Naval Administration of Great Britain. JuNE, 



vessels were formerly not so entirely dismantled as they are at present; 

 nor were their crews drafted to perform duties on shore which translate 

 them, to use Bottom's phrase, from loyal and thorough seamen, to lub- 

 berly landsmen studying the art of smuggling. We allude to the pre- 

 cious service entitled the Coast-blockade. It cannot, indeed, be denied 

 that it is absolutely necessary to protect the legal trade and consequently 

 the revenue of the country ; but, we would ask, are no other men com- 

 petent to this except the best of our ships' companies ? Might not a 

 portion of the marines be incorporated with seamen in the execution of 

 this duty ? The preventive service, now partly superseded by the coast- 

 blockade, was conducted on what appears to us to be a preferable system 

 to the present. The whole establishment was entirely under the control 

 of the Commissioners of the Customs, who formed the necessary force from 

 miscellaneous sources, such as watermen, fishermen, &c. &c.; but since 

 the Admiralty, out of a desire to monopolize all the patronage connected, 

 however remotely, with the sea, have taken under its own parental care 

 and appointment the situations connected with this amphibious service, 

 our " best hands," likely to be wanted on occasions of great necessity, are 

 either suffered to emigrate into the service of foreign states, or are frit- 

 tered away in the lounging promenading life of beach sentinels. 



But this and more serious defects in the present administration of the 

 naval affairs of the country may be easily accounted for and summed up 

 in one word " Patronage !" It is the effect of undue patronage that 

 the Board of Admiralty should be constituted, not of naval officers, as 

 might naturally be concluded, but of a majority of landsmen compara- 

 tively ignorant of the nature of the momentous affairs confided to their 

 direction. We have had, before now, a General in the army sitting as 

 First Lord, and a Cornet of Dragoons filling the place which ought to 

 have been held by an experienced Admiral ! The two naval officers at 

 present attached to the Board (and more efficient men could not have 

 been selected) are obliged, for want of professional colleagues, to devote 

 the whole of their time to levees and other occasions which peremptorily 

 demand their personal attendance in London. This being the case, let 

 us ask how the numerous duties out of London, equally essential with 

 the above, are to be discharged, particularly as in none of our sea-ports 

 is there any establishment whose functions partake of the authority of 

 head-quarters ? To speak plainer, there is no branch-administration ; 

 no local body of professional men invested with power to examine 

 into the condition of our ships, and to originate, if necessary, any 

 measure which might tend to remedy an abuse, or to introduce an 

 essential improvement. For, be it observed, that the power of the 

 port-admirals, and commissioners of dock-yards, do not partake of 

 this nature. As it would obviously be quite useless to send the 

 ^professional lords on such service, the inquiring reader will na- 

 turally ask what are the duties discharged by these gentlemen ? The 

 only answer to be given to this is, that they sign letters, present to 

 the House of Commons once a year the Navy Estimates (a duty 

 which, by the by, ought to be performed by the secretary), and 

 last, though by no means least, it is expected of them that they take 

 the trouble to provide their juvenile friends with situations afloat 

 a thing highly necessary, inasmuch as it would seem utterly incon- 

 sistent with the practice of well-regulated states to let the slightest 

 opportunity of this kind fall into the hands of old officers, who, being 



