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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44078	Humble proposals for the relief, encouragement, security and happiness of the loyal, couragious seamen of England, in their lives and payment, in the service of our Most Gracious King William, and the defence of these nations humbly presented to the two most Honourable Houses, the Lords and Commons of England, in Parliament assembled / by a faithful subject of His Majesty, and servant to the Parliament and nation, and the seamen of England, in order for safety and security of all aforesaid, W. Hodges ; to which is added, a dialogue concerning the art of ticket-buying, in a discourse between Honesty, Poverty, Cruelty and Villany, concerning that mystery of iniquity, and ruin of the loyal seamen.	Hodges, William, Sir, 1645?-1714.	1695 (1695)	Wing H2329; ESTC R2277	51,833	63

no Victuals short since the King allows enough of all these things if men shuffle it not away and also to see the men mustered every week all the Voyage on board to prevent their being entred that never come on board neither they kept open that Run away And that also the Seamen extra might be Learning to carry a Ship to Sea in any part of the World and consulted with in case of Danger that Ships might not be knockt on the head or fool'd away for time to come so madly as in some times past and these men to have six shillings the Month more than Able Seamen and to be preferr'd if deserving 21. In regard that the Boatswains Gunners and Carpenters are Places of great Care and Trust and some Expences in the getting in and taking care of and accounting for their Stores and their Wages being it may be under-valued in respect of those who have double Pay if his Majesty and the Honourable Houses would advance their Pay half as much more as they have now and this would be the way to encourage them to be honest faithful and cheery in the Service and they that are not honest to be punished if they are found to steal the King's Store then they and the Parties who are the Receivers which are as bad as the Thieves to be every man that is found guilty marked on the Little Fingers and transported for Servants to the West-Indies all their Days as those that would infect others if they staid here And to find out all Theft if there were this Encouragement That whatever Seamen 2 or 3 could prove the same to have their discharge from the Ship on the Conviction of the Offender and Tickets for their own mony to be paid presently at the Pay-Office and a Protection for One Year from the Press except they can be preferr'd in the time to some place into some other Ship And this would be the way to have almost all the Thieves in the Fleet and in the Yards discovered and without Charge or Loss to the King But if men who discover Cheating be abused brow-beaten and back-beaten and confin'd to endure it all their days no marvel if there is seldom any Thievery found out if never so much committed 22. No Pursers or Captains Clerks or any Officers to give a List of Names to others to forge Powers or to deliver out Tickets to any but publickly and to those who have Powers that are Lawful to take the same and none to sell or receive any Seaman's Pay or Ticket except their own Indenture-Servants on Pain of Felony as being worse than Highway-men 23. There to be a Committee to hear the Complaints of ●hose who have been oppressed cheated or ruined in their Pay and to hear all Complaints freely and to restore Justice to the oppressed as those who would not have the hand of God go out against our Navigation any more to the suffering either our own Folly or the Enemies Subtilty to ruin us 24. That whenever Ships are put up for Re-calls at Broadstreet for Pay there be a certain time appointed for each Ship and publick notice given at least 6 days before-hand for all parties to appear that have Mony due that they may not lose their Pay or come at such uncertainties for small sums that the trouble and charge and loss of time is worth more than the Mony receiv'd 25. That there may be also an appointment of some of the Commissioners that state the publick Accounts to hear and receive all Informations wherein the King and Nation have been cheated and liberty to grant a safe Conduct to any one to come and appear before them to make a full and free discovery and to let them depart home without molestation again and if their Information be worthy of a Pardon that it might be interceeded for if not that they might be left open to the Law as before And that if any one that hath been guilty of Cheating and forging of Powers can discover two others as bad as themselves so as they may be convicted then the first to be pardoned and the other two punished And if the other two can either of them discover two more that is four as bad as themselves the two to be excused and the four corrected unless any of them could double their Information as aforesaid and this would be one way perhaps to find out how the King and the Nation and the Seamen may be modestly Judged to be cheated of 100 or 150000 l a year this War And now I having proposed this it may be I shall meet with some Enemies that will envy me ten times worse than the Thieves envied him that wrote the Book that is called The English Rogue and yet if they were so wise as to keep their own Counsel none would know I meant them for indeed I bless God I aim not against persons but Villany and if I meet with any that is offended at me for discovering the Method of the Navy-Cheats I shall think it is some body that is galled and scabbed and that I touched them tho I did not see them and therefore they kick and bite as some Horses will do And so much to that I would advise them to keep their own Counsel that others may not laugh at them and if they laugh themselves and are pleased the World will be ready to judge they are glad if I can hunt out the Scabby Sheep out of their Flock But I would propose concerning those many thousands that are taken captive into France if it were in English Ships 26. That they that are taken may have their several miseries considered of how they are used in France and if their sufferings be so great that they are ready to perish there for want it would be well if some Relief were ordered them that they might not die and perish there or be forced to enter into the French Service for Liberty Bread and Cloaths and therefore to be sent for away also so soon as possible they can conveniently 27. When come to Plimouth or any Sea-Port Town in England to have at least a penny a mile allowed every Seaman for Travelling Charges to London if in Men of War and to where their Friends live if in Merchant Ships that they may not be forc'd to beg or starve for near 200 miles and at last be forc'd away into other Ships without one penny of mony to buy them Clothes for to shift them And it may be considered if it be not a barbarous thing to meet men as far as Kingston coming home out of France with nothing but their Lousie Old Cloaths the French give them and when they have begged 150 miles to carry them away lay them in the Hold in Press-Ketches without Bedding or any thing to lie under or over them and it may be the poor Wretches sickly and weak some of them And this is now at this time one Fruit of our

