about 100 were fitter for Greenwich hospital than for duty. This Worcester man of war employed the Sweepstakes tender, at a charge of between 6 and 700l. per ann. to impress hands, and after two cruizes in the channel got one man only. We are, however, comforted with an assurance from government, that the British fleet is far more powerful in its present condition than the combined naval force of the House of Bourbon. I think the salvation of this empire depends upon our soon finding the means to render it so; but I am confident it cannot be done by the present commissioners of the Admiralty with their press-warrants, and neverending servitude. Is it to be supposed that the ministers of Paris, or the American plenipotentiaries at the French court, are ignorant of the real state of your navy? Ör that these official impositions fabricated near Whitehall, have any better operation than the deluding and lulling into a fatal security the infatuated part of our own fellow subjects? Believe me, Sir, it can never be. The Spaniards at the port of Carthagena are able to send out, within three weeks, 12 or 13 sail of the line of battle, at Cadiz 14 or 15 sail, and at least 8 or 9 at Ferrol. The French at Toulon might furnish 14 or 15, and at Brest and Rochfort 17 or 18 ships of the line. Now, should the courts of Madrid and Versailles chuse to detach combined squadrons to the East and West Indies from their Mediterranean departments, and keep their men of war in the ports of the Bay of Biscay, ready prepared for home and channel service, and just in the neighbourhood of these islands, dare you with that formidable land-army, which the French have on the coasts of Normandy, Picardy, and French Flanders, while Great Britain and Ireland are utterly defenceless to land-troops. Dare you, I say, attempt to send out a naval armament sufficient to protect your islands and settlements abroad, to secure your trade, to save lord Howe's fleet of frigates and small craft, to cover Gibraltar and Mahon, and at the same time to cruize against the commerce of the enemy? You know it is impossible. Great Britain, united with America, is, I admit, more than a match at sea for the French and Spaniards joined together; but, with your American colonies allied to those powers, we must, with all the heroism of our officers and seamen, inevitably be crushed in the conflict. Suppose you have, at this moment, for the protection of these realms, 26,000 men actually employed, deduct the commission and warrant officers, marines, servants, carpenters and gunners crews, widowsmen, &c. how many will remain? Perhaps about 4,500 able and 4,500 ordinary seamen. That part of your crews properly called landsmen may be 6,000 in addition, and the major part under the last denomination are but poor wretches indeed! A word to the lenity of the impress: was it not exerted with such rigour on the river Thames, and its neighbourhood, that your outward bound autumnal fleets have been in general cruelly distressed for want of hands? In some of the distant and inland parts even landsmen have not been spared; eight were pressed out of an harvest field in the west of England, not one of which had ever used the sea. Will any prerogative lawyer in the House maintain the legality of such an act as this? Is there a scalping, tomahawking advocate of the present bloody-minded men in office facing me, that will declare such executions of the impress-warrants to be justified on any principle of our law and constitution, or even by that old supplemental plea of a pretended state-necessity? We have seen third-rate men of war cruizing in the chops of the channel and Irish seas, while convoys of 100 sail and upwards have been protected only by small sloops and armed merchantmen. After what I have said, I would not be supposed to give my negative to an augmentation of the naval force; we must have a much stronger fleet, or the nation will tremble for its existence. But, Sir, there will, in the course of the winter and spring months, be a very large deficiency to supply, occasioned by deaths, desertions, and natural infirmities. Begin by completing your numbers, if practicable, to 55,000; let the nation pay for no more till these are bonâ fide in your employ; it will be then time enough, if the councils of state, from the complexion of foreign politics, shall find it requisite, to add 6,000 more, and complete the establishment to 60,000. But, Sir, I should think it atrociously improvident in us now to vote supplies for paying 60,000 men at 4. per month; the said allowance to government fully to commence from the 1st Jan. 1778. I am at present for a supply equal to 50,000 men only, at the utmost. Mr. Buller understood that the gentlemen on the other side seemed contented with the distribution only, and the gross numbers of men. He said, there were one fourth rate, two fifth rates, four sixth rates, six sloops, and two schooners, at Jamaica; and one fourth rate, and four sloops, on their way thither, in all 23 vessels, manned by 3,100 seamen and marines. That at the Leeward islands, there were eight vessels, and 1,200 men; that on discoveries, there were two vessels, and 480 men; that in America under lord Howe, there were 93 ships, six of the line, and 87 frigates, &c. and 17,685 men: at Newfoundland 10 vessels and 1,345 seamen, and that there were at home, 42 ships of the line, 35 of which were completely manned, and 32,397 seamen; and that our whole naval force consisted of 54 ships of the line, all manned but seven, and 205 frigates, &c. and 53,872 men, marines included. Mr. Bayly was surprised to hear the hon. gentleman assert, that there were 18 men of war on the Jamaica station, and five others on their passage thither, containing 3,100 seamen; when by the latest advices from thence, he was informed that the inhabitants had applied to the admiral for a convoy, who replied he could not then grant one, on account of the weak situation of his squadron; nor