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book_n	life_n	world_n	write_v	4,962	5	5.8081	4	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44083	Ruin to ruin, after misery to misery being the distressed, and ruined, and perishing state of the loyal and faithful seamen of England, and wherein is laid down : I. their ruined state in several particulars, II. that it is like to be three or four years more before they are paid, except an extraordinary supply be raised, and appropriated for them, III. that as many ships, and thousands and ten thousands of men have five or six years pay due, if they are not timely paid, it is like to be eight or nine years between their beginning to earn their money and their being paid, IV. a proposal humbly offered how they may be paid off, all by May next, without borrowing one penny of money, V. several reasons for their being justly and honestly paid, VI. an humble proposal for the advantage of a million or two in a year to the nation in a few years, and lastly, an humble supplication for the taking off some part of the act of Parliament concerning the poor miserable seamens paying 6d the month out of their wages / all humbly represented by ... William Hodges.	Hodges, William, Sir, 1645?-1714.	1699 (1699)	Wing H2332; ESTC R5551	37,766	44

to Write what I have written and God will bring what I write to Judgment and all the Seamens Ruins and Destructions to Judgment and all the Accounts that hath been so publickly given of the King 's being so shamefully Cheated and Miserable Seamens being Cheated as hath been represented for some Years by such poor Foolish Creatures as were Mr. Crosfeild Mr. Trever and Mr Bastion which last are gone to Eternity and are silent in the Grave and for Mr. Crosfeild since he saw that all he could do in offering to prove so much Cheating as he did could not prevail for him to be heard I think he is silent in his Habitation where-ever it is having not seen him as I know of this Twelve Months and for my self the most Feolish of them all God Almighty is pleased to enable me and stir me up to put these Nations in mind of the most Dreadful Ruined Dying Destroyed Case of the Loyal English and Scotch Seamens Lives Health and Pay And this brings to my Mind the Words that was said of the whole Earth before the Flood That it was filled with Violence God grant that it may not be said of these Nations before the Judgments of God break out upon us That the whole Sea Affairs were filled with Violence and that after the Loss of above Sixty Thousand of the Lives of such who were kept hound to their Ships until Sickness came or Death took them away and then also there was a violent Order to Q. and R. all those from Receiving their Pay who was set on Shoar Sick to save their Lives and above an Hundred Thousand Seamen Bun out of their Pay and yet no certain Rule made how to Relieve and Save their Pay to themselves or Perishing Families neither any one Man can be safe to serve his King and Country for time to come without hazarding the Loosing his Pay and Ruining of his Family if he falls Sick and is set on Shoar Sick and the Ship goes away and leaves him and he cannot get on Board again or continues Sick or Lame half a Year or a Year or if Well goes on Beard of another Ship or if Dead and it may be his Friends not knowing how as when he Died and so his Wife and Children looses his Pay I would appeal to all Mankind If there be not a Care taken to secure their Pay better when Sickness or Lameness come and some Rational Rules laid down and ordered that they may in case of Sickness or Lameness have their Pay secured how any Man can ever for time to come be safe in serving at that dreadful uncertain rate of management since they are no more certain of their Health and Strength and Lives than the Beast of the Field and I do think no Christian or good Natur'd Heathens would have their Cattle turned out of their Provender for every Sickness or Lameness and starved if they cannot come to work again in twenty eight Days time But this most dreadful violence was powred upon the Seamen after they beat the French for they were Paid when set sick on shore before they beat the French as the several Ships Books will prove that were paid before they beat the French and paid off also when they came in at Michaelmas before they beat the French the great Ships Companies were paid But when once they had beat the French and put a stop to their Carreer then there was a stop put to their Payment in the great Ships as before But indeed it might be endless for me to write the Multitudes of the miseries of them and their Families since But I may say as the Prophet of old concerning the destruction of Israel at Land so of our Seamens Ruin and Destruction at Sea and Land both O! that my Head were Waters and mine Eyes a Fountain of Tears that I might Weep Day and Night for the slain of the Daughter of my People But to have done with that which makes my heart to ake while I write it I think we at Land pretend to a greal deal of Liberty and Property and so we have Praised be the Lord But as to the Poor Ruined Seamen of England no History in the World can shew such a History of the loss of our Seamens Liberties Propertiez and Lives in the Service of their King and Countrey in any Hundred Years as hath been these last Nine Years A Man could hardly imagine their Lives and Pay should be so