STATE OP ENGLAND IN 1685.

297

and gambling, he succeeded in learning the meaning of afew technical phrases and the names of the points of the com- -pass, he was full)-qualified to take charge of a three-decker.This is no imaginary description. In 1G66, John Sheffield,Earl of Mulgrave, at seventeen years of age, volunteered toserve at sea against the Dutch. He passed six weeks onboard, diverting himself, as well as he could, in the societyof some young libertines of rank, and then returned hometo take the command of a troop of horse. After this he wasnever on the water till the year 1C72, when he again joinedthe fleet, and was almost immediately appointed Captain ofa ship of eighty-four guns, reputed the finest in the navy.He was then twenty-three years old, and had not, in thewhole course of his life, been three months afloat. As soonas he came back from sea he was made Colonel of a regimentof foot. This is a specimen of the manner in which navalcommands of the highest importance were then given; anda favourable specimen; for Mulgrave, though he wanted ex-perience, wanted neither parts nor courage. Others werepromoted in the same way who not only were not good offi-cers, but who were intellectually and morally incapable ofever becoming good officers, and whose only recommendationwas that they had been ruined by folly and vice. The chiefbait which allured these men into the service was the profitof conveying bullion and other valuable commodities fromport to port; for both the Atlantic and the Mediterraneanwere then so much infested by pirates from Barbary thatmerchants were not willing to trust precious cargoes to anycustody but that of a man of war. A Captain in this waysometimes cleared several thousands of pounds by a shortvoyage; and for this lucrative business he too often neglectedthe interests of his country and the honour of his flag, mademean submissions to foreign powers, disobeyed the mostdirect injunctions of his superiors, lay in port when he was

CHAP.

in.