corrected the error; while their antagonists, delivering their
broadsides far more slowly, by intelligently waiting until the
proper moment, worked frightful havoc. But though there was a
certain slight difference between the seamen of the two nations,
it must never be forgotten that it was very much less than that
between the various individuals of the same nation; and when the
British had been trained for a few years by such commanders as
Broke and Manners, it was impossible to surpass them, and it needed
our best men to equal them.] Both were bold and hardy, cool and
intelligent, quick with their hands, and showing at their best in
an emergency. They looked alike and spoke alike; when they took
the trouble to think, they thought alike; and when they got drunk,
which was not an infrequent occurrence, they quarrelled alike.

Mingled with them were a few seamen of other nationalities. The
Irishman, if he came from the old Dano-Irish towns of Waterford,
Dublin, and Wexford, or from the Ulster coast, was very much like
the two chief combatants; the Celto-Turanian kern of the west did
not often appear on shipboard. The French, Danes, and Dutch were
hemmed in at home; they had enough to do on their own seaboard,
and could not send men into foreign fleets. A few Norse, however,
did come in, and excellent sailors and fighters they made. With
the Portuguese and Italians, of whom some were to be found serving
under the union-jack, and others under the stars and stripes, it
was different; although there were many excellent exceptions they
did not, as a rule, make the best of seamen. They were treacherous,
fond of the knife, less ready with their hands, and likely to lose
either their wits or their courage when in a tight place.

In the American navy, unlike the British, there was no impressment;