Great improvement of our ships and officers in recent years. they are navigated have deteriorated. On the contrary, they have, within the last quarter of a century, vastly improved in almost every respect. If any of my readers have any doubts on this question, let them refer to the answers to Mr. Murray's circular of 1843,[1] and to those sent by our consuls abroad to Mr. J. G. Shaw Lefevre's circular of 1872.[2] It may be that our seamen do not "hand, reef, and steer," with the same alacrity as they did in the days of our forefathers, simply because such duties are less required now than they were then; but our masters and mates are infinitely superior to what they were a short time since, and in our regular lines of steamers and packet-ships, there are to be found a class of seamen much more sober and steady than could be found in any merchant service twenty-five years ago. Men now exist, who are quite as competent for the duties required of them, as any seamen of the days of Duncan or Nelson, and far more to be depended on for the performance of their duties on board of merchant ships than was the case in my own boyhood, although there are, still, far too many who are inefficient, drunken, and worthless. There are likewise still many ships lost which ought not to be lost, but the assertions which have been made with regard to an increase in the amount of loss during recent years have been greatly exaggerated, as I shall now endeavour to show.
Duties of the Board of Trade with regard to wrecks. Among the multifarious duties imposed on the Board of Trade, not the least important is that connected with wrecks, casualties, and collisions of ships at home and abroad. For many years, a
