rentiships; and since no kinde of men of any profession in the
commonwealth passe their yeres in so great and continuall hazard of
life; and since of so many, so few grow to gray heires; how needful it
is that . . . these ought to have a better education, than hitherto they
have had."

His matchless patience and care and exactitude were only equalled by his
pride in the doings of the seamen and the merchants. With a joyful
humility he exults in the hoisting of our banners in the Caspian
Sea--not as robber marauders, but as peaceful traders under licence and
ambassade--at the station of an English Ligier in the stately porch of
the Grand Signior at Constantinople, at consulates at Tripolis and
Aleppo, in Babylon and Balsara--"and which is more, at English Shippes
coming to anker in the mighty river of Plate." In script and tabulation
he glories in the tale of the ships, and sets out the names and stations
of humble merchant supercargoes with the same meticulous care as the
rank and titles of the Captain-General of the Armada.

Alas! There was none to set a similarly gifted hand to the further
course of his lone furrow. Purchas tried, but there was no great love of
his subject-matter to spread a glamour on the pages. Perhaps the
magnitude of the task, ever growing and gathering, and the minute and
unwearying succession of Hakluyt's "Navigations and Traffiques,"
discouraged and deterred less ardent followers. Of voyages and
expeditions and discoveries there are volumes enough, but few such
intimate records as "the Oathe ministered to the servants of the
Muscovie company," or the instructions given by the Merchant Adventurers
unto Richard Gibbs, William Biggatt, and John Backhouse, masters of
their ships, have been written since Hakluyt turned his last page.

As outposts to our field, roving bands on a frontier that rises and
falls with the tide, the seamen were ever the first to apprehend the
mutterings of war. With but little needed to set spark to the torch,
they came in to foreign seaport or littoral with a fine confidence in
their ships and arms. Truculent perhaps, and overbearing in their pride
of long voyaging over a mysterious and threatening sea, they were hardly
the ambassadors to aid settlement of a dispute by frank goodwill and
prudence. Sailing outwith the confines of ordered government, their
lawless outlook and freebooting found a ready rejoinder in restraint of
trade and arbitrary imprisonment. Long wars h