my part I say according to the money raised there could never have been better Pay for the Seamen in the world And indeed I would not have the Seamen of England say Justly That God and the King sent good Meat but the Devil sent them Cooks that spoil'd it half in dressing But in short I cannot see how the Nation in the general can answer the Seamen's being left to Ruin For First as I said it is against Grace against the gracious Law of Christ not to do to them as we would others should do to us which is taught the Children in their Catechisms 2. It is against the gracious Providence of God to these Nations who did by a Miracle send over our gracious King William to be a means to secure our Religion Liberties and Properties and if the Nation who enjoys all these in Peace at home should let the Seamen be Ruined and lose all together and their Lives into the bargain I am afraid Christ will tell us another word in our Ears That the Scripture shall not fail and the same measure men mete shall be meted to them again And so much to their being managed contrary to Grace 2. Contrary to Reason for Reason tells us other Ages encouraged their Seamen and paid them on Shore and other Nations do so now And Reason may tell those who have understood the Nature of the paying on Board That the Seamen's Families and Relations have not enjoyed the Benefit of little more than half their Pay to their Familie's Comfort 3. It is contrary to common sense to think that if Seamen do usually die great part where they are kept 2 or 3 years on board that they should have any Policy to keep them until they die rather than to pay them off to Recruit their Health and Lives And indeed who could be ever imagined to come freely into that Service where nothing but Death can part again and then the Widow denied their Mony oft-times at last And besides the Loss of the Seamen's Lives there is extraordinary Charge to the Nation and no benefit to the publick but it may be the Commanders that had abused the Seamen all the War could not get more and would want a Ship to get Mony in and so might want bread while our brave Commanders would have Men enough But those who have driven away the Seamen from their Ships and could have a supply by turning over men from other Ships these might be at a Loss for Men next Year But my Skill in Sea Affairs is too small Did it but attain to the heighth of my Faithulness to his Majesty and Love to my Native Country I would if the Lord assisted me with Life and Health write such an History of the Knavery Folly Cowardize Treachery Ruin and Destruction of this War in the Sea-Affairs the Land would admire at and would write every Line to the best of my Judgment what would be found true not only in another Age where they will speak plainly how his Majesty and the Parliament and Nation and Merchants are cheated and abused But I would write what I believe will be found true in the Day of Judgment where all Cloaks will be thrown off and then it will be known that God did not send Mankind into the world to be like Fishes the great ones to devour the little ones and I bless the Lord who kept me from being one of the Devourers of the Age for I have had an opportunity with ease to be a Monster when I laid out an hundred Pound a week or two in Seamen's Pay if I had bought at half Profit or Twelve Shillings in the Pound Profit as some Monsters did I should have doubled my Mony so often to have been able to have swallowed up 3 or 4 Seamen's Pay for a Breakfast besides what I had for Dinner and Supper and then I should never have said a word of the Ruin of the Seamen but should have been forc'd to have kept all Counsel if the King had been cheated of a quarter of his Money and the Seamen of above half their pay But I presume it will be well to look back to the most happy state of our Ships of War when we did most effectually beat our Enemies and incourage our Seamen and see if we do not find the neglect of their method hath been the Loss of half our Seamen and many of our Ships And Secondly Whether their way was not to go out in the Summer and take all Opportunities to sight and destroy their Enemies and come in again with the greatest part of the Fleet and pay off the Seamen and save their Lives and Pay Whether if this had been done the Seamen would not have been incouraged to come freely into the King's Service as in other Ages as into a place where there was Mony and Liberty and Release and not perpetual Bondage And if at last discharged by reason of Sickness and had Tickets signed by all the signing Officers for the same to be deprived otherwise cheated publickly of their mony to the shame of the Pay and the Ruin of the discharged and whether any can now on the last Terms be safe to serve their King and Country and it may be questioned whether it be not a shameful thing when poor Seamen have had their Pay received by false Powers they should be denied the sight of the Ship 's Books to see who received it and therefore whether also this and the denying them otherwise the knowledg of their Case be not an unjust and unreasonable thing to let poor Creatures be Cheated and Ruined and hide it from them And what advantage it is to the Government to let their poor Seamen be so managed besides the King 's being at extraordinary Charge to pay them so far from London and the City deprived of the benefit of taking their mony as in other Ages wherein the City of London was not used to be so slighted neither the Seamen so Ruined But I shall presume to say more in the Body of my Book for whoever pleaseth to read it at their leisure what my Thoughts are and if the Honourable Houses pardon me I shall not need much to trouble my self with the Offences any others may take at it for I write for good and not to please but to hinder Cheating the King and Ruining the Seamen and not to flatter those that would have it all smuggled up in silence which makes me think of one lately that because he could not find any thing false in my book had this supposition and that was That he supposed if I had Represented so much in France the French King would have hanged me Now to that being only a Supposition I will answer it with other Suppositions As 1. I must have been a Fool or a Knave to have writ it if I did not consult before I writ it whether I could with a good Conscience have suffered Death for the same and if

