cargo, owing to the great assistance which was given from the people
on the shore. For, as it was officially pointed out, as soon as one of
these vessels was sighted 300 people could usually be relied on with
200 or more carts and waggons to render the necessary service.
Therefore the commanders of the cutters sought legal advice as to how
they should act on meeting with luggers and cutters without Admiralty
passes on the English coast but more or less protected with foreign
papers and sailing under foreign colours.

The matter was referred to the Attorney-General, who gave his opinion
that vessels were forfeitable only in the event of their being the
property in whole or part of his Majesty's subjects; but where the
crew of such a vessel appeared all to be English subjects, or at any
rate the greatest part of them, it was his opinion that there was a
sufficient reason for seizing the vessel if she was near the English
coast. She was then to be brought into port so that, if she could, she
might prove that she belonged wholly to foreigners. "A British
subject," continued the opinion, "being made a burgher of Ostend does
not thereby cease to be a subject. Vessels hovering within four
leagues of the British coast, with an illicit cargo, as that of this
vessel appears to have been, are forfeited whether they are the
property of Britons or foreigners."

It was not once but on various occasions that the Customs Board
expressed themselves as dissatisfied with the amount of success which
their cruisers had attained in respect of the work allotted to them.
At the beginning of the year 1782 they referred to "the enormous
increase of smuggling, the outrages with which it is carried on, the
mischiefs it occasions to the country, the discouragement it creates
to all fair traders, and the prodigious loss the Revenue sustains by