all about the King's cutters, how they were rigged, manned,
victualled, armed, and navigated, what were their conditions of service
at sea, and so on--finally, to obtain accounts of their chasing of
smuggling craft, accounts based on the narratives of eye-witnesses of
the incidents, the testimony of the commanders and crews themselves,
both captors and captives, that I have been here at some pains to
present the most complete picture of the subject that has hitherto been
attempted. These cutters were most interesting craft by reason both of
themselves and the chases and fights in which they were engaged. The
King's cutters were employed, as many people are aware, as well in
international warfare as in the Preventive Service. There is an
interesting letter, for instance, to be read from Lieutenant Henry Rowed,
commanding the Admiralty cutter Sheerness, dated September 9, 1803,
off Brest, in which her gallant commander sends a notable account to
Collingwood concerning the chasing of a French chasse-marée. And
cutters were also employed in connection with the Walcheren
expedition. The hired armed cutter Stag was found useful in 1804 as a
despatch vessel.

But the King's cutters in the Revenue work were not always as active as
they might be. In one of his novels (The Three Cutters) Captain
Marryat gives the reader a very plain hint that there was a good deal of
slackness prevalent in this section of the service. Referring to the
midshipman of the Revenue cutter Active, the author speaks of him as a
lazy fellow, too inert even to mend his jacket which was out at elbows,
and adds, "He has been turned out of half the ships in the service for
laziness; but he was born so, and therefore it is not his fault. A Revenue
cutter suits him--she is half her time hove-to; and he has no objection to
boat-service, as he sits down in the stern-sheets, which is not fatiguing.
Creeping for tubs is his delight, as he gets over so little ground."
But Marryat was, of course, intentionally sarcastic here. That this lazy
element was not always, and in every ship, prevalent is clear from the
facts at hand. It is also equally clear from the repeated admonitions and
exhortations of the Board of Customs, by the holding-out of handsome
rewards and the threatenings of dire penalties, that the Revenue-cutter
commanders were at any rate periodically negligent of their duties.
They were far too fond of coming to a nice snug anchorage for the
night or seeking shelter in bad weather, and generally running into
harbour with a frequence that was unnecessary. The result was that the
cutter, having left her station unguarded, the smugglers were able to
land their kegs with impunity.
But we need not delay our story longer, and may proceed now to
consider the subject in greater detail.
CHAPTER II
THE EARLIEST SMUGGLERS
It is no part of our intention to trace the history of the levying of
customs through different reigns and in different ages, but it is
important to note briefly that the evading of these dues which we
designate smuggling, is one of the oldest offences on record.
The most ancient dues paid to the English sovereigns would seem to
have been those which were levied on the exportation and importation

of merchandise across the sea; and it is essential to emphasise at the
outset that though nowadays when we speak of smuggling we are
accustomed to think only of those acts concerned with imports, yet the
word applies equally to the unlawful manner of