The Russian fleet, formed entirely after English and Dutch models, has nothing nationally characteristic. The technical terms are consequently Dutch or English, as those of the army are German. To landsmen, every thing on board Russian vessels appears perfect and in the best order ; even to those who saw them as Crawford did, there appears much that merits praise, but the learned in these matters find a great deal to find fault with, and many considerations induce them to undervalue the Russian navy, and think more lightly of its power. In the first place, the Russians are no sailors, but rather, as the English express it, regular land-lubbers. In this respect they are directly opposed to the English, Danes, Dutch, Greeks and other maritime powers, who prefer the sea service to any other. Of all the nations inhabiting modern Russia, hai-dly one is acquainted with, or accustomed to, the sea. The actual Russians, those in the heart of the country, have nothing to do with the sea, the dwellers on the coast are every where colonists and strangers. Even of the maritime population, few are familiar W'ith the ocean. The Lettes in Courland and Livonia ever held the " yure" (sea) in great dread ; the Tartars of the south have always been shepherds, obtaining their foreign produce from foreign maritime nations, and the Cossacks never issued, except at intervals, from the interior of the country, to make predatory excursions on the sea. The only exceptions are the Finns and Esthonians, who are esteemed good sailors ; their long coast line, numerous lakes, and archipelagoes, affording much practice. Hence the Finlanders are very numerous in the Russian navy.
With the scarcity of native seamen, the Russians were compelled to apply to foreigners for sailors, as the French, who were bad horsemen,
AVliy, it would be difficult to say. Pi-ussia has timber for ship-building in abinidance, h:is a merchant navy which may stand in need of protection, and a line of coast on the Baltic, relatively of nmch ^a'eater impi)rtance tlian that of Russia; and yet Prussia does not m:untahi tliere a single ship of war. In tune of war she must allow herself quietly to be cut off from the sea, while Russia had a naval force as soon as she possessed a foot of land on the seashore.
were obliged to have recourse to the Germans to mount their cavalry. Russia has always sought to allure foreigners into her fleet ; at first, Venetians, Dutch, and Germans, at a late period English, and in the southern seas, Greeks. But these foreigners naturally rose to be heads and leaders, as they always do when serving with Russians ; it was found impossible to keep them at the helm or the mast, where tliey were yet more necessary than in the higher posts. The wretched pay of the Russian mariner, which is not much higher than the soldier's, the severe discipline to which he is subjected, the contempt of foreigners for the lower class of Russians, and their consequent unwillingness to serve wdth them on equal terms, are circumstances which render a mingling of foreign and Russian sailors almost impossible. As the Russians did not become sailors through the natiu-al effect of circumstances, or by their own will, but at the command of a master, there was nothing to be done but to select candidates for the sea, as they did for the land service, from the shepherds and husbandmen of the interior. Of the 30,000 sailors now serving in the Russian fleet, at least 24,000 have grown up at the plough and spade, and but 2000 or 3000 at the utmost have served any kind of apprenticeship on the Black Sea, or in the fishing trade on the northern and White seas, and on the great rivers of the country.