scambled away but that the Ships Books will prove it at the Navy-Office and they may be Register'd to help to fill a dreadful History in the next Age when it is like they will write plainly how the Seamen were begger'd and ruin'd in this And how Impudently and Shamefully and Scandalously the King and Nation was cheated and how the Cheats and Villains were excused and those that would have brought their Villany to Light were discouraged and how the Knaves and Extertioners and Cheats got Estates while the King and the Nation was Cheated and the Poor Trampled on and Ruined by Thousands And now methinks I remember something that I dreamed of as I lay in my Bed of the last age and this I thought that when as King Charles II. came home again to England in 1660. There was as it were a strange Race begun and continued many Years would God it were at an end and this was the Race methought the Devil run and the Jesuits run and the drunken lewd scandalous Priests began to Run and their designs were all to debauch and prophane and poison these Nations with Lewdness for two Designs the Jesuit to bring the Nation to Popery when they had debauched away their Religion and the drunken Priests to keep their Preferments and Livings and loosness also without fear or danger of any Reformation and methought they went a great way and had two Idols an Elder Brother and a Younger the one Idol for Lewdness and Prophanenss and the other for Idolatry and the old Whore at Rome But the first Idol not going so far and fast towards Rome as the Jesuits would have him he went out of the World few knows how and then came the other Idol in Play and be poor Soul run so fast that be tumbled down and broke his Head and in getting up again had only Wit enough left and Courage enough to run away and happy was it for the Nation he had not more Wit or Courage for it was to be feared he would have been a sad Plague to the Nation if he had staid but by his Running the Jesuits lost the rarity of their Show that they intended to act if they had not been kick'd off from the Stage and now it may be some will ask if this Race be at an end to that I would answer I fear there is too much of it under hand and if any should ask me who the Devil did pick up of late for Company to that I would answer That I

since there was Eighteen hundred and sixty Thousand Pound due at Michaelmas 1697 for Wages to the Fleet. But I would humbly intreat their Honours to Consider That the Number of the Seamen in our Fleet and Ships in our Fleet was much more than ever before and perhaps a quarter more than needed if they had been led on to fight by their Managers as in other Ages And it may be some will suppose because there was about 37 Ships paid off the very Last Winter altho' the Recalls was never paid which perhaps is twice or three times as much and because there hath been it may be twenty or thirty Ships Paid this year though by the way many of them have above a Year and quarters pay due still of the New and some of them several Years of the Old But it may be some will suppose the Fleet paid off when as there were about 160 Ships Employed as your Honours will sind and if Forty Ships Paid in a Year will be four Years in Paying at that Rate and yet make a great noise to pay off ten Ships every 12 or 13 Weeks and at that rate of paying off Thirty or Forty Ships in the Year must of necessity be two or three years made in payment of them off and then for the Recalls of the Hundred and odd Ships un-recalled as by the printed List will appear if they begin to recall them and pay off a Ship every Week it must be above two Years time in Paying them and the Ships that were pretended to be Paid off last Year and having so many Thousands now left unpaid if they be Paid off fully one Ship in a Week will be near another Years Work So that unless God Almighty put it into your Honours Hearts for to consider their Ruined Case here is like to be of Necessity three or four Years time more before the ruined Begger'd Seamen be all paid as any that will but count the Number of the Ships aforesaid may easily find or if your Honours would but count the more than two Millions of Wages due for Pay of the Fleet since the 1st of October 1697. and what is Paid since and if your Honours find that there hath not been above Seven or Eight Hundred Thousand Pound paid in the Year 1697. and 1698. Then at that rate considering the great Number of Ships pretended to be paid that have above a Year and a quarters Pay already and the growing Pay coming due it will require 3 or 4 Years time to Pay them off at that rate which will be Misery to Misery and Ruin to Ruin And if it should be objected that the Army must be Paid off first to that I would humbly Answer That if the Honourable Houses will raise Three millions of Exchequer-Bills it would pay off the Fleet and Army before May-Day and save his Majesty the Trouble and Charge of Borrowing Money at I know not what prodigious Charge Procuration and Continuation and these Three Millions of Bills would be of use to his Majesty and the Nation and either save the hoarding up of our Ready-money by the Great and Rich or these Bills if returned but twenty times in a Year or thirty times in two Years one Bill with another among Tradesmen they might at ten in the Hundred Profit gain the Value of the Bills three times over and we find by daily experience now that those