306 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



to such an extent, that it may well be doubted if there 

 has ever been such an enthusiasm for the sea and its 

 power to connect Britain with the ends of the earth 

 as there was in Elizabethan days. The hardships were 

 terrible, but the English seamen had consolations 

 withheld from the seamen of any other nation with the 

 sole exception, perhaps, of the Dutch in that they 

 were sharers in the profits of the ventures, being free- 

 men, and treated as such. Truly, the discipline was 

 hard, as was the life generally, but it was binding upon 

 all alike, and if any tyranny was attempted, it soon 

 met with its due from these sturdy sea-dogs, who knew 

 so well how to work and fight to protect the results 

 of their work. But, when all has been said that can 

 be said in praise of the maritime enterprise of the 

 seventeenth century, it remains true that it was only 

 what the modern American would call a get-rich-quick 

 scheme : it was not a necessity of national existence, 

 for the country was quite self-supporting ; it contained 

 within its own borders all that was needed for the 

 wants of its moderate population. But we were ever 

 a turbulent, restless race, impatient of restraint, the 

 true stuff of which empires are builded, and none in 

 those days, at any rate, were oppressed by craven fears 

 of becoming great. 



This spirit of adventure, reckless of perils yet 

 calculating profits, made our seamen enter into com- 

 petition with the mariners of the older type and 

 defeat them on their own ground with comparative 

 ease made us, earlier than any other people, establish 

 the principle of a merchant marine, protected in its 

 lawful business of getting wealth by honest toil and 

 adventurous voyaging by ships especially equipped 