keeping Seamen on board and paying them there that they should not Run away until there is so many dead and gone that there is dreadful Tearing ann Halling in City and Country and the very Watermen out of the Tiltboats that they are afraid to work on their Trades some of them now while our great Ships are so many laid up And by the way this pressing when Men were paid lately frighted away some Hundreds or Thousands of Seamen Whereas if they had but had liberty to have spent their mony freely in one month they would have been glad to have gone again I have heard a Friend of mine declare solemnly He had above 20 Lodgers that belonged to his House went away to their own Countries not daring to come up to London to spend their money here or return it home to their Friends and if so many be seared away in one house how many in all the houses that keep Lodgers in City and Suburbs Therefore men must be taken care of for time to come to have their Lives preserved and their persons encouraged or if not I fear it will produce greater Loss and Damage than is yet foreseen And all mankind that knows the Sea-Affairs knows that 2 or 3 Years keeping on board of Ship commonly 3 fourths of the men die whereas if they had liberty and fresh provisions and Land-Air one month often recruits them again 28. Therefore the Seamen to be encouraged and preserved and paid off at London as formerly and the City would not be Ruined by the War And if it be objected The Seamen would then go in Merchant-Ships many of them To that I do answer if their Lives were preserved they would increase as fast or faster in Men of War than in Merchant-Ships and if there were plenty Wages would fall in Merchant-Ships And had our Fleet increased Seamen as it was expected the Wages would have been so low in Merchant-Ships and what with Lost Voyages Seamen would have strived to have gone into the King's Ships if they had been paid off in every Ship and had Liberty But when they have no hopes of Release but Death or the End of the War and cannot have opportunity to fight to end the War this is a melancholy Case many of them have complained they wanted to fight it out for to end the War And 29. This paying the Seamen off on Shore yearly that is one half one Year and another half another Year would many times save the King near as much charge in small Ships Victuals and Wages while as our Ship is in the Dock as the charge of mending the Ship comes to And indeed this War hath been it may be such a Disappointment to Seamen as the World never knew some Commanders having had so much Love and Reputation and Care as to have Men to Man a Ship and it may be in some months after either the men turn'd great part into other Ships or the Commanders removed into other Ships so that if a Thousand Seamen would be freely willing to serve under such brave Commanders as I know some they are not sure but in a month they may exchange their Drivers And by the way I would observe That tho the Double-Pay Officers have had Pay suitable to buy Two Canes to beat the poor Seamen instead of one whereas before they sometimes did tie a Rope-yarn at the end of their Cleft Sticks but now may buy new but the poor Seamen had not 1 s the month more all this War to buy one course Coat or Wastcoat to keep off a blow Which brings me to another Paragraph that is 30. That the poor Seamen may have their 40 s a piece for Cloaths used to be allowed them if the Ship was lost and this they had before they beat the French and before that they enjoyed some Comforts now and then But to go on 31. No Seamen to be forced to go out of a Man of War into a Merchant-Ship altho the Captain should have several pounds for the same But if Necessity requires the Lending of a Seaman or Two to a Merchant the Seaman may have all the Pay in the Merchant-Ship and the Captain and Purser to have the Benefit of his Victuals only in the Man of War that the King and the Seamen be not both cheated at one time And 32. The Seaman to have a Certificate to come again in a certain time and to be kept from the Press until then 33. No Seaman to be made wait above ten days at the Navy-Office to petition for to have a Q or R. taken off But if whenever paid-off as formerly and incouraged there would be an end almost to that dreadful wretched Ruining and Destruction to themselves and Families of losing their mony for those Letters being set on by any wrongfully and therefore would serve the King cheerfully 34. That those who are discharged fair by Reason of Sickness and have Tickets signed by all the Officers for their Pay may not be cheated of it for the word of one hard hearted wretche's pleasure the Seamen's Ruin being too great already 35. If Seamen are prest away when on Shore the Captain that commands the Ship he is in to be obliged to send a Certificate to the Ticket-Office to be Registred in the other Ship 's book or in a Register-Book as in the Case before of Sickness to secure the Seaman's Pay from being ruined because he lost his Liberty 36. That it may be considered there are 3 things Englishmen do value highly that is Liberty Property and Life and all these have the Seamen lost some share of this War and the Histories of all these Nations cannot parallel and therefore double Care ought to be taken of them for time to come seeing it is to be feared there is some gone to enquire after the preserving of those things in other Nations already as by the King's Books of Ships come home this Year may be seen something 37. Seamen pressed out of Merchant-Ships to be under the penalty of half their Pay to go on board of such a Man of War at such a time and then to have liberty to bring up the Merchant-Ship and to take half their Pay and sell their Ventures and recruit themselves a few days to recover their health that they may not after long Voyages infect the men of War by sickness and when they are gone on board that man of War to have a Certificate sent up to the Office That such a man is come on board such a Man of War and then his other half of his Pay to be paid to his Attorney And if he goeth not on board the Man of War or if she be ordered away sooner than on board another then the other half of his Pay to be forfeit to the Hospital of Greenwich if he goeth not in a Man of War And by this means most of the Seamen might be in the King's Service once in 2 Years and the others

