Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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A35158
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Justice perverted, and innocence & loyalty oppressed, or, A detection of the corruptions of some persons in places of great trust in the government which would have been laid open the last session of Parliament, according to the intentions of both Houses, had it not been prevented.
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Crosfeild, Robert.
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1695
(1695)
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Wing C7245; ESTC R7496
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24,562
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31
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Demonstration and Reason for what he said that the Proposal had a general Acceptation being printed and dedicated to the King and Parliament yet notwithstanding he met with little Encouragement as will appear by the Journal he has kept from the Admiralty-board being from time to time delayed But after much Importunity and Waiting was referred to the Navy-board before whom he often offered to prove the great Destruction and Waste made of the King's Timber and at one time produced twelve Witnesses to prove the same but they would hear but three of them and very much ridicul'd what he offer'd and threatned him with an Action of Scandal whereby to cause him to desist which not prevailing and he not being under their Jurisdiction they found themselves oblig'd to make a Report it being then a Year and a half after he made his Proposal which was transmitted to the Admiralty But Mr. Everett was not permitted a Copy of it till half a Year after and tho' it 's too long here to insert yet it will appear how scandalous it was by the Memorial he deliver'd in answer to it which is as followeth The humble Memorial of George Everett To the Lords of His Majesty's most Honourable Privy Council appointed a Committee of Trade and Plantations THAT the said George Everett having received a Copy of the Navy-board's Report which their Honours made to the Lords of the Admiralty in answer to my Proposals and finding the same very large and full of Reflections Prevarications and manifest Falshoods a full Answer to which I have drawn up ready to produce Yet I cannot conceive they would presume to offer such a Report to the Admiralty or this most Honourable Board unless with a Design to bring this matter to so great a Bulk with long Reports Answers and Replies as to make your Lordships weary in examining into my Proposal tho of so great Advantage to the Publick Good Therefore to save your Lordships much needless trouble I shall here recite only three Particulars in the Navy-board's Report which if true my Proposals ought wholly to be set aside and I to suffer worse Punishment than the Navy-board have already threatned to inflict upon me which three Particulars are as followeth The Navy-board about the middle of their Report express themselves in these words What Care is taken to prevent the Making and Carrying out any unlawful Ships the Instructions before recited have inform'd your Honours which is hoped is duly executed by the Officers but if any of them are wanting therein we should be glad to know it being altogether as willing to punish as reward well knowing that on those Hinges hang the good Management of the Affairs of the Navy ' And about the next Leaf they also say these words And in case in his Observations any of them have acted other ways meaning the Officers of the Yards or others in embezling the Materials of old Ships and he had thought sit to have discover'd and made it appear to us he would certainly have met with sutable Rewards and Encouragement for it To which I answer That I never declar'd the whole was embezled but a great part of it and in order to prove this I did on the Fourteenth of May last lay before the Commissioners of the Navy a Note containing the Names of near forty Witnesses to prove these and other Miscarriages committed in His Majesty's Yards Which being read their Honours answer'd that the Surveyor was not in Town and that the same could not be determined without a full Board After this I received a Letter from the Navy-board in these words Mr. Everett THe Comptroller and some other of the Members of this Board being suddenly to go out of Town again and we being desirous to do something in your Business before we part do desire you to be with us on Saturday Morning next at Nine a Clock and to bring with you the Persons you have named that can make appear the Abuses in His Majesty's Yards mentioned in your Paper We are your affectionate Friends Tho. Wilshaw C. Sargisson D. Liddell John Hill George St. Loe. Navy-Office 20 June 1694. Pursuant to this Order I did on the 23d of June being Saturday attend the Navy-board in the Morning with twelve Persons most of them Master-Shipwrights in order to prove the said irregular and extravagant Practices But two of them and my self being only admitted we did testify part thereof and had a clamorous Debate of near three hours till by degrees the Commissioners all departed leaving one of the Evidences in the Board-Room without order of withdrawing or farther attending This my Attendance was the 23d of June and the Navy-board's Report is dated the 27th of June which is four days after wherein their Honours pretended they had not heard of any of these Miscarriages The third Particular is near the end of their Report wherein the Commissioners of the Navy express themselves in these words Nevertheless this Wiseaker says there may be 100000 l. a Year saved of what is now expended in the Navy in Shipwrightry and Timber and Plank if his Regulations as he calls them were put in execution tho upon our computing the whole Charge of such Workmanship for all the six Yards together with the Expence of Timber and Plank since the War which we have taken the pains to collect we do not find the same amount to that Sum one Year with another To which I answer that this is a home Assertion and strikes at the very foundation of my Proposal and would represent me as a mad Man that disturbs your Lordships and the Nation with Proposals to save 100000 l. a Year out of a less Sum But I question not but to confute the Navy-board under their own hands and bring them as Witnesses against themselves Therefore I most humbly pray that the Commissioners of Accompts may be directed to lay before your Lordships an Account of the annual Charge of Building and Repairing the Royal Navy since the beginning of the War and likewise to direct the Lords of the Admiralty to lay before your Lordships a true Copy of the Estimate for the same Service which their Lordships laid before the House of Commons for the Year ensuing For I may presume to assert that the Building and Reparing the Royal Navy has for the Years past and will for the Year ensuing cost the King above four hundred thousand Pound per Annum All which your Lordships will find attested under the Commissioners of the Navy's own Hands if your Lordships will please to send for the aforemention'd Accompts and Estimate May it please your Lordships if herein I have said that which is false of the Navy-board I am content to lose all the Labour and Expence I have been at and that my Proposals should be wholly rejected as false and scandalous But if on the contrary their Honours Report proves to be as I have here represented it * * Their
