to that which it has happily replaced. During the twenty-two years of war ending with 1815, our naval ancestors lost 61 ships-ofwar by foundering, 278 by wreck, and 13 by burning, besides those captured by the enemy, making 352 vessels, with 14,311 lives, totally lost by accident, or, as the Times would say of the modern Navy, lack of seamanship. They did not in those days record strandings attended with trifling injuries, such as those of the Agincourt, Lord Warden, Caledonia, Racer, &c.; but reasonably estimating these at five vessels stranded for one lost, our immediate ancestors attained an annual average of 16 accidental total losses, and about 80 groundings. Admitting that, during that period, they had, on an average, nearly twice as large a naval force as at present, and halving, therefore, the losses, there is still a wide margin between the eight annual losses of the old officers, and the less than two per year of modern seamanship. True, their charts were defective, and Megara's not uncommon, but the harbours and channels are of the same depth and extent for our 6,000 ton frigates, which require twenty-eight feet of water to float them, as for their 500 ton frigates, which were less than sixteen feet deep. Even admitting many other mitigating considerations favourable to ancient seamanship, these must be weighty indeed to equalise, much more to reverse, the ratio of eight annual accidental losses to the modern less than two. Surely, in the face of such statistics, the claims of the old officers to superior seamanship must be based on something else than safe navigation. The modern Navy glories in its succession to a wondrous heritage of renown, earned by the consummate pluck and the prodigies of valour performed by preceding generations; but when old officers enquire too unwisely, 'What is the cause that the former days were better than these?' they provoke the reminder that naval history records only their good deeds. Tradition tells of ships holding aloof in battle, of lack of skill in seamanship, in gunnery, in discipline, and in the well-ordering of their crews, as well as the presence of disorder and of preventible disease, the fruit of ungodliness and vice too shameful to speak of, inefficiency which compares badly even with the American and French ships of those times. It is the Naval authorities and officers of the day who are responsible for each of these things; and in none of them, except courage and daring, has the Navy of to-day any good thing to learn from that of the past. To sum up, we deny that H.M.'s ships are stranded or lost more frequently than in past days; or that any argument can be drawn from the accidents which have occurred prejudicial to modern seamanship, or justifying the assumption that modern officers cannot manage their 6,000 ton steam ships as well as the last generation handled their 1,800 ton sailing vessels. On the contrary, seamanlike skill is more equally distributed through the whole mass of the service than in the first half of the century; our ships are in better man-of-war-like order, our crews better disciplined, smarter aloft, more sober, and more moral, and consequently healthy and robust. Our able seamen reach that rank at a much earlier age after stiff tests of practical skill; and ordinary seamen of five-and-twenty years of age are exceedingly rare. Similarly, whereas in the first half of this century a few young officers had great practice in sailing ships at sea, and many had no opportunity of gaining experience at all, now all our young officers are systematically taught their profession. So that, more whilst formerly there were a few most able officers and many inexperienced ones, the majority now are brought, by methodical training, up to the level of the few. It is to the improvement and expansion of this methodical training that we must look, as the best substitute for that haphazard want of system which in our younger days produced some most distinguished seamen and many ignorant and inexperienced ones. We may as well sigh for Chinese junks, as for small obsolete sailing frigates, in the vain idea of thus teaching officers how to handle huge modern steamships. But much may be inexpensively done to improve the training of our officers in the handling both of ships and of fleets, by constant and systematic exercises with steam launches, gunboats, and steam sloops, as preliminary practices preparatory to those annual fleet manoeuvres which are at present far too infrequent and far too unmethodical. The ablest of the rising generation agree that our training in steam tactics is most unsystematic and most unsatisfactory; and that far more might be done with