No doubt, the Kent was a pretty tough customer, and both skipper and his crew likewise.  But there was something wanting in Captain Mitchell.  For consider another of the latter’s exploits.  It was the last week of September of that same year, and the scene had again the Yorkshire coast for its background.  During the evening they espied what they rightly believed to be a smuggling cutter.  They got as far as hailing her, but, as it was very dark, and the Swallow did not know the force of the cutter, Mitchell “thought it most prudent to leave her,” and so came to anchor in Saltburn Bay.  But the smuggler had not done with this enterprising gentleman; so the next day the smuggler came into the bay, stood down under full sail, and came charging down on to the poor Swallow, striking her on the quarter, the smuggler swearing terrible oaths the meanwhile, that if Mitchell did not promptly cut his cable—­it was the days of hemp, still—­and hurry out of that anchorage, he would sink him.  What happened, do you ask?  Of course the Swallow ought to have been under way, and should never have been lying there.  She was acting contrary to the orders of the Board.  But what must we think of a captain who calmly awaits the on-coming of a smuggler’s attack?  Why, so soon as the Swallow espied him approaching, did he not up anchor, hoist sails, and go to meet him with his crew at their stations, and guns all shotted?  But even after this gross insult to himself, his ship, and his flag, was the commander of a Revenue sloop to obey?

[Illustration:  “Came charging down ... striking her on the quarter.”]

Yes—­it is shameful to have to record it—­Mitchell did obey.  True, he didn’t cut his cable, but he soon tripped his anchor and cleared out as ordered.  The poor Swallow had been damaged both as to her tail and her wings, for the smugglers had injured the stern, taken a piece out of the boom, and carried away the topping-lift.  But evidently in those days the Revenue service attracted into its folds men of the type of Mitchell.  Take the case of Captain Whitehead of the Revenue cruiser Eagle.  Espying a smuggling vessel, he gave chase, and eventually came up with her, also off Saltburn.  Whitehead hailed her, but the smuggler’s skipper replied—­one cannot resist a smile—­“with a horrid expression,” and called his men to arms.  The smuggler then fired a volley with muskets, wounding one of the Eagle’s crew.  Presently they also fired their swivel-guns, “on which Captain Whitehead thought it prudent to get away from her as fast as he could, the greatest part of his people having quitted the deck.”