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.

AN OFFICER IN THE REVENUE CUTTER SERVICE

Finally, a volume would be required to adequately record the work of the Revenue Cutter Service during the Civil War. Its cutters were employed as despatch boats, joined in the pursuit of blockade runners, did guard and scouting duty, and often shared in engagements with Confederate batteries and vessels. In truth, it was a revenue cutter, the Harriet Lane, which, in Charleston Harbor, in April, 1861, fired on the Union side, the first shot of the Civil War. The Harriet Lane was long the pride of the Revenue Cutter Service, and had a notable career. Named after the beautiful and gracious niece of President Buchanan, she participated in the naval expedition to Paraguay, and during the Civil War was often under fire. Again, during the war with Spain, the Revenue Cutter Service achieved an enviable and heroic record.

The proper patrol of our long coast line requires a large number of vessels, and the Revenue Cutter Service at the present time has a complement of thirty-seven vessels, all splendidly adapted to the work in hand. During the last sixty years steamers have slowly but steadily replaced the top-sail schooners of the old days, and the vessels now employed by the Revenue Cutter Service are, with one or two exceptions, small, compact, well-built steamers, which, save for the guns they carry, might easily be mistaken for swift steam yachts. In size they range from 130 to 500 tons burden. The majority of them have been built under the direct supervision of officers of the service and are perfectly adapted to the varying wants of the several stations. Nearly all of them are armed with from two to four breech-loading rifled cannon and carry small arms for the use of their crews. Most of the vessels bear the names of former secretaries and assistant secretaries of the Treasury, but the Andrew Johnson, the William H. Seward and U. S. Grant are also among the names to be found on the list. The U. S. Grant, which does duty at Port Townsend, is a bark-rigged steam propeller, and a model of its size and type. Strange to say, it is the only ship of the United States that bears the name of the greatest captain of his age.

The vessels of the Revenue Cutter Service are always ready for instant duty in the most distant quarters. When, in 1867, Alaska became a part of the United States, within a week after the ratification of the treaty, the revenue cutter Lincoln was steaming northward, and was the first to obtain accurate information regarding the geography, resources and climate of our new possession. Three or more revenue cutters now cruise every year in Alaskan waters, guarding the seal fisheries and often giving much needed relief to the whaling fleet that yearly sails from San Francisco for a cruise in the waters above the Behring Sea.

Officers and crews of the cutters doing service in the waters of Alaska have remarkable stories to tell, and the log-books of the cutters Corwin and Bear have been filled during the last twenty-five years with a record all too brief, of many thrilling adventures in the frozen North. The Corwin left San Francisco for the Polar Sea in May, 1881, charged with ascertaining, if possible, the fate of two missing whalers, and to establish communication with the exploring steamer Jeanette. Five times during the previous year the Corwin had attempted to reach Herald Island, and failed each time. On this voyage better success attended, and after braving the perils of the drift ice, a landing was made, while at the same time the bleak coast of Wrangel Land was sighted to the westward. On August 12, 1881, the Corwin having pushed its way through great masses of floating and grounded ice, into an open space near the island, effected a landing on Wrangel Land, this being the first time that white men had ever succeeded in reaching that remote corner of the Arctic waste.

The cruises of the Corwin in 1880 and 1881 covered over 12,000 miles, and the officers and crew, while carefully preventing illegal raids upon the sealing interests, also found time to prosecute important surveys and soundings, to make a careful study of the natives of Alaska, and to collect a great mass of important data relative to the natural features and mineral wealth of the country. The cruises of the Corwin in the succeeding years of 1882, 1883, 1884 and 1885, were of scarcely less importance. One of these cruises was to St. Lawrence Bay, Siberia, where timely succor was given to the officers and crew of the burned naval relief steamer Rogers, which had gone north in the spring of 1881 in search of the Jeanette. During the Corwin's cruise in 1883 a considerable portion of the interior of Alaska was carefully explored and an outbreak among the natives on the mainland promptly quelled. During its two succeeding cruises the Corwin saved from death nearly 100 shipwrecked whalers and destitute miners.

