a man of war, where he was
subjected to no discipline, where he was treated with marked respect,
and where he lived in a round of revels and amusements. If, in the
intervals of feasting, drinking, and gambling, he succeeded in learning
the meaning of a few technical phrases and the names of the points
of the compass, he was thought fully qualified to take charge of a
three-decker. This is no imaginary description. In 1666, John Sheffield,
Earl of Mulgrave, at seventeen years of age, volunteered to serve at sea
against the Dutch. He passed six weeks on board, diverting himself, as
well as he could, in the society of some young libertines of rank, and
then returned home to take the command of a troop of horse. After this
he was never on the water till the year 1672, when he again joined
the fleet, and was almost immediately appointed Captain of a ship
of eighty-four guns, reputed the finest in the navy. He was then
twenty-three years old, and had not, in the whole course of his life,
been three months afloat. As soon as he came back from sea he was made
Colonel of a regiment of foot. This is a specimen of the manner in which
naval commands of the highest importance were then given; and a very
favourable specimen; for Mulgrave, though he wanted experience, wanted
neither parts nor courage. Others were promoted in the same way who not
only were not good officers, but who were intellectually and morally
incapable of ever becoming good officers, and whose only recommendation
was that they had been ruined by folly and vice. The chief bait which
allured these men into the service was the profit of conveying bullion
and other valuable commodities from port to port; for both the Atlantic
and the Mediterranean were then so much infested by pirates from Barbary
that merchants were not willing to trust precious cargoes to any custody
but that of a man of war. A Captain might thus clear several thousands
of pounds by a short voyage; and for this lucrative business he too
often neglected the interests of his country and the honour of his
flag, made mean submissions to foreign powers, disobeyed the most direct
injunctions of his superiors, lay in port when he was ordered to chase
a Sallee rover, or ran with dollars to Leghorn when his instructions
directed him to repair to Lisbon. And all this he did with impunity.
The same interest which had placed him in a post for which he was unfit
maintained him there. No Admiral, bearded by these c