WHAT THE OCEAN MEANS TO GREAT BRITAIN 309 



however, the Americans built up an enormous oversea 

 trade by reason of their superior speed and the won- 

 derful ability of their officers* In this latter respect, 

 again, they showed us the way out of our old-fashioned 

 ideas of navigation. The American officers did not 

 believe in shortening sail every night at sunset in 

 man-of-war fashion, with whom rapid passages were of 

 no moment, nor did they believe in reducing sail at 

 the first premonition of bad weather, or in waiting 

 until a gale had blown itself right out before they 

 made sail again. They took every advantage they 

 could of the wind while it lasted, only reducing sail 

 when it was impossible for the masts to bear the strain 

 any longer, and on the first slackening of the gale 

 making sail again. 



Now, it must not be supposed that British seamen 

 were not just as brave and skilful as these kinsmen of 

 theirs in the United States. But they were, as sailors 

 have always been, pre-eminently conservative, and 

 slow to learn, so that when the energetic Yankees 

 introduced their pushing ways into shiphandling, they 

 immediately gained a very great advantage, which 

 they kept until the disastrous civil war. Disastrous, 

 that is, to American oversea trade, for the damage 

 done to American shipping by the Confederate cruisers 

 was irreparable, in that the British shipowners and 

 seamen, having learned their lesson, stepped in and 

 took the waiting trade, conducting it on such im- 

 proved lines that it was impossible for the Americans 

 ever to regain the ground they had lost. Moreover, 

 they had now to compete with the most beautiful 

 models in shipbuilding the world had ever seen. Hall, 

 of Aberdeen, Steel, of Greenock, Scott, of the same 



