Chapter 26

If a man, sir, is liable to be forced from the care of his own private affairs, from his favourite schemes of life, from the engagements of domestick tenderness, or the prospects of near advantage, and subjected, without his consent, to the command of one whom he hates, or dreads, or perhaps despises, it requires no long argument to show, that by whatever authority he is thus treated, he is reduced to the condition of a slave, to that abject, to that hateful state, which every Englishman has been taught to avoid at the hazard of his life.

It is therefore evident, that a law which tends to confer such a power, subverts our constitution as far as its effects extend; a constitution, which was originally formed as a barrier against slavery, and which one age after another has endeavoured to strengthen.

Such a power, therefore, in whatever hands it may be lodged, I shall always oppose. It is dangerous, sir, to intrust any man with absolute dominion, which is seldom known to be impartially exercised, and which often makes those corrupt, and insolent, whom it finds benevolent and honest.

The bill proposes only encouragement, and encouragement may be given by his majesty, without a new law; let us, therefore, draw up an address, and cease to debate, where there is no prospect of agreement.

Mr. WINNINGTON spoke as follows:--Sir, the payment of an annual salary will, in my opinion, be to the last degree inconvenient and dangerous. The yearly expense has been already estimated, and arises to a sum very formidable in our present state. Nor is the necessity of adding to the publick burden, a burden which already is hard to be borne, the only objection to this proposal.

Nothing can more contribute to dispirit the nation, than to protract the consequences of a war, and to make the calamity felt, when the pleasures of victory and triumph have been forgotten; we shall be inclined rather to bear oppression and insult than endeavour after redress, if we subject ourselves and our posterity to endless exactions.

The expenses of the present provision for superannuated and disabled sailors, is no inconsiderable tax upon the publick, which is not less burdened by it for the manner of collecting it by a deduction from the sailors' wages; for, whoever pays it immediately, it is the ultimate gift of the nation, and the utmost that can be allowed for this purpose.

It must be confessed, sir, the persons entitled to the pension are not sufficiently distinguished in the bill; by which, as it now stands, any of the worthless superfluities of a ship, even the servants of the captains, may, after five years, put in their demand, and plunder that nation which they never served.

Nor do I think, sir, the efficacy of this method will bear any proportion to the expense of it; for I am of opinion, that few of the sailors will be much affected by the prospect of a future pension. I am, therefore, for dazzling them with five pounds, to be given them at their entrance, which will be but a single payment, and probably fill our fleets with greater expedition, than methods which appear more refined, and the effects of deeper meditation.

Lord GAGE spoke in the following manner:--Sir, nothing is more clear than that a yearly pension will burden the nation, without any advantage; and as it will give occasion to innumerable frauds, it is a method which ought to be rejected.

As to the new power, sir, which is proposed to be placed in the hands of the magistrates, it undoubtedly reduces every sailor to a state of slavery, and is inconsistent with that natural right to liberty, which is confirmed and secured by our constitution. The bill, therefore, is, in my opinion, defective in all its parts, of a tendency generally pernicious, and cannot be amended but by rejecting it.

Mr. Henry PELHAM spoke next, to this effect:--Sir, I cannot but think it necessary, that on this occasion, at least, gentlemen should remit the ardour of disputation, and lay the arts of rhetorick aside; that they should reserve their wit and their satire for questions of less importance, and unite, for once, their endeavours, that this affair may meet with no obstructions but from its natural difficulty.

We are now, sir, engaged in a war with a nation, if not of the first rank in power, yet by no means contemptible in itself; and, by its alliances, extremely formidable. We are exposed, by the course of our trade, and the situation of our enemies, to many inevitable losses, and have no means of preventing our merchants from being seized, without any danger or expense to the Spaniards, but by covering the sea with our squadrons.

Nor are we, sir, to satisfy ourselves with barely defeating the designs of the Spaniards; our honour demands that we should force them to peace upon advantageous terms; that we should not repulse, but attack them; not only preserve our own trade and possessions, but endanger theirs.

It is by no means certain, sir, that in the prosecution of these designs we shall not be interrupted by the interest or jealousy of a nation far more powerful, whose forces we ought, therefore, to be able to resist.

A vigorous exertion of our strength will probably either intimidate any other power that may be inclined to attack us, or enable us to repel the injuries that shall be offered: discord and delay can only confirm our open enemies in their obstinacy, and animate those that have hitherto concealed their malignity to declare against us.

It is, therefore, sir, in no degree prudent to aggravate the inconveniencies of the measures proposed for accomplishing what every man seems equally to desire; to declaim against the expedients offered in the bill as pernicious, unjust, and oppressive, contributes very little to the production of better means. That our affairs will not admit of long suspense, and that the present methods of raising seamen are not effectual, is universally allowed; it, therefore, evidently follows, sir, that some other must be speedily struck out.

