But it was in reality much worse than merely standing down. At the end of the year 1883 the trade to the Cape was in a very depressed condition, and it was not found possible to keep all the ships employed. Consequently “rotten row” began to fill up, and there were many masters and officers on shore on half pay. “Economy and retrenchment” became the watchword of the board of direction, and the Union Company was by no means singular in commencing its retrenchment policy by seeing how much it could possibly save from the pay of the sea-going staff. There was one favourite question commonly asked of masters by directors. “Did not we consider the difference of pay to be too great between the chief officer and the master?” and we always rightly and religiously answered “No,” for the chiefs were content to wait their turn and the masters knew perfectly well that if any levelling was to be done, it would not be in the upward but the opposite direction. The blow descended at last, however, for, taking advantage of an indiscretion by a prominent master, to whom pay was no great object, the Company gave him the choice of signing a new agreement for less pay, or being unemployed for an indefinite period. The master in question was taken completely by surprise and signed without consultation with any of us, and the path of the directors was then easy, for the rest of us had no choice but to follow suit. I remember, though, that when he came from the office and told me what he had just done, I made use of remarks that might have strained a great friendship of many years’ standing. At this time many of our intermediate ships had been put into the North American trade, amongst them the _Nubian_ with my old friend Jones in command. They were in no way fit for the trade. As showing the difficulty of finding two seamen who will take the same view of any situation I may mention that during a conversation at dinner one night I said to Jones that he was the only man of my acquaintance to whose opinion I would defer on a point of seamanship. Shortly after this he was telling me how he had run for Holyhead in bad weather and let go both anchors at once to bring the ship up. I at once proceeded to argue stoutly that he was entirely wrong in doing so, and if he were alive today, which unfortunately he is not, that point would serve for an unending difference of opinion.