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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	france_n	french_a	king_n	29,861	5	4.6110	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

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

a Ship of 300 Men be ordered to be Paid at Portsmouth or Chatham fourteen Days hence it may be it is ten days before the Money and Commissioners get down Now suppose these 300 Men Officers and all Gost the King but 2 s. a day apiece victuals and Wages that is One Pound a Man for ten Days is 300 l. Now suppose an Order is sent down to Clear them off to Morrow and give every Man 5 s. to Travel to London is 75 l. And pay them at the ten Days end the King will save 225 l. in a Ship besides travelling Charges and they that Live in London also save abundance of Money in their being forced to Run Threescore Miles after their Just Debts But I have often admired at the Reason of putting His Majesty to extraordinary needless Charge to carry away so many Hundred Thousands of Pounds from London to those two miserable Places Chatham and Portsmouth and now I think of Chatham Rochester and Strood makes me think of three Places Nick-named Cheat them Rot them and Starve them God grant that our Seamen and their Families be not any of them left to be Ruined there but it is very strange that a little Town or two should have more Friends to get the Ships paid off last there than the City of London should to get them to be paid here How Kissing goeth by Favour I know not but now to have done with that having almost tired my self with Writing and yet lest a great part unwritten that I should or might have written will come to propose something I promised for the Nations advantage to some Millions of Money in a few Years and it is this Suppose the Distilling Trade for Brandy do take up in one Year about One hundred Thousand Quarters of Malt and now suppose at 30 Shillings the Quarter that is One hundred and fifty Thousand Pound which by the way is a prodigious Quantity of Corn I was a going to say wasted but I will say Distilled out for Idle Tipple that our Forefathers heard not so much as the Name of and it is no wonder Corn hath been so exceeding dear and so many Poor ready to perish if there be near so much of it turn'd into Fire and Vapour that it may be hath killed more Men and Women these late Years in England than the Sword and it fireth the very Souls of many out of their Bodies by degrees if not presently as several have been but by degrees I have known many both Man and Women have shorten'd their Lives many Years by drinking so much of such fiery Drink to dry up their very Livers or Lungs and neither fear of Death or any Wisdom Sence or Reason can take off Mankind from what their Lust and Appetites are set upon and if there were an open Trade to France if we should but send a Million a Year of our Large Money for their Brandy and Wine it would be the way to Begger us in a very few Years therefore if we must have so much Brandy in England I would humbly propose That there might be a Law made to have our Hedge rows in every Field by Act of Parliament obliged in seven or eight Years time to have an Apple-Tree in every Thirty Foot of Hedges and there might be several Millions of Apple-Trees planted in eight Years time the Kernels of Appels now would the first two or three Years produce Nurseries of Trees enough and they in about ten or twelve years might come to bear Fruit and being as I said planted in the Hedg-rows need not take up an Acre of Land for 40 Millions of Trees and if the Trees comes to bear would preserve our Corn from being burnt up I mean into Brandy and it is our English Syder will make almost as good Brandy as the French and if this Plantation were but Established it would Pay its own Charge of the Planting ten times over quickly and if it was once taken up it would never be laid down again for Apples are for Meat and Drink to several poor Families in the Country and at last the very wood of the Trees if Forty Years Old would be worth for Firing when they have done Bearing Fruit five times the Charge of Planting and as I said we need not lose an Acre of Land and if any would propose the Planting of Oaks after the same manner one in every 30 Foot of Hedge-rows Acorns are cheap enough and if every twenty Foot had an Apple-tree and every twenty Foot an Oak planted the timber of one and the Fruit of the other would make the next age Rejoice and have Cause to Bless God for the Care of this which makes me think of the Old Motto He that delights to Plant and Set Makes after Ages in his Debt Now if after-Ages will be in debt to this for several new Follies and Miseries and cheating Tricks it is pitty But they should be in debt to us for several good Laws and indeed good Improvements and God grant they may be in debt to us for some good good Reformation that so Iniquity may not be our Ruin and now having writ out all my Book and made my Charge almost double what I designed by Printing so much in several Cases more than I designed and yet I could not well avoid it being only guided by the good will and Pleasure of God but wanting a wiser Head to let my Notions pass through and being always afraid to leave out my own honest Design to take in other Mens Wit so that if I should suffer for any part of it I could with a good Conscience bless God I have written every Word in the sincerity of my Heart in Love