HUMBLE PROPOSALS FOR THE Relief Encouragement Security and Happiness of the Loyal Couragious Seamen of England in their Lives and Payment in the Service of our Most Gracious King William and the Defence of these Nations Humbly Presented to the Two Most Honourable Houses the Lords and Commons of England in Parliament Assembled By a Faithful Subject of his Majesty and Servant to the Parliament and Nation and the Seamen of England in order for Safety and Security of all aforesaid W. Hodges To which is added A DIALOGUE concerning the Art of Ticket-buying In a Discourse between Honesty Poverty Cruelty and Villany concerning that Mystery of Iniquity and Ruin of the Loyal Seamen Printed in the Year 1695. To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament Assembled Humbly sheweth THAT the Providence of our most gracious God having stirred me up to see and consider and lament the most dreadful Ruin and Destruction of the Loyal Seamen of England in their Lives and Pay that ever these Nations did behold and to Represent the same in all Humility to your Honours and considering also that some of their Miseries were in my Judgment against Grace and Reason and Common Sense and also sometimes against those other Four Things that used to be esteemed of as Jewels in England that is Religion Liberty Property and their Lives To say nothing of the Fifth without Law made me to dread the Consequent and I did observe that it was hidden from his Majesty and your Honours so long until there was the Loss as I represented to you of the Lives of above Forty Thousand and of the Pay of above Sixty Thousand of them and if there had been occasion to question the Truth of it I would have proved at any time by the King's Books in twenty Four Days time without Two Pence Charge to the King or Nation and considering that his Majesty has spoken for their Relief and your Honours who had raised money enough before to have kept them from Ruin and to have spared a Million or Two of it by Capt. St. Lo's Rule Besides if they had been but managed as the English Seamen were in former days and as the Dutch and the French do at this day to save near half their money and most of their Seamens Lives But I say Your Honours being now also Resolved to study their Relief I presume in all Humility to cast in my Mite also Now in order to the same which I would intreat your Honours to accept of as Rough and Unframed Timber to be squared and fitted to what part your Honours please and one thing is many crooked pieces are made use of in the building of Shipping that when placed aright not only serve to strengthen the Ship and help to preserve the Lives of the Seamen but formally use to help tohold the Ships together while they daily beat their Enemies and tho these Pieces may not be always so readily known to all Landmen I will presume some may serve now and some another time And I do assure your Honours if I had better at hand I would present them to you But they are my own and so saved me the trouble of begging borrowing or which is worse stealing and I intreat your Honours Patience for their Miseries being so dreadful and so many years a growing and so many times Ten Thousands as they could not have been easily represented except one should have said their Case was almost all together Miserable But blessed be God that it is not They have a good King and good Countrey for their Friends if their Cases are not blinded from them And as to their Remedies it requires a great deal of Care and Inquiry And when I look back to what I represented before and forward to what strange need there is of them now and when I hear that a great many there is that are in Droves travelling in other Countries without Shooes or Stockings seeking to enter into the Service of the Merchants of England there or to serve other Nations and Run away from che Merchant-Ships also and lose their Pay some of them not being willing to come home for fear of the Press This makes my Heart dread the Effects of it and do suppose these Two Things would be worth while to be inquired into by the Parliament to know how the Case stands with them in these respects First Let every Man of War's Book that hath been in the Streights or Spain or Portugal be searched to see what Numbers Run away out of any Ship or every Ship at any Port or Place And Secondly To have an Account of the Men of War and Merchant-Ships lost this Eighteen Months to the French with the whole Number of Men taken in each Ship and in the whole Shipping lost and then have also the Number of Men return'd from France in that time that did belong to those Ships and what is wanting may be supposed to be entred into the French Service if not dead and if of the East-India Ships taken there be come home short near an Hundred of those men that were taken it is to be fear'd the rest will stay until warm weather and then get some Money and Cloaths if our Press is so great this Winter that they meet the poor Captive Wretches when they Return home in their Lousie Cloaths from France and beg their way near an Hundred and Fifty Miles then before they come to London catch them and carry them on Board Rags and Lice as they Run put them down in the Hold of the Vessel to lie on the Boards or Ballast or what they please if they be without Bedding and as Queen Esther said if they perish they perish This is a Notable Age to tame Prodigals in if they be ordinary Seamen but if they be Double-Pay Officers then it may be they Run up and down and be as bad or worse than before and so it may be will not be worth some of them a Groat a Dozen when the War is over tho they most times Live For the Officers that have Liberty to come on Shore die very few of them But this by the way But I am too large in the Introduction I did think to say something more as to the Seamen's Encouragement in this Preface as that without the Seamen be paid off yearly on Shore and have a Fortnight's or Month's Liberty to Recruit their Healths I am afraid they will never be encouraged to come into the Service neither stay there and if they do and die it is as bad as Running for if they Run away in England and the Merchants get them it is an help to Trade and the King may have them again and I could never know the Reason of that pretence of keeping the Seamen in such slavery in their payments in this Age more than any other to be paid on Board as if his Majesty's Service was not as good as in any Age of the World For

Port and some in another Whether the Ships must wait until they are well and how the same Men can get to their own Ships again when they are gone And if they continue sick or die or go on board of other Ships or be sent to the Hospitals and Run out of their Pay whether this be not Injustice Cruelty Opression Discouragement to the King's Service and that whereby no Man in England can be safe to Serve his King and Country for time to come nor no Man safe to trust a Seaman or Seaman's Wife and Family one Groat that is in the King's Service on those terms since the Stoutest Man and Honestest Man in England by keeping long on Board may fall Sick and Die or continue Sick and that a Year or two and if not go on Board or be Prest on board another Ship and so loose his Pay I do protest in the presence of the Lord before whom I Write this I fear if there be none in these Nations to be found to consider these dreadful Cases but suffer Cruelty and injustice to be smugled up that God will Chastise these Nations until they Learn what it is to Ruin Men and Families in their Lives or Pay thousands and ten thousands as by the King's pay-Pay-books and Muster-books will appear and they I appeal to they are such a Register the Nation never saw in the Sea Affairs and the blame must lie somewhere and I suppose some hardened Hearts will say the Running them out of their Pay is right enough but