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A58496
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Remarks on the present condition of the navy, and particularly of the victualling, in which the notion of fortifying of garisons is exploded, and 'tis clearly prov'd that the only security of England consists in a good fleet in a letter from a sailor to a member of the House of Commons.
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Sailor.
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1700
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Wing R935A; ESTC R10451
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15,250
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28
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how shall we steer the old Course for whoever conns the Ship of the Admiralty the Secretary is always at the Helm he knows all the Reaches Buoys and Shelves of the River of Parliament and knows how to steer clear of 'em all He is the Spring that moves the Clock-work of the whole Board the Oracle that is to be consulted on all Occasions he sits at the Board behind a great Periwig peeping thro it like a Rat out of a Butter-firkin ready to misrepresent the Case of any Complainer by telling the Commissioners that he complains out of prejudice that he has written or spoken against the late Commissioners that he is mad c. and indeed what man in his Wits would endeavour to mend an Administration so corrupt and rotten as ours or to complain of Grievances when 't is just like flinging of hot Water to windward at Sea which certainly flies back in your face and scalds you It is observable that they follow the Example of the old Commissioners in that unaccountable whim of gazetting all Complaints that are transmitted to them If A. B. sends them a Letter can't they desire A. B. to attend them without telling the world the subject matter of A. B's Letter A. B. knew of it before and the knowledg of it can be no advantage to any besides the Party complain'd against You know Sir for some years last past the noise of an Invasion has been a necessary Imagination in our Government and has been presented to us as a necessary shooing horn to draw on you know what for if there be any meaning in it it must be a few more Land-forces and a great deal more Mony as if the Children of England were but one Remove from Naturals and willing to make Ducks and Drakes with their Mony and play it away as Boys do Cherrystones Had the noise of an Invasion the latter end of last Sessions been real and our Intentions to prevent it sincere our good Lords of the Admiralty would have sent our Fleet from the Downs before the 15th of July We have made a fine Summer's Work of it considering the great Danger they told us we were in in the Spring Some of our great Ships have sail'd from the Medway to the Downs and from the Downs to Medway Over the Water Master for a Penny At this Rate our great Ships may spoil the Trade of the Deal-hookers and our small Craft be supplanted by the King's Frigots Did they not now give any body time enough to disembark upon our Country The Enemy might have come upon our Coasts and fastn'd their Hazers to our Rocks and tow'd away our Island and made it a part of the Continent in so long an Interval betwixt Counsel and Action We have made but a very indifferent Figure at Sea this year if we consider England as the most Potent Nation of the Universe in shipping having Ships enough to beat the whole World twice over and a good Fleet left for a Reserve into the Bargain But such Actions as these must be done by the natural Sons of the Sea and the management of the Fleet must at such a time be under the Conduct of men whose Heads are not cramm'd with Land-Notions and who would manage Fleets as they do Land-Armies ashoar And this leads me to discuss a new Point the late Notion of Fortifying of Garisons for Security of our Shipping This fortifying of Garisons to secure the Fleet looks so much like intrenching which for several Years together in Flanders cost the English Nation such a woundy deal of Mony in Spades Pickaxes and Wheelbarrows that I can't down with it Such a Notion as this may sute the Governments of Sally and Madagascar well enough But the English are yet Masters of the Sea and have no occasion of a Subterfuge that I know of Our Guns on board Ship have hitherto been their Defence without the Auxiliary Assistance of Platforms and Lines But the last year we had an Author started out with an Answer to all the Books written against a Standing Army encourag'd in that pious Work by the Court Party wherein he tells us Pag. 66. That the French from Stokes-bay may be able to destroy our Fleet at Portsmouth His Subject required something to be said of Fleets and Bays and Stokes-bay Soulbay or Torbay are the same to the folk he wrote for But pray Mr. Positive what sort of Guns must the French have to destroy our Ships at Portsmouth from Stokes-Bay If you build them a Platform a top of Gilkicker or Stoke-Church you may do something tho you 're a woundy way off still But being a good Pilot you may perhaps bring them from Stokes-Bay into Portsmouth Harbour notwithstanding they must first engage the Castle and then entring the Harbour must by the position of the Sands fall so near a Platform of Guns on the Starboard side that one may fling a Bisket Cake ashoar from the Ship If they get by here they next pass a Castle upon the Point and all the Point lined with Cannon and within Musket Shot of the Enemy Next they have on the Larboard-side the whole Garison of Gospert its Castles Lines and Platforms to engage besides in the midst of that Harbour a Castle and a great many Guns at the Dock Now Mr. Infallible Courtier the French are in a very good station Gospert rakes 'em fore and aft and Portsmouth peppers their Quarters and Sterns you have e'en fairly brought them on how the Devil will you get them off And pray remember I han't spoke one word of Southsea-Castle all this while which I am sure upon such an occasion would have one slap at their Arses nay the very Pot-Guns at Rhyde would do 'em some mischief Now let the world judg whether the Author of that Book deserv'd 500 l. for such a Notion as this I dare engage they won't give me half the Mony for my Book tho it contains plain Truth and matter of Fact wholly design'd for the Interest of the English Nation It is evident that it is none of our Interest to lock up our Ships in the Chest at Chatham nor to secure them in the Harbours of Portsmouth or Plymouth Our Ships were built to keep the Enemies from our Harbours and not our Garisons built to defend our Shipping Our first Contest ought to be upon the Water where if we are beaten which I think we shan't be under a good Management and we fly for Refuge to our fortify'd Harbours the Enemy will hardly follow us thither for 't is none of their business to knock their Heads against Stone-walls their business then is to land upon us and invade us being well assured if they can get the Land the Forts Garisons and Ships will come in of course For my part I never question'd the Courage of my Brethren the Tarrs nor their Constancy and Fidelity to the Interest of the English Nation they can do Wonders when under a good Management
