The race of men which followed the Trans-Atlantic, Pacific,
and Mexican buccaneers of Cadiz, San Juan and Armada fame
has been different only in so far as transitional
circumstances have made it so. Indeed, the period which
elapsed from the time of the destruction of the Armada up to
the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the
nineteenth century had evolved innumerable changes in modes
of commerce which changed our seamen's characteristics as
well. But although the circumstances of the sailors'
avocation had changed, and they had to adapt themselves to
new customs, there is no justification for the belief that
the men of the sixteenth were any more capable or well
behaved than those of the eighteenth and the beginning of
the nineteenth centuries. Nor is it justifiable to assume
that because of the rapid changes which have taken place
during the last fifty years by the introduction of steamers,
the seamen who man the steamers are inferior to those who, a
generation before, manned sailing vessels, or who man what
is left of sailing vessels now. The steamer seamen of to-day
are mentally, physically and mechanically as competent to do
the work they are engaged to do as were any previous race of
seamen, and, taking them in the aggregate, they are better
educated than their predecessors and quite as sober.
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