The chief engineer commends also the ship steward for the manner in which he made the little food they had last, the cheery spirit he manifested, and the great help he was to the captain by keeping the men in good humour.  That trusty man had “his hands cruelly chafed with the rowing, but it never damped his spirits.”

They made Ronas Hill (as straight as a die), and the chief engineer cannot express their feelings of gratitude and relief when they set their feet on the shore.  He praises the unbounded kindness of the people in Hillswick.  “It seemed to us all like Paradise regained,” he says, concluding his letter with the words: 

“And there was our captain, just his usual self, as if nothing had happened, as if bringing the boat that hazardous journey and being the means of saving eighteen souls was to him an everyday occurrence.”

Such is the chief engineer’s testimony to the continuity of the old tradition of the sea, which made by the work of men has in its turn created for them their simple ideal of conduct.

CONFIDENCE—­1919

I.

The seamen hold up the Edifice.  They have been holding it up in the past and they will hold it up in the future, whatever this future may contain of logical development, of unforeseen new shapes, of great promises and of dangers still unknown.

It is not an unpardonable stretching of the truth to say that the British Empire rests on transportation.  I am speaking now naturally of the sea, as a man who has lived on it for many years, at a time, too, when on sighting a vessel on the horizon of any of the great oceans it was perfectly safe to bet any reasonable odds on her being a British ship—­with the certitude of making a pretty good thing of it at the end of the voyage.

I have tried to convey here in popular terms the strong impression remembered from my young days.  The Red Ensign prevailed on the high seas to such an extent that one always experienced a slight shock on seeing some other combination of colours blow out at the peak or flag-pole of any chance encounter in deep water.  In the long run the persistence of the visual fact forced upon the mind a half-unconscious sense of its inner significance.  We have all heard of the well-known view that trade follows the flag.  And that is not always true.  There is also this truth that the flag, in normal conditions, represents commerce to the eye and understanding of the average man.  This is a truth, but it is not the whole truth.  In its numbers and in its unfailing ubiquity, the British Red Ensign, under which naval actions too have been fought, adventures entered upon and sacrifices offered, represented in fact something more than the prestige of a great trade.

The flutter of that piece of red bunting showered sentiment on the nations of the earth.  I will not venture to say that in every case that sentiment was of a friendly nature.  Of hatred, half concealed or concealed not at all, this is not the place to speak; and indeed the little I have seen of it about the world was tainted with stupidity and seemed to confess in its very violence the extreme poorness of its case.  But generally it was more in the nature of envious wonder qualified by a half-concealed admiration.