to God and to His Majesty and the Parliament and the Nation for I am not of the Number of those sensless Wretches that would Fire the House to destroy the Rats and Mice neither long for Slavery because the King and the Nation and the Seamen have been so dreadfully Cheated since we had our Liberty but I am of the honest Bishops Mind who had some Brains in his Head when they told him The Presbyterians were worse than the Papists No said he That is false For said he The Presbyterians would pull my Lawn Sleeves off but the Papist would pull off my Skin And this I would leave as a Memorandum for all those who grumble against this Government and would long for the Garlick and Onions of Egypt I mean for a Popish King that as the Presbyterian Ministers and People did Plot and contrive to bring in King Chales II. and lost some thousands of their Lives for him before-hand and yet when he came to the Crown he would not Trust one of them unto the day of his Death but hated them and ruined them and their Religion tho he was called a Protestant and had been in Covenant with God and that People yet he broke through all Oaths that he took to them and through all Bonds of Love or Gratitude and how much more dreadfully would a Popish King Ruin all the Protestant Religion and People in England if he were in Power And now to have done I Humbly beg Pardon of God and of his Majesty King William and of the Two most Honourable Houses for all that is amiss in this or me and that God would be the Protection of me and mine in and thro Christ for time and all Eternity and now to the Father Son and Holy Spirit Three Persons and one Holy Glorious and only Wise God be the Everlasting Praises Amen So prays he who is His Most Gracious Majesty King William's Loyal and Faithful Subject and the Parliament and Nations humble Servant while Feb. the 4th 1698 9. William Hodges By reason of the Author 's great distance from the Press there is some small Errata's as Page 3. Lady-Day for May-day And page 25. Prophesying instead of Professing The Reader is desired to Correct them or any other with his Pen. And the Author being not Born for himself is willing to present every new Member of the House of Commons with two Books one about the Seamens Ruin and the other Proposals for their Incouragement But not knowing which they are will leave the Books with Mr. Applesby their Door-keeper for those that please to call for them FINIS

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

them should be perpetually bound and the other pay continually towards keeping them so then whether that will not be sad But now 5thly I would beg therefore for His Majesty's Sake that he would let the Seamen of England be as free all of them in their Service and Payment without being perpetual Bondmen or Paying Money perpetually out of their Pay and seeing the worst of Kings that Reigned in England never let them be bound or entangled in their Liberty or Payment God forbid they should be more entangled under the best of Kings and especially since they have lost more Lives and Pay under His Majesty in his Service than under any four Kings in their Grand Fleets 2dly I would for his Majesty's Sake beg that as Queen Elizabeth Raised her Pay from 14 s. the Month to Eighteen and the Long Parliament from 18 s. to 22 s. the Month for their incouragement so his Majesty when he shall have occasion to have them Fight for him and the Nation again would Raise their Pay two or three Shillings the Month and Pay them well and they will fight to the last drop of their Blood for him and in the mean time never let it stand upon Record that their Pay was abated 6 d. the Month in his time and especially seeing as I said the Rest have not been 2 d the better for the same but instead of that the King was brought into Debt as I remember the House of Commons Represented last March Nineteen Thousand Pound in Debt upon account of the Register Office and the Seamen pay for it and neither the King nor the Seamen the better it will be hard and I could never find that it saved the King twopence Charges in pressing Men in the War neither save him a Groat Charge since Therefore I would for his Majesty's Sake wish with all my Heart that His Majesty was set free from his Extraordinary needless Charge and the Seamen from their extraordinary need-Payments or Bondage But now 3dly I would for the Nations Sake beg that there might be some of the Act of Parliament altered about the Seamen since Trading is bad and Money hard to Raise and to be at an excessive needless Charge for Offices and Officers except it were of great Advantage to the King and Nation I think it were better to lay it aside But 4thly If the Nation had a real Mind to Encourage the Seamen they might do it without so much charge of Tax on the Seamen to maintain Offices and Officers which God knows whether all the poor Seamens Sixpences the Month will much more than maintain that Grandeur and incumbrance and never known sort of Office or Officers for when there was a Mind to Reward the Officers the Fleet after that shameful keeping our Smyrna Fleet near 3 Maths at extraordinary needless Pay until just the French Fleet was ready to go out when our Fleet might have gone out 2 Months sooner with an Oyster Smack for their Convoy there being Men of War and Merchants Ships enough in the Smyrna Fleet to have gone through the World before we waited until the Grand Fleet of the French was