Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A58496
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Remarks on the present condition of the navy, and particularly of the victualling, in which the notion of fortifying of garisons is exploded, and 'tis clearly prov'd that the only security of England consists in a good fleet in a letter from a sailor to a member of the House of Commons.
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Sailor.
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1700
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Wing R935A; ESTC R10451
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15,250
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28
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did in the late Reigns no man can have a right to an Office till he has first quitted his Right to Liberty When men of such Principles are under the influence of the Royal Favour there needs no Proclamation to tell the methods of acquiring an Office These men might surely be contented with the Advantages they receive by trumping up a Standing Army to the ruin of their Country without reflecting upon others who endeavour to maintain this Government according to our Constitution and are not willing to put their Liberties under the Conduct of a Land Force 'T is true the Prince of Orange came over by their Advice and at their Request and they in requital have ven him three of the most potent and flourishing Kingdoms of the Universe and more Mony to support him in them than to many of his Predecessors They brought him over to restore their Liberties to them and deliver them from the Slavery of a Standing Army d' ye think they are now mad to take up the same Fetters they so lately knockt off These men tell us that the Nation cannot be secure without a Standing Army and we say our Liberties are in danger with one and certain it is a good King will acquiesce with that Security the People provide for their Liberties and the Kingdom They 'l take special care in this point for the Liberties and Rights of the People are more valuable than the Rights and Prerogatives of the Crown They are born Freemen and are in actual possession of their Rights the first minute they draw their Breath a Title a King as such cannot have his Right depending upon the Consent of a willing People A King may forfeit and lose his Crown and the Regalities thereof may devolve upon the People as the Legal Centre of all Honour and Dignity but an English-man can never forfeit his Liberty and the Rights he was born to If he be convicted of High Treason without the Privilege of Gavel-kind and his Estate becomes confiseate his Son notwithstanding this is Heir to his Liberty and Property and enjoys all the Privileges of a Freeman His Cause is pleadable at Bar in a Court of Justice he must be tried by his Peers according to the known Laws of the Realm So that an English-man can upon no account forfeit his Right Now the Liberties of the People being so valuable firm and lasting this Government has more reason to conside in their Security than any heretofore for this King was brought to the Throne by worthy Patriots such as oppos'd the Tyrannies of the late Reigns and such as this Government has not made fat and lazy by Offices of Profit and Trust These men are still living and have nothing but their Liberties to leave to their Children which being their last Stake they 'l be sure to manage it well and not suffer it to be taken away by Invaders from abroad nor by Standing Armies at home Indeed the Attempt of settling a Standing Army suppos'd the People easy and willing to quit their Rights at once for Standing Armies are contrary to the Constitution of any Government where the People have the least Right Souldiers are but Badges of Slavery in any Country where they are found and what is the notion of Guards but a supposition that the People are not able to defend themselves and if so they are a Prey to any body The Miseries of those Countries where Souldiers are are Arguments to those where they are not to keep them out Like so many Caterpillars they wast and destroy the most fruitful Provinces They carry a sort of Charm about them that nothing prospers where they come and even in those Countries where they are found sometimes necessary as lately in England they are confounded Evils and men can hardly distinguish which is most dangerous the Remedy or the Disease We found our War attended with many Inconveniences besides our quartering of Souldiers our Trade and Commerce decay'd as the Trade of War encreased nay the Heavens themselves seem'd to be angry at us and bestowed one continued Frown upon a base and degenerate Age. The Sun as if ashamed to behold our Enterprizes shrowded his Head in thicker Clouds and denied the favourable Influence of his Beams to an Apostate Country Nature withdrew her wonted Bounty from us and fed us with Fruits as immature as our Actions The Seasons alter'd upon us we knew Summer nor Winter Spring nor Autumn any otherwise than by Mensuration of time What Storms then did we meet with on the Ocean in Seasons