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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30815	Several instances of the wrongs and oppressions by Q's and R's, suffered by the sailers of the English navy from the beginning of the late war most humbly presented to the fountain of justice, the Parliament of England.	Byrne, Gerrald.	1699 (1699)	Wing B6407; ESTC R20328	5,992	4

the Letter R in the Alphabet This Q is generally put upon such as are set sick a Shoar And then the poor Sailer is to quaery for Justice which he may do till he is Blind and never find it That this Practice is Barbarous and Inhuman is very evident I. It sinks the Labourers Hire into private Pockets deprives distressed Families of their Bread purchased by the hazard of human Life and brings unnecessary charge upon Parishes II. This Q is a new Letter in the Navy Books Quaeries being never heard of till the Year 1690. before which time every Man set sick a Shoar had his Wages paid him and was discharged from the Service III. The great Sickness which at and since that time happen'd in the Fleet was the Foundation of these Quaeries a very hard Case that a Sailer must lose his Money because he has lost his Health in the Service must have bad Pay because he has been poyson'd with bad Provisions IV. Many if not most of those who have been set sick a Shoar have thought themselves Discharg'd according to former Custom being altogether ignorant of the new Practice of the Navy V. Many that have been long Voyages and sick for many Months together seeing the Major part of the Ships Crew Bury'd have been thereby deshearten'd to go a board Ship again Diseases being more dreadful to Sailers than Battle or Storm VI. Nor can it be rationally expected that such as have contracted Indispositions and Distempers by unwholsom Provisions or a contagious Air should after a Month's Refreshment in sick Quarters or labouring 6 or 12 Months under their Maladies in an Hospital be fit to return aboard Ship or be capable of doing His Majesty service but the contrary is evident by the vast numbers that died soon after their return on Board as well as those that were set sick a Shoar And wou'd it not now be just to pay such Men their Wages Wou'd it not be for the Honour of His Majesty for the Reputation and Credit of the Navy to consider their Cases and pay the Debts due from the Nation to such 1. As have been set Sick on Shoar since the conclusion of the Peace 2. To the Executors and Attorneys of such as died in Sick Quarters Hospitals or Hospital Ships 3. To such as after Recovery entred on Board any of his Majesty's Ships 4. To such as have been Wounded or hurt and receiv'd Pensions or Smart-Money for the same 5. To such as continued Six Months or upwards in Sick Quarters or Hospitals or have been discharged from thence as Incurable 6. To such as the Captains of Ships have discharged by Tickets as unserviceable as being either Sick Lame or Blind c. This Usage of free born Englishmen might move Compassion in any but in those whose Business it is to cheat them and raise their own Fortunes out of their Ruins This indeed is a miserable Scene of humane Cruelty unknown to the Heathen Nations and yet practised in a Christian Country built on the Pillars of good and wholsom Laws and under a Government for no other reason that I know but on purpose to destroy such Arbitrary Proceedings and to dispense common Justice to all Men. There is little more difference betwixt a Gally Slave and an English Sailer than that one serves in expectation of Pay and the other without it yet one is sometimes as well paid as the other This barbarous usage of Mariners have made them instead of deserting our Ships of War and taking Merchants Service forsake their Country and Sailwith Foreigners in hopes of better Justice and Usage abroad than they have met with at home This barbarous Usage has made many Thousands of them turn Pirates during the last War and those that turn Free-booters are generally the Flower and Youth of the Seamen so that in time our Ships shall be Man'd only with decrepit old Age and the refuse of the Sea to the weakening of the Nation and Government for every Sailer lost is a Stone taken out of our National Walls which suffering such continual Dilapidations will at last tumble down and leave us exposed to the Insults of any Invader And after all Pray what is become of the Money that was ordered to pay the Seamen upon whom the R's and Q's have been put If it remains still in the King's Hands there is yet some hopes of Relief left to the miserable Sailers but if it be otherwise disposed of their Disease seems Incurable When we look into the Pay-Office and see there some Clerks at 30 l. per Annum purchasing Estates others turning Merchants and employing vast Sums of Money in Trade we may give a shrewd Guess what is become of the Poor Sailers Money And how shall their Creditors be paid How shall their Widows and numerous Fatherless Children be provided for Will not the charge to the several Parishes upon this account be heavier