The commons resolved their house into a committee, to consider the bill
for the encouragement of sailors, when admiral WAGER offered a clause,
by which it was to be enacted, "That no merchants, or bodies corporate
or politick, shall hire sailors at higher wages than thirty-five
shillings for the month, on pain of forfeiting the treble value of the
sum so agreed for;" which law was to commence after fifteen days, and
continue for a time to be agreed on by the house: and then spoke to the
following purpose:--
Sir, the necessity of this clause must be so apparent to every gentleman
acquainted with naval and commercial affairs, that as no opposition can
be apprehended, very few arguments will be requisite to introduce it.
How much the publick calamities of war are improved by the sailors to
their own private advantage; how generally they shun the publick
service, in hopes of receiving exorbitant wages from the merchants; and
how much they extort from the merchants, by threatening to leave their
service for that of the crown, is universally known to every officer of
the navy, and every commander of a trading vessel.
A law, therefore, sir, to restrain them in time of war from such
exorbitant demands; to deprive them of those prospects which have often
no other effect than to lull them in idleness, while they skulk about in
expectation of higher wages; and to hinder them from deceiving
themselves, embarrassing the merchants, and neglecting the general
interest of their country, is undoubtedly just. It is just, sir, because
in regard to the publick it is necessary to prevent the greatest
calamity that can fall upon a people, to preserve us from receiving laws
from the most implacable of our enemies; and it is just, because with
respect to particular men it has no tendency but to suppress idleness,
fraud, and extortion.
Mr. Henby FOX spoke next:--Sir, I have no objection to any part of this
clause, except the day proposed for the commencement: to make a law
against any pernicious practice, to which there are strong temptations,
and to give those whose interest may incite them to it, time to effect
their schemes, before the law shall begin to operate, seems not very
consistent with wisdom or vigilance.
It is not denied, sir, that the merchants are betrayed by that regard to
private interest which prevails too frequently over nobler views, to
bribe away from the service of the crown, by large rewards, those
sailors whose assistance is now so necessary to the publick; and,
therefore, it is not to be imagined that they will not employ their
utmost diligence to improve the interval which the bill allows in making
contracts for the ensuing, year, and that the sailors will not eagerly
engage themselves before this law shall preclude their prospects of
advantage.
As, therefore, to make no law, and to make a law that will not be
observed, is in consequence the same; and the time allowed by the
clause, as it now stands, may make the whole provision ineffectual; it
is my opinion, that either it ought to begin to operate to-morrow, or
that we ought to leave the whole affair in its present state.
Then sir Robert WALPOLE spoke as follows:--Sir, nothing has a greater
appearance of injustice, than to punish men by virtue of laws, with
which they were not acquainted; the law, therefore, is always supposed
to be known by those who have offended it, because it is the duty of
every man to know it; and certainly it ought to be the care of the
legislature, that those whom a law will affect, may have a possibility
of knowing it, and that those may not be punished for failing in their
duty, whom nothing but inevitable ignorance has betrayed into offence.
But if the operation of this law should commence to-morrow, what numbers
may break it, and suffer by the breach of it involuntarily, and without
design; and how shall we vindicate ourselves from having been accessory
to the crime which we censure and punish?
Mr. FOX replied:--Sir, I shall not urge in defence of my motion what is
generally known, and has been frequently inculcated in all debates upon
this bill, that private considerations ought always to give way to the
necessities of the publick; for I think it sufficient to observe, that
there is a distinction to be made between punishments and restraints,
and that we never can be too early in the prevention of pernicious
practices, though we may sometimes delay to punish them.
The law will be known to-morrow, to far the greatest number of those who
may be tempted to defeat it; and if there be others that break it
ignorantly, how will they find themselves injured by being only obliged
to pay less than they promised, which is all that I should propose
without longer warning. The debate upon this particular, will be at
length reduced to a question, whether a law for this purpose is just and
expedient? If a law be necessary, it is necessary that it should be
executed; and it can be executed only by commencing to-morrow.
Lord BALTIMORE spoke thus:--Sir, it appears to me of no great importance
how soon the operation of the law commences, or how long it is delayed,
because I see no reason for imagining that it will at any time produce
the effects proposed by it.
It has been the amusement, sir, of a great part of my life, to converse
with men whose inclinations or employments have made them well
acquainted with maritime affairs, and amidst innumerable other schemes
for the promotion of trade, have heard some for the regulation of wages
in trading ships; schemes, at the first appearance plausible and likely
to succeed, but, upon a nearer inquiry, evidently entangled with
insuperable difficulties, and never to be executed without danger of
injuring the commerce of the nation.
The clause, sir, now before us contains, in my opinion, one of those
visionary provisions, which, however infallible they may appear, will be
easily defeated, and will have no other effect than to promote cunning
and fraud, and to teach men those acts of collusion, with which they
would otherwise never have been acquainted.
Mr. LODWICK spoke to this effect:--Sir, I agree with the honourable
gentleman by whom this clause has been offered, that the end for which
it is proposed, is worthy of the closest attention of the legislative
power, and that the evils of which the prevention is now endeavoured,
may in some measure not only obstruct our traffick, but endanger our
country; and shall therefore very readily concur in any measures for
this purpose, that shall not appear either unjust or ineffectual.
