If we may anticipate for a moment in order to preserve continuity, let us add that in the year 1821 this span of coast was divided into three, each division being subdivided into four districts. The divisions were under the superintendence of a senior lieutenant, a midshipman, one petty officer of the first class and one of the second. The districts, on the other hand, were under the superintendence of a junior lieutenant. The men were divided into parties of ten, each party having about a mile of coastline, and guard-houses were established along the coast at a distance of about every four miles. The seamen volunteered into the service, and, if found effective, of good character, but had no relatives in the neighbourhood, they were accepted. The object of this last condition was to prevent their showing any sympathy with the smugglers of the district. These men undertook to serve for three years, and for payment of wages they were borne on the books of any of his Majesty's ships.
We can thus see how gradually the influence of the Admiralty had been exerted over the Preventive work which had been carried on by the Customs. There are then three steps. First in assisting the Revenue cruisers, and, lastly, by taking charge of the Land-guard. The proof of the wisdom of this change was seen in results, for the Revenue derived better protection because of the Admiralty influence. There was better discipline, greater activity, and a smarter look-out was kept. Thus it came about that in that very south-eastern district which had been for so long a time notorious for its nefarious trade, the smugglers found their calling a very difficult one. And both these changes in respect of cruisers and Land-guard had been made certainly not with the enthusiastic support of the Board of Customs, who had indeed expressed their doubts as to whether such a transformation were prudent.
Some idea of the number of his Majesty's ships and vessels which were employed in the prevention of smuggling in the year 1819 may be gathered from the following list. It should, however, be mentioned that these did not include the numbers of Custom House cruisers which the Admiralty had begun to control, but were actually the Naval ships which aided those of the Revenue:—
Plymouth supplied 10 ships and 4 tenders
Portsmouth supplied 8 ships and 3 tenders
Sheerness supplied 8 ships and 2 tenders
Leith supplied 7 ships and 1 tender
Ireland supplied 12 ships and 1 tender
at a total cost of £245,519. But it should also be borne in mind that these ships of the Navy, or at any rate by far the greater number of them, would have been in commission whether employed or not in the prevention of smuggling, and in certain cases these ships were employed in the Preventive service for only a part of the year. Without the Revenue cutters the Navy could not possibly have dealt with the smugglers, and this was actually admitted in a Treasury Minute of January 15, 1822. The total number of Revenue cruisers employed in Great Britain and Ireland during the year 1819, as distinct from the ships of the Royal Navy, amounted to 69. The following year this number had increased to 70. These were apportioned thus:—
| 20 | under the Commander-in-Chief at Sheerness |
| 11 | under the Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth |
| 14 | under the Commander-in-Chief at Plymouth |
| 12 | under the Commander-in-Chief at Leith |
| 11 | were employed in Ireland |
| 11 | were employed in Ireland |
| 2 | were employed by the Commissioners of Customs |
| 70 |
To sum up then with regard to the Preventive Water-guard, let us state that this had been constituted in 1809 to supplement the efforts of the cruisers and Riding officers, the coast of England and Wales being divided into three parts, and placed under the control of Inspecting Commanders. Under this arrangement were included the Revenue cruisers themselves. Then in 1816 the Admiralty had taken over these cruisers from the Preventive Water-guard, and the following year the Coast Blockade had taken over that portion of the coast between the Forelands, to be extended in 1818 to Shellness and Seaford respectively.
The sphere of activity on the part of the Preventive Water-guard was thus by the year 1819 considerably curtailed, and from the instructions which were now issued to the Inspecting Commanders we can see how the rest of the coastline other than that section just considered was dealt with. Each station consisted of one chief officer, one chief boatman, two commissioned boatmen, and four established boatmen. There was a six-oared boat with her rudder and wash-boards—"wash-streaks" they are officially called—a five-fathom rope as a light painter, eight good ash oars, two boat-hooks. She was a sailing craft, for she was provided with a fore-mast, main-mast, and mizzen-mast, with "haul-yards," travellers, down-hauls, sheets, &c. Her canvas consisted of foresail, mainsail, and mizzen with a yard for each. She carried also a jib, the casks for water and provisions, a boat's "bittacle" (= binnacle), with compass and lamp. She was further furnished with a couple of creeping irons for getting up the smugglers' kegs, a grapnel, a chest of arms and ammunition, the Custom House Jack and spy-glass as already mentioned.
This vessel was rigged as a three-masted lugger with a jib. There is no mention of a bowsprit, so either one of the oars or a boat-hook would have to be employed for that purpose. In addition to this larger boat there was also on the station a light four-oared gig fitted with mast, yard (or "spreet"), a 7 lb. hand lead, 20 fathoms of line for the latter, as well as ballast bags to fill with stones or sand. If the established crews were inadequate during emergency extra men could be hired. The boats were painted twice a year, but "always to be completed before the bad weather sets in, and the colours to be assimilated as near as possible to those used by the natives and smugglers which frequent the coast which are least conspicuous."
If any of the established boatmen intermarried with families of notorious smugglers the Inspecting Commander was to send information to the Controller-General. Furthermore, no one was to be appointed to any station within twenty miles of his place of birth or within twenty miles of the place where he had resided for six months previous to this appointment.