original, authentic manuscripts and official documents. Included under
this head may be cited the Minutes of the Board of Customs, General
Letters of the Board to the Collectors and Controllers of the various
Out-ports, Out-port Letters to the Board, the transcripts from
shorthand notes of Assizes and Promiscuous Trials of Smugglers, a
large quantity of MSS. of remarkable incidents connected with
smuggling, miscellaneous notes collected on the subject in the Library
of the Customs House, instructions issued at different times to
Customs officers and commanders of cruisers, General Orders issued to
the Coastguard, together with a valuable précis (unpublished) of the
existing documents in the many Customs Houses along the English coast
made in the year 1911 by the Librarian to the Board of Customs on a
round of visits to the different ports for that purpose. These
researches have been further supplemented by other documents in the
British Museum and elsewhere.

This volume, therefore, contains within its pages a very large amount
of material hitherto unpublished, and, additional to the details
gathered together regarding smuggling methods, especial attention has
been paid to collect all possible information concerning the Revenue
sloops and cutters so frequently alluded to in those days as cruisers.
I have so often heard a desire expressed among those interested in the
literature of the sea to learn all about the King's cutters, how they
were rigged, manned, victualled, armed, and navigated, what were their
conditions of service at sea, and so on--finally, to obtain accounts
of their chasing of smuggling craft, accounts based on the narratives
of eye-witnesses of the incidents, the testimony of the commanders and
crews themselves, both captors and captives, that I have been here at
some pains to present the most complete picture of the subject that
has hitherto been attempted. These cutters were most interesting craft