and Usage This Notion of fortifying of Garisons to secure Shipping looks also as if we were afraid of some new Imaginary Evil here is something started up in the room of an Invasion the Fears and Jealousies of our Courtiers grow like Mushrooms but I 'le say that for 'em that they never advance a terrible Goblin but there 's Mony in the Tail on 't I hope our doughty Author that encounters and answers all Mankind when our Garisons come to be fortify'd will be at least Sir Christopher Wren in the Action 't is pity this wonderful Notion of his should go without a farther Reward As the Sancho Pancha to this Quixot follows a nameless Squire with a Book about fortifying Dover Peer to secure the King's Ships this he says is a Manuscript of Sir Walter Raleigh's to Queen Elizabeth which he found amongst some mouldy Records Now all the Reason in this Book is not worth an Eggshel What can you gather from it Why this Sir Walter Raleigh thought the fortifying of Dover Peer a security to Ships of War in the Days of Queen Bess therefore it is necessary now How far this Consequence will hold water I can't tell But to say that Queen Elizabeth had a very pitiful Navy not so good as our fifth and sixth Rates yet by the Choice of good Commanders she routed and destroyed the Invincible Armado of Spain and therefore we ought to follow the same Example is good reasoning and advantageous to the Realm We may err in Particulars but what has been generally acted for the good of the Realm practised and approved by many Ages now extinct will always hold good and still be our help Our Author dos not beg our pardon for not telling us how much Mony it will cost us to cleanse Dover Peer how many Loads of Mud are in it nor whether there is not more Mud there than will cover the whole County of Kent tho he is so civil in his Epistle to ask Sir W. Raleighs pardon for publishing his Manuscript tho Sir Walter dy'd about 100 years ago Whence the Devil this humour of crying all things down our Fathers have found useful came I can't tell But certainly men were never more out of love with old Things and the approved Maxims and Ways of our Forefathers than now How many Fleets have rode in the Downs secure of all Tempests tell me how many Ships we lost there or have been forc't from their Anchors thence during the War Now suppose we had as much Mony in England as there is Mud in Dover Peer what advantage would the fortifying of it be to the English Navy Perhaps we might lose more Ships in one year in bringing them into the Peer than have and will be lost in the Downs from the beginning of the World to the Resurrection If our Author be made Pilot to bring them into the Peer I 'le lay my Cap to a Trunnel that he 's hang'd in a Months time But what need all these Projects these Chimaera's who amongst us is afraid For our parts we are not give us but good Commanders good Pay and better Victuals we defy the Devil and all his Works Don't you remember what we did at la Hogue we can show you such another Trick whenever there is occasion for it We have abundance of Attempts to set us beside our true Interest in Naval Affairs pray when Sir will you give a fair push to set us before the Wind for the Honour and Glory of our Country Thus I hope I have overset the Vanity of two Authors tho the design of my writing was to show you the Miscarriages of the Navy the Wrecks they have already made that you may steer clear of them and find out e're it is too late some Method to put us in a right posture for the defence of your Nation I should in the next place proceed to the Navy Office and give you an Account of the hard Usage of the Sailors there the impious Method of buying their Tickets of keeping them out of their Pay upon the account of Q's and R's set upon their names in the Navy-Books and the abominable Practices of the Officers of the Pay-Office c. But another Method is taken to inform your Honourable House of their Grievances I could also inlarge upon the abominable Practice of pressing the Seamen for the Service and show how inconsistent it was with the rights of a freeborn People Indeed the abuses of the Sailors are so many and so great that a man knows not where to begin or end Perhaps Sir you never heard of such an Office as Slop-seller to his Majesty's Navy and therefore I must acquaint you with the Original of that Office A certain Person in K. C. the 2 d's time got in with one of the Royal Whores and she got him a Patent to be Slop-seller to his Majesty's Navy which is as much as to say she got him empowered by the King's Sign Manual to cheat all his Sailors for no Slops were to be sent on Board and sold to the Sailors but what belong'd to this Person at this rate he got at least 50 per Cent. Now this Patent is still in force and the Seamen under this Government have met with the same Usage This has been the general Complaint of the Sailors of the whole Navy but the Officers of the Navy finding it profitable to themselves have still supported the Cheat For the Slopseller allows 12 d. in the Pound to the Pay-Office for stopping the Slop-Mony at the Pay-Table If you please 't is very easy to examine the Books of the Pay-Office upon this Account you 'l find that the Poundage receiv'd in that Office upon this and the Account of Tobacco amounts to about 80 Thousand pound during the last War Let us now descend to the Victualling the lowest and most corrupt Office of the Navy The Cure of the Navy is done but by halves for tho the Head may be eas'd by Cephalick Medicins yet if the lower Region of the Stomach be infected its noxious and poisonous Vapours will ascend and affect the Brain This is the Condition of our Navy The Head is only shaven to prevent the Frenzy without Bloodletting and other necessary Applications to effect a Cure the whole Body labours under an ill Habit which till remov'd our Ships Rudders will hardly cut water and our Ships the Walls of our Island will be a weak Defence and their Cannon as insignificant as so many Squibs or Crackers From the Votes of your House the last Sessions by the Admiralty I spell the whole Affair of the Navy the Victualling and Navy Offices being rather constituent parts than dependent Offices upon it and I thought that your Votes condemning the ill Practices of one had suppos'd all the rest that this was as clearly understood as if it had been verbally exprest that since you were over Shoes there was no occasion of your being over Boots too in the Augean