that as they do not feel for themselves sufficiently to provide for their own safety, they must be incapable of feeling for others.  Subjected to a very strict command, they also exercise a tyrannical sway over those whom fortune places in their power.  Accustomed to face an enemy, they breathe nothing but war.  By force of habit, even killing is become so much their passion, that we have seen many instances during our voyage, where they have expressed a horrid eagerness to fire upon the natives on the slightest pretences.  Their way of life in general, prevents their enjoying domestic comforts; and gross animal appetites fill the place of purer affections.

      At last, extinct each social feeling, fell
      And joyless inhumanity pervades
      And petrifies the heart.—­

      THOMSON.

    Though they are members of a civilized society, they may, in some
    measure, be looked on as a body of uncivilized men, rough, passionate,
    revengeful, but likewise brave, sincere, and true to each other.”

In place of inveighing against the illiberality of this statement, or attempting to dispute its truth, as many persons, from an affectation of enthusiastic regard for the honour of our tars, or positive ignorance or contempt of the most incontrovertible obligations of morality and religion, would incline, it will be vastly more philosophical to investigate what are the principles of human nature and the circumstances in their situation, which give rise to such a character, that if possible some adequate remedy, or check at least, may be discovered.  This is certainly not the place for such a discussion, as the importance of the subject demands; and the writer can by no means imagine himself called on to enter upon it.  But he hazards a remark.  He would consider British sailors as made up of precisely the same elements as the rest of men, and that the obvious peculiarities in which they differ from others, are the result of the circumstances of their professional situation.  It follows, that his censure falls on the profession itself, rather than on those who are members of it.  But in fact, he conceives that there has been a culpable neglect on the part of those who at different periods acquire authority, to the moral condition of this class of men.  It is obvious indeed, that governments in general are little careful about the characters of their subordinate agents, unless in so far as is essential to the purposes for which they are employed; and accordingly, where the base and savage principles of mankind can be converted into so powerful an instrument, as we know they are in the present case, we shall find, that scarcely any pains have been taken to superinduce refinement, or even to favour the salutary operation of those causes, by which, in the ordinary course of things, society is gradually emancipated from barbarism.  The rough virtues of the seaman are in their estimation