near
and certain advantage; they have not, indeed, any expectations of being
suddenly enriched by a plate ship, and of gaining by one engagement such
wealth as will enable them to spend the rest of their lives in ease and
affluence; but they are sure of a speedy payment of their wages,
perhaps, of some profits from petty commerce, and of an opportunity of
squandering them at land in jollity and diversions; their labour is
cheerful, because they know it will be short, and they readily enter
into an employment which they can quit when it shall no longer please
them.

These considerations, my lords, have no influence upon the preparations
of France and Spain, where no man is master of his own fortune, or time,
or life, and where the officers of the state can drive multitudes into
the service of the crown, without regard to their private views,
inclinations, or engagements. To man a fleet, nothing is necessary but
to lay an embargo on the trading vessels, and suspend their commerce for
a short time; therefore no man dares refuse to enter into the publick
service when he is summoned; nor, if he should fly, as our sailors, from
an impress, would any man venture to shelter or conceal him.

Absolute monarchs have, therefore, this advantage over us, that they can
be sooner prepared for war, and to this must be ascribed all the success
which the Spaniards have obtained. This, my lords, will not be obviated
by the bill now before us, nor will it, indeed, procure any other
benefit to the trade, or any addition to the power of the nation.

Of the ten clauses comprised in the bill, the greatest part is
universally allowed to be injudiciously and erroneously proposed; and
those few, which were thought of more importance, have been shown to
contain no new expedients, nor to add any thing to the present
regulations.

I cannot, therefore, discover any reason, my lords, that should induce
us to refer to a committee this bill, of which part is confessedly to be
rejected, and the rest is apparently superfluous.

[Then the question being put, whether the bill should be referred to a
committee; it passed in the negative. Content, 25. Not content, 59.

On the rejection of this bill by the lords, a bill which related to an
affair of no less importance than the security of trade and navigation,
and which had been unanimously passed by the commons, it was satirically
remarked, that the upper house understood trade and navigation _better_
t