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
by reason both of themselves and the chases and fights in which they
were engaged. The King's cutters were employed, as many people are
aware, as well in international warfare as in the Preventive Service.
There is an interesting letter, for instance, to be read from
Lieutenant Henry Rowed, commanding the Admiralty cutter _Sheerness_,
dated September 9, 1803, off Brest, in which her gallant commander
sends a notable account to Collingwood concerning the chasing of a
French _chasse-maree_. And cutters were also employed in connection
with the Walcheren expedition. The hired armed cutter _Stag_ was found
useful in 1804 as a despatch vessel.

But the King's cutters in the Revenue work were not always as active
as they might be. In one of his novels (_The Three Cutters_) Captain
Marryat gives the reader a very plain hint that there was a good deal
of slackness prevalent in this section of the service. Referring to
the midshipman of the Revenue cutter _Active_, the author speaks of
him as a lazy fellow, too inert even to mend his jacket which was out
at elbows, and adds, "He has been turned out of half the ships in the
service for laziness; but he was born so, and therefore it is not his
fault. A Revenue cutter suits him--she is half her time hove-to; and
he has no objection to boat-service, as he sits down in the
stern-sheets, which is not fatiguing. Creeping for tubs is his
delight, as he gets over so little ground."

But Marryat was, of course, intentionally sarcastic here. That this
lazy element was not always, and in every ship, prevalent is clear
from the facts at hand. It is also equally clear from the repeated
admonitions and exhortations of the Board of Customs, by the
holding-out of handsome rewards and the threatenings of dire
penalties, that the Revenue-cutter commanders were at any rate
peri