The Sea Rovers

by Rufus Rockwell Wilson

CHAPTER V THE POLICE OF THE COAST

The revenue cutter, though perhaps the least known, is one of the most useful branches of the Federal service. Its creation antedates by several years that of the navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It polices the coast as the navy polices the ocean, and its duties are as varied as they are weighty and important. It cruises constantly from the fever infected regions of the Gulf to the icebound shores of the Arctic Sea. It is the terror and constant menace of the smuggler and poacher. It sees to it that the quarantine is strictly maintained, and that the neutrality laws are not violated by the greedy and lawless of our own and other lands. It is prompt in the prevention of piracy, and suppresses mutiny with a heavy hand. It looks after emigrant ships and enforces the license and registry statutes. Last, but not least, it gives timely succor to the shipwrecked and annually preserves hundreds of lives and millions of dollars' worth of property. And so, wherever one familiar with its history falls in with its trim white cutters, whether in the sunny courses of the Gulf, or on the borders of the great Atlantic highway, off the bleak New England coast, in the crowded harbors of our lake ports, or in the still waters of the Pacific, he is sure to give them glad, respectful greeting, as modest, graceful emblems not alone of our country's greatness, but better still, of duty bravely and nobly done.

The Revenue Cutter Service celebrated the centennial anniversary of its existence sixteen years ago, having been organized in 1790. The credit for its creation belongs to Alexander Hamilton, that great first Secretary of the Treasury, to whom we owe so much, and whose memory in these days of self-vaunting mediocrity we too often neglect to honor. His was a vision that saw clearly all the needs of the future, and as early as 1789 he earnestly advised the employment of "boats for the security of the revenue against contraband." A little later he submitted to Congress a bill providing for a fleet of ten boats, to be thus distributed along the seaboard: Two for the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coast, one for Long Island Sound, one for New York, one for the waters of the Delaware Bay, two for the Chesapeake and its environs and one each for North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. Congress accepted the Secretary's recommendations, and in a few months ten swift cutters were built, armed and equipped, each vessel being manned by a crew of ten men.

Thus was born the Revenue Cutter Service, a modest fleet of small, speedy vessels only a little larger than the yawls of the present time. In addition to their pay, the officers and crews received a part of the amounts derived from fines, penalties and forfeitures collected in case of seizures and for breaches of the navigation and customs laws, but later the officers were given larger salaries and the payment of prize money abolished. At first only a small force was required to adequately protect the commerce of an extensive yet thinly populated coast, but our foreign trade grew so rapidly, and the importance of our shipping interests increased so steadily, that it soon became clear that a strong cordon of well equipped and speedy cruisers would be necessary for their effective protection. For this reason, Congress, in 1799, gave the President authority to equip and maintain as many revenue cutters as he should deem necessary for the proper policing of our coast-line.

And thus the Revenue Cutter Service grew in size and became more efficient with each passing year. During the first quarter century of its existence, it was almost constantly in the eyes of the public, and its daring deeds frequently afforded welcome material to the novelists of the period. Among its duties it was charged with the suppression of piracy, even so late as the opening of the last century, a serious menace to commerce; and it also waged a constant and relentless war against smugglers and smuggling. Those were the palmy days of the smuggler, who often made reckless hazard of his life in the illegal race for gain. Steam vessels had not yet come into use, and speed and safety then lay in trim lines and mighty spreads of canvas. Smugglers' schooners, sharp built, light of draught, and with enormous sails, were constantly hovering in the offing, biding some favorable opportunity to discharge cargoes upon which no duty had been paid.

It was the business of the Revenue Cutter Service to keep watch upon these vultures of the sea, spoiling them of their quarry, and in this way sprang up hand-to-hand encounters both by sea and land, sudden, sharp and terrible, in which many a gallant life was lost and fame and honor won. Now, however, the pirate and the smuggler, at least of the bold life-risking sort, have passed to the limbo of forgotten things, and the officers and men of the Revenue Cutter Service no longer win glory and a reputation for bullet-chasing courage in their suppression. The new field which they have built up for themselves, is daring and full of danger, but it has not the same interest for the general public, and so their deeds of heroism are now performed in out-of-the-way corners, with no herald present to trumpet them to the world, and with the pleasant consciousness of duty well done as their only reward.

The Revenue Cutter Service in time of war has always co-operated promptly and effectively with the navy against the foe. Indeed, the cutters belonging to the Revenue Cutter Service have taken a gallant and active part in all the wars of the United States save one. In 1797, when war with France threatened, the Revenue Cutter Service was placed on a war footing, and by its promptness and vigilance, did much to uphold the dignity and prestige of the Federal Government. In the following year a number of cutters cruised with diligence and daring in West Indian waters, and the record of the Revenue Cutter Service in guarding the seaboard and preventing the departure of unauthorized merchant ships, while the embargo act of 1807 was in force, was also a fine one.

Its services during the War of 1812 were as varied as they were brilliant. Not only did its vessels successfully essay perilous missions, but they also took a gallant part in many of the most hotly contested naval actions of the war. In fact, to the cutter Jefferson and its gallant crew belong the credit for the first marine capture of that contest, for within a week of the proclamation of war the Jefferson fell in with and captured the British schooner Patriot, with a valuable cargo, while on her way from Guadeloupe to Halifax. And this proved only a fitting prelude to a hundred illustrious deeds performed by the officers and crews of the Revenue Cutter Service during the following three years. In the second year of the war the revenue cutter Vigilance overhauled and after a sharp engagement captured the British privateer Dart, off Newport, while the cutters Madison and Gallatin carried many rich prizes into the ports of Charleston and Savannah.

When in 1832 South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union, several cutters cruised off the Carolina coast, ready to assert by force the supremacy of the Federal Government. During the Seminole War revenue cutters were not only actively engaged in transporting troops and munitions, but were also of great service in protecting the settlements along the Florida coast. During the Mexican War eight revenue cutters formed a part of the naval squadron operating against the southern republic and participated gallantly in the assault on Alvarado and Tobasco, while the revenue cutters McLane and Forward contributed materially to the success of Commodore Perry's expedition against Tobasco and Frontera in October, 1846.