We know that too much familiarity breeds contempt; but, in situations where there is of necessity much intercourse, too little familiarity will as inevitably breed ill-will, distrust, apprehension, and mutual jealousy. The difficulty lies in regulating with due caution this delicate sort of intimacy, and in hitting the exact mean between too much freedom and too much reserve of manner. The proverb points out the evil clearly enough, but leaves us to find the remedy. In the Navy, long experience seems to have shewn, that this important purpose can be best accomplished by the captain and his officers occasionally meeting one another at table—not capriciously, at irregular intervals, or by fits and starts of favour, as the humour suits, but in as fixed an order, as if the whole of this social intercourse were determined by Admiralty regulation. It will readily be understood by any one who has attended much to the subject of discipline, and will be felt, I should think, more or less, by all persons who have been engaged personally in the management of a house, a regiment, a ship, a shop, or any other establishment in which distinctions of rank and subdivisions of labour prevail, that nothing ever does, or can go on well, unless, over and above the mere legal authority possessed by the head, he shall carry with him a certain amount of the good-will and confidence of those under him. For it is very material, in order to balance, as it were, the technical power with which the chief of such establishment is armed, that there should be some heartiness—some real cheerfulness, between him and those he commands. Accordingly, the obedience which they yield to him should not be entirely the result either of mere habit, or of the still more frigid motive of fear, but should be made to spring, if possible, out of sincere good-will, as an essential, if not the principal ingredient in the stimulus. In ordinary times, it is true, the duty goes on pretty well in a ship-of-war, by the sheer momentum of an established routine. It may be added, that things often proceed with a degree of success almost as miraculous, in the apprehension of the ignorant, as the movements of a watch appear to the eyes of a savage. But in times of danger, when doubts and difficulties beset an officer, or protracted labours fatigue his crew, and untried resources and exertions are called for every moment, it is discovered that mere routine, (though, even at such periods, it does a great deal,) will not accomplish all that is required. The captain then finds out, often when it is too late, that unless motives of a more generous and stirring nature come into play, to give fresh vigour to the formalities of his discipline, not only his own reputation, but some of the great ends of the public service, may be lost.