It is unnecessary to repeat Admiral Martin’s further remarks concerning apprentices. I may, however, state that he considered the complaints against them but a “plausible grievance” of a few shipowners. Apprentices, he held, were not much expense, for though they ate as much as men, they soon became active and useful in the ship, performing a man’s duty without wages. They were, besides, the cheapest people to shipowners, who in war time were glad enough to have their full number of them, because, as apprentices, they were in fact so many hands protected from impressment. The number of fresh hands required to keep up the stock of seamen was very considerable; for the hard life of sailors tells early on human strength, and the perils of their pursuit contributes much to the waste of life. The Admiral, therefore, held that law which compelled shipowners to take apprentices was a most valuable part of the Navigation Laws, and ought not on any account to be given up: and that a constant influx of young blood into the sea service was essential to the interests of a naval country, and any diminution of the present number of apprentices in proportion to the existing tonnage would, in his opinion, be detrimental to the navy, and hazardous to our national security. With regard to the quality of the supply from the commercial to the military navy of this country, and to the comparative value of those who had been brought up in the merchant service, or of those who entered the navy for the first time, Admiral Martin unhesitatingly said, that the real practical seaman was the north country sailor; but that the coasting sailor and the South Sea-fishery sailor were now very scarce, if we had not lost the latter altogether. [Sidenote: Evidence of Admiral Berkeley,] Captain Maurice Frederick Fitzhardinge Berkeley, R.N., who also gave evidence, entered into various explanations concerning the effect of bounties, and of the impressment of seamen, and approved the practice by which seamen in foreign parts could enter her Majesty’s ships without being deemed deserters: he admitted, however, that if he were a captain in a merchant vessel “he might probably think it a hard case.” He took care to remark that “the fault was not always with the men;” and, at the same time, gave a different testimony to that of Sir James Stirling about the proportion of merchant seamen who served on board men-of-war. In his opinion, two-fifths of the navy had been brought up in the merchant service; while a good many who had commenced life in it as boys, had subsequently gone into the merchant service. With respect to the registry system, he remarked that in the Jews’ shops at Shadwell, and in similar places at Bristol, sailors could purchase as many register-tickets as they wanted, and, for half the amount of the fine, that would be asked of them if they went to the Custom House.[93] [Sidenote: and of Mr. R. B. Minturn.]