Since 1885 the cutter Bear has patrolled the Alaskan waters, making a record equal to that of its predecessor. Its work in protecting the sealing fisheries is well known, and it has also suppressed in large measure the illegal sale to the natives of firearms and spirits. Its record as a life saver is also a long one, and some of its experiences have been more thrilling than those to be found in the pages of any romance.

When the Bear reached Alaskan waters in 1887 the captain of the whaling ship Hunter handed its commander a most remarkable message, which had been delivered to him a few days before by the natives of Cape Behring. This message consisted of a piece of wood, on one side of which was rudely carved: "1887 J. B. V. Bk. Nap. Tobacco give," and on the other "S. W. C. Nav. M 10 help come."

The riddle offered by the message was speedily solved by the officers of the Bear. The bark Napoleon had been wrecked in 1885 off Cape Navarin, and only fourteen of the crew of thirty-six men had been rescued. Of the unlucky twenty-two a few reached the Siberian shore, but nothing had been heard of their subsequent fate. The officers of the Bear reasoned that the sender of the message was a member of the Napoleon's crew who had found refuge with the natives to the southwest of Cape Navarin and was now anxiously awaiting rescue. This reasoning proved correct, and a few weeks later the weary two years' exile of James B. Vincent, of Edgartown, Mass., boatswain of the Napoleon, had a happy termination.

The story Vincent told his rescuers, was of tragic and absorbing interest. The Napoleon, caught in a storm, had been wedged in the ice and its crew compelled to take to the boats. The boats, four in number, were soon separated, and thirty-six days of fearful suffering passed before the one containing Vincent and his companions reached shore. In the meantime nine of the eighteen men in the boat had died and several others had been driven insane by their sufferings. Vincent was the only one who could walk when they reached land. Five more soon died and three of the survivors were helpless from frost bites and exhaustion when they fell in with a party of natives. A portion of the latter lived inland, and these took Vincent with them when they returned to their homes. The following Spring when the natives visited the shore to fish, Vincent found his three shipmates barely alive, and they died soon after.

When the fishing was over Vincent went back to the mountains with his new-found friends, and during the following winter carved and entrusted to wandering natives from Cape Behring the message which later brought about his rescue. When spring of the second year opened Vincent, with the natives, again started for the seashore to fish. Great was his joy a few weeks later when he was attracted by the shouting of the natives and looked up to see a white man and to find himself rescued at last. The Bear conveyed him to San Francisco, whence he made his way to his home in Massachusetts.

While among the Eskimo, Vincent was kindly cared for by an old native, whose wife received him as her son. After a year the husband died, but his last instructions to his wife were to care for and keep their guest until he was rescued. When relief at last came the old woman with tears in her eyes, said that she was ready to die, for she had done as her husband wished. Warm and tender hearts can be found even in Siberian wastes.

The Revenue Cutter Service is part of the Treasury Department, and comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury. Subordinate to him are a chief and assistant chief of division. Each vessel of the service patrols the district to which it is assigned, and forms a picket line at the outer edge of government jurisdiction, which extends four leagues from the coast. Every vessel arriving in United States waters is boarded and examined, and its papers certified. If a vessel liable to seizure or examination does not bring to when requested to do so, the commander of a cutter, after discharging a warning gun, has authority to fire into such a vessel, and all acting under his orders are indemnified from any penalties or action from damages. On each cutter there are a captain, three lieutenants, a cadet, an engineer and two assistants, and a crew of a dozen or more men.

The service includes in its several grades about one thousand men. Strict discipline is maintained, and its crews receive constant instruction and exercise in the use of great guns, rifles, carbines, pistols, cutlasses and the like. An officer of the Revenue Cutter Service must not only possess considerable executive ability, but must also be a man of varied and accurate information, having a knowledge of gunnery and military drills, and be thoroughly familiar with the customs and navigation laws of the country.