upon the Subject than the Taxes during the War Dwelling so long upon the R's and Q's which to me appear like Figures in Sorcery for the Projectors of their meaning in Navy Dialect have plac'd them backwards as Witches say their Prayers I had almost forgot the Injuries daily committed to those Sailers who have chearfully Registred themselves to be the more ready upon all occasions to serve their Country the Parliament has settled on every one of them Forty Shillings a Year for their Encouragement and last Year the Officers of that Registry have receiv'd 80000 l. to pay off those Tickets out of which they have only distributed 35000 l. and refuse to pay one Farthing more pretending they have not Money so that Forty five thousand Pounds is sunk unaccountably into some bodies Pocket All these things are worthy the Consideration of our Representatives in Parliament who are the only Persons can redress Grievances of this nature Now for some short Account of the Register-Office and conclude there were mighty things promis'd from this Office and truly had it been well founded and managed it might have been of very good Service to the Nation for 't is more then time some measures should have been taken to retrieve our sinking Navy but this being contriv'd and govern'd by the Projectors who seem rather by their Carriage to ruin or drive all the Seamen out of the Kingdom than to encourage and keep them here has had the contrary effect expected by Parliament that made a large Provision for this Office and made a Calculation of 30000 Seamen to be Registred now of these 30000 there is about 15000 Thousand Registred which most of them Registred themselves a-Board of Ship before the Conclusion of the Peace being chiefly threatn'd and compel'd to it but since the Peace there have been a very inconsiderable number have Registred and one may believe now the Register-Office may sit down contented and save the charge it puts the Kingdom to for any more Men of any sort that will Register themselves But now to shew what may be depended upon from those already Registred half of them are Officers who are forc'd to do it or otherwise lose their Employments but as they have not the 40 s. a Year provided for every Seaman by the Act so they are not oblig'd to surrender themselves to the Service but they were only compell'd to Register themselves not for any use they were that way to the Kingdom but for Encouragement to the Seamen or to wheedle them to follow their Example A moiety of this remaining 7000 are Land Men or wretched Creatures taken or Prest into the Service more to make up the Complement and rather pester a Ship when Seamen could not be got above half the remainder which we will suppose to be Seamen are at Sea in Merchants service on Foreign Voyages the Act obliging none to stay at home to wait a Call so that in fine by a modest Calculation the Nation in the utmost Exigency cannot rely upon the Register-Office for Two thousand able Seamen of the 30000 which was expected in six Months time But to give some Particulars how this Office is a Discouragement or rather an Oppression in many Respects to Seamen than an Encouragement as was promis'd to the Parliament when 't was Establish'd by Law at a great charge to the Nation I. The Seaman that Registred himself was promis'd by the Act 40 s. per Annum which is a great deal in a poor Seaman's Pocket and Estimates given every Session to the Parliament yearly of this particular Charge and if I mistake not Fonds rais'd and receiv'd for this use Now the Seamen have never receiv'd a Farthing of this but on the contrary the Seaman is glad to sell his Register Ticket for 10 s. in the Pound which every Body will not give for to my knowledge People that have made enquiry at the Register-Office how and when these Tickets would be paid 't was answer'd 't was not yet determin'd nor did they believe ever would an excellent Encouragement to Seamen but to help out the matter here is a Tax levy'd upon every Seaman in England of 6 Pence per Mensem toward the support of this Establishment which I never heard any Seaman the better for Again the Act says the King's Ships shall be Man'd with Registred Seamen they to have the Preference and out of them only are the inferiour Officers to be made now several Captains have been put to a Plaguy puzzle on this account for by reason of the discouragements before mentioned very few good Seamen have Registred themselves so that a Captain cannot find enough or sufficient out of his Registred Men to make Officers of There might be a great deal more said of the ill Usage of these poor Creatures but to avoid prolixity I shall omit it now and humbly hope this already said may be worth the Consideration of the Supreme Judicature it being design'd to no other end than that in doing Justice and shewing Mercy to these poor People it may at last turn to be of the greatest service to the Nation GERRALD BYRNE A lover of the King and Country LONDON Printed by G. Croom at the Blew-Ball over against Bridewel near Fleet-bridge 1699. Price 2 d.