Exchequer Bills now out are hoarded up and esteemed better than Gold or Silver and as to calling in of the 3 Millions of Bills the Honourable House of Commons might settle a sufficient Fund either by a 3●● aid as this last Year or by what means and ways their Honours in their great Wisdoms do think sit But that there is a necessity of paying off the miserable Ragged Ruined Seamen and their Beggered and Perishing Widows Wives or Relations I have humbly presumed to lay down several Reasons and if any should ask why I do put my self to the Charge and Hazard to represent their Ruin having not bought one Penny of their Pay these 4 or 5 Years to that I would humbly answer That their Ruin and Destruction and starving Conditition of them and their Family cries so loud in my Ears and afflicts my very Soul that I cannot forbear Representing their miserable Casel having known so much of their Continued Misery so many Years that I have a Call from God Angels and Men and my own Conscience not to let their Ruins be hid and if God Almighty Commanded the Jews under the Law not to let their enemies Ox or Ass lye in a Ditch without helping him out Then certainly God will be well pleased that I should Labour to help His Majesty and the Nations loving and faithful serviceable Asses the Seamen and their Families that lye in the Ditches of Poverty and Ruin to help them out by endeavouring to cry out to His Majesty and your Honours I Remember a Story I have read in the Book of Martyrs that it was a Saying of an Outlandish Priest in the times of Popery That the Englishmen were good Asses and would bear all Burthens And I do believe I may say in the Presence of the Lord before whom I write That there were never such a number of faithful miserable contented Asses belong'd to the Sea in any Ages of the World who died and perished at that dreadful Rate above 60 Thousand of them as the Ships Books prove and were above a hundred Thousand of them run out of their Pay and the rest kept so many Years out of their Pay and be contented to dye and perish without Speaking a Word of it and I must say Balaam's Ass was wise enough to tell his Case and for my part they are like never to know from me that they are any other Creatures But Asses bear Asses Burthens and if I were their Mouth I would say to the Nations in the words of Balaam's Ass Are we not your Asses upon which ye have Riden over since we were yours and did we ever Rebel against you and wherefore have you smitten us these three times so dreadfully out of our Lines Liberties and Payments And I suppose some will not Represent their Case because they cannot and some others that know their Ruins get Estates by it in buying many of their Tickets at eight or ten or twelve Shillings in the Pound Loss which is the Devil and all of Extortion and I believe will Cry in the Ears of God Angels and Men either for the Relief of the Oppressed and punishing the dreadful Extortortioners or Vengeance on the Oppressors and indeed I have read much in the Prophets of the Oppressors and Extortioners that God complain'd of against Israel but could never find neither in the Scripture nor in Josephus's History or any other History that there was any could parallel the Extortion and Ruin exercised on the brave Couragious Seamen of England I shall say more in the Reasons following and

between Three and four Hundred Books of about Eight Sheets apiece of Ways and Means to Relieve the Seamen and prevent His Majesty's being Shamefully Cheated and the Seamen Cheated and Abused also besides that I gave the same Year about Four hundred Books of four Sheets and an half of Paper to the Honourable Members about the Coin and to propose the Raising Money by Four Millions of Bills and all this at my own Charge not having one Penny Assistance from any one Alive towards the same neither in Money neither any Assistance from any in the Writing of one half Sheet of Paper and I Bless God who enabled me to be true and Faithful to my King and Country therein and that the Honourable Houses passed by my Infirmities in the same from first to last and now I speak of Bills makes me to think once more with how much ease the Seamen might be all paid off with Honour and honesty with Exchequer Bills before May-day next if the Houses would raise three Millions of Exchequer-Bills as before Represented and the Seamen need not be continued to be more and more Ruined from Year to Year by lingring pretended Payments such as the List put up also in August 1697 A while before the Parliament sate but as I said before above a Hundred Ships Payments dropped to this day and of the Ships that were paid off last Winter the Recalls have not been so much as pretended to be put up for Payment and of those Ships that have been kept needlesly in Pay a Year and a Quarter I suppose it hath Cost the Nation about Five or Six hundred Thousand Pounds Extraordinary Charge to keep them from beng paid off besides the dreadful Ruin of the Seamen and their Families and those who had trusted them before on the Credit of their Pay for many of those miserable Wretebes had Tickets given them for their Pay and sold them some at 7 or 8 or 10 Shillings in the Pound Loss and so could not Pay their Debts and as the Extortioners some of them swallowed-half their Pay and the poor Wretches so Ragged and miserable many of them looking more like Captives taken by an Enemy than Loving and