Whether this clause will be sufficient to restrain all elusive
contracts, and whether all the little artifices of interest are
sufficiently obviated, I am yet unable to determine; but by a reflection
upon the multiplicity of relations to be considered, and the variety of
circumstances to be adjusted in a provision of this kind, I am inclined
to think that, it is not the business of a transient inquiry, or of a
single clause, but that it will demand a separate law, and engage the
deliberation and regard of this whole assembly.
Sir John BARNARD said:--Sir, notwithstanding the impatience and
resentment with which some men see their mistakes and ignorance
detected; notwithstanding the reverence which negligence and haste are
said to be entitled to from this assembly, I shall declare once more,
without the apprehension of being confuted, that this bill was drawn up
without consideration, and is defended without being understood; that
after all the amendments which have been admitted, and all the additions
proposed, it will be oppressive and ineffectual, a chaos of absurdities,
and a monument of ignorance.
Sir Robert WALPOLE replied:--Sir, the present business of this assembly
is to examine the clause before us; but to deviate from so necessary an
inquiry into loud exclamations against the whole bill, is to obstruct
the course of the debate, to perplex our attention, and interrupt the
senate in its deliberation upon questions, in the determination of which
the security of the publick is nearly concerned.
The war, sir, in which we are now engaged, and, I may add, engaged by
the general request of the whole nation, can be prosecuted only by the
assistance of the seamen, from whom it is not to be expected that they
will sacrifice their immediate advantage to the security of their
country. Publick spirit, where it is to be found, is the result of
reflection, refined by study and exalted by education, and is not to be
hoped for among those whom low fortune has condemned to perpetual
drudgery. It must be, therefore, necessary to supply the defects of
education, and to produce, by salutary coercions, those effects which it
is vain to expect from other causes.
That the service of the sailors will be set up to sale by auction, and
that the merchants will bid against the government, is incontestable;
nor is there any doubt that they will be able to offer the highest
price, because they will take care to repay themselves by raising the
value of their goods. Thus, without some restraint upon the merchants,
our enemies, who are not debarred by their form of government from any
method which policy can invent, or absolute power put in execution, will
preclude all our designs, and set at defiance a nation superiour to
themselves.
Sir John BARNARD then said:--Sir, I think myself obliged by my duty to
my country, and by my gratitude to those by whose industry we are
enriched, and by whose courage we are defended, to make, once more, a
declaration, not against particular clauses, not against single
circumstances, but against the whole bill; a bill unjust and oppressive,
absurd and ridiculous; a bill to harass the industrious and distress the
honest, to puzzle the wise and add power to the cruel; a bill which
cannot be read without astonishment, nor passed without the violation of
our constitution, and an equal disregard of policy and humanity.
All these assertions will need to be proved only by a bare perusal of
this hateful bill, by which the meanest, the most worthless reptile,
exalted to a petty office by serving a wretch only superiour to him in
fortune, is enabled to flush his authority by tyrannising over those who
every hour deserve the publick acknowledgments of the community; to
intrude upon the retreats of brave men, fatigued and exhausted by honest
industry, to drag them out with all the wantonness of grovelling
authority, and chain them to the oar without a moment's respite, or
perhaps oblige them to purchase, with the gains of a dangerous voyage,
or the plunder of an enemy lately conquered, a short interval to settle
their affairs, or bid their children farewell.
Let any gentleman in this house, let those, sir, who now sit at ease,
projecting laws of oppression, and conferring upon their own slaves such
licentious authority, pause a few moments, and imagine themselves
exposed to the same hardships by a power superiour to their own; let
them conceive themselves torn from the tenderness and caresses of their
families by midnight irruptions, dragged in triumph through the streets
by a despicable officer, and placed under the command of those by whom
they have, perhaps, been already oppressed and insulted. Why should we
imagine that the race of men for whom those cruelties are preparing,
have less sensibility than ourselves? Why should we believe that they
will suffer without complaint, and be injured without resentment? Why
should we conceive that they will not at once deliver themselves, and
punish their oppressors, by deserting that country where they are
considered as felons, and laying hold on those rewards and privileges
which no other government will deny them?
This is, indeed, the only tendency, whatever may have been the intention
of the bill before us; for I know not whether the most refined sagacity
can discover any other method of discouraging navigation than those
which are drawn together in the bill before us. We first give our
constables an authority to hunt the sailors like thieves, and drive
them, by incessant pursuit, out of the nation; but lest any man should
by friendship, good fortune, or the power of money, find means of
staying behind, we have with equal wisdom condemned him to poverty and
misery; and lest the natural courage of his profession should incite him
to assist his country in the war, have contrived a method of precluding
him from any advantage that he might have the weakness to hope from his
fortitude and diligence. What more can be done, unless we at once
prohibit to seamen the use of the common elements, or doom them to a
general proscription.
It is just that advantage, sir, should be proportioned to the hazard by
which it is to be obtained, and, therefore, a sailor has an honest claim
to an advance of wages in time of war; it is necessary to excite
expectation, and to fire ambition by the prospect of great acquisitions,
and by this prospect it is that such numbers are daily allured to naval
business, and that our privateers are filled with adventurers. The large
wages which war makes necessary, are more powerful incentives to those
whom impatience of poverty determines to change their state of life,
than the secure gains of peaceful commerce; for the danger is overlooked
by a mind intent upon the profit.
