ande!_"

SO we sang--sounding a bravery at the capstan as we hove around and
raised anchor to begin a voyage. We had our ideas. We were foreign-going
sailors, putting out on a far venture. In pride of our seafaring--of
rounding the Horn, of crossing Equator, perhaps of a circumnavigation--we
looked down upon the coaster. He was a hoveller, a tidesman, a
mud-raker--his anchors could shew no coral on the flukes as they came
awash. We carried these ideas to the beach. Deliberately, we produced an
atmosphere that is unjust to the cross-channel man.

The oversea voyage possesses a greater appeal to the imagination. Long
distances, variation of the climes, storm and high ocean seas--a burthen
of goods brought from a far country, all contribute to make an
impression that the tale of a coasting voyage could not produce.
Familiarity, perhaps, has robbed the short-carriers' sea-trip of what
shreds of romance existed. In tide and out, the smaller vessels have
grown to the sight as almost part of the familiar quays and wharves they
frequent. A voyage from Tyne to the Thames or from Glasgow to Liverpool
is so common and everyday that little remark is excited. We are
unconcerned at its incident; the gale that wrecked a collier on the
Black Middens may have blown a tile or two from our roof; the fog that
bound the Antwerp boat for a tide is, perhaps, the same that held us in
the City for an hour over time. We may entertain our friends with
recital of a sea-voyage, but we have not a great deal to say of a
Channel passage.

At war, this focus of the public outlook has persisted. The threat to
our sea-communications, to the source by which the nation gains its
daily bread, has drawn an intense interest to the fortunes of the ships,
but that interest has rarely been extended to the coasting vessels and
the seamen who man them; there is little said of the work of the coastal
pilots, on whose skill and local knowledge so much depends. We are
concerned for our _Britannics_ and _Justitias_, but the fate of the
_Sarah Pritchard_ of Beaumaris, or the escape of _Boy Jacob_ are small
events in relation to the toll of our tonnage. Their utility has not
been brought before us in the same way as the direct service of the
great ocean carriers. It is not difficult to understand that a breakdown
of that source of supply would mean starvation and disaster. Our
dependence on the coasting vessels is not so apparent. The vital needs
served by them are