book. The experiences acquired in a field of operations,
that includes all the seas and continents where commerce may
move, live, and have its being, have enhanced in value and
completed what came to him in his forecastle and
quarter-deck times. He learned in his youth, from the lips
of a race now extinct, what the nature and traditions of
seamanship were before he and his contemporaries lived. He
has seen that nature and those traditions change and die,
whilst he and his generation came gradually under a new
order of things, whose practical working he and they have
tested in actual practice both on sea and land.

It is on this ground of experience that the author ventures
to ask attention to his views in respect of the likeliest
means to raise a desirable set of seamen in the English
merchant navy. But he also ventures to hope that the
historic incidents and characteristics of a class to which
he is proud to belong, as set forth in this book, may cause
it to be read with interest and charitable criticism. He
claims no literary merit for it: indeed, he feels there may
be found many defects in style and description that could be
improved by a more skilful penman. But then it must be
remembered that a sailor is here writing of sailors, and
hence he gives the book to the public as it is, and hopes he
has succeeded in making it interesting.




CHAPTER I