smart as the other in setting or shortening sail and in all marine manœuvres. It was a surprise to many, but nobody was more astonished than Captain Cranfield, who admiringly admitted the ability and efficiency of the boys from Maine who manned the Defender.
This achievement opened the eyes of the British critics and showed them of what our raw material is capable. It was also a surprise to many of our racing skippers, who were laboring under the delusion that Scandinavian sailors alone are capable of manning our yachts. Never was a greater error. The native-born American, when properly trained, makes as smart a yacht sailor as ever walked a deck.
Most of these Maine sailors, judging from their names, belonged to the great Anglo-Saxon race whose deeds afloat are written on the bright pages of sea history. America has reason to be proud of her seafaring ancestors. The infallible law of heredity and the no less assured principle of the survival of the fittest have been well exemplified among the dwellers on the British coasts. The bold sea-dogs of the West Country today are fitting successors to those sturdy semi-pirates who under the flag of Frobisher, of Drake, of Raleigh and of Hawkins shed so much glory on the nation they upheld and so much of the enemy's life-blood. The smugglers and privateers of the southern and eastern coasts may justly be classed as the pro-