Rank is obtained by promotion, the latter being governed by written competitive examinations, from three to five of the senior officers of a lower grade being selected for any vacancy occurring in the higher grade. A young man wishing to join the service as an officer undergoes a rigid examination held annually at Washington, and then serves for several years aboard the revenue schoolship, where he learns sea mathematics, sea law and seamanship. His period of apprenticeship ended, he joins a regular cutter as a junior officer and waits for promotion at a salary of $85 per month.

Life on board a revenue cutter during the months of summer is usually an easy and pleasant one, but in the winter there is another and different story to tell. From December to April of each year the cutters cruise constantly on their stations to give aid to vessels in distress, and are, in most cases, forbidden to put into port unless under stress of weather or other unforeseen conditions arise.

Few stormy winter days pass without the revenue cutter seeing a signal from some vessel in distress, and aid is never sought in vain. The cutter steers straight for the signal as soon as it is sighted, and when a quarter of a mile distant lowers a boat. Often a boat is launched into a sea where death seems certain, but officers and men never shrink from their duty. When the boat gains the side of the vessel seeking aid, the master whom misfortune has overtaken, requests, as a rule, to be towed into port. When such a request is made, a line must be got to the distressed vessel and from the boat to the cutter, a task often performed with infinite difficulty and at the risk of life and limb.

When a vessel is found drifting helplessly and about to dash itself upon rocks, the peril is even greater. Then the cutter must stand further away, and its boat is in constant danger of being dashed upon the rocks. But, thanks to the skill, experience and coolness of the officers and crew of the cutter, a line is generally got into the boat and to the steamer, and the imperilled vessel hauled away to safety.

One of the finest feats of life-saving ever performed by the Revenue Cutter Service was that credited to the cutter Dexter, some years ago. On January 17, 1884, the iron-built steamer City of Columbus left Boston for the port of Savannah, carrying eighty-one passengers and a ship's company of forty-five persons. Her commander was a capable and experienced seaman, and though by nightfall the wind, which had been blowing all day, had increased to a hurricane, and a heavy sea was running, he had no serious apprehension of danger. The vessel, following her usual course through Vineyard Sound, had left behind nearly all the dangerous points which thickly bestrew those waters, and would soon be safely in the open ocean. It was at that luckless moment that the captain left the bridge and went below, first directing the helmsman how to steer.

Within an hour the steamer struck on Devil's Bridge, and an awful fate was upon the hapless passengers and crew, who were sleeping soundly, all unconscious of danger. The weather was bitter cold, the darkness intense, the wind blowing a hurricane and the waves rolling mountain high. In the twinkling of an eye a hundred poor creatures were swept to their death in the icy waters. A few of the stronger ones took refuge in the rigging, but many of these, benumbed by the cold, dropped one by one from their supports and disappeared in the sea, while such boats as were cleared away were either dashed to pieces or instantly swamped.

The wreck occurred about four o'clock in the morning, and soon after daylight the Dexter reached the scene of the disaster. Her commander at once dispatched two boats to the rescue of those still clinging to the rigging of the Columbus, and thirteen men, jumping from their refuge into the sea, were picked up as they came to the surface, and conveyed to the Dexter. To reach the wreck in small boats through an angry sea was an undertaking so perilous as to make even the boldest pause, and called for courage of the highest order. However, the Dexter's crew proved equal to the test, and Lieutenant John U. Rhodes made himself famous by an act of the noblest heroism. Two men, rendered helpless by cold and exposure, still clung to the rigging of the Columbus after all their companions had been taken off. To board the ill-fated vessel was impossible; Rhodes essayed to reach it by swimming. He gained the side of the vessel after a gallant battle with the waves, but was struck by a piece of floating timber, and had to abandon the attempt. Bruised and half fainting, he insisted upon making another trial, reached the vessel and brought away the two men, both of whom died a few hours later. The Legislature of Connecticut, Rhodes' native State, passed a resolution thanking him for his gallant conduct, and he received many medals and testimonials.

