explaining their conduct by saying that no provision was made for
their support in case they received injury during these encounters. To
meet such objections as these the Board resolved to allow the sum of
£10 per annum to every mariner employed on board their cruisers who
should lose a hand or foot, or receive any greater injury by firearms
"or other offensive weapons of the smugglers while in the actual
execution of their duty so as to disable them from further service;
and we have also resolved to pay the surgeons' bills for such of the
mariners as may receive slighter wounds." But it was stipulated that
no allowance was to be paid unless certificates were produced from the
commanders of these cruisers.

And before we go any further with the progress of these cutters, let
us afford actual instances of the kind of treatment which had led the
Board to make this allowance to its men. Three years before the above
resolution, that is to say on April 24, 1777, Captain Mitchell was
cruising in command of the Revenue cutter _Swallow_ in the North Sea.
Off Robin Hood's Bay he fell in with a smuggling cutter commanded by a
notorious contraband skipper who was known as "Smoker," or "Smoaker."
Mitchell was evidently in sufficient awe of him to give him a wide
berth, for the cruiser's commander in his official report actually
recorded that "Smoker" "waved us to keep off"! However, a few days
later, the _Swallow_, when off the Spurn, fell in with another famous
smuggler. This was the schooner _Kent_, of about two hundred tons,
skippered by a man known as "Stoney." Again did this gallant Revenue
captain send in his report to the effect that "as their guns were in
readiness, and at the same time waving us to go to the Northward, we
were, by reason of their superior force, obliged to sheer off, but did
our best endeavours to spoil his Market. There [_sic_] being a large
fleet of colliers with him."