majesty, do more than
hire workmen, who will as cheerfully and as diligently serve any other
person? And why may not the captain of the vessel procure necessaries
for money, without the assistance of a commissioner?

In the fourth clause, my lords, nothing is proposed but what is every
day practised, nor any authority conferred upon the court of admiralty,
than that which it always possessed, of punishing those who disobey
their orders. The provision against the crime of wilfully springing a
mast, is at least useless; for when did any man admit that he sprung his
mast by design? Or why should it be imagined that such an act of
wickedness, such flagrant breach of trust, and apparent desertion of
duty, would in the present state of the navy escape the severest
punishment? Would not all the officers and mariners on board the ship
see that such a thing was wilfully done? Would not they cry out--"You
are springing the mast," and prevent it, or discover the crime, and
demand punishment?

The fifth clause, my lords, is without any penal sanction, and,
therefore, cannot be compulsive; nor is any thing of importance proposed
in it, which is not already in the power of the senate. Either house may
now demand an account of the stations and employments of the ships of
war; nor does the senate now omit to examine the conduct of our naval
affairs, but because our attention is diverted by more important
employments, which will not by this bill be contracted or facilitated.

The use of the provision in the sixth clause, my lords, I am not able to
conceive; for to what purpose, my lords, should the ships appointed for
any particular service be nominated at any stated time? What consequence
can such declarations of our designs produce, but that of informing our
enemies what force they ought to provide against us? In war, my lords,
that commander has generally been esteemed most prudent, who keeps his
designs most secret, and assaults the enemy in an unguarded quarter,
with superiour and unexpected strength.

In the seventh clause, many regulations are prescribed to the commanders
of those ships which are appointed to convoy the trading vessels. These
regulations, my lords, are not all equally unreasonable, but some of
them are such as it may, on many occasions, be impossible for the
commanders of his majesty's ships to observe in such a manner as that
the masters of merchant ships may not imagine themselves neglected or
forsaken. The