Before the first quarter of the eighteenth century was completed,
smuggling between England and the Continent was proceeding at a brisk
pace, and by the middle of that century it had well-nigh reached its
climax for fearlessness. We have already alluded to the establishment
of hired smacks and sloops inaugurated towards the end of the
seventeenth century. The sloop rig, as I have shown in another
volume,[2] had probably been introduced into England from Holland soon
after the accession of Charles II., but from that date its merits of
handiness were so fully recognised that for yachts, for fishing craft,
for the carrying of passengers and cargo up and down the Thames and
along the coast as well as across to Ireland and the Continent, the
rig was adopted very readily in place of the lug-sails. The smack was
also a sloop-rigged vessel. We need not enter here into a discussion
as to the comparative merits of sloops and cutters and smacks. It is
enough if we state that when it was realised that a vessel of say 100
tons, sloop-rigged, with her one mast, mainsail, and two headsails and
square topsail (set forward of the mast on a yard) could be handled
with fewer men and therefore less expense than a lugger of similar
size; was also more suitable for manoeuvring in narrow channels,
and for entering and leaving small harbours, the fishermen, coasters,
and so on took to this improvement. Thus most naturally the larger
smuggling craft were till well on into the nineteenth century sloops
or cutters, and equally natural was it that the Revenue availed
themselves of this rig first by hiring smacks, and, later, by building
for themselves. These sloops, whether hired or owned, were given each
a particular station to guard, and that plan was followed by the
Revenue cruisers for many years to follow. Among the Exeter documents
of the Customs Department is included an interesting document dated
July 10, 1703, wherein the Board of Customs informs the collector at