Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/71

 at Cronstadt, who seems to have ransacked his archives, containing, as these did, the results of an experience of fifty-nine years—to discover materials whereon he could ground a charge against the British sailors; but, while admitting that drunkenness was their principal failing, and that it was "a rare circumstance that a master is unfit to clear his ship either inwards or outwards," he added: "It does not happen above two or three times in the year, in which case I get hold of the mate, and no stoppage ensues; and, in the intermediate time, when the ship is loading, the master, if the worse for liquor, avoids the office." Of the seamen he remarked: "The crews behave like too many common Englishmen; take their glass freely when they can get it, and sell or pawn their clothes when they have no money; get into scrapes on a Sunday night, and are brought before me on a Monday, lectured, and discharged."

Consul Baker, of Riga, was more pointed in his charges. He remarked: "I am sorry to state that, in my opinion, the British commercial marine is at present in a worse condition than that of any other nation. Foreign shipmasters are generally a more respectable and sober class of men than the British. I have always been convinced that, while British shipowners gain by the more economical manner in which their vessels are navigated, they are great losers from the serious delays occasioned, while on the voyage, and discharging and taking in cargoes, growing out of the incapacity of their shipmasters, and their intemperate habits. I have had occasion to remark, while consul in the United States, that