ready and then when our Fleet was fool'd in the Mouths of their Fleet then after that our Officers had a Bounty of about 60 or 70 Thousand Pound the Year double Pay settled on em and never troubled themselves for an Act of Parliament for it but ordered it and paid it and never caused the Parliament to make one part help to Relieve the other but as I said gave them 60 or 70 Thousand Pound the Year although the Nation was at that time in exceeding Streights for to raise Money and had lost in about one Years time as near as I could estimate about 3 Million of Riches in East India Guinea and multitudes of other other Ships and Streights Ships lost or fooled into the Hands of the French and therefore God Angels and Men might see how the Nation could squander away Money to the Rich or Officers needlessly by Thousands and Ten Thousands and several ten Thousands but whether to one Penny advantage to the King I could never see hear or understand For my part if I had been a Commander of a Man of War and had run up and down several Years and never hurt an Enemy or protected a friend I should have thought it brave Encouragement to run fooling up and down and never Fight and have a hundred or two Hundred a Year extraordinary and I should have thought Cowardice was better rewarded now than Valour was heretofore although indeed here tofore if there were Rewards and Honour it was used always to be Conferred on Courage valour and Merit But indeed there was no need of double Pay for the Officers this War except for running up and down from Port to Port and Lying several Months in Port and never doing any good which was Chargeable for the Officers that came so much daily on Shoar when as the poor miserable Seamen were kept on Board and were sometimes 30 or 40 in a Ship Sick in a Week but they dyed and perished for want of coming on Shore and being Paid as in other Ages Besides hundreds and thousands who fell sick or died with eating bad victauls presently after they served this Government and it was but putting the King and Nation to about 50 or 60 Thousand Pound the Year extraordinary Charge to press more as it cost the Nation by Commissioner St. Loes Rule near 500 Thousand Pound the Year needless Charge for want of Paying off the great Ships that might have been spared all the Winter so that one might admire how the Nation Scambled away Money some ways and how poor and miserable it was in the Case of the poor Seamen that they must one part help out of their Poverty to encourage the other part to continue Bondmen But now for the Nations Sake that they may not think the encouraging of Thirty Thousand Seamen could save the King any thing or incourage all the Seamen of England to come into the Service I will undertake to prove by the several Ships Books that for above seven Years together there were above Thirty Thousand either dead or set on Shoar Sick or run out of their Pay or discharged out of the Fleet and I would appeal to all Mankind at Seven Years end which of these Thirty Thousands must be the true and only 30 Thousand to be encouraged since the King had in that time in all Likelihood 5 or 6 times thirty Thousand in his Service and as there was above twice thirty Thousand dead this War and near four times thirty thousand run out of their Pay it would require something of industry in the Register-Office to pick out the right thirty Thousand and yet it may be some will say they would endeavour to find out all the rest of the poor miserable Souls and they or their Widows should be sure to be abated 6 d. the Month

out of their Pay If the thirty Thousand got not one Groat Advance-Money and therefore now I will beg for the poor and miserable Seamens sakes that the six pence the Month may not any longer be stopped out of their Pay for if we consider their pay is small and their hazard and Charge is great they go now in Merchants Ships for 22 s. or 23 s. the Month. Now suppose they lye at home but one Month in a Year and have half pay for a Month more there is ten Months pay at 22 s. is 11 l. and one Month at 11 s. Now suppose at their coming home they are abated as many do near a quarter of their Pay for damage or what shall I say because the poor miserable Fools went to Sea in old Rotten Ships ready to drown them and so out of 11 l. 11 s. they have about nine Pound out of this there must go Five Shillings and Six Pence to Relieve their Poor Distressed Brethren and they must have Cloaths and Bedding and as they must many times be as wet as drowned Rats two or three times a Day must have Cloaths to shift them or run the hazard of being unable to perform their work so it will take up about three or four Pound a Year for Cloaths and reckon but Twenty Shillings a Man for Expences or Brandy to carry to Sea there will be about Five Pound the Year left to keep their Families and that is not a Groat a day and many of them have three or four Children apiece and the 6 d. a Month taken out of their Pay would buy two or three Bullocks Hearts or Sheeps Heads and a peck Loaf for their Families seeing also sometimes the poor Seamen meets with Lost Voyages and so are set back in the World more miserably than other poor Wretches and therefore as all the Labouring Men in England are at Liberty without paying any Tax out of their Wages God forbid but the Seamen should be lest to as much freedom to take all their Wages themselves without being the only objects of Misery in War and