of it when it is superfluous.

There is yet another regulation, my lords, in this clause, which ought
not to be passed without remark. It is provided, that the sailors
employed in the cruisers and convoys in the Channel, shall not be turned
over but to other cruisers and convoys; by which, I suppose, it was
intended, that our outguards should be prevented from being weakened,
and that our merchants should never be destitute of protection; an end
truly laudable, and which deserves to be promoted by some establishment
better concerted. The expedient now proposed, seems to have been
contrived upon the supposition that the admiralty may not always be very
solicitous for the safety of the merchants, and that, therefore, it is
necessary to secure them by a law from the danger of being deprived of
protection; for, upon the present establishment, the removal of men from
one ship to another must be made by the permission of the admiralty; and
when the right of such permission shall by this law be taken away, what
new security will the merchants obtain? The admiralty will still have
the power, though not of turning over the men, yet of recalling the
ships, and commerce suffer equally in either case.

By the second clause, my lords, there is still a power reserved to the
admiralty, of dismissing these guardians of commerce from their
stations, and employing them _in case of great necessity_ in the line of
battle, on this side cape Finisterre. Not to cavil, my lords, at the
term of _great necessity,_ of which it is apparent that the
commissioners of the admiralty are to judge, I would desire to be
informed what measures are to be taken, if a royal navy should unluckily
rove beyond this cape, which is marked out as the utmost bound of the
power of the admiralty, and should there be reduced to the necessity of
engaging desperately with a superiour force, or retiring ignominiously
before it. Are not our ships to pass a single league beyond their
limits, in the honour or preservation of their country? Are they to lie
unactive within the sound of the battle, and wait for their enemies on
this side the cape?

The third clause, my lords, is, if not absurd like the former, yet so
imperfectly drawn up, that it can produce no advantage; for of what use
will it be to station an officer _where his majesty shall think fit?_ At
all the royal docks there are officers already stationed, and in any
other place what can an officer, deputed by his