War is the harvest of a sailor, in which he is to store provisions for
the winter of old age, and if we blast this hope, he will inevitably
sink into indolence and cowardice.
Many of the sailors are bred up to trades, or capable of any laborious
employment upon land; nor is there any reason for which they expose
themselves to the dangers of a seafaring life, but the hope of sudden
wealth, and some lucky season in which they may improve their fortunes
by a single effort. Is it reasonable to believe that all these will not
rather have recourse to their former callings, and live in security,
though not in plenty, than encounter danger and poverty at once, and
face an enemy without any prospect of recompense?
Let any man recollect the ideas that arose in his mind upon hearing of a
bill for encouraging and increasing sailors, and examine whether he had
any expectation of expedients like these. I suppose it was never known
before, that men were to be encouraged by subjecting them to peculiar
penalties, or that to take away the gains of a profession, was a method
of recommending it more generally to the people.
But it is not of very great importance to dwell longer upon the
impropriety of this clause, which there is no possibility of putting in
execution. That the merchants will try every method of eluding a law so
prejudicial to their interest, may be easily imagined, and a mind not
very fruitful of evasions, will discover that this law may be eluded by
a thousand artifices. If the merchants are restrained from allowing men
their wages beyond a certain sum, they will make contracts for the
voyage, of which the time may very easily be computed, they may offer a
reward for expedition and fidelity, they may pay a large sum by way of
advance, they may allow the sailors part of the profits, or may offer
money by a third hand. To fix the price of any commodity, of which the
quantity and the use may vary their proportions, is the most excessive
degree of ignorance. No man can determine the price of corn, unless he
can regulate the harvest, and keep the number of the people for ever at
a stand.
But let us suppose these methods as efficacious as their most sanguine
vindicators are desirous of representing them, it does not yet appear
that they are necessary, and to inflict hardships without necessity, is
by no means the practice of either wisdom or benevolence. To tyrannise
and compel is the low pleasure of petty capacities, of narrow minds,
swelled with the pride of uncontroulable authority, the wantonness of
wretches who are insensible of the consequences of their own actions,
and of whom candour may, perhaps, determine, that they are only cruel
because they are stupid. Let us not exalt into a precedent the most
unjust and rigorous law of our predecessors, of which they themselves
declared their repentance, or confessed the inefficacy, by never
reviving it; let us rather endeavour to gain the sailors by lenity and
moderation, and reconcile them to the service of the crown by real
encouragements; for it is rational to imagine, that in proportion as men
are disgusted by injuries, they will be won by kindness.
There is one expedient, sir, which deserves to be tried, and from which,
at least, more success may be hoped than from cruelty, hunger, and
persecution. The ships that are now to be fitted out for service, are
those of the first magnitude, which it is usual to bring back into the
ports in winter. Let us, therefore, promise to all seamen that shall
voluntarily engage in them, besides the reward already proposed, a
discharge from the service at the end of six or seven months. By this
they will be released from their present dread of perpetual slavery, and
be certain, as they are when in the service of the merchants, of a
respite from their fatigues. The trade of the nation will be only
interrupted for a time, and may be carried on in the winter months, and
large sums will be saved by dismissing the seamen when they cannot be
employed.
By adding this to the other methods of encouragement, and throwing aside
all rigorous and oppressive schemes, the navy may easily be manned, our
country protected, our commerce reestablished, and our enemies subdued;
but to pass the bill as it now stands, is to determine that trade shall
cease, and that no ship shall sail out of the river.
Mr. PITT spoke to the following purport:--Sir, it is common for those to
have the greatest regard to their own interest who discover the least
for that of others. I do not, therefore, despair of recalling the
advocates of this bill from the prosecution of their favourite measures,
by arguments of greater efficacy than those which are founded on reason
and justice.
Nothing, sir, is more evident, than that some degree of reputation is
absolutely necessary to men who have any concern in the administration
of a government like ours; they must either secure the fidelity of their
adherents by the assistance of wisdom, or of virtue; their enemies must
either be awed by their honesty, or terrified by their cunning. Mere
artless bribery will never gain a sufficient majority to set them
entirely free from apprehensions of censure. To different tempers
different motives must be applied: some, who place their felicity in
being accounted wise, are in very little care to preserve the character
of honesty; others may be persuaded to join in measures which they
easily discover to be weak and ill-concerted, because they are convinced
that the authors of them are not corrupt but mistaken, and are unwilling
that any man should be punished for natural defects or casual ignorance.
I cannot say, sir, which of these motives influences the advocates for
the bill before us; a bill in which such cruelties are proposed as are
yet unknown among the most savage nations, such as slavery has not yet
borne, or tyranny invented, such as cannot be heard without resentment,
nor thought of without horrour.
It is, sir, perhaps, not unfortunate, that one more expedient has been
added, rather ridiculous than shocking, and that these tyrants of the
administration, who amuse themselves with oppressing their
fellow-subjects, who add without reluctance one hardship to another,
invade the liberty of those whom they have already overborne with taxes,
first plunder and then imprison, who take all opportunities of
heightening the publick distresses, and make the miseries of war the
instruments of new oppressions, are too ignorant to be formidable, and
owe their power not to their abilities, but to casual prosperity, or to
the influence of money.