taxing in Peace more than any sort of People at Land for in all Land-Taxes their Families are liable to pay with the rest of the People and it hath made my Heart ake to think how they could pay the Taxes for their Landlords 4 s. in the Pound or for their Births or Burials when their husbands have not been Paid in four or five Year and for my own part I having been intrusted last Year to gather the whole Tax for our Liberty have laid out for several both last year and this year rather than take away that poor sorry Goods they had and some of them have not enough to Pay their Landlord's Tax if they were bound to be hanged for it therefore I did look on it as Charity to them and Service to the King to be Patient to them and lay down the Money my self and make the Government easy as I could and though I do now lye out of some Pounds that I paid in so the King last year I never did get 2 d. by it neither ever shall but I think often of good Jacob's Word in driving his Cattel That they must be driven as they could go lest they should Dye Would God there had been more Care taken in the driving of our Seamen this War and that when it was seen they dyed so fast in keeping so long turned from Ship to Ship without liberty of fresh Air and fresh Provision until they died like Rotten Sheep for ought I know it might have saved a third part of their Lives if they had come on Shoar Yearly and been paid as the French and Dutch did their Seamen I do believe that though the French was at War against our Fleet and the Dutch Fleet that he hath been at 6 Millions of less Charge for his Fleet than we these last 10 Years and I suppose the Dutch hath saved near 8 Millions of Money in the Charge of their Fleet these last 10 Years and methinks I have often admir'd at it that the work of this last Age hath been more five times to study how to raise Money than how to save it but I suppose if it had been truly studied how to save it then so many could not have been maintained to live so Idly and so great neither could have gotten such Estates and if we had a fourth part more of Ships and Officers imployed more than needs or the great Ships kept in Pay in the Winter when Captain St. Loe said there might have have been five hundred Thousand Pound a Year saved by it But then the Officers could not have lived so great and one trick I remember because there was Money plenty enough for to scamble away among the double-Pay Officers the Officers were kept in Pay one Winter in the great Ships and the Seamen discharged and to be sure we had no need to Press Captains and Lieutenants next Year and one would admire that when a Nation hath so much Money to lavish out for Officers needlessly that at last if the Seamen are but pretend●d to be Relieved or to be incouraged they must pay 6 d. the Month out of their Pay towards it But it may be some will say now the Registred Seamen are to be preferred to Offices but I remember the words of the Act saith They that are Officers must be such as are Registred but doth not say they must have been Registred a Month before they are Preferred which makes my Windmill-working Thoughts Ramble as far as Rome where none must be Pope but a Cardinal and none a Cardinal but a Priest Now I suppose there may be as many Priests in the Roman Teritories of all sorts as is Seamen in England and very few Priests proffered to be Cardinals but instead of that if any King or Prince or the Emperor hath an old Swearing Whoring General to prefer and can get the old Father the Pope in whose Breast Preferments lye to accept of this debauched General for a Cardinal and to give him a Hat he can quickly be qualified as follows first make him a Deacon one Week then a Priest another Week then a Cardinal afterward and the hundred and fifty Thousand Priests look as simply as they did before so with all humble submission would I say If in England for time to come that Debauchery and Lewdness and Prophaneness should keep on its Course and the Laws of the Land or some exceeding Providence or Judgment from God do not put a stop to that Flood of Wickedness now running then I might suppose if a Gentleman had a Son that had lived in Swearing Whoring and Debauchery until his Father was afraid he would come to the Gallows and to prevent that send him to Sea Three Months to know the Head of the Ship from the Stern and how to Swear and Damn after the Sea Mode as he did after the Land mode and then

God should say to England as he did to Israel That he would be as a Lyon to us to tear and rend us and go from us That would be dreadful and therefore there had need be very severe Laws and to be severely put in execution against all manner of Whoring Blaspheming Debauchery and Profaneness And what may God say of this Nation when he shall see that in the last Age when there were Laws made against his Worship in these Nations that they were made so severe and put so severely in execution that they ruined many Thousands of Families and great Multitudes lost their Lives in Prison among which I remember were four Ministers in one Year died in Newgate among which was Mr. Jenkins as I remember that was like to have been Hanged before King Charles came in for his and Mr. Love's endeavouring to bring King Charles in and after he was in he let him perish in a Jayl for all that and such or much worse Rewards I suppose must those dull Souls expect who would bring that Judgment upon the Nation of having the late