It seems possible that the intention of those responsible for the raising of the "Maritime Regiment", the men of which were indifferently referred to as "marines" or as "mariners", was not only to provide the nucleus of a disciplined personnel, but to produce a corps of officers who, while retaining a military status, would yet be professional seamen. It was an experiment, but not on a sufficiently comprehensive scale, to transform the ill-paid, ill-treated, and ill-fed seamen of the day into a loyal, contented and disciplined body, or to supply a sufficient number of "gentleman-tarpawlins" to command our ships and fleets. A large number of these officers did do so, but quite as many continued to serve as soldiers, some afloat in command of marines, and many others in the army. As time went on, things adjusted themselves, and before the eighteenth century had progressed very far the sailor came into his own. The "days of oak and hemp" were at their zenith. Our men-of-war were commanded by officers who were thorough seamen, able to handle their ships under sail themselves, though masters who were navigation experts still remained. Their crews were composed of two distinct classes--seamen and marines.[74] The former were, as before, still recruited for the commission only, while the latter were enlisted for a fixed period of service.[75] The best seamen, nevertheless, made a regular profession of the navy, going from one ship to another as they were paid off and commissioned. If they made an occasional trip to sea in a merchantman or privateer between whiles, that by no means impaired their professional ability, and the "prime seamen" of those days were the finest sailors in history. Unfortunately their number, for various reasons, was somewhat limited, and a ship's company, especially if she or her commander bore a bad name afloat, had to be completed by all kinds of people. Even the marines, regularly enlisted men as they were, were by no means always of the same calibre.