English sailors without a feeling of discontent (4)
I believe the answer is:
envy
'feeling of discontent' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'english sailors without a' is the wordplay.
'english' becomes 'E' (abbreviation).
'sailors' becomes 'navy' (group of sailors).
'without' is a deletion indicator.
'navy' with 'a' removed is 'nvy'.
'e'+'nvy'='ENVY'
(Other definitions for envy that I've seen before include "grudge" , "Jealous feeling" , "Jealousy, resentment" , "Be green" , "The green-eyed monster" .)