could he fix any time for doing it, until he was reinforced with more ships from England; and as to the five which were said to be on their passage to Jamaica, not one of them had yet left Portsmouth. The fact was, that there were only five or six vessels of war on the Jamaica station, and which were all sloops of very small force, except the Antelope and one frigate; so that to judge of the state of the navy from the hon. gentleman's exaggerated account of the Jamaica station, must give the House a melancholy idea of it. He called on the hon. gentleman to mention the names of those 23 men of war, and said, that he would, on any day, prove there were not half the number; and so sure he was of it, from the many accounts he had received, that he was ready to lay Mr. Buller 23 guineas, or 2,300, that he could not prove half the number of vessels of war to be on that station; or that those that were there contained half the 3,100 men; and his reason, he said, for proposing such a wager was, that he thought the loss would be a just punishment upon him who was guilty of the wrong assertion. Mr. Buller entered more fully into detail, relative to the home defence. As to the deficiencies, he presumed there were none; but if there were, the present mode of informing the House differed in nothing from what was usual. Instead of a deficiency, there were now on the books 9,000 men more than the vote of the last session provided for; and 10,000 at the beginning of the year; and in September last 54,000 instead of 45,000: and so far from the nine months press being ineffectual, and not producing more than 3 or 4,000, it actually produced upwards of 15,000 men. Sir Hugh Palliser affirmed, as an officer and an official man, that we had 35 ships of the line; and were an overmatch both for the present, and in point of preparation, for the united power of the House of Bourbon. He attacked Mr. Luttrell on his account of the Spanish navy, charging him with ignorance of the subject, and said, if the hon. gentleman's assertions were founded in truth, that we had no more than 20 men of war of the line actually ready to face an enemy, he need not have employed so much time to prove, that France and Spain meant to attack us; for the fact would be, that they would have already done it. were Lord Mulgrave, as a proof of the injudicious conduct of the French and Spaniards, and how much our mode of pressing was superior to their registers, said, that no merchantmen from any port of France or Spain could be fitted out or procure hands, but by the permission of government. The captains or masters obliged to apply to the Bureau, an office or board somewhat answering to the description of our Custom-house; there they received not such hands as they chose, or knew were able seamen, but such as the Bureau pleased; the seamen being all retained by the king, who generally took care to keep the most skilful. He informed the House of a particular fact, which came within his own knowledge, when out on his last cruize. He met with a French trading vessel in imminent distress; he gave her all the assistance in his power, without which she must have perished. After she had been set to rights, the mas ter came aboard him, and he asked him how it happened, when he had 32 men aboard, that he came through mere want of skill and ability to be driven to such straights? "Because" replied the Frenchman, "I have had my hands from the Bureau, who gave me the very refuse, and kept all the good seamen for the use of the royal navy." Indeed, the truth is, names) was captain Rowley, of the Monarch, a humane, good officer, who did not choose to make his crew slaves; and that the desertion complained of produced a good effect: the health of the rest was preserved by it, as the service was freed from a number of men not to be depended on. As to impressing the harvest-men, they were perhaps seamen; if they were not, there was a remedy for them at law. He hated to make a charge, and conceal the name of the offender. It was transferring the imputation from particulars to generals, by a new mode of logic-a sea officer had committed an offence-a sea officer is any sea officer-any sea officer is every sea officer, ergo, the whole navy is guilty of the charge imputed to an indi that every man there, if the expression may be allowed, is pressed in his mother's womb; maritime districts within a certain distance of the coast, are subject to the regulations of the register; and the inhabitants are enrolled, and liable to be called upon, when fit for service, to go aboard the king's ships. His lordship besides contended, that the 35 of the line were much superior to the whole naval force the House of Bourbon were able to send forth, at any short notice; that though they had many able sea-officers, who in the beginning exerted themselves, at length it always was, and always would be the case, that they must give way to our superior skill and naval power. They had frequently the advantage in the beginning, but in the progress of their naval opera-vidual amongst them. This single argutions, proved always unequal. He complained of the infidelity of the hon. gentleman who spoke so fully on the subject; and said, it put him in mind of the Sceptic philosopher, who denied the existence of motion, at the moment he got up and walked across the room. He censured Mr. Luttrell's not mentioning the officer of the press-gang who took the landsmen. With regard to the rottenness of the ships, the fact had now no existence; indeed, when it was found necessary to arm about six or seven years ago, several ships, which had been built at the close of the last war on a violent emergency, were found decaying; but this had long ago been rectified; and he averred, that the hon. member might go through Europe, and not see 35 ships of the line in all their ports by any means equal to those now mentioned. As to the French, he had no doubt individually they would do every