Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/177



In nautical skill, Mr. Richmond held the British captain of the present day fully equal to the captain of former days; while he, also, thought, that the ruder the man, on his admission into the hardy profession he was to adopt, the more advantageous it might be to him, at least in the discharge of the rougher part of his professional duties. In the pursuit of freights abroad, on the "seeking system," these captains, he admitted, might be inferior to some continental captains; but the business of chartering a ship belonged more strictly to the shipbroker; the captain, in his opinion, being in a relation not unlike that of the driver of a coach.

With regard to British seamen, he considered that they, like all other classes, had become more temperate of late years, but were always less a spirit-drinking people than the Germans. The bad accommodation for the common sailor on board merchant ships might destroy his comforts, but not his morals; and honourable testimony had been given by an American captain, that he would prefer the English seaman to any in the world, even to Americans. Every person, he thought, must concur with him in the opinion that our seamen were, what they had ever been, "a danger-defying, skilful, thoughtless, improvident, and perhaps a turbulent race:" and Mr. Richmond appealed confidently to Admiral Dundas, who sat on the Committee, whether he would not rather go into action with 100 British seamen than 200 seamen of any other nation?

It is unnecessary to enter into the details of the