r vessel, which they suspected of smuggling, the
cruiser was to accompany such craft into port. And they were enjoined
to be particularly careful to guard East India ships to their
moorings, or until, the next station having been reached, they could
be handed over to the next cruiser.

The commanders of the cruisers were also to be on their guard against
the practice in vogue among ships that had been to Holland and France
with coals, for these craft were especially prone on their return to
putting dutiable goods into light craft from London, or on the coast,
but chiefly into cobbles or small fishing craft at sea. And even when
it should happen that a cruiser had to be detained in port for
repairs, the commander was to spare as many officers and seamen as
possible and to employ these in keeping a regular watch on the high
grounds near the sea, so as to watch what was passing, and, if
necessary, despatch a boat and part of the cruiser's crew. The
commanders were reminded that the cruisers were not to wear the
colours used in the Royal Navy, but to wear the same ensigns and
pendants as provided by the Revenue Board under 24 Geo. III. c. 47,
sect. 23.

On a previous page we went into the matter of firing at the smuggling
craft with shotted or with unshotted guns. Now among the instructions
which were issued by the Admiralty on taking over these Revenue
cruisers was the clear order that no officer of a cruiser or boat was
justified in shooting at a suspected smuggling vessel until the former
shall have first hoisted his pendant and ensign, nor unless a gun
shall have been first fired as a signal. The date of this, of course,
was 1816. But among the documents preserved at the Swansea Custom
House there is an interesting letter dated July 1806, written by the
Collector to Mr. Hobhouse, stating that a Mr. Barber, the
sailing-master of the _Cleveland_, had been committed for trial on a
charge of wilful murder, he having fired a shot to cause a boat to
bring-to and thus killed a man. This, taken in conjunction with the
testimony of the Sheerness Coastguard, to which I alluded by
anticipation and shall mention again, seems to me fairly conclusive
that in _practice_ at least there was no fixed rule as to whether the
first gun were shotted or unshotted. At the same time the above quoted
instruction from the Admiralty, although loosely worded, would seem to
have meant that the first gun was merely to be of the nature of a
warning