"We direct you to convene the officers of the Waterguard belonging to your port," write the Commissioners to the Collector and Controller at each station, "including the officers and crew of the cruiser stationed there, and strictly to enjoin them whether on board cruisers or boats in no instance to fire on any smuggling vessel or boat, either by night (whether it be dark or light), or by day, without first hoisting the colours and firing a gun as a signal, as directed by law, and to take care that on any boat being sent out armed either from the shore or from a cruiser, in pursuit of seizures or any other purpose, such boat be furnished with a proper flag." Two years later, on April 11, 1809, it was decided that cruisers could legally wear a pendant "conformable to the King's Proclamation of the 1st January 1801," when requiring a vessel that was liable to seizure or examination to heave-to, or when chasing such a vessel, but "at no other time." It is important to bear in mind that the flags of chase were special emblems, and quite different from the ceremonial flags borne on the Customs buildings, hulks, and vessels not used actually in the chasing of smugglers.
In addition to my own independent research on this subject I am indebted for being allowed to make use of some MS. notes on this interesting subject collected by Mr. Atton, Librarian of the Custom House; and in spite of the unfortunate gaps which exist in the historical chain, the following is the only possible attempt at a connected story of the Custom House flag's evolution. We have already explained that from the year 1674 to 1815 the Revenue Preventive work was under a mixed control. We have also seen that in the year 1730 the Board of Customs called attention to the Proclamation of December 18, 1702, that no ships were to wear a pendant except those of the Royal Navy, but that the sloops employed in the several public offices might wear Jacks with the seal of the respective office.
From a report made by the Harwich Customs in 1726 it is clear that the King's colours were at that date hoisted when a Revenue cruiser chased a suspect. But as to what the "King's Colours" were no one to-day knows. Among the regulations issued to the Revenue cruisers in 1816 the commanders were informed that they were not to wear the colours used in the Royal Navy, but to wear the same pendants and ensigns as were provided by the Revenue Board. By 24 George III. cap. 47, certain signals of chase were prescribed. Thus, if the cruiser were a Naval vessel she was to hoist "the proper pendant and ensign of H.M. ships." If a Custom House vessel she was to hoist a blue Customs ensign and pendant "with the marks now used." If an Excise vessel, a blue ensign and pendant "with the marks now used." After this had been done, and a gun fired (shotted or unshotted) as a warning signal, she might fire if the smuggler failed to heave-to. And this regulation is by the Customs Consolidation Act of 1876 still in force, and might to-day be made use of in the case of an obstinate North Sea cooper. What one would like to know is what were the marks in use from 1784 to 1815. Mr. Atton believes that these marks were as follows:—
At the masthead: a blue pendant with the Union in canton and the Customs badge of office (a castellated structure with portcullis over the entrance, and two barred windows and two port-holes, one barred and one open, the latter doubtless to signify that through which the goods might enter) in the fly.
At the gaff: a blue ensign similarly marked.
The English Excise, the Scottish Customs, Scottish Excise, and the Irish Revenue signals of chase were blue pendants and ensigns similarly flown, but as to the badges of office one cannot be certain. The matter of English Customs flags has been obscured by the quotation in Marryat's The King's Own, where a smuggler is made to remark on seeing a Revenue vessel's flag, "Revenue stripes, by the Lord." It has been suggested that the bars of the castle port and portcullis in the seal were called "stripes" by the sailors of that day, inasmuch as they called the East India Company's flag of genuine stripes the "gridiron." But to me it seems much more likely that the following is the explanation for calling a Revenue cutter's flag "stripes." The signal flags Nos. 7 and 8, which were used by the Royal Navy in 1746 to order a chase both consisted of stripes.[15] No. 7 consisted of eleven horizontal stripes, viz. six red and five white. Flag No. 8 had nine horizontal stripes, viz. red, white, blue repeated three times, the red being uppermost. I submit that in sailor's slang these signals would be commonly referred to as "stripes." Consequently whatever flags subsequently would be used to signal a chase would be known also as "stripes." Therefore whatever signal might be flown in the Revenue service when chasing would be known as "stripes" also.
But by an Order in Council of the 1st of February 1817, the pendant and ensign were to be thus:—
The pendant to have a red field having a regal crown thereon at the upper part next the mast. The ensign to be a red Jack with a Union Jack in a canton at the upper corner next the staff, and with a regal crown in the centre of the red Jack. This was to be worn by all vessels employed in the prevention of smuggling under the Admiralty, Treasury, Customs or Excise.
Now during an interesting trial at the Admiralty Sessions held at the Old Bailey in April of 1825, concerning the chasing of a smuggler by a Revenue cruiser, Lieutenant Henry Nazer, R.N., who was commanding the cutter, stated in his evidence that when he came near this smuggling vessel the former hoisted the Revenue pendant at the masthead, which he described as "a red field with a crown next the mast at the upper part of it." He also hoisted the Revenue ensign at the peak-end, the "Union at the upper corner in a red field," the field of the ensign being also red. It had a Jack in the corner. This, then, was exactly in accordance with the Order in Council of 1817 mentioned above.
But my own opinion relative to the firing of the first gun is in favour of the proposition that this was not necessarily unshotted. I shall refer in greater detail to the actual incidents, here quoted, on a later page, but for our present purpose the following is strong proof in favour of this suggestion. During a trial in the year 1840 (Attorney-General v. William Evans) it transpired that Evans had entered the Medway in a smack without heaving-to, and the following questions and answers respectively were made by counsel and Richard Braddy, a coastguard who at the time of the incident was on duty at Garrison Fort (Sheerness):—