I think it necessary to propose, that the house be resolved into a committee to-morrow morning; and hope all that shall assemble on this occasion, will bring with them no other passion than zeal for their country.

[The speaker having taken the chair, the chairman of the committee reported, that they had made some progress; and desiring leave to sit again, it was resolved to go into the committee again on the morrow.]

MARCH 4, 1740-1.

On the sixty-second day the affair was put off; but on the sixty-third, the house resolving itself into a committee, a clause was offered, by which five pounds were proposed to be advanced to an able seaman, and three pounds to every other man that should enter voluntarily into his majesty's service, after twenty days, and within sixty.

After which, Mr. WINNINGTON spoke as follows:--Sir, this is a clause in which no opposition can be apprehended, as those gentlemen who declared their disapprobation of the former, were almost unanimous in proposing this expedient, as the least expensive, and the most likely to succeed.

The time for the reception of volunteers upon this condition, is, sir, in my opinion, judiciously determined. If it was extended to a greater length, or left uncertain, the reward would lose its efficacy, the sailors would neglect that which they might accept at any time, and would only have recourse to the ships of war when they could find no other employment.

Yet I cannot conceal my apprehensions, that this bounty will not alone be sufficient to man our fleets with proper expedition; and that as allurements may be useful on one hand, force will be found necessary on the other; that the sailors may not only be incited to engage in the service by the hopes of a reward, but by the fear of having their negligence to accept it punished, by being compelled into the same service, and forfeiting their claim by staying to be compelled.

Lord BALTIMORE then spoke to the following effect:--Sir, to the reward proposed in this clause, I have declared in the former conference on this bill, that I have no objection, and, therefore, have no amendment to propose, except with regard to the time limited for the payment.

As our need of seamen, sir, is immediate, why should not a law for their encouragement immediately operate? What advantage can arise from delays? Or why is not that proper to be advanced now, that will be proper in twenty days? That all the time between the enaction and operation of this law must be lost, is evident; for who will enter for two pounds, that may gain five by withholding himself from the service twenty days longer?

Nor do I think the time now limited sufficient; many sailors who are now in the service of the merchants, may not return soon enough to lay claim to the bounty, who would gladly accept it, and who will either not serve the crown without it, or will serve with disgust and complaints; as the loss of it cannot be imputed to their backwardness, but to an accident against which they could not provide.

Mr. WINNINGTON replied:--Sir, though I think the time now fixed by the bill sufficient, as I hope that our present exigency will be but of short continuance, and that we shall soon be able to raise naval forces at a cheaper rate, yet as the reasons alleged for an alteration of the time may appear to others of more weight than to me, I shall not oppose the amendment.

Sir John BARNARD next rose, and said:--Sir, with regard to the duration of the time fixed for the advancement of this bounty, we may have leisure to deliberate; but surely it must be readily granted by those who have expatiated so copiously upon the present exigencies of our affairs, that it ought immediately to commence. And if this be the general determination of the house, nothing can be more proper than to address his majesty to offer, by proclamation, an advance of five pounds, instead of two, which have been hitherto given; that while we are concerting other measures for the advantage of our country, those in which we have already concurred may be put in execution.

Mr. PULTENEY rose up next, and spoke as follows:--Sir, I take this opportunity to lay before the house a grievance which very much retards the equipment of our fleets, and which must be redressed before any measures for reconciling the sailors to the publick service can be pursued with the least probability of success.

Observation, sir, has informed me, that to remove the detestation of the king's service, it is not necessary to raise the wages of the seamen; it is necessary only to secure them; it is necessary to destroy those hateful insects that fatten in idleness and debauchery upon the gains of the industrious and honest.

When a sailor, sir, after the fatigues and hazards of a long voyage, brings his ticket to the pay-office, and demands his wages, the despicable wretch to whom he is obliged to apply, looks upon his ticket with an air of importance, acknowledges his right, and demands a reward for present payment; with this demand, however exorbitant, the necessities of his family oblige him to comply.

In this manner, sir, are the wives of the sailors also treated when they come to receive the pay of their husbands; women, distressed, friendless, and unsupported; they are obliged to endure every insult, and to yield to every oppression. And to such a height do these merciless exacters raise their extortions, that sometimes a third part of the wages is deducted.

Thus, sir, do the vilest, the meanest of mankind, plunder those who have the highest claim to the esteem, the gratitude, and the protection of their country. This is the hardship which withholds the sailors from our navies, and forces them to seek for kinder treatment in other countries. This hardship, sir, both justice and prudence call upon us to remedy; and while we neglect it, all our deliberations will be ineffectual.