The other clauses of this bill, complicated at once with cruelty and
folly, have been treated with becoming indignation; but this may be
considered with less ardour of resentment, and fewer emotions of zeal,
because, though, perhaps, equally iniquitous, it will do no harm; for a
law that can never be executed can never be felt.
That it will consume the manufacture of paper, and swell the books of
statutes, is all the good or hurt that can be hoped or feared from a law
like this; a law which fixes what is in its own nature mutable, which
prescribes rules to the seasons and limits to the wind. I am too well
acquainted, sir, with the disposition of its two chief supporters, to
mention the contempt with which this law will be treated by posterity,
for they have already shown abundantly their disregard of succeeding
generations; but I will remind them, that they are now venturing their
whole interest at once, and hope they will recollect, before it is too
late, that those who believe them to intend the happiness of their
country, will never be confirmed in their opinion by open cruelty and
notorious oppression; and that those who have only their own interest in
view, will be afraid of adhering to those leaders, however old and
practised in expedients, however strengthened by corruption, or elated
with power, who have no reason to hope for success from either their
virtue or abilities.
Mr. BATHURST next spoke to this effect:--Sir, the clause now under our
consideration is so inconsiderately drawn up, that it is impossible to
read it in the most cursory manner, without discovering the necessity of
numerous amendments; no malicious subtilties or artful deductions are
required in raising objections to this part of the bill, they crowd upon
us without being sought, and, instead of exercising our sagacity, weary
our attention.
The first errour, or rather one part of a general and complicated
errour, is the computation of time, not by days, but by calendar months,
which, as they are not equal one to another, may embarrass the account
between the sailors and those that employ them. In all contracts of a
short duration, the time is to be reckoned by weeks and days, by certain
and regular periods, which has been so constantly the practice of the
seafaring men, that, perhaps, many of them do not know the meaning of a
calendar month: this, indeed, is a neglect of no great importance,
because no man can be deprived by it of more than the wages due for the
labour of a few days; but the other part of this clause is more
seriously to be considered, as it threatens the sailors with greater
injuries: for it is to be enacted, that all contracts made for more
wages than are here allowed shall be totally void.
It cannot be denied to be possible, and in my opinion it is very likely,
that many contracts will be made without the knowledge of this law, and
consequently without any design of violating it; but ignorance,
inevitable ignorance, though it is a valid excuse for every other man,
is no plea for the unhappy sailor; he must suffer, though innocent, the
penalty of a crime; must undergo danger, hardships, and labour, without
a recompense, and at the end of a successful voyage, after having
enriched his country by his industry, return home to a necessitous
family, without being able to relieve them.
It is scarcely necessary, sir, to raise any more objections to a clause
in which nothing is right; but, to show how its imperfections multiply
upon the slightest consideration, I take the opportunity to observe,
that there is no provision made for regulating the voyages performed in
less time than a month, so that the greatest part of the abuses, which
have been represented as the occasion of this clause, are yet without
remedy, and only those sailors who venture far, and are exposed to the
greatest dangers, are restrained from receiving an adequate reward.
Thus much, sir, I have said upon the supposition that a regulation of
the sailors' wages is either necessary or just; a supposition of which I
am very far from discovering the truth. That it is just to oppress the
most useful of our fellow-subjects, to load those men with peculiar
hardships to whom we owe the plenty that we enjoy, the power that yet
remains in the nation, and which neither the folly nor the cowardice of
ministers have yet been able to destroy, and the security in which we
now sit and hold our consultations; that it is just to lessen our
payments at a time when we increase the labour of those who are hired,
and to expose men to danger without recompense, will not easily be
proved, even by those who are most accustomed to paradoxes, and are
ready to undertake the proof of any position which it is their interest
to find true.
Nor is it much more easy to show the necessity of this expedient in our
present state, in which it appears from the title of the bill, that our
chief endeavour should be the increase and encouragement of sailors,
and, I suppose, it has not often been discovered, that by taking away
the profits of a profession greater numbers have been allured to it.
The high wages, sir, paid by merchants are the chief incitements that
prevail upon the ambitious, the necessitous, or the avaricious, to
forsake the ease and security of the land, to leave easy trades, and
healthful employments, and expose themselves to an element where they
are not certain of an hour's safety. The service of the merchants is the
nursery in which seamen are trained up for his majesty's navies, and
from thence we must, in time of danger, expect those forces by which
alone we can be protected.
If, therefore, it is necessary to encourage sailors, it is necessary to
reject all measures that may terrify or disgust them; and as their
numbers must depend upon our trade, let us not embarrass the merchants
with any other difficulties than those which are inseparable from war,
and which very little care has been hitherto taken to alleviate.
Mr. HAY replied:--Sir, the objections which have been urged with so much
ardour, and displayed with such power of eloquence, are not, in my
opinion, formidable enough to discourage us from prosecuting our
measures; some of them may be, perhaps, readily answered, and the rest
easily removed.