little expected The whole Course of Nature seem'd to go Retrograde as we declin'd from our antient Principles of Virtue and Liberty But now we have assum'd our pristine Courage and the Genius of our Country informs our Parliament now we have in some measure rid our selves of our Armies the cause of our multiplied Curses the Heavens smile upon us the Seasons of the Year return to their antient Course being all unwilling to curse a fruitful Land with Barrenness upon the account of a few Thistles that start up in it and to destroy a brave and glorious Country upon the account of a few ill Men. I have Sir made the larger Digression upon this Subject to vindicate those worthy English Gentlemen that put down the Army believing them to be true Friends to us Sailors in laying aside the Support of Armies and trusting altogether to us but if you suffer those who were for a Land Army to be our Directors and Governours as they are wholly ignorant of Maritime Affairs they superintend us with an envenom'd grudg upon the foresaid account for the Dispute in your House was not whether an Army was ever useful but whether an Army was a better Security to our Kingdom than a Fleet and the Members of your honourable House knew very well that of the two Supports propos'd for your Realm you ought to chuse the best and that you had no occasion of both when one would serve Now if I may so say we Sailors carrying our point in the House of Commons against the Souldiers must of necessity be hated by the Army Folk and if any of these Army men or but one of them is in your New Commission we are fall'n most damnably to Lee-ward and God knows when we shall fetch up the old Honour and Glory of the English Navy But I now Sir tack about upon your new Commission or your new Commissioners which you please for take the Office entire 't is Linsey-woolsey half new half old new Commissioners with all the old Officers It is perhaps beneath the Dignity of great Personages to have any knowledg of their own in Naval Affairs and therefore are forc't to trust to the Judgment of others You know Sir taking of Minutes writing a Letter or Order is a mighty piece of Business not to be left to the Judgment of a new Secretary 't is necessary to have one that serv'd the old Commission else
of the Bread was left upon the Bakers hands and being merchantable only with the King they knew not how to dispose of it and therefore apply'd themselves to others who had Interest enough to pass it into the Office who bought it of them I could tell you the Names of the Persons who bought this sophisticated Bread and sold it into the Office but they being Members of your own House I must forbear I could tell you also of another that sells Wheat to the King and far from being the best at the best price and of another that sells Flower to the Office for Sea-Service which after the Labourers have broken the Lumps in it is bak'd into Coarse Bread Perhaps you never yet heard in a former Parliament when Wright the Purveyor was accused as having got a prodigious Estate in the Victualling and excus'd by Sir Rob. Rich that Sir Robert at that time sold him Oxen. You cannot tell Sir the many pretty ways we have of obliging some sort of People 'T is true we Tarrs only feel the Effect of this Management we only at present are gut-founder'd and poison'd But these Storms at Sea may in time reach the Land your lofty Turrets and stately Edifices may feel the fury of the Storm which may level you into a Condition equal with our selves For how can your antient Constitution the old and approv'd Laws of the Realm subsist under such perpetual Lopping for every Member thus corrupted is a Bough cut off from the Tree of your Constitution which suffering such Amputations will in time wither and shrivel to nothing If you do not restrain your own Members who shall set Bounds to the Multitude When such as should be Patrons of our Liberties and Examples of Justice and Honesty to others are corrupted by evil and sinister Rewards they stagger the People of the whole Realm these men break down a whole Pole of the Hedg at once and leave a Gap for thousands to follow them But before I leave this Head I must tender you one Cake more of Horse-Bean Bisket which certainly must stick upon any man's Stomach endow'd with common Principles of Humanity which is the Lives of many Thousands of Sailors lost upon this account the meanest of which did more Service to his Country than all the Miscreants that fed them with corrupted Food they are dead and gone and their Service to their Country is quite lost all you can do is to prevent the like for the future which I wish were done for the common Good of the Realm But getting of Estates and not getting wholsom Provisions for the Sailors has been the business of the Victualling A certain Person might well enough stick in the Skirts of Admiral Russel about the Mony Imprested to the Admiral for victualling in the Straits this Mony was diverted out of the proper Channel of the Victualling and the other lost twice as much as the Admiral got by that Bargain for otherwise the Mony had pass'd thro his Hands and you