As showing that, even as late as the year 1824, the last of the armed cutters had not been yet seen, we may call attention to the information which was sent to the London Custom House through the Dublin Customs.  The news was to the effect that in February of that year there was in the harbour of Flushing, getting ready for sea, whither she would proceed in three or four days, a cutter laden with tobacco, brandy, Hollands, and tea.  She was called the Zellow, which was a fictitious name, and was a vessel of 160 tons with a crew of forty men, copper-bottomed and pierced for fourteen guns.  She was painted black, with white mouldings round the stern.  Her boom also was black, so were her gaff and masthead.  The officers were warned to keep a look-out for her, and informed that she had a large strengthening fish on the upper side of the boom, twenty cloths in the head, and twenty-eight in the foot of the mainsail.  It was reported that she was bound for Ballyherbert, Mountain Foot, and Clogher Head in Ireland, but if prevented from landing there she was consigned to Ormsby of Sligo and Burke of Connemara.  In the event of her failing there also she had on board two “spotsmen” or pilots for the coast of Kerry and Cork.  There was also a lugger at the same time about to proceed from Flushing to Wexford.  This vessel was of from 90 to 100 tons, was painted black, with two white mouldings and a white counter.  She carried on her deck a large boat which was painted white also.

Tobacco was discovered concealed in rather a curious manner on another vessel.  She had come from St. John, New Brunswick, with a cargo of timber, and the planks had been hollowed out and filled with tobacco, but it was so cleverly done that it was a long time before it was detected.  All sorts of vessels and of many rigs were fitted with places of concealment, and there was even a 50-ton cutter named the Alborough, belonging to London, employed in this business, which had formerly been a private yacht, but was now more profitably engaged running goods from Nieuport in Belgium to Hull.  The descriptions of some of these craft sent to the various outports, so that a smart look-out for them might be kept up, are certainly valuable to us, as they preserve a record of a type of craft that has altered so much during the past century as almost to be forgotten.  The description of the sloop Jane, for instance, belonging to Dumbarton in 1824, is worth noting by those who are interested in the ships of yesterday.  Sloop-rigged, and carvel built, she had white mouldings over a yellow streak, and her bulwark was painted green inside.  Her cross-jack yards,[21] as they are called, her bowsprit-boom, her gaff and studding-sail boom were all painted white, and she had three black hoops on the mast under the hounds.  Her sails were all white, but her square topsail and topgallant-yards were black.  The Jane was a 90-tonner.