The computation of time, as it now stands, is allowed not to produce any
formidable evil, and therefore did not require so rhetorical a censure:
the inconveniency of calendar months may easily be removed by a little
candour in the contracting parties, or, that the objection may not be
repeated to the interruption of the debate, weeks or days may be
substituted, and the usual reckoning of the sailors be still continued.
That some contracts may be annulled, and inconveniencies or delays of
payment arise, is too evident to be questioned; but in that case the
sailor may have his remedy provided, and be enabled to obtain, by an
easy process, what he shall be judged to _have deserved_; for it must be
allowed reasonable, that every man who labours in honest and useful
employments, should receive the reward of his diligence and fidelity.
Thus, sir, may the clause, however loudly censured and violently
opposed, be made useful and equitable, and the publick service advanced
without injury to individuals.
Sir Robert WALPOLE next rose, and spoke as follows:--Sir, every law
which extends its influence to great numbers in various relations and
circumstances, must produce some consequences that were never foreseen
or intended, and is to be censured or applauded as the general
advantages or inconveniencies are found to preponderate. Of this kind is
the law before us, a law enforced by the necessity of our affairs, and
drawn up with no other intention than to secure the publick happiness,
and produce that success which every man's interest must prompt him to
desire.
If in the execution of this law, sir, some inconveniencies should arise,
they are to be remedied as fast as they are discovered, or if not
capable of a remedy, to be patiently borne, in consideration of the
general advantage.
That some temporary disturbances may be produced is not improbable; the
discontent of the sailors may, for a short time, rise high, and our
trade be suspended by their obstinacy; but obstinacy, however
determined, must yield to hunger, and when no higher wages can be
obtained, they will cheerfully accept of those which are here allowed
them. Short voyages, indeed, are not comprehended in the clause, and
therefore the sailors will engage in them upon their own terms, but this
objection can be of no weight with those that oppose the clause,
because, if it is unjust to limit the wages of the sailors, it is just
to leave those voyages without restriction; and those that think the
expedient here proposed equitable and rational, may, perhaps, be willing
to make some concessions to those who are of a different opinion.
That the bill will not remove every obstacle to success, nor add weight
to one part of the balance without making the other lighter; that it
will not supply the navy without incommoding the merchants in some
degree; that it may be sometimes evaded by cunning, and sometimes abused
by malice; and that at last it will be less efficacious than is desired,
may, perhaps, be proved; but it has not yet been proved that any other
measures are more eligible, or that we are not to promote the publick
service as far as we are able, though our endeavours may not produce
effects equal to our wishes.
Sir John BARNARD then spoke, to this effect:--Sir, I know not by what
fatality it is that nothing can be urged in defence of the clause before
us which does not tend to discover its weakness and inefficacy. The
warmest patrons of this expedient are impelled, by the mere force of
conviction, to such concessions as invalidate all their arguments, and
leave their opponents no necessity of replying.
If short voyages are not comprehended in this provision, what are we now
controverting? What but the expedience of a law that will never be
executed? The sailors, however they are contemned by those who think
them only worthy to be treated like beasts of burden, are not yet so
stupid but that they can easily find out, that to serve a fortnight for
greater wages is more eligible than to toil a month for less; and as the
numerous equipments that have been lately made have not left many more
sailors in the service of the merchants than may be employed in the
coasting trade, those who traffick to remoter parts, must shut up their
books and wait till the expiration of this act, for an opportunity of
renewing their commerce.
To regulate the wages for one voyage, and to leave another without
limitation, in time of scarcity of seamen, is absolutely to prohibit
that trade which is so restrained, and is, doubtless, a more effectual
embargo than has been yet invented.
Let any man but suppose that the East India company were obliged to give
only half the wages that other traders allow, and consider how that part
of our commerce could be carried on; would not their goods rot in their
warehouses, and their ships lie for ever in the harbour? Would not the
sailors refuse to contract with them? or desert them after a contract,
upon the first prospect of more advantageous employment?
But it is not requisite to multiply arguments in a question which may
not only be decided without long examination, but in which we may
determine our conclusions by the experience of our ancestors. Scarcely
any right or wrong measures are without a precedent, and, amongst
others, this expedient has been tried by the wisdom of former times; a
law was once made for limiting the wages of tailors, and that it is
totally ineffectual we are all convinced. Experience is a very safe
guide in political inquiries, and often discovers what the most
enlightened reason failed to foresee.
Let us, therefore, improve the errours of our ancestors to our own
advantage, and whilst we neglect to imitate their virtues, let us, at
least, forbear to repeat their follies.
Mr. PERRY spoke to this purpose:--Sir, there is one objection more which
my acquaintance with foreign trade impresses too strongly upon my mind
to suffer me to conceal it.
It is well known that the condition of a seaman subjects him to the
necessity of spending a great part of his life at a distance from his
native country, in places where he can neither hear of our designs, nor
be instructed in our laws, and, therefore, it is evident that no law
ought to affect him before a certain period of time, in which he may
reasonably be supposed to have been informed of it. For every man ought
to have it in his power to avoid punishment, and to suffer only for
negligence or obstinacy.
It is quite unnecessary, sir, to observe to this assembly, that there
are now, as at all times, great numbers of sailors in every part of the
world, and that they, at least, equally deserve our regard with those
who are under the more immediate influence of the government.
