probably be able to point out to me the degree of improvement that you
suppose to have taken place in the character of a sailor, from the
days when Jason sailed through the Cyanean Symplegades, or Noah moored
his ark on the summit of Ararat."

"If you talk to me," said Mr Foster, "of mythological personages, of
course I cannot meet you on fair grounds."

"We will begin, if you please, then," said Mr Escot, "no further back
than the battle of Salamis; and I will ask you if you think the
mariners of England are, in any one respect, morally or
intellectually, superior to those who then preserved the liberties of
Greece, under the direction of Themistocles?"

"I will venture to assert," said Mr Foster, "that considered merely as
sailors, which is the only fair mode of judging them, they are as far
superior to the Athenians, as the structure of our ships is superior
to that of theirs. Would not one English seventy-four, think you, have
been sufficient to have sunk, burned, and put to flight, all the
Persian and Grecian vessels in that memorable bay? Contemplate the
progress of naval architecture, and the slow, but immense succession
of concatenated intelligence, by which it has gradually attained its
present stage of perfectibility. In this, as in all other branches of
art and science, every generation possesses all the knowledge of the
preceding, and adds to it its own discoveries in a progression to
which there seems no limit. The skill requisite to direct these
immense machines is proportionate to their magnitude and complicated
mechanism; and, therefore, the English sailor, considered merely as a
sailor, is vastly superior to the ancient Greek."