The Sun.
London, England, 1864-07-16 00:00:00

•
St. Helen's, on Taesday afternoon. Captain Pea,

ears ago sacrificed
cock some four-and twenty 3
commission and standing in ;he British Navy to
take command of the first steamship that passed
the Straits of Magellan to the Pacific coast. He
was therefore the pioneer of West Coast Steam
Navigation, and that circumstance, in conjunction
with the maintenance of useful and genial West
Coast relations subsisting from then till now, have,
in the opinion of numerous friends—especially of
the West Coast—justified the putting forward of
Captain Peacock's claims to acknowledgment. They
think that he who was the first to demonstrate the
practicability of long-voyage steam navigation, an
achievement chronicled in the annals of Chile,
Bolivia, Peru, Equador, and New Grenada should
not remain unrecognised in the England which
has profited so much by the development of
West Coast trade. They think also that at a
time when the cfficers and seamen of the
mercantile marine are at the best received into
the service of the Crown in a half-hearted kind of
manner, he who among living men was one of the
earliest examples of preference for the merchant
flag should now, in his declining Sears, receive
that testimonial which long ago might have been
appropriately bestowed. The committee believe that
those now honouring Capt. Peacock will honour the
country's merchant flag.
Of Captain Peacock we profess to know nothing.
For any other officer of the mercantile marine
similarly recommended for distinguished service
and honourable life we would cheerfully bespeak
as much favour. We think that they who ought
to have our help should receive it. We give it,
therefore, in this case on public grounds. The
officers of the mercantile marine, old and young,
have never been, so far as we are aware, over-
valued. On the contrary, there is no want of
evidence of their being too often highly thought
of. In the Navy, especially, they have been long
regarded as a low-bred and inferior class. We are
not sure that this feeling has ever yet wholly passed
away. Many of our old admirals are still the con-
ceited fools that they always were. Nor can it be
said that the Admiralty exhibit more than half the

liberality that they ought to do. Why should the
commander of a first-class merchant ship be incom-
petent to command a first-class Queen's ship
Press the Admiralty on the point, and the sole
objection will be that the commanders of first-
class merchant ships are not lords, not gentry,
nor men put for ward by others who happen
to have the disposal of a rotten Parliamentary
borough. This surely
is a narrow view of the
fitness of any class of men. Good seamanship
with all that that implies, is something apart from
and superior to birth or influence. As a rule the
best sailors are the self-made men, whose lives have
been marked by ups and downs, and who, by stea-
diness and industry, have gained the ladder's top.
On the other hand, the rule is that the worst sailors
are the feather bed, silver spoon gentlemen with
which the Navy now abounds. Such sailors could
not hold a candle to the officers of the merchant
service. The latter are seasoned for endurance—

the former have still to endure their seasoning.
The Admiralty commit a serious blunder in practi•
tally excluding from the service of their country
the very men on whom the country must rely in a
time of danger.