sick, or
persons are required to be sent to other ships.

Generally speaking, indeed, it will be found that the attention
bestowed on regularity, neatness, and even dandyism, in all these
minor details, brings with it more than a correspondent degree of
practical advantage. The men soon feel a pride in what their officer
approves of and shows himself pleased with; and, when once they fall
into habits of mutual obligation in the accomplishment of a common
purpose, everything goes on smoothly and cheerfully. I need scarcely
recall to the recollection of any one who has witnessed the practice
of such things, the marvellous difference in the efficiency of a ship
where the system of discipline is to bully and reproach, and of
another where the principle is encouraging and gentleman-like. In one
case the crew work as little as may be, and even take a morbid
pleasure in crossing the views of the officers as much as they
possibly can without incurring the risk of punishment; and they never
stir a finger in works not strictly within their assigned duty. In the
other case, where good will, a temperate exercise of authority,
indulgence, when it can by possibility be granted, and, above all,
when no coarse language unworthy the lips of an officer and a
gentleman is used, the result is very different. All the subordinate
authorities, and indeed the crew at large, then become insensibly
possessed of an elasticity of obedience which exerts a two-fold
influence, by reacting on themselves even more than it operates upon
the commanding-officer whose judicious deportment has called out the
exertion. I may safely add, that in the strict discipline which is
absolutely indispensable in every efficient man-of-war, and under all
the circumstances of confinement, privation, and other inevitable
hardships to which both officers and men are exposed, such a course of
moderation and good-breeding, independently of its salutary effect on
the minds of the people, works most admirably for the public service,
and more than doubles the results, by rendering men, who otherwise
might have been disposed to retard the duty, sincerely zealous in its
advancement.

Lord Nelson, that great master of war and discipline, and all that was
noble and good in the cause of his country, understood, better perhaps
than any other officer, the art of applying these wholesome maxims to
the practice of duty at the exact moment of need. During the long and
weary period w