it may be they will not consider that their turning from Ship to Ship until Sickness or Death came was the Cause of a great part and I hope they will not be so Case-hardened as to say they were served well enough to be Run out of their Lives so many ten thousands also I remember the English Nation in some former times was mighty industrious to find out and Punish the Instruments that Ruined the King's Liege-People in their Lives and Estates and had we had but the tenth part of Landmen's Poor Families Stripped of all they had in the World as there hath been Seamen stripped of their Pay it would have made a dreadful out-cry in England And indeed if our Poor in England had been forc'd to be turned from Master to Master without a Penny of Mony for some Years as many Seamen have from Ship to Ship and their miserable Wives and Children Live on Credit or Starve and if at last they should under the burden of all by discouragements fall sick and be Run out of their Mony they had worked for several Years as many have been out of their Pay in several Ships it would look dreadfully bad And some well-meaning men would have nothing said of it to acquaint the Government for fear our Enemies should know it as if the French who hath taken so many hundred Ships from us and near twenty thousand Men Captive this War and hath so many Spies and Treacherous Villains here and doth to outward appearance know a great deal better where to meet our India Ships and Berbado's Ships in several places to take them Home to France than ours did to send Convoys to take them Home to England and yet some seeming Honest Men are afraid the French that take our Ships and Men should know our Case and in short I fear he knows it a great deal more exactly than some do or will do in England for I do think some in England seem to do like what is said of the Woodcocks to hide their Heads in a Bush and think none can see them and so if they let the King Country and Seamen be all Cheated it will continue to be all smuggled up but my Pen runs thirteen to the Dozen and yet the knavery of the Bakers is such that if care be not taken I am afraid some of our Seamens Families will be ready to starve but to that I should propose a Remedy that Seamen may not be Cheated of their Health Lives and Pay altogether First if as many as is possible might be Paid off every year and that it may be would save most of their Lives most of their Healths and all their Pay besides and we might have Ships enough for a Winter Squadron besides and if any did fall Sick then if the Ship goeth away and leaves him set on shoar then if he cannot come on Board to set him in the Ships Book dis-sick at such a place and time and the Man if well to go on Board another Man of War and to have the Captain of the Man of War send up a Certificate to the Office That such a man that was in such a Ship is now in his Ship and this to be Entered in the other Ships Book in the Office to save the Poor Seamens Pay and if the other Ships Book be not there to have a Register Book to enter it in the mean time and if the Man continues Sick or Dies the Surgeon of the place he is sent to to be bound to give a Certificate of his Case to save his Pay since it must needs seem to me to be a barbarous thing towards any for time past to be turn'd from Ship to Ship for several Years until they fall sick and die and then be Run out of their Pay and it may be their poor Ruined Wives who hardly have seen their Husbands this War it may be they must come 100 or 200 Miles to shew cause why they must have any mony and why their Husbands went not on Board their own Ships again and it may be the Ships Journal if looked into at the Office would shew the Ship went away in 24 hours And if God will bring every work to Judgment I doubt our Ships Books and Ships Journals will be sad Witnesses against the Cruelty of some in those Offices to Run poor Wretches out of their Pay that the men are as the Sentence is against those that are to be hanged Dead Dead Dead And therefore if I find not any Remedy against Ruining the Fatherless and the Widow I will not expect any great Security of our Ships and Merchandise And so much to that God is a Jealous God If we Ruin the Poor of Thirty Thousand Pounds the Year by some sort of Tools and God suffers the Nation to lose so many Hundred Thousand Pounds in Riches and the King his Custom by the Ignorance Carelessness and Treachery of others if our own Folly be not too hard for us I fear the Judgments of God will and therefore I advise some way for these Nations to break off their sins by Repentance and their Iniquities by shewing mercy to the Poor and Mercy and Justice both will teach ways to secure Ruined Seamens Pay when wounded or dead or in the Hospitals 9. It is a miserable thing that when men are turn'd over or dead or sick that their poor Wives cannot be informed whether their poor Ruined Husbands are Run

out of their Pay without Petitioning Which if there be Twenty Thousand Turnings over in a Year may make work for the Clerk of the Petitions and his Masters If they all Petition at 12 d the Piece to him it is a Thousand Pound the Year and 6 d to his Boy is five hundred Pound the Year And will not this be brave Times for him But I remember in all Calamities some dreadful Wretches get mony in the time of the Plague of London in the time of the Fire and in the time of War many are Raised from the Dunghill on the Ruines of others but why poor Seamen themselves or their poor Wives should not have Liberty to get a Clerk to search the Book to see if they are cheated of their Pay or no before Pay-day is sad But I confess it is a good way to hide Knavery For if mony be said to be paid the Party and was not and he appears himself it is a timely notice to get another book to shew him that it was only ordered to be paid him But if he be dead or gone and never come himself then it may stand paid the party until Dooms-day and if he comes it was a mistake And besides this having a sight of the Books may be a great help to Extortioners and Ticket-buyers if they get the Books searched privately they may buy as they please And whether this be not turning the blind out of their way seeing the Seamens Wives have most time nothing but the Books to know what is due and if they be Run at Pay-day it may be are forced to petition and stay for their mony another year and this is misery to misery 10. Therefore I think they ought for time to come to have no Seamen discharged without a Ticket and no Officer keep his Ticket on pain of Felony For in plain English which is worst a Pick-pocket stealing a Guinea or Two from a Gentleman or a Captain of a Man of War to take a Seaman's Ticket from him of Ten Pound and it may be the poor Seaman nor his Wife and Family hath not a Groat in the World to buy a bit of bread Therefore if there be not Relief to poor Ruined Seamen I will never more wonder we fool away knock on the Head betray and destroy so many Men of War and