But as the Revenue service afloat was assisted now by the Navy, so the Revenue land guard was also aided by the Military.  In 1713 arrangements had been made that dragoons should co-operate with the riding officers in their operations against the owlers, and there are plenty of skirmishes recorded showing that the dragoons were actually so employed.  Originally these soldiers were employed under the direction of the riding officers, but, as can well be expected, there was a good deal of jealousy and friction caused through the sharing of the soldiers in the rewards for seizures, and after the year 1822 this military assistance was not utilised to any great extent, although legally Army officers can still be called upon to render assistance against smuggling.  And, in passing, one might mention that this co-operation afloat between the Customs men and the Navy was equally noticeable for a certain amount of ill-feeling, as we shall mention on a later page.

Before the first quarter of the eighteenth century was completed, smuggling between England and the Continent was proceeding at a brisk pace, and by the middle of that century it had well-nigh reached its climax for fearlessness.  We have already alluded to the establishment of hired smacks and sloops inaugurated towards the end of the seventeenth century.  The sloop rig, as I have shown in another volume,[2] had probably been introduced into England from Holland soon after the accession of Charles ii., but from that date its merits of handiness were so fully recognised that for yachts, for fishing craft, for the carrying of passengers and cargo up and down the Thames and along the coast as well as across to Ireland and the Continent, the rig was adopted very readily in place of the lug-sails.  The smack was also a sloop-rigged vessel.  We need not enter here into a discussion as to the comparative merits of sloops and cutters and smacks.  It is enough if we state that when it was realised that a vessel of say 100 tons, sloop-rigged, with her one mast, mainsail, and two headsails and square topsail (set forward of the mast on a yard) could be handled with fewer men and therefore less expense than a lugger of similar size; was also more suitable for manoeuvring in narrow channels, and for entering and leaving small harbours, the fishermen, coasters, and so on took to this improvement.  Thus most naturally the larger smuggling craft were till well on into the nineteenth century sloops or cutters, and equally natural was it that the Revenue availed themselves of this rig first by hiring smacks, and, later, by building for themselves.  These sloops, whether hired or owned, were given each a particular station to guard, and that plan was followed by the Revenue cruisers for many years to follow.  Among the Exeter documents of the Customs Department is included an interesting document dated July 10, 1703, wherein the Board of Customs informs the collector at the port of Dartmouth of the list of vessels appointed by the Commissioners to cruise against owlers, the district comprised extending from Pembroke in the west to the Downs in the east.  The following is the list of these vessels with their respective cruising territories:—­