Mr. SOUTHWELL then spoke to this effect:--Sir, of the hardships mentioned by the honourable gentleman who spoke last, I have myself known an instance too remarkable not to be mentioned. A sailor in Ireland, after his voyage, met with so much difficulty in obtaining his wages, that he was at length reduced to the necessity of submitting to the reduction of near a sixth part. Such are the grievances with which those are oppressed, upon whom the power, security, and happiness of the nation are acknowledged to depend.

Sir Robert WALPOLE, the prime minister, then rose, and spoke as follows:--Sir, it is not without surprise that I hear the disgust of the sailors ascribed to any irregularity in the payment of their wages, which were never, in any former reign, so punctually discharged. They receive, at present, twelve months' pay in eighteen months, without deduction; so that there are never more than six months for which any demand remains unsatisfied.

But, sir, the punctuality of the payment has produced of late great inconveniencies; for there has been frequently a necessity of removing men from one ship to another; and it is the stated rule of the pay-office, to assign every man so removed his full pay. These men, when the government is no longer indebted to them, take the first opportunity of deserting the service, and engaging in business to which they are more inclined.

This is not a chimerical complaint, founded upon rare instances, and produced only to counterbalance an objection; the fact and the consequences are well known; so well, that near fourteen hundred sailors are computed to have been lost by this practice.

The PRESIDENT of the commons, who always in a committee takes his seat as another member, rose here, and spoke to the following effect, his honour being paymaster of the navy:--Mr. Chairman, the nature of the employment with which I am intrusted makes it my duty to endeavour that this question may be clearly understood, and the condition of the seamen, with regard to the reception of their pay, justly represented.

I have not been able to discover that any sailor, upon producing his ticket, was ever obliged to submit to the deduction of any part of his wages, nor should any clerk or officer under my inspection, escape, for such oppression, the severest punishment and most publick censure: I would give him up to the law without reserve, and mark him as infamous, and unworthy of any trust or employment.

But there are extortions, sir, by which those unhappy men, after having served their country with honesty and courage, are deprived of their lawful gains of diligence and labour. There are men to whom it is usual amongst the sailors to mortgage their pay before it becomes due, who never advance their money but upon such terms as cannot be mentioned without indignation. These men advance the sum which is stipulated, and by virtue of a letter of attorney are reimbursed at the pay-office.

This corruption is, I fear, not confined to particular places, but has spread even to America, where, as in his own country, the poor sailor is seduced, by the temptation of present money, to sell his labour to extortioners and usurers.

I appeal to the gentleman, whether the instance which he mentioned was not of this kind. I appeal to him without apprehension of receiving an answer that can tend to invalidate what I have asserted.

This, sir, is, indeed, a grievance pernicious and oppressive, which no endeavours of mine shall be deficient in attempting to remove; for by this the sailor is condemned, notwithstanding his industry and success, to perpetual poverty, and to labour only for the benefit of his plunderer.

[The clauses were then read, "empowering the justices of the peace, etc. to issue warrants to the constables, etc. to make general privy searches, by day or night, for finding out and securing such seamen and seafaring men as lie hid or conceal themselves; and making it lawful for the officers appointed to make such searches, to force open the doors of any house, where they shall _suspect_ such seamen to be concealed, if entrance be not readily admitted; and for punishing those who shall harbour or conceal any seaman."]

Sir John BARNARD upon this rose up, and spoke to the following effect:--Mr. Chairman, we have been hitherto deliberating upon questions, in which diversity of opinions might naturally be expected, and in which every man might indulge his own opinion, whatever it might be, without any dangerous consequences to the publick. But the clauses now before us are of a different kind; clauses which cannot be read without astonishment and indignation, nor defended without betraying the liberty of the best, the bravest, and most useful of our fellow-subjects.

If these clauses, sir, should pass into a law, a sailor and a slave will become terms of the same signification. Every man who has devoted himself to the most useful profession, and most dangerous service of his country, will see himself deprived of every advantage which he has laboured to obtain, and made the mere passive property of those who live in security by his valour, and owe to his labour that affluence which hardens them to insensibility, and that pride that swells them to ingratitude.

Why must the sailors alone, sir, be marked out from all the other orders of men for ignominy and misery? Why must they be ranked with the enemies of society, stopped like vagabonds, and pursued like the thief and the murderer by publick officers? How or when have they forfeited the common privilege of human nature, or the general protection of the laws of their country? If it is a just maxim, sir, that he who contributes most to the welfare of the publick, deserves most to be protected in the enjoyment of his private right or fortune; a principle which surely will not be controverted; where is the man that dares stand forth and assert, that he has juster claims than the brave, the honest, the diligent sailor?