thing men ought to do; but France, as a maritime country, was in every respect despicable with respect to this; that, to be sure, its early efforts were seasonable and spirited, but afterwards it gradually fell off, till its maritime force dwindled into nothing; whereas this country grew progressively stronger, and he trusted, would ever bid defiance to any naval that should oppose it. power The hon. member had first decried the severity of naval commanders, as the cause of frequent desertion; and, in the same breath, complained of a great desertion, caused by the indulgence of a commander, in giving his men liberty to go on shore; though no name had been mentioned, his lordship said, the person alJuded to (for he hated charges without ment will serve as an instance of the hon. gentleman's mode of reasoning. Mr. Temple Luttrell answered the last noble lord with great asperity; spoke much of insolence and indecency; and said, he could always find his way to and from the House direct; and if any thing improper, or which required explanation, had fallen from him, or should hereafter escape him, he was always to be found, and ready to be responsible for it. He was liable to error as well as other men; but never asserted any thing which he did not believe to be true. He observed, that the noble lord was as fat and merry as he was zealous. He could easily account for his zeal, from his connections with the first lord of the Admiralty; but after every thing the noble lord asserted to the contrary, he defied any official man to rise and say, that the whole of our seamen appointed to the manning of the line of battle ships, would furnish, for actual service, twenty men of war of the line with the proper war complement. He charged the noble lord with great disingenuity, in misrepresenting what he said, relative to the desertion of the men from aboard the Monarch, the Hector, and the Worcester. As to the Monarch, the right hon. member had endeavoured to stretch a relation of a mere matter of fact, to an imputed censure of the commander, captain Rowley. He never meant any such thing; he was as ready to give that worthy officer credit for his humanity as the noble lord; but he mentioned it only to shew the dislike to the service which prevailed, and the great want of men in consequence of that dislike. Mr. James Luttrell rose, to defend his brother on a point of seamanship, which lord Mulgrave had brought no argument against, but with a laugh treated as ridiculously erroneous, and fitter for a landsman than a seaman to have expressed. He stated the fact as related by his brother, and then defied the noble lord as a seaman and an officer, to say it was erroneous; that on the contrary, it was a proof that his hon. relation was circumstantially informed of the facts he had asserted, and was willing to satisfy officers in the House as well as other representatives, that he spoke from indisputable information, observing, that cannon which were only secure when quoined down, were unfit for action, as in all engagements they must depend on the security of the ring-bolts and soundness of the timber which held them, and if they proved defective it was no laughable matter: but he attributed the pleasantry which the House had joined the noble lord in, to ignorance of the subterfuge his lordship had availed himself of, when evading grounds of argument, he depended on the credit of the uniform he wore, as of sufficient weight to contradict ever such home truths when brought by a landsman in charge against the management of the navy. Lord Mulgrave disclaimed any intention of misrepresenting the hon. gentleman's relation's words, or of taking any advantage of his ignorance of naval affairs; and, besides, gave the fullest and most willing testimony to the professional merit and abilities of the gentleman who last spoke. so able a man as Mr. Carleton his quartermaster general; adding, "If he should fall, I wish not to survive him." He blamed the object of the war, as well as the mode of prosecuting it, and declared, he would not vote a man towards the carrying on so unjust and impolitic a war He said by so weak an administration. much in praise of the officers commanding our forces in America, and censured ministry for treating their conduct slightingly for some months past, by causing them to be censured by their writers in the public prints, or, at least, conniving at such unHe insisted, that in case merited slander. France should break with us, we should have not only every branch of the House of Bourbon to contend with, but likewise Portugal, and be at the same time stripped of every ally. I ask the noble lord, if in case of a rupture with France, we shall have a single port from Embden in the king of Prussia's dominions, to Gibraltar, open to us? Is Holland friendly? Is not Portugal in alliance with France and Spain? In fine, in such an event, which I venture to affirm is more than probable, have we a single friend, but the powerful states of Anspach, Waldeck, and those several formidable allies who have furnished us with troops; who have sold us blood in return for our money! Mr. Burke rose, and taking a retrospective view of the greatest wars which Great Britain had to sustain during and since the reign of Lewis the 14th, shewed the House, that they were then about to vote such a naval supply when in a state of peace with every independent nation in the world, as was scarce to be equalled in times when they were at war with almost every power in Europe. When France, said he, had equipped the famous armament from La Hogue, we then had not a Mr. Adam rose to justify the Scotch cannon from the calumny that had been thrown upon it; said he was a proprietor of the foundery, that though an accident had happened, and their pieces were refused here, they now served most states abroad with them, and gave such satisfaction as he hoped would enable them to regain their credit with the British ord-greater number