get to land. As to the
_Georges_ herself, she was found to be almost a new vessel. She was
described as a handsome craft, "and very much the appearance of a
yacht, and carries a white burgee at her masthead with a red cross in
it, similar to vessels belonging to the Yacht Club."

The reference to the "Yacht Club" signifies the Royal Yacht Squadron,
which was originally called the Royal Yacht Club. In those days the
number of yachts was very few compared with the fleets afloat to-day.
Some of the Royal Yacht Club's cutters were faster than any smuggler
or Revenue craft, and it was quite a good idea for a smuggler built
with yacht-like lines to fly the club's flag if he was anxious to
deceive the cruisers and coastguards by day. Some years before this
incident there was found on board a smuggling lugger named the
_Maria_, which was captured by the Revenue cruiser _Prince of Wales_
about the year 1830, a broad red pendant marked with a crown over the
letters "R.Y.C.," and an anchor similar to those used by the Royal
Yacht Club. One of the _Maria's_ crew admitted that they had it on
board because they thought it might have been serviceable to their
plans. The point is not without interest, and, as far as I know, has
never before been raised.

But to conclude our narrative of the _Georges_. As it was pointed out
that she was such a fine vessel, and that Lyme Cobb (as many a
seafaring man to-day knows full well) was very unsafe in a gale of
wind, it was suggested that she should be removed to Weymouth "by part
of one of the cutters' crews that occasionally call in here." So on
the 7th of September in that year she was fetched away to Weymouth by
Lieutenant Sicklemore, R.N. She and her boat were valued at L240, but
she was found to be of such a beautiful model that she was neither
destroyed nor sold, but taken into the Revenue service as a cutter to
prevent the trade in which she had been so actively employed.

And so we could continue with these smuggling yarns; but the extent of
our limits has been reached, so we must draw to a close. If the
smuggling epoch was marred by acts of brutality, if its ships still
needed to have those improvements in design and equipment which have
to-day reached such a high mark of distinction, if its men were men
not altogether admirable characters, at any rate their seamanship and
their daring, their ingenuity and their exploits, cannot but incite us
to the keenest interest in an exceptiona