ships to
go out: saying (in short) the King having resolved to have 130 ships out
by the spring, he must have above 20 of them merchantmen. Towards which,
he in the whole River could find but 12 or 14, and of them the five
ships taken up by these merchants were a part, and so could not be
spared. That we should need 30,000 [sailors] to man these 130 ships,
and of them in service we have not above 16,000; so we shall need 14,000
more. That these ships will with their convoys carry above 2,000 men,
and those the best men that could be got; it being the men used to the
Southward that are the best men for warr, though those bred in the North
among the colliers are good for labour. That it will not be safe for the
merchants, nor honourable for the King, to expose these rich ships
with his convoy of six ships to go, it not being enough to secure them
against the Dutch, who, without doubt, will have a great fleete in the
Straights. This, Sir J. Lawson enlarged upon. Sir G. Ascue he chiefly
spoke that the warr and trade could not be supported together, and,
therefore, that trade must stand still to give way to them. This Mr.
Coventry seconded, and showed how the medium of the men the King hath
one year with another employed in his Navy since his coming, hath not
been above 3,000 men, or at most 4,000 men; and now having occasion
of 30,000, the remaining 26,000 must be found out of the trade of the
nation. He showed how the cloaths, sending by these merchants to Turkey,
are already bought and paid for to the workmen, and are as many as they
would send these twelve months or more; so the poor do not suffer by
their not going, but only the merchant, upon whose hands they lit dead;
and so the inconvenience is the less. And yet for them he propounded,
either the King should, if his Treasure would suffer it, buy them, and
showed the losse would not be so great to him: or, dispense with the Act
of Navigation, and let them be carried out by strangers; and ending
that he doubted not but when the merchants saw there was no remedy, they
would and could find ways of sending them abroad to their profit. All
ended with a conviction (unless future discourse with the merchants
should alter it) that it was not fit for them to go out, though the
ships be loaded. The King in discourse did ask me two or three questions
about my newes of Allen's loss in the Streights, but I said nothing as
to the business, nor am not much sorry for it, unless the Kin