Rhodes has since died, but the Revenue Cutter Service still numbers among its officers scores of men endowed with the flawless bravery of which he gave such shining proof at the wreck of the City of Columbus. One of these is Lieutenant James H. Scott. This brilliant young officer—I cite his case as a typical one—was born in Pennsylvania thirty-seven years ago, and while still in his teens shipped as a boy on a merchant vessel in commerce between Philadelphia and Antwerp. Tiring of this trade, he sailed as an able seaman from New York to Bombay and other East Indian ports, making the last voyage as boatswain of the good ship Ridgeway, after which, declining proffer of a second mate's berth, he entered the Revenue Cutter Service as a cadet.

Graduated in 1890, and made acting third lieutenant on the cutter Woodbury, it was then that young Scott, who while attached to the revenue schoolship had jumped overboard in Lisbon harbor and rescued the quartermaster of his vessel, again gave proof of the sterling stuff that was in him. On a cold, clear day in January, 1891, the Woodbury, which is stationed at Portland, Me., was cruising to the eastward of that port, the thermometer below zero, and the rigging covered with ice. The Woodbury was about half-way over her cruising ground when the officer of the deck discovered a large three-masted schooner hard aground on a ledge of rocks which stood well out from the shore. A high sea was running at the time, though the cutter rose and fell to every wave with apparent unconcern, and breaking clean over the schooner, the crew of which had taken refuge on the rocks and were now frantically signalling for help. It was clear that unless help reached them they would quickly perish from the cold.

Captain Fengar, commanding the Woodbury, ran in as close as he could without peril to his vessel, and carefully surveyed the ground before giving an order. His practiced eye told him in a moment that to send in a boat of the cutter type would mean its certain destruction against the rocks, even if it could live in the sea then running. However, the captain suddenly recalled that a fisherman's village was only a few miles distant, and that there he could obtain a couple of dories admirably adapted to the task in hand. Shouting to the men on the rocks to hold on and not lose hope, the cutter, at a word from its commander, headed about, and went plunging and rolling at top speed in the direction of the village. Two hours later the Woodbury was again on the scene, with a good-sized dory on one of her davits.

Closing in on the wreck, Captain Fengar called for volunteers. Almost to a man the crew responded, but among the foremost were Cadets Scott and W. S. Van Cott. Captain Fengar allowed the two young men to go, but not without some misgivings. Both insisted on pulling oars, the dory being in charge of Lieutenant W. L. Howland, an experienced and capable officer. As the dory left the ship it was observed that a life-saving crew from a station well down the coast was approaching. It would never do to let the Woodbury be beaten, and her dory crew pulled with all the vim they could command. The race was to be a close one, but at the outset the Woodbury's boat gained the lead, and such a run, in such a sea, was never perhaps pulled by opposing boats.

Lieutenant Howland in getting close in, dared not run up too close to the rocks, and after a couple of ineffectual attempts to heave a line was about to despair of success, when suddenly Cadet (now Lieutenant) Scott, securing the line around his waist, sprang overboard, before any one in the boat knew what he was about. Shouting to Lieutenant Howland to pay the line out, young Scott was dashed upon the rocks and seized by the imprisoned sailors. The brave young fellow was badly stunned, but he had gained his point by getting the line to the rocks. Communication was now effected with the dory, which all this time was riding the seas at a safe distance. Another line was hauled up from the boat, and one by one the sailors jumped clear of the rocks and were hauled to the dory, whence they were conveyed without delay to the deck of the cutter. When rescued they had been fourteen hours on the rock. Since the incident just related, Lieutenant Scott, though still one of its youngest officers, has held every position in the Revenue Cutter Service.

The present chief of the Revenue Cutter Service is Captain C. F. Shoemaker. He has climbed to this position from the lowest rung of the ladder, and is a man whose success would have been notable in almost any calling. Many of the other captains of the service are men of mark and achievement, for the Government has no nobler, better, braver servants than those who officer and man its revenue cutters.