se manufactures are thus liable to lie unsold
in a foreign warehouse the market being forestalled by some rival
whose sailors are under a better discipline. To guard against these
inconveniences the prudent captain takes every precaution in his power;
he makes the strongest contracts with his crew, and thereby binds them
so firmly, that none but the greatest or least of men can break through
them with impunity; but for one of these two reasons, which I will not
determine, the sailor, like his brother fish the eel, is too slippery to
be held, and plunges into his element with perfect impunity. To speak a
plain truth, there is no trusting to any contract with one whom the wise
citizens of London call a bad man; for, with such a one, though your
bond be ever so strong, it will prove in the end good for nothing.

What then is to be done in this case? What, indeed, but to call in the
assistance of that tremendous magistrate, the justice of peace, who can,
and often doth, lay good and bad men in equal durance; and, though he
seldom cares to stretch his bonds to what is great, never finds anything
too minute for their detention, but will hold the smallest reptile alive
so fast in his noose, that he can never get out till he is let drop
through it. Why, therefore, upon the breach of those contracts, should
not an immediate application be made to the nearest magistrate of this
order, who should be empowered to convey the delinquent either to ship
or to prison, at the election of the captain, to be fettered by the leg
in either place? But, as the case now stands, the condition of this poor
captain without any commission, and of this absolute commander without
any power, is much worse than we have hitherto shown it to be; for,
notwithstanding all the aforesaid contracts to sail in the good ship
the Elizabeth, if the sailor should, for better wages, find it more his
interest to go on board the better ship the Mary, either before their
setting out or on their speedy meeting in some port, he may prefer the
latter without any other danger than that of "doing what he ought not
to have done," contrary to a rule which he is seldom Christian enough to
have much at heart, while the captain is generally too good a Christian
to punish a man out of revenge only, when he is to be at a considerable
expense for so doing. There are many other deficiencies in our laws
relating to maritime affairs, and which would probably have been long
since corre