IT is observable that whenever this kingdom is engaged in a war with any
of its neighbours two great inconveniences constantly follow: one to the
king and one to trade.
1. That to the king is, that he is forced to press seamen for the
manning of his navy, and force them involuntarily into the service: which
way of violently dragging men into the fleet is attended with sundry ill
circumstances, as:
(1.) Our naval preparations are retarded, and our fleets always late for
want of men, which has exposed them not a little, and been the ruin of
many a good and well-laid expedition.
(2.) Several irregularities follow, as the officers taking money to
dismiss able seamen, and filling up their complement with raw and
improper persons.
(3.) Oppressions, quarrellings, and oftentimes murders, by the rashness
of press-masters and the obstinacy of some unwilling to go.
(4.) A secret aversion to the service from a natural principle, common
to the English nation, to hate compulsion.
(5.) Kidnapping people out of the kingdom, robbing houses, and picking
pockets, frequently practised under pretence of pressing, as has been
very much used of late.
With various abuses of the like nature, some to the king, and some to the
subject.
2. To trade. By the extravagant price set on wages for seamen, which
they impose on the merchant with a sort of authority, and he is obliged
to give by reason of the scarcity of men, and that not from a real want
of men (for in the height of a press, if a merchant-man wanted men, and
could get a protection for them, he might have any number immediately,
and none without it, so shy were they of the public service).
The first of these things has cost the king above three millions sterling
since the war, in these three particulars:
1. Charge of pressing on sea and on shore, and in small craft employed
for that purpose.
2. Ships lying in harbour for want of men, at a vast charge of pay and
victuals for those they had.
3. Keeping the whole navy in constant pay and provisions all the winter,
for fear of losing the men against summer, which has now been done
several years, besides bounty money and other expenses to court and
oblige the seamen.
The second of these (viz., the great wages paid by the merchant) has cost
trade, since the war, above twenty millions sterling. The coal trade
gives a specimen of it, who for the first three years of the war gave £9
a voyage to common seamen, who before sailed for 36s.; which, computing
the number of ships and men used in the coal trade, and of voyages made,
at eight hands to a vessel, does, modestly accounting, make £89,600
difference in one year in wages to seamen in the coal trade only.
For other voyages the difference of sailors’ wages is 50s, per month and
55s. per month to foremast-men, who before went for 26s. per month;
besides subjecting the merchant to the insolence of the seamen, who are
not now to be pleased with any provisions, will admit no half-pay, and
command of the captains even what they please; nay, the king himself can
hardly please them.
For cure of these inconveniences it is the following project is proposed,
with which the seamen can have no reason to be dissatisfied, nor are not
at all injured; and yet the damage sustained will be prevented, and an
immense sum of money spared, which is now squandered away by the
profuseness and luxury of the seamen. For if prodigality weakens the
public wealth of the kingdom in general, then are the seamen but ill
commonwealths-men, who are not visibly the richer for the prodigious sums
of money paid them either by the king or the merchant.
The project is this: that by an Act of Parliament an office or court be
erected, within the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty, and subject
to the Lord High Admiral, or otherwise independent, and subject only to a
parliamentary authority, as the commission for taking and stating the
public accounts.
In this court or office, or the several branches of it (which, to that
end, shall be subdivided and placed in every sea-port in the kingdom),
shall be listed and entered into immediate pay all the seamen in the
kingdom, who shall be divided into colleges or chambers of sundry
degrees, suitable to their several capacities, with pay in proportion to
their qualities; as boys, youths, servants, men able and raw, midshipmen,
officers, pilots, old men, and pensioners.
The circumstantials of this office:
1. No captain or master of any ship or vessel should dare to hire or
carry to sea with him any seamen but such as he shall receive from the
office aforesaid.
2. No man whatsoever, seaman or other, but applying himself to the said
office to be employed as a sailor, should immediately enter into pay, and
receive for every able seaman 24s. per month, and juniors in proportion;
to receive half-pay while unemployed, and liberty to work for themselves:
only to be at call of the office, and leave an account where to be found.
3. No sailor could desert, because no employment would be to be had
elsewhere.
4. All ships at their clearing at the Custom House should receive a
ticket to the office for men, where would be always choice rather than
scarcity, who should be delivered over by the office to the captain or
master without any trouble or delay; all liberty of choice to be allowed
both to master and men, only so as to give up all disputes to the
officers appointed to decide.
_Note_.—By this would be avoided the great charge captains and owners are
at to keep men on board before they are ready to go; whereas now the care
of getting men will be over, and all come on board in one day: for, the
captain carrying the ticket to the office, he may go and choose his men
if he will; otherwise they will be sent on board to him, by tickets sent
to their dwellings to repair on board such a ship.
5. For all these men that the captain or master of the ship takes he
shall pay the office, not the seamen, 28s. per month (which 4s. per month
overplus of wages will be employed to pay the half-pay to the men out of
employ), and so in proportion of wages for juniors.
6. All disputes concerning the mutinying of mariners, or other matters
of debate between the captains and men, to be tried by way of appeal in a
court for that purpose to be erected, as aforesaid.
7. All discounting of wages and time, all damages of goods, averages,
stopping of pay, and the like, to be adjusted by stated and public rules
and laws in print, established by the same Act of Parliament, by which
means all litigious suits in the Court of Admiralty (which are infinite)
would be prevented.
8. No ship that is permitted to enter at the Custom House and take in
goods should ever be refused men, or delayed in the delivering them above
five days after a demand made and a ticket from the Custom House
delivered (general cases, as arrests and embargoes, excepted).
_The Consequences of this Method_.
