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 and navigator), and his patience and temper, the nautical men connected with the Board of Trade and Trinity House, as well as various naval officers, in office and out of doors, would never have consented to them. Even now we frequently read in the daily press letters opposed to these rules, just as we find writers on finance who have their currency hobbies, and who are not, and never will be, satisfied with Sir Robert Peel's Bank Charter Act of 1844.

By the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, the master and chief mate of all sea-going vessels, whether sailing ships or steamers, are, as I have already explained, required to possess a certificate of previous servitude or of competency. The Act of 1862 extended, and to great advantage, the principle of examination, also, to engineers engaged in sea-going steamers, who, since then, have been required to undergo an examination, and produce certificates of good conduct and sobriety. Their certificates of competency are of two grades—first class and second class. Any sea-going home-trade passenger steamer, or any foreign-going steam-ship of more than one hundred horse-power nominal, must, therefore, now carry, at least, one engineer who possesses a certificate of competency; and all steamers of greater power must have, at least, two such engineers, one of whom may be of the second class. But all engineers who had served as such in sea-going vessels, previously to the 1st April, 1862, were entitled to a certificate of service, and were not required to undergo an examination.

Though many owners of steam-ships were strongly opposed to any legislative interference with the en