St. Vincent. They contended that ministers opposed it only to
screen their notorious incapacity under the shelter of his great name.
On the other hand, Admiral Sir Charles Pole, Mr. Sheridan, Mr.
Addington, Captain Markham, and others, supported Mr. Tierney, and
confirmed all his statements. Nothing, it was said, could afford a
stronger proof how enormous were the abuses which Earl St. Vincent had
corrected, than the argument of Mr. Pitt and his friends, that
men-of-war could not be built in the King's yards, although 3,200 men
were employed in them; and it was known that forty-five shipwrights
could build a seventy-four in a year. Four hundred of the men discharged
had been receiving six shillings a day for doing nothing. Blockmakers'
and coopers' work, for which 2,000_l._ had been paid, was proved upon a
survey to be worth only 200_l._ As to the gun-boats alluded to, which
were built by contract in the last war, they were so bad, that
eighty-seven out of a hundred-and-twenty had been sold by public
advertisement for almost nothing. The men-of-war launched from private
yards had been the ruin of the navy. Three of them went to Portugal, and
were found so defective that it was necessary to send them home, with a
frigate for convoy. The arrangements for the naval defence of the
country were most admirable and complete, and if there were any delay in
building the twenty-three gun-vessels ordered by the Admiralty, it was
because no dependence was placed upon that description of force. It
would be folly to meet the enemy with the inferior weapons which
necessity obliged him to employ, when we possessed a more powerful arm
in our heavy men-of-war and frigates. The depth of water would allow
these to act close to our very shores; and if the enemy's flotilla
should venture out, Captain Markham, Sir Edward Pellew, Sir Thomas
Troubridge, or any officer known in our naval records, would, with a
single seventy-four, shoot through and sink a crowd of their
contemptible craft.

Ministers obtained a majority of 201 against 130; a most triumphant
result for Earl St. Vincent, considering the character of his accuser,
and the grounds upon which Mr. Fox and his friends voted for the
motions.

Sir Edward Pellew met the charges against the Admiralty with the plain
and straightforward declarations of a seaman. Nothing could be more
disinterested than his conduct upon this occasion; for there was little
to hope from the gratitude of a min