1. By this means the public would have no want of seamen, and all the
charges and other inconveniences of pressing men would be prevented.
2. The intolerable oppression upon trade, from the exorbitance of wages
and insolence of mariners, would be taken off.
3. The following sums of money should be paid to the office, to lie in
bank as a public fund for the service of the nation, to be disposed of by
order of Parliament, and not otherwise; a committee being a ways
substituted in the intervals of the session to audit the accounts, and a
treasury for the money, to be composed of members of the House, and to be
changed every session of Parliament:
(1). Four shillings per month wages advanced by the merchants to the
office for the men, more than the office pays them.
(2). In consideration of the reducing men’s wages, and consequently
freights, to the former prices (or near them), the owners of ships or
merchants shall pay at the importation of all goods forty shillings per
ton freight, to be stated upon all goods and ports in proportion;
reckoning it on wine tonnage from Canaries as the standard, and on
special freights in proportion to the freight formerly paid, and half the
said price in times of peace.
_Note_.—This may well be done, and no burden; for if freights are reduced
to their former prices (or near it), as they will be if wages are so too,
then the merchant may well pay it: as, for instance, freight from Jamaica
to London, formerly at £6 10s. per ton, now at £18 and £20; from
Virginia, at £5 to £6 10s., now at £14, £16, and £17; from Barbadoes, at
£6, now at £16; from Oporto, at £2, now at £6; and the like.
The payment of the above-said sums being a large bank for a fund, and it
being supposed to be in fair hands and currently managed, the merchants
shall further pay upon all goods shipped out, and shipped on board from
abroad, for and from any port of this kingdom, £4 per cent. on the real
value, _bonâ fide_; to be sworn to if demanded. In consideration whereof
the said office shall be obliged to pay and make good all losses,
damages, averages, and casualties whatsoever, as fully as by the custom
of assurances now is done, without any discounts, rebates, or delays
whatsoever; the said £4 per cent. to be stated on the voyage to the
Barbadoes, and enlarged or taken off, in proportion to the voyage, by
rules and laws to be printed and publicly known.
Reserving only, that then, as reason good, the said office shall have
power to direct ships of all sorts, how and in what manner, and how long
they shall sail with or wait for convoys; and shall have power (with
limitations) to lay embargoes on ships, in order to compose fleets for
the benefit of convoys.
These rules, formerly noted, to extend to all trading by sea, the
coasting and home-fishing trade excepted; and for them it should be
ordered—
First, for coals; the colliers being provided with men at 28s. per month,
and convoys in sufficient number, and proper stations from Tynemouth Bar
to the river, so as they need not go in fleets, but as wind and weather
presents, run all the way under the protection of the men-of-war, who
should be continually cruising from station to station, they would be
able to perform their voyage, in as short time as formerly, and at as
cheap pay, and consequently could afford to sell their coals at 17s. per
chaldron, as well as formerly at 15s.
Wherefore there should be paid into the treasury appointed at Newcastle,
by bond to be paid where they deliver, 10s. per chaldron, Newcastle
measure; and the stated price at London to be 27s. per chaldron in the
Pool, which is 30s. at the buyer’s house; and is so far from being dear,
a time of war especially, as it is cheaper than ever was known in a war;
and the officers should by proclamation confine the seller to that price.
In consideration also of the charge of convoys, the ships bringing coals
shall all pay £1 per cent. on the value of the ship, to be agreed on at
the office; and all convoy-money exacted by commanders of ships shall be
relinquished, and the office to make good all losses of ships, not goods,
that shall be lost by enemies only.
These heads, indeed, are such as would need some explication, if the
experiment were to be made; and, with submission, would reduce the seamen
to better circumstances; at least, it would have them in readiness for
any public service much easier than by all the late methods of
encouragement by registering seamen, &c.
For by this method all the seamen in the kingdom should be the king’s
hired servants, and receive their wages from him, whoever employed them;
and no man could hire or employ them but from him. The merchant should
hire them of the king, and pay the king for them; nor would there be a
seaman in England out of employ—which, by the way, would prevent their
seeking service abroad. If they were not actually at sea they would
receive half-pay, and might be employed in works about the yards, stores,
and navy, to keep all things in repair.
If a fleet or squadron was to be fitted out they would be manned in a
week’s time, for all the seamen in England would be ready. Nor would
they be shy of the service; for it is not an aversion to the king’s
service, nor it is not that the duty is harder in the men-of-war than the
merchant-men, nor it is not fear of danger which makes our seamen lurk
and hide and hang back in a time of war, but it is wages is the matter:
24s. per month in the king’s service, and 40s. to 50s. per month from the
merchant, is the true cause; and the seaman is in the right of it, too;
for who would serve his king and country, and fight, and be knocked on
the head at 24s. per month that can have 50s. without that hazard? And
till this be remedied, in vain are all the encouragements which can be
given to seamen; for they tend but to make them insolent, and encourage
their extravagance.
Nor would this proceeding be any damage to the seamen in general; for
24s. per month wages, and to be kept in constant service (or half-pay
when idle), is really better to the seaman than 45s. per month, as they
now take it, considering how long they often lie idle on shore out of
pay; for the extravagant price of seamen’s wages, though it has been an
intolerable burden to trade, has not visibly enriched the sailors, and
they may as well be content with 24s. per month now as formerly.
On the other hand, trade would be sensibly revived by it, the intolerable
price of freights would be reduced, and the public would reap an immense
benefit by the payments mentioned in the proposal; as—
1. 4s. per month upon the wages of all the seamen employed by the
merchant (which if we allow 200,000 seamen always in employ, as there
cannot be less in all the ships belonging to England) is £40,000 per
month.