These seamen have already contracted for the price of their labour, and
the recompense of their hazards, nor can we, in my opinion, without
manifest injustice, dissolve a contract founded upon equity, and
confirmed by law.
It is, sir, an undisputed principle of government, that no person should
be punished without a crime; but is it no punishment to deprive a man of
what is due to him by a legal stipulation, the condition of which is, on
his part, honestly fulfilled?
Nothing, sir, can be imagined more calamitous than the disappointment to
which this law subjects the unhappy men who are now promoting the
interest of their country in distant places, amidst dangers and
hardships, in unhealthy climates, and barbarous nations, where they
comfort themselves, under the fatigues of labour and the miseries of
sickness, with the prospect of the sum which they shall gain for the
relief of their families, and the respite which their wages will enable
them to enjoy; but, upon their return, they find their hopes blasted,
and their contracts dissolved by a law made in their absence.
No human being, I think, can coolly and deliberately inflict a hardship
like this, and, therefore, I doubt not but those who have, by
inadvertency, given room for this objection, will either remove it by an
amendment, or what is, in my opinion, more eligible, reject the clause
as inexpedient, useless, and unjust.
Sir William YONGE spoke next to this effect:--Sir, this debate has been
protracted, not by any difficulties arising from the nature of the
questions which have been the subject of it, but by a neglect with which
almost all the opponents of the bill may be justly charged, the neglect
of distinguishing between measures eligible in themselves, and measures
preferable to consequences which are apprehended from particular
conjunctures; between laws made only to advance the publick happiness,
and expedients of which the benefit is merely occasional, and of which
the sole intention is to avert some national calamity, and which are to
cease with the necessity that produced them.
Such are the measures, sir, which are now intended; measures, which, in
days of ease, security, and prosperity, it would be the highest degree
of weakness to propose, but of which I cannot see the absurdity in times
of danger and distress. Such laws are the medicines of a state, useless
and nauseous in health, but preferable to a lingering disease, or to a
miserable death.
Even those measures, sir, which have been mentioned as most grossly
absurd, and represented as parallel to the provision made in this clause
only to expose it to contempt and ridicule, may, in particular
circumstances, be rational and just. To settle the price of corn in the
time of a famine, may become the wisest state, and multitudes might, in
time of publick misery, by the benefit of temporary laws, be preserved
from destruction. Even those masts, to which, with a prosperous gale,
the ship owes its usefulness and its speed, are often cut down by the
sailors in the fury of a storm.
With regard to the ships which are now in distant places, whither no
knowledge of this law can possibly be conveyed, it cannot be denied that
their crews ought to be secured from injury by some particular
exception; for though it is evident in competitions between publick and
private interest, which ought to be preferred, yet we ought to remember
that no unnecessary injury is to be done to individuals, even while we
are providing for the safety of the nation.
Mr. FAZAKERLY spoke to this effect:--Sir, though I cannot be supposed to
have much acquaintance with naval affairs, and, therefore, may not,
perhaps, discover the full force of the arguments that have been urged
in favour of the clause now under consideration, yet I cannot but think
myself under an indispensable obligation to examine it as far as I am
able, and to make use of the knowledge which I have acquired, however
inferiour to that of others.
The argument, sir, the only real argument, which has been produced in
favour of the restraint of wages now proposed, appears to me by no means
conclusive; nor can I believe that the meanest and most ignorant seaman
would, if it were proposed to him, hesitate a moment for an answer to
it. Let me suppose, sir, a merchant urging it as a charge against a
seaman, that he raises his demand of wages in time of war, would not the
sailor readily reply, that harder labour required larger pay? Would he
not ask, why the general practice of mankind is charged as a crime upon
him only? Inquire, says he, of the workmen in the docks, have they not
double wages for double labour? and is not their lot safe and easy in
comparison with mine, who at once encounter danger and support fatigue,
carry on war and commerce at the same time, conduct the ship and oppose
the enemy, and am equally exposed to captivity and shipwreck?
That this is, in reality, the state of a sailor in time of war, I think,
sir, too evident to require proof; nor do I see what reply can be made
to the sailor's artless expostulation.
I know not why the sailors alone should serve their country to their
disadvantage, and be expected to encounter danger without the incitement
of a reward.
Nor will any part of the hardships of this clause be alleviated by the
expedient suggested by an honourable member, who spoke, some time ago,
of granting, or allowing, to a sailor, whose contract shall be void,
what our courts of law should adjudge him to deserve, a _quantum
meruit_: for, according to the general interpretation of our statutes,
it will be determined that he has forfeited his whole claim by illegal
contract. To instance, sir, the statute of usury. He that stipulates for
higher interest than is allowed, is not able to recover his legal
demand, but irrecoverably forfeits the whole.
Thus, sir, an unhappy sailor who shall innocently transgress this law,
must lose all the profit of his voyage, and have nothing to relieve him
after his fatigues; but when he has by his courage repelled the enemy,
and, by his skill, escaped storms and rocks, must suffer yet severer
hardships, in being subject to a forfeiture where he expected applause,
comfort, and recompense.
