were any boats quartered within the neighbourhood of each port, timely notice of the day and hour of the intended search was to be sent by the Collector and Controller in confidence to the commanding officer only, that he might hold his soldiers in readiness.  Yet, again the Board exhorted the Revenue officers “to exert yourselves to the utmost of your power ... and as it is very probable that the places where such boats and vessels are kept may be known to the officers who have long resided at your port, you are to acquaint such officers that if they value their characters or employments, or have any regard to the solemn oath they took at their admission, we expect they will, on this occasion, give the fullest and most ample information of all such places, and will cheerfully afford every other aid and assistance in their power, to the end that the said vessels and boats may be discovered and seized.

“And to prevent them from being launched into the water, and carried off by the smugglers after seizure, you are to cause one of the streaks (= strakes) or planks to be ripped off near the keel, taking care at the same time to do as little other injury to each boat as possible.”

We now come to witness the reappearance of an old friend of whom we last made mention in the North Sea.  The year we are now to consider is 1788, and the 15th of July.  On that day H.M. cutter Kite was sailing from Beachy Head to the westward.  She passed to the southward of the Isle of Wight without sighting it, as the weather was thick.  Later in the day it cleared as they got near to the Dorsetshire coast, and about 7.30 P.M., when they were between Peveril Point (near Swanage) and St. Alban’s Head, and it was clearer and still not night, the ship’s surgeon discovered a vessel some distance away on the weather bow.  The weather had now cleared so much that the house on the top of St. Alban’s Head was quite visible.  The surgeon called the attention of a midshipman on board to the strange vessel.  The midshipman, whose name was Cornelius Quinton, took a bearing, and found that the stranger bore W.S.W. from the cutter, and was steering E.S.E.  He also took a bearing of Peveril Point, which bore N.1/2W., and judged the smuggler to be about 9 miles from Peveril Point.  About 8 o’clock the cutter began to give chase, and this continued until 11 P.M., the course being now S.E.  After a time the lugger hauled up a point, so that she was heading S.E. by S., the wind being moderate S.W.  During the chase the lugger did her best to get away from the cutter, and set her main topsail.  The cutter at the time was reefed, but when she saw the lugger’s topsail going up she shook out her reefs and set her gaff topsail.  It was some little time before the Kite had made up her mind that she was a smuggler, for at first she was thought to be one of the few Revenue luggers which were employed in the service.  About 11 o’clock, then, the Kite was fast overhauling her, notwithstanding that the lugger, by luffing up that extra point, came more on the wind and so increased her pace.  It was at first a cloudy night—­and perhaps that may have made the Kite’s skipper a little nervous, for he could hardly need to be reefed in a moderate breeze—­but presently the sky cleared.