d about his political record, he answered, "I am Captain Rous who
brought the _Pique_ across the Atlantic without a rudder." Of course
the reply was lustily cheered, and deservedly; for in such seas, with
a ship dependent upon sails only, it was a splendid, if somewhat
reckless achievement. Cooper, in his _Homeward Bound_, places the ship
dismasted on the coast of Africa. Close at hand, but on the beach,
lies a wrecked vessel with her spar standing; and there is no
exaggeration in the words he puts into the mouth of Captain Truck, as
he looked upon these resources: "The seaman who, with sticks, and
ropes, and blocks enough, cannot rig his ship, might as well stay
ashore and publish an hebdomadal."

Such was the marling-spike seaman of the days of Cooper and Marryat,
and such was still the able seaman, the "A.B.," of 1855. It was not
indeed necessary, nor expected, that most naval officers should do
such things with their own hands; but it was justly required that they
should know when a job of marling-spike seamanship was well or ill
done, and be able to supervise, when necessary. Napoleon is reported
to have said that he could judge personally whether the shoes
furnished his soldiers were well or ill made; but he needed not to be
a shoemaker. Marryat, commenting on one of his characters, says that
he had seldom known an officer who prided himself on his "practical"
knowledge who was at the same time a good navigator; and that such too
often "lower the respect due to them by assuming the Jack Tar." Oddly
enough, lunching once with an old and distinguished British admiral,
who had been a midshipman while Marryat still lived, he told me that
he remembered him well; his reputation, he added, was that of "an
excellent seaman, but not much of an officer," an expressive phrase,
current in our own service, and which doubtless has its equivalent in
all maritime languages.

In my early naval life I came into curious accidental contact with
just such a person as Marryat described. I was still at the Academy,
within a year of graduation, and had been granted a few days' leave at
Christmas. Returning by rail, there seated himself alongside me a
gentleman who proved to be a lieutenant from the flag-ship of the Home
Squadron, going to Washington with despatches. Becoming known to each
other, he began to question me as to what new radicalisms were being
fostered in Annapolis. "Are they still wasting the young men's time
over French?