Note 5 — LETTER IX.

Not but that those two admirals and their captains have been sorely, though needfully, dealt with. It was, doubtless, not a scene of the brightest in our naval history—that Agincourt, entomologically, as it were, pinned to her wrong place, off Gibraltar; but in truth, it was less the captain’s fault, than the ironmonger’s. You need not think you can ever have seamen in iron ships; it is not in flesh and blood to be vigilant when vigilance is so slightly necessary: the best seaman born will lose his qualities, when he knows he can steam against wind and tide,5 and has to handle ships so large that the care of them is necessarily divided among many persons. If you want sea-captains indeed, like Sir Richard Grenville or Lord Dundonald, you must give them small ships, and wooden ones,—nothing but oak, pine, and hemp to trust to, above or below,—and those, trustworthy.