Merchant Ships But 11. And none to wait above One Payment for One Ticket also for time to come and not wait 3 years for 30 s at Two Payments of a Ticket as hath been common this War And whether this was not Misery to Misery And to prevent that 12. As few as possible to be turn'd from Ship to Ship but when Ships come in pay them off as they come in some one time and some another and the Men have a Month's Liberty to come on shore and gather health and strength and spend their Mony and when their Mony is gone their Friends will quickly send them to Sea again without pressing and that would be good for King and Country And if Men see they are not shifted from Ship to Ship like Slaves they will when paid off on shore as in other Ages have Encouragement to come into the Service again and bring their Children Servants and Friends with them But if they find they are deprived of their Liberty all their Days when once they come and of their Property when sick and die no marvel if they are glad to get away And I would ask all Mankind and would appeal to the King and Parliament what should be the Cause the King's Service now should be more a Prison than in other Ages and why so Gracious a King's Service should be made such a Bugbear now and such Loss of Liberty Property and Lives to the Seamen now more than in any Age of the World and whether it be not an unmerciful unjust and an unreasonable Argument to pretend the Seamen cannot be admitted to come on shore to be paid now as in other Ages because they will Run away Whereas in the mean time they are kept turn'd and tossed from Ship to Ship until more die than would Man the Fleet and in the mean time also more Run away from the Service than would Man it all and half over again And if they are Run out of their Pay wrongfully it is shameful and cruel and if Justly their New Management has frightned more Seamen out of the Service to the appearance of the Ship 's Books this Seven Years last than hath Run away in this Nation I do verily suppose this fifty years if all the Old Books and New Books were searched So that I say Experience shews the Misery of that Argument of paying them on board Ship by the Loss of near Forty Thousand Lives and sixty or seventy Thousand Men's Pay Whereas had their Lives been preserved and their Pay encouraged on shore in all likelihood Seamen would have been so increased and thereby their Pay in Merchant Ships near half Iess That considering the hazard of Lost Voyages in Merchant Ships they would there have Thousands of them proved my Words good that I used to say to them at first That the King's Service was the best in England No half Pay no Dammage no Lost Voyage and if pinched of their Diet the King pays the Pinch-gut-mony also honestly And thus I would by the way consider that we cannot expect to be in safety for time to come without we do by Humility Justice and Mercy engage God to stand by us and give us Wisdom and his Blessing in the first place And 2dly As to outward means in a visible way we cannot be safe and happy in times of Peace or War without an hundred and fifty Thousand Seamen in England My Reason is this That tho now we have the Dutch united with us and it may be save 20 or 30 Ships and 10000 Men the time may fall out we may stand alone and 2dly What hath been may be and the French and another Nation have Joyned against us and then we need double the Strength and Number of Men we have now and that to maintain a War and Merchant Trade both and if we do not that we are Ruined for want of Trade therefore this I would say Tho our Losses have been dreadful this War and God knows many of them blindfold and scandalous and ignorant yet it was a great mercy we traded Our poor had been Ruined if we had not Traded all our Manufactory-workers would have been ready to perish and commit it may be any mischief for it hath been with the Nation as it may be in some part with my self There are some that have by the Providence of God a Subsistence from me I trade and trust and lose much I pay them blessed be God they live by their Labour and some might starve if they had not that or the Parishes must keep them others it may be get Mony more than I under me because I stand

would say it is well for all the Nobility's and Gentry's and Yeomen's Horses in England that they have not Pursers to feed them that if their Masters allow them 10 or 20 Quarters of Oats for a Stable the Grooms that should feed them take a third of them and sell them and drink away the mony between the Drivers and the Grooms and reckon so many Pecks a day and if the Horses are abroad at work and come not in time charge their Oats to the Master's Account tho they are sold away and they eat none in 2 or 3 days or a week And indeed bad Drivers and bad Feeders is enough to spoil any Team of Horse in the World I have heard among Countrymen in Kent some say There is half in half difference in driving Cattle some will beat them and whip them and knock them over the Pate and swear and damn like Devils at the Cattle and spoil them that they will hardly drive at all or it may be break their Traces and run away and spoil the Team at last whereas if another that knows how to manage them with care and cheereth them up clappeth them on the back with his hand and chirups lovingly to them they will draw like Lions And in short I will appeal to all the Yeomen in Kent many of whom are my Relations if ever they knew a Team of Horse get a Groat clear Gains for their Masters at 7 Years End whose Drivers and Hostlers had ruined them half and near starved some of the rest and cheated their Masters in the mean time of more a great deal than their Provender came to But I had need intreat pardon for my rambling but sometimes there may be Abundance of homely Truths spoken in Jest and it may be too true to make a Jest of But however now to the Seamen of England They are Really as true to the Interest of King William to the last as any sort of men whatever and many of those who have stood in the King's Books as Run-aways are either dead in his Service and that is the last they can do for him and others are still in his Service to this hour tho Run out of their Pay in other Ships And in short it looks very miserable also to be Run out of their Pay in other Ships and cannot obtain leave once in 3 or 4 Years to come to shew Cause or hear Reason why they should have their mony I remember the Heathen Romans are said to take care not to condemn men without being heard speak for themselves and also seeing their Accusers Now if it be objected that it cannot be expected all that are made Run should see their Accusers yet for the 2d they might have this priviledge Heathens allowed of speaking for themselves And therefore I think in the next place 40. It is but Reason and Justice the Seamen that are made Run should be protected 14 days to petition to get off their R. S. But I am much afraid that it will be found Cruelty at last to make men lose their Pay that