sex. The aim was to make the Coastguard service national
rather than departmental. To promote the greatest efficiency it was
become naval rather than civil. It was to be for the benefit of the
country as a nation, than for the protecting merely of its revenues.
Thus there was a kind of somersault performed; and the whole of the
original idea capsized. Whereas the Preventive service had been
instituted for the benefit of the Customs, and then, as an
after-thought, became employed for protection against the enemy across
the Channel, so now it was to be exactly the other way on. The Revenue
was to be subservient to the greater and national factor.

In this same 1831, the number of cruisers had risen to thirty-five in
England, but many of them had tenders. There were altogether
twenty-one of these latter and smaller craft, their tonnage varying
from twenty-five to sixty. And the next year the Mounted Guard was
reorganised and the Riding Officers disappeared. With the cordon of
cruisers afloat, and the more efficient Coastguard service ashore,
there was a double belt round our coasts, which could be relied upon
both for national and Revenue services. By this time, too, steam was
invading the domain of the ship, and in 1839, besides the
old-fashioned sailing cutters and tenders, there was a steamer named
the _Vulcan_, of 200 tons, taken into the service, her duty being to
cruise about and search for suspicious vessels. In some parts of the
country, also, there was assistance still rendered by the Mounted
Guard for watching the roads leading inland from the beach to prevent
goods being brought up.

With this increased efficiency it was but natural that a change should
come over the character of the smuggling. Force was fast going out of
date. Except for a number of rather startling occasions, but on the
whole of exceptional occurrence, violence had gone out of fashion. But
because of the increased vigilance along the coast the smuggler was
hard put to devise new methods of running his goods into the country
without being surprised by the officials. Most, if not all, of the old
syndicates of French and Englishmen, who made smuggling a roaring
trade, had died out. The armed cutters had long since given way to the
luggers as the smuggling craft. Stealth had taken the place of
violence, concealments and sunken goods were favoured rather than
those daring and outrageous incursions which had been in the past wont
to take place.