A regiment and a three-decker were considered by the Government equivalent and convertible commands. The cavalry officer of to-day might find himself directing the manœuvres of a fleet to-morrow. The relics of so untoward an arrangement may be detected in certain technical phrases not yet out of use. The word "squadron" is even now applied alike to a handful of horse and a powerful fleet, numbering perhaps a dozen sail of the line. Raleigh, himself, began his fighting career as a soldier, and Rupert finished his as a sailor.
With such want of seamanship, therefore, amongst its commanders, our navy must have possessed in its construction some great preponderating influence to account for its efficiency. This compensating power was to be found in its masters, its petty-officers, and its seamen.
The last were thoroughly impregnated with the briny element on which they passed their lives. They boasted themselves a race apart. "Land-lubber" was for them a term conveying the utmost amount of derision and contempt. To be an "old salt" was the ideal perfection at which alone it was worth while for humanity to aim. The seaman, exulting in his profession, was never more a seaman than when rolling about on shore, swearing strange oaths, using nautical phrases, consuming vast quantities of beer and tobacco, above all, flinging his money here and there with a profuse and injudicious liberality especially distinctive of his kind.
The popularity of such characters amongst the lower classes may be readily imagined; for, with the uneducated and unreflecting, a reckless bearing very generally passes for courage; a tendency to dissipation for manliness; and a boastful expenditure for true generosity of heart. Perhaps, to the erroneous impressions thus disseminated amongst the young, should be attributed the inclination shown towards a service of which the duties entailed continual danger, excessive hardship, and daily privation. Certainly at a period when the worst provision was made, both physical and moral, for the welfare of men before the mast, there never seems to have been found a difficulty in keeping up the full complement of the British navy.
They were, indeed, a race apart, not only in their
