ion one hundred and forty-three thousand pounds more: so
that the whole demands upon your Commons are arisen to more than eight
millions for the present annual supply. We know your Majesty's tender
regard for the welfare of your people, will make it uneasy to you to
hear of so great a pressure as this upon them; and as we are assured, it
will fully convince your Majesty of the necessity of our present
inquiry; so we beg leave to represent to you, from what causes, and by
what steps, this immense charge appears to have grown upon us.

"The service at sea, as it has been very large and extensive in itself,
so it has been carried on, through the whole course of the war, in a
manner highly disadvantageous to your Majesty and your kingdom: for the
necessity of affairs requiring that great fleets should be fitted out
every year, as well for the maintaining a superiority in the
Mediterranean, as for opposing any force which the enemy might prepare,
either at Dunkirk, or in the ports of West France, your Majesty's
example and readiness in fitting out your proportion of ships, for all
parts of that service, have been so far from prevailing with the States
General to keep pace with you, that they have been deficient every year
to a great degree, in proportion to what your Majesty hath furnished;
sometimes no less than two-thirds, and generally more than half of their
quota: from hence your Majesty has been obliged, for the preventing
disappointments in the most pressing services, to supply those
deficiencies by additional reinforcements of your own ships; nor hath
the single increase of such a charge been the only ill consequence that
attended it; for by this means the debt of the navy hath been enhanced,
so that the discounts arising upon the credit of it have affected all
other parts of the service. From the same cause, your Majesty's ships of
war have been forced in greater numbers to continue in remote seas, and
at unseasonable times of the year, to the great damage and decay of the
British navy. This also hath been the occasion that your Majesty hath
been straitened in your convoys for trade; your coasts have been
exposed, for want of a sufficient number of cruisers to guard them; and
you have been disabled from annoying the enemy, in their most beneficial
commerce with the West Indies, from whence they received those vast
supplies of treasure, without which they could not have supported the
expenses of this war.

"That par