The ATTORNEY GENERAL spoke next, to this purport:--Sir, the clause
before us cannot, in my opinion, produce any such dreadful consequences
as the learned gentleman appears to imagine: however, to remove all
difficulties, I have drawn up an amendment, which I shall beg leave to
propose, that the contracts which may be affected as the clause now
stands, _shall be void only as to so much of the wages as shall exceed
the sum to which the house shall agree to reduce the seamen's pay;_ and,
as to the forfeitures, they are not to be levied upon the sailors, but
upon the merchants, or trading companies, who employ them, and who are
able to pay greater sums without being involved in poverty and distress.
With regard, sir, to the reasons for introducing this clause, they are,
in my judgment, valid and equitable. We have found it necessary to fix
the rate of money at interest, and the rate of labour in several cases,
and if we do not in this case, what will be the consequence?--a second
embargo on commerce, and, perhaps, a total stop to all military
preparations. Is it reasonable that any man should rate his labour
according to the immediate necessities of those that employ him? or that
he should raise his own fortune by the publick calamities? If this has
hitherto been a practice, it is a practice contrary to the general
happiness of society, and ought to prevail no longer.
If the sailor, sir, is exposed to greater dangers in time of war, is not
the merchant's trade carried on, likewise, at greater hazard? Is not the
freight, equally with the sailors, threatened at once by the ocean and
the enemy? And is not the owner's fortune equally impaired, whether the
ship is dashed upon a rock, or seized by a privateer?
The merchant, therefore, has as much reason for paying less wages in
time of war, as the sailor for demanding more, and nothing remains but
that the legislative power determine a medium between their different
interests, with justice, if possible, at least with impartiality.
Mr. Horace WALPOLE, who had stood up several times, but was prevented by
other members, spoke next, to this purport:--Sir, I was unwilling to
interrupt the course of this debate while it was carried on with
calmness and decency, by men, who do not suffer the ardour of opposition
to cloud their reason, or transport them to such expressions as the
dignity of this assembly does not admit. I have hitherto deferred to
answer the gentleman who declaimed against the bill with such fluency of
rhetorick, and such vehemence of gesture; who charged the advocates for
the expedients now proposed, with having no regard to any interest but
their own, and with making laws only to consume paper, and threatened
them with the defection of their adherence, and the loss of their
influence, upon this new discovery of their folly and their ignorance.
Nor, sir, do I now answer him for any other purpose than to remind him
how little the clamours of rage and petulancy of invectives contribute
to the purposes for which this assembly is called together; how little
the discovery of truth is promoted, and the security of the nation
established by pompous diction and theatrical emotions.
Formidable sounds, and furious declamations, confident assertions, and
lofty periods, may affect the young and unexperienced; and, perhaps, the
gentleman may have contracted his habits of oratory by conversing more
with those of his own age, than with such as have had more opportunities
of acquiring knowledge, and more successful methods of communicating
their sentiments.
If the heat of his temper, sir, would suffer him to attend to those
whose age and long acquaintance with business give them an indisputable
right to deference and superiority, he would learn, in time, to reason
rather than declaim, and to prefer justness of argument, and an accurate
knowledge of facts, to sounding epithets and splendid superlatives,
which may disturb the imagination for a moment, but leave no lasting
impression on the mind.
He will learn, sir, that to accuse and prove are very different, and
that reproaches, unsupported by evidence, affect only the character of
him that utters them. Excursions of fancy, and flights of oratory, are,
indeed, pardonable in young men, but in no other; and it would surely
contribute more, even to the purpose for which some gentlemen appear to
speak, that of depreciating the conduct of the administration, to prove
the inconveniencies and injustice of this bill, than barely to assert
them, with whatever magnificence of language, or appearance of zeal,
honesty, or compassion.
Mr. PITT replied:--Sir, the atrocious crime of being a young man, which
the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon
me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny, but content myself
with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with
their youth, and not of that number, who are ignorant in spite of
experience.
Whether youth can be imputed to any man as a reproach, I will not, sir,
assume the province of determining; but surely age may become justly
contemptible, if the opportunities which it brings have passed away
without improvement, and vice appears to prevail when the passions have
subsided. The wretch that, after having seen the consequences of a
thousand errours, continues still to blunder, and whose age has only
added obstinacy to stupidity, is surely the object of either abhorrence
or contempt, and deserves not that his grey head should secure him from
insults.
Much more, sir, is he to be abhorred, who, as he has advanced in age,
has receded from virtue, and becomes more wicked with less temptation;
who prostitutes himself for money which he cannot enjoy, and spends the
remains of his life in the ruin of his country.
But youth, sir, is not my only crime; I have been accused of acting a
theatrical part--a theatrical part may either imply some peculiarities
of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and an adoption of
the opinions and language of another man.
In the first sense, sir, the charge is too trifling to be confuted, and
deserves only to be mentioned, that it may be despised. I am at liberty,
like every other man, to use my own language; and though I may, perhaps,
have some ambition to please this gentleman, I shall not lay myself
under any restraint, nor very solicitously copy his diction, or his
mien, however matured by age, or modelled by experience.
