218 THE SEA. 



The true reason why a captain may make his officers and men constitute an agreeable 

 happy family, or a perfect pandemonium of discontent and misery, consists in the abuse 

 of his absolute power. That power is necessarily bestowed on him ; there must be a 

 head; without good discipline, no vessel can be properly handled, or the emergencies of 

 seamanship and warfare met. But as he can in minor matters have it all his own way, 

 and even in many more important ones can determine absolutely, without the fear of any- 

 thing or anybody short of a court-martial, he may, and often does, become a martinet, if 

 not a very tyrant. 



The subordinate officer's life may be rendered a burden by a cantankerous and exacting 

 captain. Every trifling omission may be magnified into a grave offence. Some captains 

 seem to go on the principle of the Irishman who asked, " Who'll tread on my coat tails?" 

 or of the other, "Did you blow your nose at me, sir?" And again, that which in the 

 captain is no offence is a very serious one on the part of the officer or seaman. He may 

 exhaust the vocabulary of abuse and bad language, but not a retort may be made. In the 

 Royal Navy of to-day, though by no means in the merchant service, this is, however, 

 nearly obsolete. However tyrannically disposed, the language of commanders and officers is 

 nearly sure to be free from disgraceful epithets, blasphemies, and scurrilous abuse, cursing 

 and swearing. Officers should be, and generally are, gentlemen. 



A commanding lieutenant of the old school a type of officer not to be found in the 

 Royal Navy nowadays is well described by Admiral Cochrane.'* " My kind uncle," writes 

 he, " the Hon. John Cochrane, accompanied me on board the Iliad for the purpose of 

 introducing me to my future superior officer, Lieutenant Larmour, or, as he was more 

 familiarly known in the service, Jack Larmour a specimen of the old British seaman, little 

 calculated to inspire exalted ideas of the gentility of the naval profession, though presenting 

 at a glance a personification of its efficiency. Jack was, in fact, one of a not very numerous 

 class, whom, for their superior seamanship, the Admiralty was glad to promote from the 

 forecastle to the quarter-deck, in order that they might mould into ship-shape the question- 

 able materials supplied by parliamentary influence, even then paramount in the navy to 

 a degree which might otherwise have led to disaster. Lucky was the commander who 

 could secure such an officer for his quarter-deck. 



"On my introduction, Jack was dressed in the garb of a seaman, with marlinspike 

 slung round his neck, and a lump of grease in his hand, and was busily employed in 

 setting up the rigging. His reception of me was anything but gracious. Indeed, a tall 

 fellow, over six feet high, the nephew of his captain, and a lord to boot, were not very 

 promising recommendations for a midshipman. It is not impossible he might have learned 

 from my uncle something about a military commission of several years' standing; and 

 this, coupled with my age and stature, might easily have impressed him with the idea 

 that he had caught a scapegrace with whom the family did not know what to do, and 

 that he was hence to be saddled with a ' hard bargain.' 



"After a little constrained civility on the .part of the first lieutenant, who was 

 evidently not very well pleased with the interruption to his avocation, he ordered me to 



*"Thc Autobiography of a Seaman." By Thomas, tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the 

 lied, &c. &c. 



