recognition that I have distinguished the best of the work that is left to her to show. I shall not readily forget the sudden look of almost eager interest, the effort to speak generous words of thanks, as I bow over her hand to say farewell, and feel that I have been as privileged a visitor as though madame had received me in a gilded salon, at the door of which a powdered lacquey stood to "welcome the coming – speed the parting guest."
And so with some pleasant leave-takings, and not without permission to see them again, I leave these ladies – the fitting representatives of an old nobility and an old régime– to the solitude to which they have retired from a world too ready to forget.
If by any means for the solitude could be substituted a pleasant retirement, and for the sense of desolation and poverty a modest provision that would yet include some grace and lightness to light their declining days, it would be but little after all.
WITH THEM THAT GO DOWN TO THE SEA IN SHIPS
It is possible that those portions of the sacred history which have reference to the association of our Lord Jesus Christ with ships, and the wonderful portions of the great narrative where the Divine Voice seems, as it were, to come from the sea, may have a special attraction for us who live in an island and claim a kind of maritime dominion.
Surely the words "Lord, save me, or I perish," and the instant response of the outstretched hand of the Saviour of men, must have been read with an awful joy by many a God-fearing sailor on the homeward voyage. "It is I, be not afraid," must have come with an intensity of meaning to many a heart which has known the peril of the storm, wherein the voice of man to man has been almost inaudible.
There is something very solemn in the prayers we send up for those at sea. Most of us feel a heart-throb when we lie awake listening to the mighty murmurs of the wind, and waiting for the shrill shriek with which each long terrible blast gathers up its forces – a throb which comes of the sudden thought of lonely ships far out upon the ocean, where men are wrestling with the elements, and looking with clenched lips and straining eyes for the lingering dawn.
Yet, with all this, it is a national reproach to us that until a comparatively recent date we have done little or nothing for our sailors – little for those who have been ready to maintain the old supremacy of our fleet – almost nothing for that greater navy of the mercantile marine to which we are indebted for half the necessaries and for nearly all the luxuries which we enjoy.
A national reproach, because not only have charitable provisions for destitute, sick, infirm, or disabled sailors been neglected, but subscriptions demanded by the State from seamen of the merchant service were never properly applied to relieve the distress of those for whom they were professedly received. Considerably over a million of money has been contributed by merchant seamen, by deductions of sixpences from their monthly pay for the maintenance of Greenwich Hospital, and in addition to this there have been accumulated in the hands of the Government the examination fees of masters and mates passing the Board of Trade examination, and the penny fees paid by common seamen on shipment and unshipment, while the unclaimed wages and effects of seamen dying abroad are calculated at about £8000 a year.
Now there can be no doubt that Greenwich Hospital was originally intended to include merchant seamen in its provisions, for the preamble to the original scheme of William III. recites, "Whereas the King's most excellent Majesty being anxiously desirous to promote the Trade, Navigation, and Naval strength of this Kingdom, and to invite greater numbers of his subjects to betake themselves to the sea, hath determined to erect a hospital," &c. For this purpose sixpence per man per month was to be paid out of the wages of all mariners to the support of the Hospital, and every seaman was to be registered. Why? That the charity might be "for the relief, benefit, or advantage of such the said registered Marines, or Seamen, Watermen, Fishermen, Lightermen, Bargemen, Keelmen, or Seafaring Men, who by age, wounds, or other accidents shall be disabled for future service at sea, and shall not be in a condition to maintain themselves comfortably; and the children of such disabled seamen; and the widows and children of such of them as shall happen to be slain, killed, or drowned in sea service, so far forth as the Hospital shall be capable to receive them, and the revenue thereof will extend."
So far as words went, therefore – and subsequent Acts of Parliament confirmed them – Greenwich Hospital was open to all registered seamen. The fact has always been, however, that it was barely able to meet the claims made by the disabled and infirm sailors of the Navy alone, and therefore the mercantile marine was practically excluded, while the payments were still demanded.
Now let us see what past Governments did for the relief of those old, infirm, or disabled men who having "seen wonders on the great deep," came home and sought help.
A charitable trust, called the "Merchant Seamen's Fund," had been established by merchants and shipowners of the City of London, who gave large sums to it, in order to try to make up for the injustice by which these sailors were virtually excluded from Greenwich Hospital, to which the men of the mercantile marine still had to pay sixpence a month. By a remarkably knowing piece of legislation, an Act was passed (the 20th of George II.) which incorporated the Merchant Seamen's Fund, appointed president and governors, and gave authority to purchase land for building a hospital, to help pay for which another sixpence a month was claimed from the pay of merchant seamen and masters of merchant vessels.
Not till the year 1834, by an Act passed in the reign of William IV., were the merchant sailors relieved from compulsory payment to Greenwich. They had contributed to the hospital for 138 years without having derived any direct benefit from it; and though they were not unwilling to subscribe for their brethren in the Royal Navy, the injustice which demanded their contributions, though their own fund was inadequate to pay for the promised building for which it was intended, became too glaring to be continued. It was therefore determined that a grant of £20,000 should be made to Greenwich Hospital out of the Consolidated Fund, and that the merchant sailors should go on paying their shilling a month for their own benefit (masters paying two shillings), and that a provision for widows and children should be included in the charity, the benefits of which were to be extended to Scotland and Ireland.
The hospital never was built. The Board of Trade taking the management of the contributions, appointed trustees, who were altogether incompetent, and did their duty in a perfunctory or careless manner. In 1850, only £20,000 was distributed among old, infirm, and disabled seamen, while £41,000 was bestowed on widows and children; the allowances varying at different ports from £1 to £7, each place having its own local government. Of course a collapse came. The fund was bankrupt; and in the following year an Act was passed for winding it up – for, says the Board of Trade Report, "the Government has had no control over the matter. The London Corporation and the trustees of outports could not by any management have prevented the insolvency of the fund, as long as they were guided by the principles which the several Acts of Parliament laid down … the whole system was vicious."
By the winding-up Act of 1851 compulsory contributions ceased; but those who chose to continue to subscribe voluntarily might do so. It is hardly to be wondered at that the merchant seamen lost confidence in the paternal protection of the Board of Trade. A few thousand pounds were left from the compulsory contributions, and when this came to be inquired for, nobody knew anything about it. It had somehow slipped out of the estimates, and nobody could tell what had become of it.
That is what past governments have done for poor mercantile Jack.
What has the great British public done for him? Not so very much after all. The truth is, that the sailor, who has always been spoken of as "so dreadfully improvident," has been practically regarded as being most self-helpful. All the time that we have been shaking our solemn heads, and lifting up our hands at the improvidence, the folly, and the extravagance of these frequently underpaid and sometimes overworked men, we have made even the help that we were willing to extend to them in their deeper necessities partially dependent on their own constant and regular subscription to the
