[1223] It must not, however, be supposed that naval morality was worse during the reigns of James and Charles than subsequently. Leaving the eighteenth century out of consideration it was said that at the beginning of this one the annual public loss from fraud and embezzlement ran into millions, a sum which may well have almost drawn the shades of Mansell and hundreds of other pettifogging seventeenth century navy thieves back to earth. The great difference was that at the later date, whether from higher principle or stricter discipline, the combatant branches of the service were honest, the theft and jobbery being confined to the Admiralty, Navy and Victualling Boards, and dockyard establishments. Lord St Vincent said of the Navy Board that it was ‘the curse of the Navy,’ and the methods of the dockyards may be gauged from the fact that while the (present) Victory cost £97,400 to build, £143,600 were in fifteen years expended on her repairs. Of the Admiralty there will be much to be said.
[1224] State Papers, Dom., ccxxix, 114.
[1225] Ibid., ccxlv, 19.
[1226] State Papers, Dom., cviii, 18.
[1227] Ibid., ccxxvii, 1.
[1228] Ibid., cclxix, 67.
[1229] Ibid., ccclxxvi, 160 and ccccxlii, 12. Cf. supra, [p. 239].
[1230] Ibid., cccxcvii, 37.
[1231] State Papers, Dom., cccclxxvi, 115.
[1232] Butler’s Dialogical Discourse, &c. Of course the guns would be going all the time; this form of reception appears to have been that given also to the King or to a general commanding an expedition.