Faithful Subjects serving their King and Country as those who use to go on Board of Ships have seen the Men so Ragged as if they had come out of France and had on the old Cloaths that the French had given them But this by the way I say The Extortioners getting by their Tickets one half and the Furnishing them out again fit to save their Lives and do their Work by being Cloathed as Men or Christians there has been a poor little left for their Families if any and sometimes none to Pay their Debts so that the badness of the Pay hath been the way to Ruin the Men and Families and to Cheat and Ruin them that Trust them Besides as I said the Extraordinary needless Charge to His Majesty But I intend to Represent several Reasons for their being honestly and speedily Paid and I remember a Story I have read of a great Courtier I think it was Cardinal Woolsey That after he had long served his King was brought to Ruin and he had this Expression If he had served God as industriously and Faithfully as he had served the King he would not have Ruined him at last And now I speak of the Holy Name of God there doth come a place of Scripture into my Mind and it is in the first of the Corinthians the 2d and the 9th Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard neither hath it entred into the Heart of Man the things which God hath prepared for them that Love him And on the contrary I fear I may say Eye hath not seen neither hath Ear heard neither can it enter into the heart of Man to Conceive the Miseries and Ruins and Destructions and Poverty and Groans and Cries of those Seamen who have loved His Majesty and their own Native Countries and lost their Health and Lives and many Thousands of them their Pay also for their Serving both And indeed I will be plain-Hearted I have often thought that if the Devil and the Jesuits and the Late King's Friends in France and England had sate in Council about the Loyal and Faithful Seamen of England after they had beat the French and had said in the Sea-Dialect These eternal damn'd Dogs the Seamen of England and Scotland will fight like Dragons to keep out a Popish Religion and French Power and we can never have a Ship or two betrayed to us except privately because these damn'd Dogs the Seamen are ready to defend their Ships and their Nation let them lose never so many Lives therefore we must consult how to Ruin them some other way for to endeavour to ruin them them by fighting would Ruin all the French Seamen and all the French Ships therefore we will endeavour to Ruin them twice over another way and three times over another way and they shall run the Hazard of being Ruined five times over another a chird way and that is as many times over as a Man hath Fingers and Thumbs on his Hands but we must endeavour to bide the Method or at least the Knowledg of it from their King and Parliament and then it may be it will cost the Nation some Millions of Money extraordinary to Ruin them but it must be pretended they are managed to the best Advantage and if they be kept turn'd from Ship to Ship and not paid off till they fall sick and die like so many Rotten Sheep until several Ships Books will prove they have been Manned over their Number of Men 8 or 9 times before they have been Paid and that they have Buried twice or near thrice their Number of Men before they have been paid and yet though it is the Experience of many Years that when Ships are kept unpaid three or four Years the Salt Victuals and Salt Air and hardship and want of coming on Shoar for fresh Air and fresh Provisions there commonly died the greatest part of their Men and the that Captain St. Loe one of His Majesties Captains and Commissioners Represented in Print some Years past thht the Nation might have saved five hundred Thousand Pound a Year by paying the great Ships every Winter and yet he said We might have kept out at Sea all the Winter fisteen Third Rates and eight Fourth Rates besides fifth and sixth Rate Ships and have saved many Thousand Pounds in the Year besides this being represonted by me some Years past among the Ways to save the Seamens Lives and the Nations needless Charge yet they have been kept on Board their Ships or been turn'd from Ship to Ship until there hath been the Loss of above 60 Thousand of their Lives as the Ships Books will prove and that is twice the Number that as I remember the Parliament said was a quota for the Fleet that being thirty Thousand stated by them

think the Drunken Priests keep him Company still and they are so Vile that 't is a Mercy they do not make the Church stink of them in the Nostrils of God and of Good Men. But if the two Honourable Houses make that most Excellent Act against Immorality and Prophanness I hope they will order those of the Clergy that are guilty of those Sins to be punished and turned out of the Church for if they do not I do fear nay I think I might lay my self down at the Feet of the King and Parliament and say That I will be content to suffer any Pnnishment or any Death you will put me to if God Almighty does not spew out these Wretches himself unless they amend or the Law of the Land throw them out God knows why I should write this for I do from my Heart Honour the Ministry as an Ordinance of God and I honour all the Good and Vertuous in that profession by what Name soever they are Called and they are called Aagels and their Office is from God but the