Such incidents as the above show that there undoubtedly was cause for the complaints of the Customs Board that the commanders of their cruisers were not doing all that might have been done towards suppressing the evil at hand.  On the other hand, it was equally true that the delinquents with whom these commanders had to contest were of a particularly virulent and villainous type.  Thus, between the negligence of the one side, and the enterprise of the other, his Majesty’s revenue had to suffer very considerably.  No better instance of the potency of this lawlessness could be afforded than by an event which happened in the summer of 1777.  Everyone knows, of course, that those were the days when men had to be impressed into the service of the Navy, so that, when any of these hardy smugglers were captured, they were valuable acquisitions to the Service, and far more useful than many of the disease-stricken crews which so often had to be shipped to make up a man-of-war’s complement.  In the year we are speaking of a number of smugglers who had been captured on the North Sea were put on board H.M. tender Lively by Captain O’Hara of the Impress service, the intention being to convey these men to one of his Majesty’s ships at the Nore.  The tender got under way and was proceeding to her destination when the smuggler-prisoners mutinied, overpowered the Lively’s crew, and carried the Lively into Flushing.

And similar examples of the impudence and violence of other North Sea smugglers could also be quoted.  On the 7th of May 1778, Captain Bland, of the Mermaid Revenue cruiser, was off Huntcliff Fort, when he sighted a smuggling shallop.[9] Bland promptly bore down, and as he approached hailed her.  But the shallop answered by firing a broadside.  The Revenue cruiser now prepared to engage her, whereupon the shallop hoisted an English pennant, which was evidently a signal for assistance, for a large armed cutter promptly appeared and came to the shallop’s rescue.  Seeing that he was overmatched, Bland, therefore, sheered off.  During the same month Captain Whitehead, of the Eagle, to whom we have already referred, reported that he seldom went for a cruise without being fired on, and he mentioned that sometimes these smuggling vessels carried musket-proof breast-works—­a kind of early armour-plating, in fact.

The principal rendezvous of the smuggling craft in the North Sea was Robin Hood’s Bay.  Whenever the cruisers used to approach that bight the smugglers would sail out, fire upon them, and drive them along the coast.  Before firing, the smugglers always hoisted English colours, and on one occasion a smuggling craft had the temerity to run alongside a Revenue cruiser, hail her, and in a derisive manner ordered the commander to send his boat aboard.  We spoke just now of the superior sailing qualities which these smuggling craft frequently possessed over the Revenue cruisers, and on one occasion, in the North Sea, the