My
logs and certificates were examined and approved; my time calculated and
allowed to be correct. The questions in navigation which were put to me
were very few, for the best of all possible reasons, that most captains
in His Majesty's service know little or nothing of navigation. During
their servitude as midshipmen, they learn it by _rote_, without being
aware of the principles upon which the calculations they use are
founded. As lieutenants, their services as to navigation are seldom
required, and they rapidly forget all about it. As captains, their whole
remnant of mathematical knowledge consists in being able to set down the
ship's position on the chart. As for navigating the ship, the master is
answerable; and the captains not being responsible themselves, they
trust entirely to his reckoning. Of course there are exceptions, but
what I state is the fact; and if an order from the Admiralty was given,
that all captains should pass again, although they might acquit
themselves very well in seamanship, nineteen out of twenty would be
turned back when they were questioned in navigation. It is from the
knowledge of this fact that I think the service is injured by the
present system, and the captain should be held _wholly _responsible for
the navigation of his ship. It has been long known that the officers of
every other maritime state are more scientific than our own, which is
easily explained, from the responsibility not being invested in our
captains.
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