Lordships were pleas'd to look upon the Navy-board's Report to be scandalous viz. full of Falsities and Prevarications to weary and impose upon your Lordships to set aside Proposals that may be so beneficial to the Publick Good and Safety of the Nation then I shall humbly leave to your Lordships Justice what Censure to pass on the Navy-board for making such a Report to obstruct the King's Service which is sign'd by no less than eight of their Members ††R. Haddock E. Dummer G. Sergison Tho. Wilshaw D. Liddall J. Hill S. Pett G. S. Loe. George Everett Febr. 25th 1695. There 's no rational Man but will conclude this Proposal of Mr. Everett's practicable tho the Navy-board took indirect Means to crade it In short the Design of his Proposal is no other but to root out all those Evils which Custom and the Corruption of the Age hath produced and no ways to alter the Oeconomy of the Navy as is insinuated in the Lords of the Admiralty and Commissioners of the Navy's Reports upon his Proposal So that had it been put in practice by this time His Majesty might have sav'd three or four hundred thousand Pound And for the Commissioners of the Navy to assert the Building and Repairing of the Royal Navy did not annually amount to 100000 l. which plainly appears to be a prevaricating with Mr. Everett's words when they knew at the same time the Estimate given into the House of Commons for the Wear and Tare of the Royal Navy for this present Year was 780000 l. as appears by the Votes of the House of Commons is a most notorious Falshood One would therefore think any Man that had the least spark of Honour or Justice in him would have been ashamed to sign such a Report And why the Lords of the Admiralty should keep it so long by them and not acquaint His Majesty therewith I know not however it 's plain it was never intended it should have seen the light it being forced from them and the design being to weary out the Man that he might waste and spend his Substance and so be forced to decline A most effectual Way indeed and sufficient warning to all Men to take care how they offer any thing for the Publick Service tho never so advantagious Besides this Proposal Mr. Everett hath made appear by a cloud of Witnesses the great Embezlements made in the King 's Yards and proved * Before a Committee of Council many things in the face of the Commissioners of the Navy and made them eat and drink Shame Yet still they stand as firm as a Rock and say they have done no evil The Sailors being inhumanly and barbarously treated is the only true Cause why they so much decline the Publick Service The poor Sailers that venture their Lives and Limbs to serve their King and Country and who are one of the greatest Bulwarks of the Kingdom have been all along most inhumanly and barbarously treated and they and their Families reduced to a miserable and deplorable State particularly by the wicked Practices of putting Queries and Runs upon their pay For amongst those great numbers that are set on Shore sick those that die and others that continue sick above thirty days and those sent to the London Hospitals for cure who are thereby disabled to return to their Ships are for the most part made run Others whose Ships are sailed before recovery having gone on Board other Ships are prick'd run from the Ship they were sent from and if a Seaman is turn'd over from Ship to Ship and by that means has serv'd on Board four or five Ships in the Navy yet if he happens to be prick'd run in the last Ship he serv'd in he shall of consequence be prick'd run in all the preceding Ships By this means a Query or Run takes away a Man's Pay worse than an Execution and by the present Practice no Seaman or his poor Family is at any certainty of having the Benefit of the King's Pay for it is in the Power of the Captain Captain 's Clerk Purser Clerk of the Cheque Muster-Master or Clerks in the Navy-Office when ever they please to put a Run or Query upon any Seaman's Pay without giving Reason for so doing or the Name of the Person that put it So that for these black pieces of Robbery no one is liable to be called to accompt but the poor Sailer is kept wholly in the dark and he or his Wife may wait at the Navy-Office Month after Month with Petitions to no purpose till he has spent all his Substance And when he begins to talk of his being thus cheated and robbed he is threatned to be tried for his Life as a Mutineer So that the Barbarity the poor Sailors do and have suffered during this War is unexpressible The Blood of thousands of Families are poured out as Sacrifices to the Covetousness of those whose Duty and Place it is to be their Guardians and Protectors By all which it 's plain that whatever good Laws may be made for the Increase and Encouragement of Seamen will prove ineffectual so long as these Practices continue These Grievances have been at large set forth in Print by one Mr. Hodges and a Scheme of their true Cause laid barefac'd before the Admiralty by Mr. Trevor in a Letter and a Remedy for them propos'd in Writing to the Admiralty by Mr. Gibson by order of a Committee of Council and why there 's nothing done but this Fraud and Robbery still practised and supported is what no reason can be given for Since neither Mr. Hodges's Mr. Trevor's nor Mr. Gibson's Papers before mention'd have ever been exploded the Lords of the Treasury were so fully convinced of these Cheats that their Lordships did by Warrant under their Hands in December last appoint Mr. Gibson to receive all Informations of Abuses in Paiment of Seamens Tickets which doubtless would have put a stop to these wicked Practices Notwithstanding which the said Mr. Gibson has never been suffered to act and so their Lordships good Intentions have been wholly defeated But why their Lordships have not been able to put their own Orders in execution is another strange thing to me I shall now lay down Mr. Trevor's Letter before mention'd by which the Reader will be satisfied as to the Humour and Temper of these Gentlemen and after what rate things are and have been carried on It is as followeth My Lords HAving consider'd your Lordships Commands to wit That I lay before your Honourable Board a Proposal to prevent false Tickets and Powers for the future I find my self oblig'd humbly to represent the following Particulars in order to satisfy your Lordships therein so far as I may at present not being willing to take on my Shoulders who am so much loaded already such a burden as an effectual Proposal to that purpose must be Therefore to let your Lordships see I am no Stranger to that Practice