of seamen in pay, marines, nance. Mr. T. Townshend objected to the motion, on the simple principle that it was in support of a war that he detested and abhorred. He then launched into a review of the conduct of administration respecting the censure they threw during the last summer, on the officers commanding in America; he vindicated the conduct of sir Guy Carleton; said he had been dishonourably superseded; that he knew the worth of that great and gallant officer; that general Wolfe, previous to his embarking for Quebec, expressed his happiness to him (Mr. Townshend) in having Greenwich-men, &c. included, than 33,000, which cost us 1,900,000. In 1704, the fourth year of queen Anne's war, the same number of men were voted, which cost but 1,200,000l. In 1747, the fourth year of the war with the united powers of France and Spain, we had 40,000 at an expence of something more than 3,000,000%. and in the glorious year 1758, the naval establishment did not exceed by a single man, 60,000; and the whole expence attending them, including a large debt of a million, naval ordnance, stores, and 47. a month per man, amounted only to 5,200,000l. whereas the peace establish ment of the navy for 1778 will amount to upwards of 5,000,000%. This, said he, is an expence very little inferior to what we should be obliged to incur were we at war with the whole House of Bourbon, and all the maritime states of Europe. He observed, that France, merely by arming, caused as great a diversion in favour of America, as if she had absolutely declared war for she obliged us to keep 42 sail of the line in commission at home, exclusive of the vast armament under lord Howe. He asked what alliances we had formed to support us in case of a rupture with the Bourbons: he reprobated the contract with the princelings of Germany as mean and humiliating, and expressed his astonishment that the ministers had condescended to the indignity of courting the alliance of a few traders in human flesh. There is, said he, an alliance which they ought to make, let the price of it be what it will; and that is, an alliance with America; the first fruit of this alliance will be a saving of 100 sail of men of war, and 55,000 soldiers, which you may immediately call home to your assistance, if you have a war to sustain against any European power. He expressed his dread, that Portugal was lost to us as an ally; that we had little to expect from Holland; and that there was not now a port from Dunkirk to Gibraltar, which would admit a British ship, if pursued by an enemy. He mentioned the affront put upon sir Guy Carleton, and the illiberal abuse thrown out against the Howes by the runners of administration. If ministers did not speak out directly in terms of abuse of those able and injured officers, it was well known they heartily approved of it. It furnished during the whole summer, the standing topic of conversation at their tables. Those who had the honour to be admitted there repeated the language they heard as a part of their duty; and it was evident by the general tenor of the news papers for some time past, which teemed with the most scandalous abuse of those brave men, who were now exerting every nerve in the faithful performance of their duty, that persons were hired and encouraged to propagate the most scandalous falshoods, both in writing and discourse, of both lord Howe and his brother, in order to shift the blame off their patrons' and employers' shoulders. Lord North said, he knew of no reason, nor had the least to suspect, that we should lose the alliance of Portugal or Hol land. As to the first, we had now a man of war in the harbour of Lisbon; and though the court of Lisbon had settled their differences with that of Madrid, on the subject of the rights of each crown in the Brazils, he knew of no further agreement or compact between them. As to Holland, the Dutch had but one object, which was commerce; this they would carry on as a neutral power, and supply the parties at war with ammunition. They have done so at all times; remonstrances had been made against their supplying the Americans, and some of their ships had been seized; but still he had no apprehension that the court at the Hague would relax in their old friendship and alliance with Great Britain. His lordship then explained himself upon subsidies; he denied that he had ever declared against all subsidies; he had ever looked upon the subsidies granted to foreign princes in time of peace, as a retaining fee to keep their alliance in time of war as highly disadvantageous, because those princes, after receiving the money, regulated their conduct by the political situation of affairs; but the present subsidies were highly advantageous, as they supplied us with troops upon an emergency on cheaper terms than we could raise them any other way. His lordship then exculpated himself from having ill used general Carleton: he bestowed the highest encomiums on his abilities, and said there were particular reasons why he recommended it to the King not to take the supreme command from sir W. Howe, though general Carleton was the senior officer: he was sure the general would not complain of it when he came home, and he should assign his reasons to him, though he could not to the House.-A remark having been made of reflections thrown out in the news-papers against public characters, lord North said he knew nothing of them, only that they were no friends of his; for in the whole circle of the papers he was daily abused, but he despised it. His lordship expressed his contempt of news-paper abuse, in the most energetic terms. He wished a stop could be put to such infamous publications. No man held them in greater abhorrence, particularly those alluded to, not that he could ever believe, that administration, or any individual of it, had a hand in them. A set of persons were employed by the printers, who would write or say any thing for hire; and unless it could be proved, that they |