This is not a chimerical complaint, founded upon rare instances, and produced only to counterbalance an objection; the fact and the consequences are well known; so well, that near fourteen hundred sailors are computed to have been lost by this practice.
The PRESIDENT of the commons, who always in a committee takes his seat as another member, rose here, and spoke to the following effect, his honour being paymaster of the navy:—Mr. Chairman, the nature of the employment with which I am intrusted makes it my duty to endeavour that this question may be clearly understood, and the condition of the seamen, with regard to the reception of their pay, justly represented.
I have not been able to discover that any sailor, upon producing his ticket, was ever obliged to submit to the deduction of any part of his wages, nor should any clerk or officer under my inspection, escape, for such oppression, the severest punishment and most publick censure: I would give him up to the law without reserve, and mark him as infamous, and unworthy of any trust or employment.
But there are extortions, sir, by which those unhappy men, after having served their country with honesty and courage, are deprived of their lawful gains of diligence and labour. There are men to whom it is usual amongst the sailors to mortgage their pay before it becomes due, who never advance their money but upon such terms as cannot be mentioned without indignation. These men advance the sum which is stipulated, and by virtue of a letter of attorney are reimbursed at the pay-office.
This corruption is, I fear, not confined to particular places, but has spread even to America, where, as in his own country, the poor sailor is seduced, by the temptation of present money, to sell his labour to extortioners and usurers.
I appeal to the gentleman, whether the instance which he mentioned was not of this kind. I appeal to him without apprehension of receiving an answer that can tend to invalidate what I have asserted.
This, sir, is, indeed, a grievance pernicious and oppressive, which no endeavours of mine shall be deficient in attempting to remove; for by this the sailor is condemned, notwithstanding his industry and success, to perpetual poverty, and to labour only for the benefit of his plunderer.
[The clauses were then read, "empowering the justices of the peace, etc. to issue warrants to the constables, etc. to make general privy searches, by day or night, for finding out and securing such seamen and seafaring men as lie hid or conceal themselves; and making it lawful for the officers appointed to make such searches, to force open the doors of any house, where they shall suspect such seamen to be concealed, if entrance be not readily admitted; and for punishing those who shall harbour or conceal any seaman.">[
Sir John BARNARD upon this rose up, and spoke to the following effect:—Mr. Chairman, we have been hitherto deliberating upon questions, in which diversity of opinions might naturally be expected, and in which every man might indulge his own opinion, whatever it might be, without any dangerous consequences to the publick. But the clauses now before us are of a different kind; clauses which cannot be read without astonishment and indignation, nor defended without betraying the liberty of the best, the bravest, and most useful of our fellow-subjects.
If these clauses, sir, should pass into a law, a sailor and a slave will become terms of the same signification. Every man who has devoted himself to the most useful profession, and most dangerous service of his country, will see himself deprived of every advantage which he has laboured to obtain, and made the mere passive property of those who live in security by his valour, and owe to his labour that affluence which hardens them to insensibility, and that pride that swells them to ingratitude.