are dead a-shore or sick in the Hospitals or not a month out of the King's Service these several Years or discharged fair by Tickets signed by all the Officers And this I would ask Whether the King's Service be a perpetual bondage That tho a man be Really sick and have a Ticket given him to discharge him sick signed by all the Officers to clear him and get his Pay whether it be not Oppression and Cruelty in those that should pay the mony to deprive these men of their mony because they that they left their Powers with do not know presently where the man is or whether living or dead or in what Ship and it may be it is some Years past since he was discharged and whether this way of management be like to encourage the Seamen or any that trust them or the like In plain English Such managers would fright away the Seamen and fright others from trusting them And now I have said this it may be some will think I write this for interest and am concerned with such a Case To that I answer No for I left off buying 3 Years past and now write only to serve God and my King and Country And if I were in another Country and should hear these things it may be I might be ashamed of those kind of Actions and Abundance more that I fear are against Law and Gospel and Honesty and Policy yea and I fear against good Heathen Morality and seems to be all Arbitrary But now I hope our Gracious King and Loyal Parliament have espoused the Seamen's Cause they will as an honest Gentleman of the House of Commons said endeavour to do them Right And this short Prayer I will put up for the Seamen for time to come That the King and Parliament would not leave them and their Families to the tender mercies of the wicked for the Scripture that cannot lie saith That the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel And it may be some that have been a year a getting a Petition for Justice Answered may understand something of the meaning of that when they come to beg nothing but their own that was due to them by plain Justice bare and thread-bare and stark naked Justice and Honesty Therefore if there be not some way to secure poor Seamen's Pay for time to come it is past my skill to warrant our Sea-Port Towns will send their Men Children or Servants into the Service so freely as before and it may be they that have been so served as aforesaid if they are not dead yet will not come without good words And 41. Therefore if I might humbly presume to give my thought I would suppose it requisite not only to take all care imaginable to secure the Seamen's Lives and Pay and Health but also to have the Act for their Encouragement read in every Ship once a quarter and an Abstract of the Encouragement set up in the Sea-Port Towns of England or at least the Heads of it put in the Gazette that the Nation may see for time to come that they do not pay their many and the Seamen ruined but that the Seamen shall be encouraged and also honestly paid 42. That they might be paid in London that the City of London that is always ready to assist his Majesty with money may have some again from the Seamen and not let those who manage the Seamen put the King to extraordinary charge to pay the Seamen several miles off to the depriving the City of their Trade and the spoiling of near half the Seamens Pay besides For in short in London the Seamen can buy all things at best hand can send home their mony to their Families to any part of England or Scotland And if they but spend their mony here or send it home to their Families and injoy a months Liberty and fresh Air and fresh Victuals the Sea will

grow worse either in manners or misery this Trade grows and increases as Misleto doth on a decaying Apple-Tree as the Tree decays the Misle increaseth at first Cruelty used to buy at 5 s profit in the pound from the Seamen but that was near 30 years past and they were cried out upon as extortioning Villains then that have passed as modest men since but since the times are grown more impudent in cheating the King and ruining the Seamen there be many have bought the Seamens pay at half loss and not only content with that but like inhumane Beasts that were worse than all other sort of Beasts except Swine in devouring their own Kind there have been some that have bought at near Two Thirds Loss and others worst of all have many of them swallowed up the poor Seamens Pay altogether for nothing except the charge of an Oath and false Power if dead or a false Power if out of the way as hath of late been often proved And this Villany and Extortion and cheating the Loyal Seamen out of their Pay hath been an unknown loss to the King and unknown Ruin to the Seamens Families and unknown Loss to those who did friendly and honestly trust the Seamen who by reason of their losing 7 or 8 l at a time out of a Ticket bought by Cruelty or being shamelesly deprived of it all by ●●llany have not been able to pay their Debts neither buy bread for themselves and Families as they ought to do And indeed what say you Poverty is it not so Pov. Indeed we have found it so for while we have been shuffled from Ship to Ship until our Friends knew not where to find us it hath been an Opportunity for Villany to get Powers to cheat us of all our Pay or if we fell sick and died for others to Q or R us living out of our Pay if dead to deprive our Wives and poor ruined Children But Honesty it seems knows not what Names to call those by that Ruin the Living and fright many of them away and Run the Dead and let their Families cry for Justice or Vengeance and he knows not whether the next Age will call them barbarous Villains or hard hearted Wretches or Fools or Knaves or Jacobites and Friends to French or a mixture of all together and Ruiners of their Country into the bargain Hon. Do not say what I think for if so you will say the last Age the Devil and the Jesuits debauched many people out of Religion and Morality and now they would if they could cheat us out of our common Senses and out of all our mony into the bargain this next year or two and there is too much cause of fear of this But you must say little of it for the fear of puzling But as to the Loss of senses you may tell our Enemies of it for it may be they know not how they have lost them neither where to find them again they are so dwindled away or washt away And as to the Loss of our Mony you may let your Friends know of it for your Enemies know it is worth more our mill'd mony to melt down or carry to France or Sweedland and some other parts b●● Ten in the Hundred some places and near Twenty in other places and they begin to laugh and say Where is your mony And that is too sad to make a Jest of Villany What a noise here is of mony If I can buy Tickets at Ten shillings in the pound I will buy have you any Pov. I have a small Ticket to sell I am in great distress I was in such a Ship and fell sick and was Run out of my mony but I crawled into the King's service again and now I have a Ticket of 6 or 8 l and we