provided, were rapidly dying out, and
veterans of the Spanish main were mostly to be found spending the evening
of their days spinning yarns of treasure islands to the yokels of the
village alehouse.

One of the causes which led to this improvement in the class of seamen was
the disgraceful behaviour of the crew of the _Wager_, a ship of Anson's
squadron, when she was lost off the Horn in 1740. A good deal of the
trouble was owing to the then state of the law, by which the pay of and
control over a ship's company ceased upon her wreck. The law was so
amended as to enlist seamen until regularly discharged from the service by
the captain of the ship under the orders of the Admiralty.

The food of sailors and the accommodation provided for them were little,
if any, better than these things had been fifty years before--for the
matter of that than they remained for fifty years later, and to the shame
of those responsible, than the food still is in many merchant ships, for
even now occasionally we hear of cases of scurvy on shipboard--a disease
which Cook, over 120 years ago, avoided, though voyaging in such a manner
as nowadays is unknown.

But the most important change that had come to the sea service was in the
methods of finding a ship's position at sea. Hadley's sextant was in use
in 1731, Harrison's chronometer in 1762, and five years later the first
number of the _Nautical Almanac_ was published, so that when Cook sailed
longitude was no longer found by rule of thumb, and the great navigator,
more than any other man, was able to and did, prove the value of these
discoveries.

In 1764 Byron, who had been a midshipman on the _Wager_, sailed as
commodore of an expedition consisting of two ships, the _Dolphin_ and the
_Tamar_, to make discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere. This voyage of
discovery was the first English scientific expedition since that of the
_Roebuck_. Byron returned in 1766 without touching at New Holland, his
principal discovery being the Falkland Islands. Three months after his
return another expedition sailed under the command of Wallis in the
_Dolphin_, and with Carteret in the _Swallow_. The voyage resulted in many
minor discoveries, but will be chiefly remembered for that of Tahiti and
the story of Wallis' stay there. The _Dolphin_ [Sidenote: 1766-1769]
reached England in May, 1768. The two vessels had previously separated in
Magellan Straits; and the _Swallow_, pursuing a different cour