orrupt and dissolute
minions of the palace, dared to do more than mutter something about a
court martial. If any officer showed a higher sense of duty than his
fellows, he soon found out he lost money without acquiring honor. One
Captain, who, by strictly obeying the orders of the Admiralty, missed a
cargo which would have been worth four thousand pounds to him, was told
by Charles, with ignoble levity, that he was a great fool for his pains.

The discipline of the navy was of a piece throughout. As the courtly
Captain despised the Admiralty, he was in turn despised by his crew.
It could not be concealed that he was inferior in Seamanship to every
foremast man on board. It was idle to expect that old sailors, familiar
with the hurricanes of the tropics and with the icebergs of the Arctic
Circle, would pay prompt and respectful obedience to a chief who knew no
more of winds and waves than could be learned in a gilded barge between
Whitehall Stairs and Hampton Court. To trust such a novice with the
working of a ship was evidently impossible. The direction of the
navigation was therefore taken from the Captain and given to the Master;
but this partition of authority produced innumerable inconveniences.
The line of demarcation was not, and perhaps could not be, drawn
with precision. There was therefore constant wrangling. The Captain,
confident in proportion to his ignorance, treated the Master with
lordly contempt. The Master, well aware of the danger of disobliging
the powerful, too often, after a struggle, yielded against his better
judgment; and it was well if the loss of ship and crew was not the
consequence. In general the least mischievous of the aristocratical
Captains were those who completely abandoned to others the direction of
the vessels, and thought only of making money and spending it. The way
in which these men lived was so ostentatious and voluptuous that, greedy
as they were of gain, they seldom became rich. They dressed as if for
a gala at Versailles, ate off plate, drank the richest wines, and kept
harems on board, while hunger and scurvy raged among the crews, and
while corpses were daily flung out of the portholes.

Such was the ordinary character of those who were then called gentlemen
Captains. Mingled with them were to be found, happily for our country,
naval commanders of a very different description, men whose whole life
had been passed on the deep, and who had worked and fought their way
from th