It will seldom, if ever, retard the proper manning of a ship to be very fastidious in choosing amongst the volunteers who offer.

The best men will not enter for a ship where sailors are received indiscriminately; and the lower order of mere working hands are easily picked up to complete the crew.
The men are always carefully examined by the surgeon before being received; but it would not be a bad rule that no volunteer should be finally entered until he has been seen and approved of by both captain and first lieutenant.

It is, indeed, of great consequence to the eventual comfort of the ship, which always turns upon her good and consistent discipline, that the first lieutenant and captain should be cordially agreed on so material a point as the choice of the individual seamen forming the crew.
During the short visits which the captain pays to his ship at this time, he will seldom find it useful to supplant his first lieutenant, by taking upon himself the conduct of the ship's detailed operations.
The peculiar duties of the captain, when his ship is fitting out, necessarily require him to be absent from her every day during a considerable portion of the working hours.

He has to wait on the admiral to receive fresh instructions; he has to carry on a correspondence with the Admiralty on the various equipments of the ship; he has representations and applications to make to the port-admiral, respecting officers and men, and to the admiral-superintendent of the dockyard, respecting stores.

In short, whether at the rendezvous, at the dockyard, at the admiral's office, or at his own lodgings, the captain will generally find ample employment on shore for most of the best hours of his day, in really co-operating with his first lieutenant afloat, by seeing those duties properly executed which lie beyond that officer's reach.