The personal qualities which were once needed for the sea-service are fast passing away.  The commander or the master needs no longer to lean upon his men, or they to trust in him.  He wants drudges, not shipmates,—­obedient, active drudges,—­men who can be drilled to quick execution of duty, even as in a machine the several parts.  The navy is manned after this pattern; but there is a touchstone which sharpens the edge dulled with routine,—­the touchstone of war.  When the time comes that the drum-tap calls to quarters, and the decks are strewn with sand,—­when with silence as of the grave, fore and aft, the frigate moves stately and proud into the line of her adversaries’ fire, then it is that the officer and the man meet face to face, and the awful truth of battle compels them to own their common brotherhood.  The merchant-service has few such exigencies.  The greater the size of the ship, the greater the number of the crew.  The system of shipping-offices and outfitters breaks up almost all the personal contact between master and men.  They come on board at the hour of sailing.  A gang of riggers, stevedores, or lightermen work the vessel into the stream.  A handful of boosy wretches are bundled into the forecastle, and as many more rolled, dead-drunk, into their bunks, to sleep off their last spree.  The mates are set to the task of dragooning into order the unruly mass.  Half the men have spent their advance, and mean to run as soon as the ship arrives.  They intend to do as little as they can,—­to “soger,” and shirk, and work against the ship all they can.  The captain cares only to make a quick passage and get what he can out of the crew.  Community of interest there is none.  Brutal authority is pitted against sullen discontent.

In the old days of the little white-headed farmer’s boy’s dreams, there were discovery and trading-ships sailing into unknown seas, and finding fairy islands never visited before.  There were savages to trade with,—­to fight with, it might be.  There were a thousand perils and adventures that called for all the manly and ennobling qualities both of generous command and loyal obedience.  It was a point of honor to stick by ship and captain while ship and captain remained to stick by; for the success of a voyage depended on such mutual trust and help.  But now where is the sea’s secret?  There is hardly a square league of water which has not been sailed over.  Find an island large enough to land a goat upon, and you will find it laid down in the charts,—­and, if it be only far enough south, a Stonington sealer at anchor under its lee, or a New Bedford whaler’s crew ashore picking up drift-wood.  Where are the old dangers of the sea?  We are fast learning to calculate for the storms, and to run from them.  Steam-frigates have ended forever the pirates of the Spanish Main.  The long, low, black schooner, which could sail dead to windward through the pages of the cheap “yellow-covers,” and the likeness of which sported its skull and crossbones on the said covers, is to be met with nowhere else.  Neither the Isle of Pines nor the numberless West India keys know her or her romantic commander any more.