SAILING CRAFT OF THE CHANNEL, 



47 



this too, before the wind, some of them make a beam-sail. 

 If it blows fresh, they can shorten in their bowsprit and set a 

 smaller jib ; and about the time our sloops would be knotting 

 their second reef and taking their bonnets off, they have their 

 bowsprit all in board, their long topmast struck, and make 

 themselves comfortable under the staysail and a two-reefed 

 mainsail. If it comes on to blow still harder, when ours must 

 trust to a scud, they will still be jumping through it with a 

 little storm staysail, and a balance-reefed mainsail, as shown 

 in the cut. 





These single-masted vessels are called cutters, not sloops 

 (a proper sloop I did not see in England) ; and our word cut 

 ter, wrongly applied to the revenue schooners, is derived from 

 the English term, revenue cutter, the armed vessels of the 

 British preventive service, being properly cutters. Cutters 

 frequently carry yards and square sails. We saw one to-day 

 with square-sail, topsail, top-gallant, and royal set. I have 

 heard old men say that when they were boys, our coasting 

 sloops used to have these sails, and before the revolution our 

 small craft were, not uncommonly, also cutter-rigged. In 

 stead of being of whitewashed cotton, the sails of the coast- 



