SAILING CRAFT 97 



As for sea-lawyers — the canting equivalent of 

 ranting demagogues ashore — they could hardly 

 have got a hearing among any first-rate crew. 

 No admiralissimo ever was a greater hero to 

 a junior midshipman than the best Yankee 

 skippers were to the men before the mast. 

 There 's no equalitarian nonsense out at sea. 



This digression springs from and returns 

 to the main argument; because the Yankee 

 excellence is so little understood and some- 

 times so grudgingly acknowledged by British 

 and foreign landsmen, and because Bluenose 

 and Yankee circumstances and practice were so 

 much alike. Britishers were different in nearly 

 all their natural circumstances, while, to in- 

 crease the difference, their practice became 

 greatly modified by a deal of good but some- 

 times rather lubberly legislation. And yet all 

 three — Britisher, Bluenose, and Yankee — are 

 so inextricably connected with each other that 

 it is quite impossible to understand any one of 

 them without some reference to the other two. 



Bluenose discipline was good, very good 

 indeed. When the whole ship's company was 

 Bluenose discipline was partly instinctive and 

 mostly went well, as it generally did when 

 Yankees and Bluenoses sailed together. The 

 whole population of the little home port — 



A. A. G 



