The condition of the great dim mass of seamen, whose fate so often depended on the bad commander, is not easy to realise. But we have every reason to believe that it was hard, even in comparison with that of other sailors. The word is used here of all the elements forming the crews of our ships, though the “sailormen” to use their own expression—that is to say those bred from boyhood to the sea—never formed a majority, and even rarely amounted to a third of the complements. The majority was always made up of soldiers and landsmen. This proportion of one-third sailors and two-thirds landsmen was enforced on the privateers. Taking the whole body of those who lived in the warships, and by the sea, they suffered from two standing grievances throughout the whole of the eighteenth century,—the amount of their pay, and the system of payment. Though the establishment of William III. doubled the pay of the officers, and the new establishment of 1700 did not make very material reductions, nothing was done for the sailors. They continued to receive 20s. a month for a month of twenty-eight days in the case of able seamen, and less for others. To the true sailors this was peculiarly hard. The first effect of a war was to send up the wages in merchant ships to 45s. and 50s. a month, while as much as £7 would be paid to the colliers for the voyage from the Tyne to London, though it might last only six or seven weeks. It was for this reason that the press was needed to man the navy. Landsmen, waisters, and marines were found with no great difficulty. Not being trained sailors they were not sought by shipowners. But the real sailors were. Therefore it was necessary to draw them to the navy by offers of bounties to make up the bad pay of the state, and when this temptation failed, as it invariably did, to attract a sufficient number, then to drive them in by the press.