ng could not have been other than sound
to persist, through twenty years shore-dwelling as a merchant at
Bridgwater, until he was called from his counting-house to command our
naval forces. Dampier was a tarry foremast hand in his day: whatever we
may judge of his conduct, we can have nothing but admiration for his
seamanship. Ill-equipped and short-handed, racked by sea-sores and
scurvy, his expeditions were unparalleled as a triumph of merchant
sea-skill. James Cook learned his trade on the grimy hull of an
east-coast collier--to this day we are working on charts of his masterly
surveys.

In later years the merit of the trading vessels as sterling sea-schools
was equally plain. During intervals of combatant service, or as prelude
to a naval career, training on the merchants' ships was eagerly sought
by ardent naval seamen who saw the value of its resource in practical
seamanship, in navigation, and weather knowledge. Great captains did not
disdain the measure of the instruction. They sent their heirs to sea in
trading vessels to draw an essence in practice from their sea-cunning.
Hardy, Foley, and Berry had borne a hand at the sheets and braces, and
had steered a lading of goods abroad, before they came to high command
of the King's ships. Who knows what actions in the victories of
Copenhagen, the Nile, and Trafalgar (hinged on the cast of the winds)
were governed by Nelson's early sea-lessons, under Master John Rathbone,
on the decks of a West India merchantman?

For long after, relations and interchange between the two Services were
not so intimate. Until coming of the Great War, with a mutual
appreciation, we had little in common. Our friend and peacemaker--the
influence of seafaring under square sail--languished a while, then died.
In steam-power, with its growth of development and intricacy of
application, we found no worthy successor to present as good an office.
In the long span of a hundred years of sea-peace we grew apart. The gulf
between the two great Services widened to a breach that only the rigours
of a world-conflict could reconcile.

As though exhausted by the indefinite sea-campaign of 1812, the Royal
Navy lay on their oars and saw their commercial sea-fellows forge ahead
on a course that revolutionized sea-transport and sea-warfare alike. The
Lords of the Admiralty would listen to no deprecation of their gallant
old wooden walls: steam propulsion was laughed at. To the Merchants'
Service they left