I am extremely unwilling, sir, to engage in so invidious an undertaking as the comparison of the harmless, inoffensive, resolute sailor, with those who think themselves entitled to treat him with contempt, to overlook his merit, invade his liberty, and laugh at his remonstrances.

Nor is it, sir, necessary to dwell upon the peculiar merit of this body of men; it is sufficient that they have the same claims, founded upon the same reasons with our own, that they have never forfeited them by any crime, and, therefore, that they cannot be taken away without the most flagrant violation of the laws of nature, of reason, and of our country.

Let us consider the present condition of a sailor, let us reflect a little upon the calamities to which custom, though not law, has already made him subject, and it will surely not be thought that his unhappiness needs any aggravation.

He is already exposed to be forced, upon his return from a tedious voyage, into new hardships, without the intermission of a day, and without the sight of his family; he is liable, after a contract for a pleasing and gainful voyage, to be hurried away from his prospects of interest, and condemned amidst oppression and insolence, to labour and to danger, almost without the possibility of a recompense. He has neither the privilege of choosing his commander, nor of leaving him when he is defrauded and oppressed.

These, sir, I say, are the calamities to which he is now subject, but there is now a possibility of escaping them. He is not yet deprived of the right of resistance, or the power of flight; he may now retire to his friend, and be protected by him; he may take shelter in his own cottage, and treat any man as a robber, that shall attempt to force his doors.

When any crews are returning home in time of war, they are acquainted with the dangers of an impress, but they comfort themselves with contriving stratagems to elude it, or with the prospect of obtaining an exemption from it by the favour of their friends; prospects which are often deceitful, and stratagems frequently defeated, but which yet support their spirits, and animate their industry.

But if this bill, sir, should become a law, the sailor, instead of amusing himself on his return with the prospects of ease, or of pleasure, will consider his country as a place of slavery, a residence less to be desired than any other part of the world. He will probably seek, in the service of some foreign prince, a kinder treatment; and will not fail, in any country but his own, to see himself, at least, on a level with other men.

Nor will this bill, sir, only give the seamen new reasons of disgust, but it will tend, likewise, to aggravate those grievances, which already have produced a detestation of the publick service, scarcely to be conquered.

The officers of the navy, sir, will hardly be made less insolent by an increase of power; they whose tyranny has already alienated their fellow-subjects from the king's service, though they could only depend upon the character of probity and moderation for the prospect of manning their ships in succeeding expeditions, will probably, when they are animated by a law like this, and made absolute both by land and sea, indulge themselves in the enjoyment of their new authority, contrive new hardships and oppressions, and tyrannise without fear and without mercy. Thus, sir, will the bill not only be tyrannical in itself, but the parent of tyranny; it will give security to the cruel, and confidence to the arrogant.

That any man, at least any man bred from his infancy to change his residence, and accustomed to different climates and to foreign nations, will fix by choice in that country where he finds the worst reception, is hardly to be imagined. We see indeed, that men unqualified to support themselves in other countries, or who have, by long custom, contracted a fondness for particular methods of life, will bear very uncomfortable circumstances, without endeavouring to improve their conditions by a change of their habitations. But the temper of a sailor, acquainted with all parts, and indifferent to all, is of another kind. Such, sir, is his love of change, arising either from wantonness, or curiosity, that he is hard to be retained by the kindest treatment and most liberal rewards; and will, therefore, never struggle with his habitual dispositions, only to continue in a state of slavery.

I think it, therefore, sir, very evident that this new method of _encouraging_ sailors will be so far from _increasing_ them, that it may probably drive them out of the empire, and at once ruin our trade and our navy; at once beggar and disarm us.

Let me now suppose, sir, for a moment, the bill less pernicious in its consequences, and consider only the difficulties of executing it. Every seafaring man is to be seized, at pleasure, by the magistrate; but what definition is given of a seafaring man? Or by what characteristick is the magistrate to distinguish him? I have never been able to discover any peculiarities in the form of a seaman that mark him out from the rest of the species. There is, indeed, less servility in his air, and less effeminacy in his face, than in those that are commonly to be seen in drawing-rooms, in brothels, and at reviews; but I know not that a seaman can be distinguished from any other man of equal industry or use, who has never enervated himself by vice, nor polished himself into corruption. So that this bill, sir, if it shall pass into a law, will put it at once in the power of the magistrate to dispose of seamen at his pleasure, and to term whom he pleases a seaman.

Another expedient, sir, has been offered on this occasion, not equally tyrannical, but equally inadequate to the end in view. It is proposed to restrain the merchants from giving wages beyond a certain rate, on the supposition that the sailors have no motive but that of larger wages, to prefer the service of the merchants to that of the crown.