“You’d have the men, sir, if you treated them well when you got them,” said he.  “Admiral Nelson can get his ships manned.  So can Admiral Collingwood.  Why?  Because he has thought for the men, and so the men have thought for him.  Let men and officers know and respect each other, and there’s no difficulty in keeping a ship’s company.  It’s the infernal plan of turning a crew over from ship to ship and leaving the officers behind that rots the Navy.  But I have never found a difficulty, and I dare swear that if I hoist my pennant to-morrow I shall have all my old Speedies back, and as many volunteers as I care to take.”

“That is very well, my lord,” said the old captain, with some warmth; “when the Jacks hear that the Speedy took fifty vessels in thirteen months, they are sure to volunteer to serve with her commander.  Every good cruiser can fill her complement quickly enough.  But it is not the cruisers that fight the country’s battles and blockade the enemy’s ports.  I say that all prize-money should be divided equally among the whole fleet, and until you have such a rule, the smartest men will always be found where they are of least service to any one but themselves.”

This speech produced a chorus of protests from the cruiser officers and a hearty agreement from the line-of-battleship men, who seemed to be in the majority in the circle which had gathered round.  From the flushed faces and angry glances it was evident that the question was one upon which there was strong feeling upon both sides.

“What the cruiser gets the cruiser earns,” cried a frigate captain.

“Do you mean to say, sir,” said Captain Foley, “that the duties of an officer upon a cruiser demand more care or higher professional ability than those of one who is employed upon blockade service, with a lee coast under him whenever the wind shifts to the west, and the topmasts of an enemy’s squadron for ever in his sight?”

“I do not claim higher ability, sir.”

“Then why should you claim higher pay?  Can you deny that a seaman before the mast makes more in a fast frigate than a lieutenant can in a battleship?”

“It was only last year,” said a very gentlemanly-looking officer, who might have passed for a buck upon town had his skin not been burned to copper in such sunshine as never bursts upon London—­“it was only last year that I brought the old Alexander back from the Mediterranean, floating like an empty barrel and carrying nothing but honour for her cargo.  In the Channel we fell in with the frigate Minerva from the Western Ocean, with her lee ports under water and her hatches bursting with the plunder which had been too valuable to trust to the prize crews.  She had ingots of silver along her yards and bowsprit, and a bit of silver plate at the truck of the masts.  My Jacks could have fired into her, and would, too, if they had not been held back.  It made them mad to think of all they had done in the south, and then to see this saucy frigate flashing her money before their eyes.”