have not a penny to buy a bit of Bread for my Family neither a Rag of Cloaths for my self and yet I have been in the service all this War what will you give me for my Ticket Cruelty Cruelty You say you were Run out of your Pay before for being sick and who knows tho you are discharged fair now and have a Ticket but you may go into another Ship and continue there until you fall sick and be Run out of your Pay there and for this also However I will give you 40 s for your Ticket Poverty if you please What say you Poverty will you take it Poverty 's Wife That is very hard and our Case is miserable however mony we must have my poor Husband has not a penny to buy him a Shirt or a pair of Shooes or Stockings to shift him and I do not see what we can do pray give me 3 l for it and that is dreadful Loss Cruelty No I will give you 50 s I do not know whether my brother Cruelty or my sister Villany would give so much therefore do what pou will Pov. Wife take the mony who shall make the Writings Pray what Writings must you have Cruelty I must have a Bill of Sale will cost you 18 d and a Letter of Attorney will cost you 1 s My brother Cruelty does use to have a Bond too which would cost 1 s or 18 d more and my sister Cruelty does use to have a small piece of meat and some good drink also when she payeth the mony but I would have you see I am kind to you and if any of your Ship 's Company hath any more Tickets I will buy them for I have some mony lies by me that I received at the Office lately and if they will sell them I will help them to mony for them if they be good send them Pov. I have some mony due in such a Ship it stands open on the book and they are not to let me see the book without petitioning the Navy-board and I have not a penny of mony in all the World to get the Petition written and I know not what to do I spend my time in the waiting for the payment of the Ship will you buy it Cruelty what say you Cruelty If I get the books searched you must pay the charge and if we agree and must give me Bond if I buy it to make it good to me if it be made Run in the Office as many have been Pov. How should it be made Run in the Office when I am discharged fair and have been in so many Ships since and not had a penny of mony for any of them and my Family not had a penny of the King's Pay to buy them one bit of bread neither my self a penny to buy a Rag of Cloaths to cover my Nakedness this 2 or 3 Years And I have been in 2 or 3 Ships more besides Pray what will the books cost searching privately Pray be as kind as you can Cruelty I will not Undertake to get them searched under half a Crown Pov. Pray get it done and I will abate it out of the mony if we agree Cruelty

Parliament for what is amiss and begging of the Eternal Jehovah for his Grace and Blessing on his Majesty our most gracious King William and on the Parliament and People of these Nations and on me and all my Family I subscribe my self a faithful Subject to his Majesty and Servant to him and all good men while I remain to be W. HODGES Hermitage-Bridge Feb. 20th 1695. POSTSCRIPT SInce I writ my first book of the Seamens miseries and presented 500 of them to the 2 most Honourable Houses of Parliament who were graciously pleased to pass by my infirmities in representing the fame for which I am in all humble duty obliged to be thankful to them And I have presumed to attempt the foregoing rough Peice being heartily willing any that can represent better Rules for the safety and encouragement of the Seamen to serve his gracious Majesty King William and the Nation I shall rejoice But if any say some did by my other book they could have represented it in fewer as words and yet never had themselves neither wit or sense or heart for to represent it at all I shall look on their words as idle prate and to try their skill if they are excellent at any thing I will recommend the miserable Case of our Trading People and the poor in these Nations in respect of our mony which I fear the loss of will be fatal to both And I wish it may not be miserable in respect of the raising the Taxes for his Majesty for I fear that as our Mill'd Money was bought up to carry away or melted down above 20 years when it was worth but a Groat in the pound to make it away then I fear it will be ten times more in danger to be all melted down or carried away or both now it is worth ten Groats in the pound to make it away either way Neither do I see how Tradesmen can escape Ruin for want of Trade if there be not mony to Trade and Exchange and pay the poor And the Loss of Trade already to some I fear hath been and is like to be ten times worse than their Taxes and unless there be a new Coinage that is about 3 Ounces to 20 s or the Mill'd mony raised to 6 s and 8 d the Crown Peice I fear whoever lives 9 months will see hardly any of it passing about and for Guinea's they are at present a perfect Plague and Trick to mankind and a means for men to prey upon one another and if they fall will be carried away but if setled at but 28 s the Guinea certain would pay in Taxes and out again and there might be One per Cent. allowed for profit of those who carried Silver and Gold to Coin and the rest to go towards the Calling in the Fragments of our Old Mony at last And there would never want Silver nor Coiners and we should be in a few Years full of mony to the Joy of the King and Country and Landlord and Tenant And this I would represent that our Seamen at Sea and the common people at Land tho called the Mobilly have been entirely in the Interest of our gracious King William and this Nation And I fear our Enemies would rejoice it they could find the Ordinary people to be Ruined at Land for want of mony and then they would say as they begin already Where is your mony and I fear if possible will make the worst use they could of the same And if I mistake not our Case in the Suburbs of London is so bad already that One may go to ten Tradesmen before One meet with a man can change a Guinea So that here is Work for the Wits to propose a help that is past my skill to think or understand how ever the common people of England shall keep Silver mony any more if there be none but what is worth a great deal more to melt down or carry away They may kiss it at parting as Friends that do never expect to see One the Other more I fear and have not sense to get over my fears but rest in them this 27th of Feb. 169● W. H. By reason of the Author 's great distance from the Press there is divers Errata 's which the Courteois Reader is desired to correct ERRATA PAge 4. line 6. read formerly p. 9. l. 14. r. he would p. 9. 1. 16. r. I might p. 10. r. 14. January p. 15. l. 28. r. Once a year or two p. 21. l. 29. r. not having p. 25. l. 6. r. Breamen p. 26. l. 35. r. Imbezzlement Ibid. l. 11. r. in the last Ship p. 45. l. 15. for 4 months r. a month p. 50. l. 24. r. Out of this Nation Ibid. l. 15. r. Arts Master-peice p. 53. l. 33. r. and sad if it do ruin us p. 56. l. 23. r. A loss