In fine, after all the well-meant and specious
projects that have been brought forward, we seem driven back to the
belief, that the best means of securing a fair administration of the
laws made for the protection of seamen, and certainly the only means
which can create any important change for the better, is the gradual
one of raising the intellectual and religious character of the sailor,
so that as an individual and as one of a class, he may, in the first
instance, command the respect of his officers, and if any difficulty
should happen, may upon the stand carry that weight which an
intelligent and respectable man of the lower class almost always
does with a jury. I know there are many men who, when a few cases of
great hardship occur, and it is evident that there is an evil
somewhere, think that some arrangement must be made, some law
passed, or some society got up, to set all right at once. On this
subject there can be no call for any such movement; on the contrary, I
fully believe that any public and strong action would do harm, and
that we must be satisfied to labor in the less easy and less
exciting task of gradual improvement, and abide the issue of things
working slowly together for good.
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