If any man shall, by charging me with theatrical behaviour, imply that I
utter any sentiments but my own, I shall treat him as a calumniator and
a villain; nor shall any protection shelter him from the treatment which
he deserves. I shall, on such an occasion, without scruple, trample upon
all those forms, with which wealth and dignity intrench themselves, nor
shall any thing but age restrain my resentment: age, which always brings
one privilege, that of being insolent and supercilious without
punishment.
But, with regard, sir, to those whom I have offended, I am of opinion,
that if I had acted a borrowed part, I should have avoided their
censure; the heat that offended them is the ardour of conviction, and
that zeal for the service of my country, which neither hope nor fear
shall influence me to suppress. I will not sit unconcerned while my
liberty is invaded, nor look in silence upon publick robbery. I will
exert my endeavours, at whatever hazard, to repel the aggressor, and
drag the thief to justice, whoever may protect them in their villany,
and whoever may partake of their plunder. And if the honourable
gentleman--
Here Mr. WINNINGTON called to order, and Mr. PITT sitting down, he spoke
thus:--It is necessary, sir, that the order of this assembly be
observed, and the debate resumed without personal altercations. Such
expressions as have been vented on this occasion, become not an assembly
intrusted with the liberty and welfare of their country. To interrupt
the debate on a subject so important as that before us, is, in some
measure, to obstruct the publick happiness, and violate our trust: but
much more heinous is the crime of exposing our determinations to
contempt, and inciting the people to suspicion or mutiny, by indecent
reflections, or unjust insinuations.
I do not, sir, undertake to decide the controversy between the two
gentlemen, but must be allowed to observe, that no diversity of opinion
can justify the violation of decency, and the use of rude and virulent
expressions; expressions dictated only by resentment, and uttered
without regard to--
Mr. PITT called to order, and said:--Sir, if this be to preserve order,
there is no danger of indecency from the most licentious tongue: for
what calumny can be more atrocious, or what reproach more severe, than
that of speaking with regard to any thing but truth. Order may sometimes
be broken by passion, or inadvertency, but will hardly be reestablished
by monitors like this, who cannot govern his own passion, whilst he is
restraining the impetuosity of others.
Happy, sir, would it be for mankind, if every one knew his own province;
we should not then see the same man at once a criminal and a judge. Nor
would this gentleman assume the right of dictating to others what he has
not learned himself.
That I may return, in some degree, the favour which he intends me, I
will advise him never hereafter to exert himself on the subject of
order; but, whenever he finds himself inclined to speak on such
occasions, to remember how he has now succeeded, and condemn, in
silence, what his censures will never reform.
Mr. WINNINGTON replied:--Sir, as I was hindered by the gentleman's
ardour and impetuosity from concluding my sentence, none but myself can
know the equity or partiality of my intentions, and, therefore, as I
cannot justly be condemned, I ought to be supposed innocent; nor ought
he to censure a fault of which he cannot be certain that it would ever
have been committed.
He has, indeed, exalted himself to a degree of authority never yet
assumed by any member of this house, that of condemning others to
silence. I am henceforward, by his inviolable decree, to sit and hear
his harangues without daring to oppose him. How wide he may extend his
authority, or whom he will proceed to include in the same sentence, I
shall not determine; having not yet arrived at the same degree of
sagacity with himself, nor being able to foreknow what another is going
to pronounce.
If I had given offence by any improper sallies of passion, I ought to
have been censured by the concurrent voice of the assembly, or have
received a reprimand, sir, from you, to which I should have submitted
without opposition; but I will not be doomed to silence by one who has
no pretensions to authority, and whose arbitrary decisions can only tend
to introduce uproar, discord, and confusion.
Mr. Henry PELHAM next rose up, and spoke to this effect:--Sir, when, in
the ardour of controversy upon interesting questions, the zeal of the
disputants hinders them from a nice observation of decency and
regularity, there is some indulgence due to the common weakness of our
nature; nor ought any gentleman to affix to a negligent expression a
more offensive sense than is necessarily implied by it.
To search deep, sir, for calumnies and reproaches is no laudable nor
beneficial curiosity; it must always be troublesome to ourselves by
alarming us with imaginary injuries, and may often be unjust to others
by charging them with invectives which they never intended. General
candour and mutual tenderness will best preserve our own quiet, and
support that dignity which has always been accounted essential to
national debates, and seldom infringed without dangerous consequences.
Mr. LYTTLETON spoke as follows:--Sir, no man can be more zealous for
decency than myself, or more convinced of the necessity of a methodical
prosecution of the question before us. I am well convinced how near
indecency and faction are to one another, and how inevitably confusion
produces obscurity; but I hope it will always be remembered, that he who
first infringes decency, or deviates from method, is to answer for all
the consequences that may arise from the neglect of senatorial customs:
for it is not to be expected that any man will bear reproaches without
reply, or that he who wanders from the question will not be followed in
his digressions, and hunted through his labyrinths.
It cannot, sir, be denied, that some insinuations were uttered injurious
to those whose zeal may sometimes happen to prompt them to warm
declarations, or incite them to passionate emotions. Whether I am of
importance enough to be included in the censure, I despise it too much
to inquire or consider, but cannot forbear to observe, that zeal for the
right can never become reproachful, and that no man can fall into
contempt but those who deserve it.
[The clause was amended, and agreed to.]