guns and her spread of canvas, she would go forth to the open sea, the proudest ship flying the British ensign. But though this ship contained many of the improvements which had been made recently in the art of shipbuilding, yet there had been a scandalous excess of expense, for the Commissioners discovered that more than double the loads of timber had been used than had been estimated for. It is undeniable that the Stuart seamanship was inferior to that of the Elizabethans. They could not handle their vessels with such dexterity as the contemporaries of Drake. The sailors who had not become pirates were not the equals of those who had fought against the Spaniards; and this for two reasons: firstly, the fisheries had become so bad as to discourage putting to sea; and, secondly, the voyages of discovery were now far fewer. As already stated, one of the happy results of the Anglo-Dutch wars was that they gave experience to inexperienced men. Often enough, too, as in the fleet that was sent in 1625 to Cadiz, the ships were leaky, cranky, and fitted with defective gear and the scantiest supply of victuals. Add to these drawbacks the incapacity of the officers and the diseases of the men, and you may rightly pity the lot of the sailor in those times. They were even put ashore at Cadiz fasting, so that they promptly filled their poor bellies with the wine of the country and became drunk. Can you wonder, therefore, that during the Civil War, after there had been a series of mutinies during the reign of Charles I, the whole of the Navy, with the exception of one ship, deserted the royal cause as a protest against the bad food, the irregular pay, and the incapable officers? After that the victuals were improved, their wages were paid at a fair scale and with punctuality, and their affairs better regulated. But not even then were matters entirely satisfactory. As one reads through the correspondence of this period one can see that discipline was woefully lacking. Even Blake, keen disciplinarian that he was, found it necessary to write on the 1st of December, 1652, to the Admiralty Commissioners to the following effect soon after the encounter with the Dutch fleet off Dungeness: “I am bound to let your Honours know in general that there was much baseness of spirit, not among the merchantmen only, but many of the State’s ships, and therefore I make it my humble request that your Honours would be pleased to send down some gentlemen to take an impartial and strict examination of the deportment of several commanders, that you may know who are to be confined and who are not.” Captain Thomas Thorowgood--is not the surname suggestive of the Puritan period?--also wrote to complain that his crew had actually refused to accept their six months’ pay as being inadequate. “On Saturday night they were singing and roaring, and I sent my servant to bid the boatswain to be quiet and go to their cabins; but they told me they would not be under my command,