King James again But I will only put them in mind of those dreadful Objects of Misery the Protestants of France who helped to support the French King to the Throne when he was in danger to be put by But this is a Diversion and now as to what I was to speak of concerning God's seeing with what Zeal may I not say Rage and Fury the Laws were made and executed in the last Age against his solemn Worship and Service and if there be neither Zeal nor Courage or make Laws and put them in severe execution against Whoring and all Debauchery in this will it not appear before God Angels and all Men that the last Age was five times more severe against the Service of God then this is against the Service of the Devil and that tho the last Age punished and banished those that Worshipped God but this is backward in punishment and more ready to protect than banish those who do help to spoil and poison and infect this Nation with their accursed Sins and that the S●ns of this Day are accursed by the Judgment of the whole Church and that the Church hath cried out above 140 Years to have them that were guilty of Notorious Sins to be punished openly that others might take warning by them as any that will read the Preamble to the Commination in the Common-Prayer which they carry to Church may find and that in the mean time they ordered the whole Church in their Solemn Service to Curse abundance of Crying Sinners as Idolaters Adulterers Extortioners and such as smite their Neighbour secretly or remove their Landmarks or are Vnmerciful or pervert the Judgment of the Poor the Fatherless and W●ddows and several other Sins I wish some of those who manage our Brave Couragious Loyal but Begger'd and Ruined Seamen of England be not guilty of earning abundance of these Curses when they put by the Poor Fatherless and Widows from their Receiving of their Husbands or Childrens Pay by those fatal Letters Q. R. when they have lost their Health and Strength in the Service of their King and Country and are set on Shoar Sick and it may be Die there there is no Method found out how to secure their Pay but if they live 100 or 200 Miles from London they must come or send and prove and have Certificates and I know not what Waiting to get that which God Angels and Men knows is a dreadful Sin and Shame and Plague to keep them from it and it may be this helps the Poor Miserable Wretches to wait 150 or 200 on a Day sometimes at the Admiralty for Relief But this by the way It may be some will think I say too much of it but for ought I know I may say If God doth not avenge this by some Judgment on the Actors on this Nation that God hath not spoken by me But now to return to the Proposal of severe Laws against the Debauchery of the Age the last Age did use Imprisonment and Banishment for the punishing of the Worshippers of God and if this Age do not Imprison and Banish a Multitude of the Whores and Villains of this Age for serving the Devil and Poxing and Debauching and Ruining the Youth of the Nation it will be to be admired at seeing that indeed if Debauchery and Lewdness be not punished and prevented but that it increaseth as much more in the next Age as it did the last the Nation will be a very Pest-House of the Plague Sores of Sin and it is to be feared the Sound will have much to do to support themselves and Families against Cheats and Villanies and Cursed Wretches who are likely to poison their Children Servants Friends or Relations that we are like to be as Israel of old before their Destruction who the Prophet said was full of Wounds and Bruises and putrified Sores and it will be well if some of the Inferiour Magistrates be not in time corrupted that will be sad I remember a Story of an Honest Country Parson that was preaching to a Corporation in the Country on the choice of a Mayor and he said Magistrates was called Gods Now saith he as they are called Gods you should take care you do not choose a drunken God or a Whoring unclean God Now he might have took the Cemmon-Prayer Book and said for all his being a God If that he be such a one the whole Church of England is bound to Curse him out the Year therefore for that thing and some other Reasons I would beg that that the desire of the Common Prayer that hath stood there about 140 years might now be in some measure granted and all those sort of Sinners severely punished and the Curses taken clean out of the Book and that the poor may be relieved and now I come to that again I would humbly beg that the Ships for time to come might be paid in London where the poor Seamen have been forced to be assisted and supported all this War when they had no Money nor Cloaths to fit them for the Sea or when Twenty or Thirty Thousand of them were taken Captives into France Then they came to the City of London for Supply and as the City hath always been ready to assist the Government with Money and the Seamen with Necessaries and their perishing Families with Bread for several Years while they Earn'd their Money and were not paid and that now therefore they might be paid in London where they may buy their things at the best hand and have opportunity to return their Money to any Part of England to their Families and the King need not be at extraordinary Charge to send Money and Clerks and Commissioners 40 or 60 Miles to pay them in a small Town or two but the King might save that Charge and much more to pay them in London in this Method following Suppose