the present appliances to afford officers more frequent oppor tunities of evolutionary exercises both in mimic squadrons and with large ships. The excessive attention to detail, and the tendency of captains to take upon themselves the duties of lieutenants and even of midshipmen and of petty officers, might well be restrained. A little less foolscap, and fewer telegrams, more liberty of action, and greater room for independent conceptions, might serve to strengthen the character and foster self-reliance, by quickening the observing faculties and preparing captains for those prompt decisions and ready acceptances of responsibility, which, far more than mere seamanlike skill, nailed success to our standards in days of yore. In conclusion, we see no reason to despair of modern British officers or of British seamen. They may not be so perfect as they should be; but they are, as a whole, as healthy, robust, moral, skilful, and well disciplined, a body of men as ever trod the decks of British ships-of-war. In one word, notwithstanding that many of the ablest and best officers have been arbitrarily forced out of the Navy by the recent Retirement scheme, there are still as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. INDEX ΤΟ VOLUME IV. NEW SERIES. Alcestis, the Story of, by Horace M. Moule, 575 Ammer, a Pilgrimage on the, 618 Ancient and Modern Epicureanism, by Anglicani, the, and their xxxix Medical Animal Worship, Traces of, among the Old Asgill, John, and the Cowardliness of Astronomy, the Study of, by Richard A. At Paris, just before the End, by a Vicar Barbarossa, Frederick, the Legend of, 334 Britain, Great, Confederated, 109 Campaigns, the, of 1859, 1866, and 1870- Constitution of Sweden, the, 794 Death of Mary Stuart, by O. Airy, M.A., Decoration of St. Paul's Cathedral, as to East and West, Village Communities in Edinburgh, At, by Patricius Walker, Esq., English Statesman's Imperial Question, English Working Classes, the, and the Erasmus Montanus, an Old Danish Co- Evidence Historical, Religious, and Scien- Examiner's Note-Book, Jottings from an, For Better? for Worse? 441 Fotheringay, the Last Night at, by 0. Frederick Barbarossa, the Legend of, 334 Future of University Reform, the, by German Schools, Two, 446 Gold and Currency, Mr. D. Wilder, of Government, Home, for Ireland, by an 1 Mary Stuart, Death of, by O. Airy, M.A., Mary Stuart, sometime Queen of Scots, Trial of, edited by Shirley, 586, 727 Miller's, Joaquin, Songs of the Sierras, 346 Montanus, Erasmus, an Old Danish Co- More on Great Britain Confederated, 249 Naval Battles, Future, by Commander W. Paris Catastrophe, the Moral of the. Suum Paris Commune, the, and the English Work- Pilgrimage on the Ammer, a, 618 Politics, French, by Léon Veer, 525 Portugal and Aragon, a Sketch from, 356 Prussia, Reports on the Military Forces Question, Imperial, the English States- man's, 403 Rambles, by Patricius Walker, Esq.:- At Edinburgh, 458 Reform, University, the Future of, by Religion, a, Wanted for the Hindoos, 709. 671 Roman Catholic University for Ireland, the St. Paul's Cathedral, as to the Decoration Salt Lake City and the Valley Settlements, Note-Book, an Examiner's, Jottings from, Scotland, In, by Patricius Walker, Esq., 746 On the Condition of the Working Classes, On the Wye, by Patricius Walker, Esq., Papal Ireland, 768 Seamanship, Modern, by Commander W. Service of the Poor, the, 369 Sheik and his Daughter, or Wisdom and Sisters and Sisterhoods, by an English Sketch, a, from Portugal and Aragon, 356 Paris, At, just before the End, by a Vicar Story of Alcestis, the, by Horace M. of the Church of England, 230, Moule, 575 Stuart, Mary, Death of, by O. Airy, M.A., Stuart, Mary, sometime Queen of Scots, The Anglicani and their xxxix Medical The Art Season of 1871, 182 The Campaigns of 1859, 1866, and 1870- 71, 251 The Constitution of Sweden, 794 The English Statesman's Imperial Question, The English Working Classes and the The Future of University Reform, by Leslie The Imperial Connection, from an Austra- The Last Night at Fotheringay, by O. The Legend of Frederick Barbarossa, 334 The Preservation of Commons, 293 The Service of the Poor, 369 The Sheik and his Daughter, or Wisdom The Study of Astronomy, by Richard A. Traces of Animal Worship among the Old University Reform, the Future of, by Leslie University, the Proposed Roman Catholic, Valley Settlements, Salt Lake City and the, Wanted-a Religion for the Hindoos, 709 West, East and, Village Communities in Wilder, Mr. D., of Boston, U.S., on Gold Working Classes, on the Condition of the, Working Classes, the English, and the Paris Commune, by The Journeyman Wye, On the, by Patricius Walker, Esq., |