know Sir the Nations Mony will stick to the Officers fingers This Gentleman needed no ways and means of getting Mony for every body must acknowledg it a comfortable Importance for a man to be chief Commissioner of an Office and his Son the Treasurer for the one to order Payments and the other to make them especially in an Office that always paid out of Course as the Victualling has done I cannot forbear mentioning one practice in the Victualling which I think very invasive on the Liberty of the Subject which is their selling of Protections to freeborn English-men the Labourers and Workmen being first to take Protections from their Secretary at 12 d. apiece to secure them from the Press The Laws of our Land say no man shall be kept indurance without Cause of Action and an English-man has a native Right to his Liberty and is upon no Account to be under Constraint but by power of Law Now for these men to sell an English-man that Right he is born to makes our Government look more like that of Algiers than the Country of a free and independent People We have a fine Revolution indeed if we are forc't to purchase our Freedom from those that are in our Pay and wear our Livery If you suffer these men to sell our Liberties for a Shilling they 'l in a little time sell your Country for a Song Had the Commanders of our Navy taken no more Care of their Hounds than the Victuallers have done of their Sailors we should have had as great a Mortality amongst the Dogs as we had amongst the Men. This is another abuse upon the Sailors and Nation to have a Kennel of Hounds aboard Ship to eat up the Sailors Victuals and the Folk in Spain could think you no otherwise than hair-brain'd to send a parcel of Huntsmen Commanders of the Fleet. This was a Dog-trick put upon the poor Sailors who instead of handling of Sails and hawling the main Tack aboard were imploy'd in that pretty Diversion of looking after Hounds It was one man's business at least to fling the Bones over board when the Captain 's Dogs had din'd And who victuall'd the Captain 's Poultry his Sheep Hogs c These were never born upon the Pursers Book and yet they had Provisions when the poor Sailors wanted it And now Sir I have given you a short View of the Condition of the Navy do you think under such a Management it will ever answer your Ends or be that security to the Realm your Honourable House has proposed I endeavoured the last Sessions in my Seamans Opinion of a standing-Army to shew that the Navy of England was our best and chief security I am of the same Opinion still but must needs say it can never be so under this Management Our Forefathers found the Advantage of their Shipping tho made but of Wicker and Hydes and I hear our old Sailors often talk of one K. Edgar that used in a great Navy of these Frigots to coast upon this Island every Year by which means he kept his Kingdom in Peace which before was almost every year invaded by Foreigners Certainly our Fleet is of more advantage to us and a greater security to our Island than Foreign Alliances The native strength of our Kingdom which never yet fail'd us will always be a better Support to us than any Auxiliary Prop can be Auxiliaries may as well offend as defend us Mercenaries serve those most that pay them best But Nature has plac'd our Country by it self contiguous to no part of the World and as we stand by our selves we ought to be our self-defenders since we are capable of being so But if we 'l incapacitate our selves by letting our Shipping the Bulwarks of the Kingdom run to ruin we must feel the Effects of our own Folly We have but one Security left us and like unthinking Sinners we neglect the one Thing needful We have but one sort of People amongst us I mean our Sailors that are our constant and ready help and those we abuse after a most barbarous and inhuman manner Are these the grateful Returns of our Country to Men that have done us the most singular Services Are these the Rewards of Valour and Bravery Are the Sons of the British Seas thus requited for their good Services to their Country Tell it not in Gath publish it not in the Streets of Askalon Let not the Heathen World be acquainted with our Shame Tell not how our young men have fallen not by the Sword and destroying Bullets but by bad Provisions and noisom Scents Let not our infamous Annals be handed down to Posterity but draw a Sable Curtain over our Enterprizes to hide them from the view of succeeding Ages Let our Maritime Affairs be buried in the Bottom of the Deep and their Memory in eternal Silence 'T is too hard a Turn of Fate to be the scandalous Wonder of this and of future Ages If you have any love Sir for your Country if you have any kindness for the best constituted Government in the World if you have any Bowels of Pity for your Children that are to succeed you employ your Interest to revive the Credit of our sinking Navy otherwise your antient Estates may in time be the Possession of men of a strange Language who shall disturb the peaceful Urns of your noble Progenitors and not carry your Children away Captives but make them Slaves upon their own Freeholds FINIS