With both steamship and sailing ships being run to the closest margin possible for the sake of economy, it was seen by those who studied the question that not only was the Mercantile Marine failing to get as good a class of officer as it should do, but also that if the condition of the apprentice was not improved there would soon be a shortage.
A great deal of the glamour of sea life had already departed. Cleaning hen coops on a close-run windjammer had little of the old romance about it, and chipping iron work on a dingy steam tramp had even less. A few firms, of which those in the wool trade were shining examples, still took a pride in their ships and did not look upon them merely as a commercial asset, and these still took trouble to train their apprentices. Beyond these and a few individual ships with conscientious captains, the apprentice was absolutely neglected, and of course the apathetic Board of Trade did nothing. The history of the Board of Trade has been mostly that of a masterly inactivity, and on the rare occasions on which it has displayed activity, it has not usually been for the benefit of the Mercantile Marine.
It was entirely owing to Lord Brassey and Mr. Devitt, as he was then, that we possess such highly trained officers as those who now command the present day liners. They set the ball rolling which was later taken up by most of the big steamship lines. Luckily for the success of the venture, Messrs. Devitt & Moore possessed two or three captains in their employ who were specially fitted for the arduous task of controlling and teaching a shipload of 30 or 40 high-spirited boys. Of such were Captains Barrett, Corner and Maitland.
The first two ships to be specially fitted to carry an extra number of big premium apprentices or cadets, as they should be called, were the famous Orient pair, _Hesperus_ and _Harbinger_, which were taken over by Devitt & Moore for the purpose.
The _Hesperus_ as a cadet ship made some very fine passages.
She left London on 11th September, 1891, and arrived Sydney on the 8th December 88 days out. There happened to be a gold rush up country and her crew cleared out, leaving the cadets to do everything during the four months the ship was waiting for a wool cargo. The cadets were not idle and played the usual pranks of their kind, and finally the _Hesperus_ left Sydney with the three brass balls of a famous pawnbrokers in Argyle Cut dangling from the end of her jibboom before the envious eyes of the apprentices of all the ships in port.