Sins of the Lewd ones are from the Devil and it is said That if Angels fall they turn Divels there is one of them hath been so Shameless as to Print a Book in defence of Concubinage which is so Shameless to write a Book in defence of that which the whole Church is bound to Curse every Ash-Wednesday and therefore such Wretches ought to be severely punished And now as to the Company which the Divil hath pickt up of late to run with him I think that he hath got besides the Drunken Priests abundance of Cheats and Knaves and Extortioners and Ticket-buyers that Swallow the Seamens Pay at 8 or 10 or 12 Shillings in the Pound Loss and could Stock-job and buy the Wages of the poor Labourers at the Victualing-Office at ten Shillings and Sixpence in the Pound and then have for 85 Pound 100 Pound and the King Pay a Hundred Pound Tally for Eighty five Pound that is allowing fifteen in the Hundred and seven in the hundred Interest is an Hundred and Seven Pound for forty five Pound in one Year so the Poor lost forty seven in the Hundred and the King paid twenty two in the Hundred and who would but stretch his Conscience on the Tenter-Hooks to get such a Carsed deal of Money out of the Poor but the King and Nation pay more than all a great deal at last and the Victualling-Office could not help it neither they bad not Money that the Poor were kept so long out of their Money that many of them did sell for what the Extortioners would give God knows what an Age we live in when I read how dreadfully God threatned and Scourged the Jews for their Extortion Oppression trampling on the Poor and their Prophaneness I know not what to say to the Genera●ion we live among but I do think some do act as if they were like the Jews of Old in saying tush God seeth not God hath forsaken the Earth But certainly God Almighty doth expect that the Oppressed should be Relieved and the Extortioners punished and if all that have extorted above 4 s. or at most 5 s. in the Pound out of the Pay or Wages of the Scamen or others were made to pay back again 2 s. to the Poor Oppressed for every Shilling Extorted above that it would be the way to help and relieve the Oppressed and it may be one Reason why many that are to receive large Sums of the Seamens Pay are Content to let it linger on by degrees may be because if they are paid one Thousand out of four Thousand in a Year they may lay out that and buy eighteen hundred or Two Thousand 〈◊〉 and so get 7 or 800 Pound the Year three or four Years 〈◊〉 by the Seamens Miseries but to have done with that I would Humbly propose and entreat the Honourable Houses of Parliament to Relieve the Seamen by paying them speedily and to Relieve many others of them and their Families by altering part of the Acts of Parliament C●lled Acts for their Incouragment for the following First for God's Sake Second For the King's Sake Third For the Nation 's Sake Fourth For the Sake of the Seamen and their Families First For God's Sake and because I an to speak of His most Holy and Glorious Name I ought to speak with ten-fold the Humility and therefore will leave it to the Reverend Clergy to consider first if Holy David who was not only a King but one after God's own Heart and he would not offer to God of what cost him nothing though he might have had it given him by the Right Owner and a Rich Man as Aurana allows and how much sadder is it for these Nations when they are to incourage the Seamen to take 6 d. a Month out of the Miserable on one part of our Loyal Seamen to raise Money to help to gratifie or shew Charity to the other But it is said by Solomon the wisest of Kings That he that doth mock the poor reproacheth his Maker Now whether it be not a mocking of our poor and miserable Seamen to make so many poor and miserable Labourers pay sixpence a Month out of their Hire towards advancing Encouragement for the others and the others have had not one Penny of the 40 s. the Year paid them as I hear of to this Hour although the Act for to make the other Pay hath been about two Years in Force But 3dly The said Solomon saith He that taketh from the Poor to give to the Rich shall come to Poverty Now if it be so that all the poor Seamen that are not Registred have 6 d. the Month taken from them and the Registred have not had two pence of it in two Years But there are several Commissioners and Clerks have some Hundreds a Year for their Sallary to Live Great and not the poor miserable Seamen that are Registred is not this taking from the the poor and advancing of the Rich and therefore as God is a Holy and Just and Merciful God who always pities the Poor I would beg that our poor Seamen might be p●●tied for His Sake and have nothing taken out of their Pay more than ever was in any Age of the World for God also knows they have lost more Lives and Pay under this Govern neat than ever they did in any Age of the World and God knows they have shewed themselves as Loving and faithful to this Government as to any Government in the World and now 4thly As God did by His Providence Raise up his Majesty to be means under God to restore these Nations to their Liberties and Freedom whether it will not be a going contrary to the very Providence and end of God in raising up this Government if instead of Liberty and Freedom the poor and miserable Seamen whose Bones and Lives have been as Walls to keep this Government and the Nation from Ruin If one part of