SEVERAL INSTANCES OF THE WRONGS and OPPRESSIONS By Q's and R's suffered by the Sailers of the English Navy FROM The beginning of the Late WAR Most humbly presented to the Fountain of Justice the Parliament of ENGLAND IT is the Misfortune of the poor Sailers of the English-Navy to have few or no Friends to take their Part or represent their Grievances to the Parliament in order to have them Redress'd Justice indeed carries an equal Ballance but both the Scales hang over the Earth without any respect to the Sea Tho' our Sailers are as true to their Country as the Needle of their Compass is to the Course they Steer as faithful as the Steel to the Loadstone yet are they little minded by those in whose Power it is to do them Justice as if their Generation were Monstrous because their lives are Amphibious are born on the Land and do Service on the Water yet have common Justice on neither They are English-men but till they are 16 or 18 Years of Age then arrived to the Ne plus ultra of their Liberty their Freedom being in perpetual danger liable to be invaded by every Press-Master and those which were born to the Rights and Immunities of an English-man has all his Property knock'd on the head at once and hawl'd away and constrain'd on board Ship an Honourable sort of Vassalage Thus Wives have their Husbands torn from their Arms Mothers the only hopes of their Families forc'd into Confinement more durable and uneasy than that of their Wombs Fathers and Sons Imprisoned in one Wooden Goal But were this all the Bondage would seem more easy the Mariners never think their Service to their Country too much they plough the wide Ocean contend with the raging Billows of the Deep and with a Bravery peculier to the Sons of the Sea meet and fight their Enemy with a wonderful Contentment and Alacrity in defence of their Country and those Rights and Privileges of which they have so small a share Indeed their Country has not been backward in making a Generous Allowance suitable to the Bravery of Men engag'd in such dangerous Enterprizes but their ill Stars have laid them under such dismal Circumstances under such a monstrous and unparallel'd Conduct that in the midst of the Plenty provided for them they have been in the greatest Wants It is commonly observ'd in dealings amongst Mankind that the Service of Labourers require present Mony and the Laws of the Realm have a great respect to the Wages of Servants allowing them to be first paid even before Bonds or any previous Obligations of a contrary nature But some wou'd have every Sailer an Exlex and would make us believe that the same decorum of Justice is not to be us'd in States and Governments as is practised amongst Men of inferior Ranks and Qualities However as the Debts to the Sailers are National it ought to be a National Concern and Grievances of this kind being Un-redress'd may procure a National Judgment That the Q's and R's upon the Navy-Books are a common Grievance to the poor Widows of Sailers and their Attorneys will loudly justifie to their great Grief and Loss The R upon the Navy-Books is an immovable Letter very significant of Injustice and serves there as a Period in other Books putting a full stop to the Sailors Pay and tho' the Person that sets the permanent R may be but a Cypher himself in the account of Justice and true Worth yet his Letter R is productive of vast Sums of Mony into the Pocket of some Body or other to the Ruin of the Seamen This R in Navy Language or Character which you please signifies Run and this Run is of different Meaning and Signification too it is Crambo'd and tortur'd most damnably forc'd to express the meaning of any thing the Commanders of the Navy please If a poor Man be set Sick a Shoar so that he cannot get a Board his Ship before she Sails then he is made Run upon the Books If he be a Shoar by the Captain 's Order about the Ship 's Business and some Orders from Above force the Ship out of Harbour before he can get a Board the Ship runs away from him and he from the Ship at the same time if he go immediately on Board another Ship yet he is Run still The immovable R of the Navy is as fixt as the Law of the Medes and Persians If he make Interest at the Admiralty to get the R taken off for 't is in the Power of those Men you know to do mighty Wonders why then his Petition comes out with this pretty Device at the bottom read the 11th of February refus'd J. Burchett But farther to discover the meaning of this significant Letter R I shall give an account how it is apply'd to the poor Sailers upon the Navy-Books I. Such as never design'd to desert the Service but being return'd from long Voyages and their Ships being either in Port or Dock have adventured to visit their Friends in order to provide themselves with Apparel and other Necessaries and perhaps have met with Press-Gangs belonging to other Ships and forc'd on Board this has been esteemed by the Navy a Desertion and they have made such Sailers Run upon their Books II. Those that have been turn'd over from one Ship to another and after having serv'd some time in the latter their Tickets for their service in the former Ships have been deliver'd them and after having serv'd on Board several other Ships perhaps two or three Years after being set Sick a Shoar the first Tickets with the rest have been made Quaeri'd or Run and their Wages Forfeited Now that such Practices as these are contrary to all the Law Justice and Reason in the World is demonstrable I. Such as have their Tickets given them are suppos'd to be guilty of no Crime at that Juncture and such Tickets are and have been esteemed as the King's Bonds and Bills of Exchange and were formerly paid upon Sight Now it is very hard That a Sailer transgressing in one Ship should become so guilty as by that Crime to forfeit all his Wages in former Ships So that good Service and bad according to Navy Justice are a like Punishable II. Many well-affected People to His Majesty's Service and out of Charity to their distressed Neighbours have supplied many Sailers with Mony to the full value of their Tickets and when they come to the Navy to be paid receive nothing but an R for their Mony III. The Quaerying and Running of such Tickets have abominably lessen'd the Credit of the Navy in respect of Wages and made the most Glorious Navy in the World the most Scandalous by such barbarous Abuses insomuch that Tickets formerly sold at 2 s. 6 d. per Pound are now Sold for Seven Eight Ten and Twelve Shillings loss The next thing to be Consider'd is the Letter Q. upon the Navy Books which stands there as near Injustice as it does to