Windjammers and Sea Tramps | Page 2

great Spanish Armada is sometimes disputed. I am one of those who trust that British seamen would be worthy of British traditions were they even now put to the test by some powerful invader. To suppose that the men who smothered the Armada, or those who broke the fleets of Spain and France at Trafalgar, were more courageous than those of our day would be found in similar circumstances, is arrant folly. In smaller things we can see the same sterling qualities shown by members of our Navy now as their forebears exhibited of old. The impressive yet half comic character of the religion that guided the lives of seamen during Drake's time has been faithfully handed down like an heirloom to the genuine old salt of our own time.
The great Admiral had inconsistencies of character, and conduct that would seem to live on in more or less elevated examples up till now. He conducted himself in regal style on his long voyages, dressing in an imposing way for dinner, during which he commanded fine music to be played--for at that day England was the home par excellence of music--and no food was eaten at his table until the blessing of the Almighty had been asked upon it, and "thanks" was solemnly offered ere rising. The Holy Sacrament was partaken by him with Doughty the Spanish spy. The latter, after being kissed by Drake, was then made to lay his head on the block, and thereafter no more was heard of him. Afterwards the Admiral gave forth a few discourses on the importance of unity and obedience, on the sin of spying into other people's affairs; and then proceeded, with becoming solemnity and in the names of God and the Icy Queen, to plunder Spanish ports and Spanish shipping. Drake believed he was by God's blessing carrying out a divinely governed destiny, and so perhaps he was; but it is difficult somewhat to reconcile his covetousness with his piety. But what is to be said of his Royal mistress whose crown and realm were saved to her by free sacrifices of blood and life on the part of thousands of single-minded men, whom the Royal Lady calmly allowed, after they had secured her safety and that of England, to starve in peace on Margate Sands? Times have changed. Were such reward to be meted to the sailors of to-day after some great period of storm, stress and national peril had been passed through by virtue of their prowess, the wrath of the nation might break forth and go near to sweep away such high-placed callousness for good and all.
The modern austere critic of the condition of the seamen of the mercantile marine is somewhat of an infliction. He slays the present-day sailor with virulent denunciation, and implores divine interposition to take us back to the good old days of Hawkins, Drake, Howard, Blake and the intrepid Nelson. He craves a resurrection of the combined heroism and piety of the sixteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The seaman of those periods is, to his mind, a lost ideal. And without doubt the men trained and disciplined by Hawkins and Drake were the glory of Britain and the terror of other nationalities. Their seamanship and heroism were matchless. They had desperate work to do, and they did it with completeness and devotion. And the same credit may be given to the sailors of still later times under altered conditions. But Nelson's and Collingwood's men did great deeds in different ways from those of Hawkins and Drake. Both sets of seamen were brave and resourceful, but they were made use of differently, and were drafted from different sources. The latter were seamen and piratical rovers by choice, and warriors very often by necessity. They were willing, however, to combine piety, piracy, and sanguinary conflict in the effort to open out new avenues of commercial enterprise for the mutual benefit of themselves and the thrifty lady who sat upon the throne, and who showed no disinclination to receive her share of the booty valiantly acquired by her nautical partners.
The race of men which followed the Trans-Atlantic, Pacific, and Mexican buccaneers of Cadiz, San Juan and Armada fame has been different only in so far as transitional circumstances have made it so. Indeed, the period which elapsed from the time of the destruction of the Armada up to the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century had evolved innumerable changes in modes of commerce which changed our seamen's characteristics as well. But although the circumstances of the sailors' avocation had changed, and they had to adapt themselves to new customs, there is no justification for the belief that the men of the sixteenth were any more capable or well