On January 20th, 1838, a circular was issued to the following effect:-- A Volunteer of the First Class must not be under twelve years of age. He must be in good health, fit for service, and able to write English correctly from dictation, and be acquainted with the first four rules of arithmetic, reduction, and rule of three. This seems a slender equipment of knowledge; an irreducible minimum, in fact, for a lad of that age about to enter the Navy; and, moreover, this circular contains no maximum limit of age; a serious oversight. On February 7th in the same year the term "College Volunteers" is ordered to be discontinued; but the circular of January 20th continued in force, unaltered, until 1843, when the term "Naval Cadet" appears for the first time, being substituted in this circular for "Volunteer of the First Class"--still, however, with no superior age limit stated, and it is not until April 1st, 1849, that it is amended in this respect, the maximum age being laid down as fourteen. This is only another instance of the singularly inexact and haphazard ways of the Admiralty in those days. The last regulation on this point was issued in February, 1821, when the age was fixed between 12-1/2 and 13-1/2; the lads were then being kept at the College for two or three years, so that they were actually going to sea at a considerably greater age than the more recent circular appeared to warrant. Unless, indeed, the Lords of the Admiralty reserved to themselves the right of arbitrarily fixing the age in each case; if they did, there is no circular extant to show it. In 1851, however, a little more detail was apparently considered necessary, for there is a supplementary circular, dated February 13th of that year, which lays down:-- That all naval cadets who receive nominations at home are to present themselves for examination at the College within two months of the date of the letter of nomination; and a certificate of qualification, signed by the professor or mathematical master at the College, and approved by the captain of the _Excellent_ (as superintendent of the College), together with a medical certificate of physical efficiency, must be forwarded to the Admiralty before they can be entered. No second trial is to be allowed, and the nomination is to be cancelled unless the candidate passes within two months. The Commander-in-Chief is also authorised to enter cadets who have passed as supernumeraries on board the flagship until they are appointed to sea-going ships. These regulations remained in force until the early part of 1857, when a very radical change was introduced. And here the curtain falls on the old order of things; how it rose on the new, and who were the men who brought about the change, must be told in another chapter. [Illustration: JACK TAR EXPOUNDS.] CHAPTER III. THE "ILLUSTRIOUS."