Nor is this, my lords, the only instance of precipitancy and want of consideration, for many of the injunctions are without any penal sanction; so that though we should pass this bill with the greatest unanimity, we should only declare our opinion, or offer our advice, but should make no law, or what, with regard to the purposes of government, is the same, a law which may be broken without danger.
But general objections, my lords, will naturally produce general evasions; and a debate may be prolonged without producing any clear view of the subject, or any satisfactory decision of a single question: I shall, therefore, endeavour to range my objections in order, and, by examining singly every paragraph of the bill, show the weakness of some expedients, the superfluity of others, and the general unfitness of the whole to produce the protection and security intended by it.
In the first clause alone may be found instances of all the improprieties which I have mentioned to your lordships. It is proposed that in a time of war between this empire and any other state, such a number of ships shall be employed as cruisers or convoys in the Channel, as the admiralty shall judge most proper for that purpose. What is this, my lords, but to continue to the admiralty the power which has been always executed? What is it but to enact that the ships shall be stationed in time of war as the commissioners of the admiralty shall determine and direct?
Of these ships, it is farther enacted, that they shall be careened three times a-year, or oftener if there shall be occasion; but it is not declared who shall judge of the necessity of careening, or who shall be punished for the neglect of it when it is requisite, or for the permission or command of it when it is superfluous.
There is yet another regulation, my lords, in this clause, which ought not to be passed without remark. It is provided, that the sailors employed in the cruisers and convoys in the Channel, shall not be turned over but to other cruisers and convoys; by which, I suppose, it was intended, that our outguards should be prevented from being weakened, and that our merchants should never be destitute of protection; an end truly laudable, and which deserves to be promoted by some establishment better concerted. The expedient now proposed, seems to have been contrived upon the supposition that the admiralty may not always be very solicitous for the safety of the merchants, and that, therefore, it is necessary to secure them by a law from the danger of being deprived of protection; for, upon the present establishment, the removal of men from one ship to another must be made by the permission of the admiralty; and when the right of such permission shall by this law be taken away, what new security will the merchants obtain? The admiralty will still have the power, though not of turning over the men, yet of recalling the ships, and commerce suffer equally in either case.
By the second clause, my lords, there is still a power reserved to the admiralty, of dismissing these guardians of commerce from their stations, and employing them in case of great necessity in the line of battle, on this side cape Finisterre. Not to cavil, my lords, at the term of great necessity, of which it is apparent that the commissioners of the admiralty are to judge, I would desire to be informed what measures are to be taken, if a royal navy should unluckily rove beyond this cape, which is marked out as the utmost bound of the power of the admiralty, and should there be reduced to the necessity of engaging desperately with a superiour force, or retiring ignominiously before it. Are not our ships to pass a single league beyond their limits, in the honour or preservation of their country? Are they to lie unactive within the sound of the battle, and wait for their enemies on this side the cape?
The third clause, my lords, is, if not absurd like the former, yet so imperfectly drawn up, that it can produce no advantage; for of what use will it be to station an officer where his majesty shall think fit? At all the royal docks there are officers already stationed, and in any other place what can an officer, deputed by his majesty, do more than hire workmen, who will as cheerfully and as diligently serve any other person? And why may not the captain of the vessel procure necessaries for money, without the assistance of a commissioner?
In the fourth clause, my lords, nothing is proposed but what is every day practised, nor any authority conferred upon the court of admiralty, than that which it always possessed, of punishing those who disobey their orders. The provision against the crime of wilfully springing a mast, is at least useless; for when did any man admit that he sprung his mast by design? Or why should it be imagined that such an act of wickedness, such flagrant breach of trust, and apparent desertion of duty, would in the present state of the navy escape the severest punishment? Would not all the officers and mariners on board the ship see that such a thing was wilfully done? Would not they cry out—"You are springing the mast," and prevent it, or discover the crime, and demand punishment?
The fifth clause, my lords, is without any penal sanction, and, therefore, cannot be compulsive; nor is any thing of importance proposed in it, which is not already in the power of the senate. Either house may now demand an account of the stations and employments of the ships of war; nor does the senate now omit to examine the conduct of our naval affairs, but because our attention is diverted by more important employments, which will not by this bill be contracted or facilitated.
The use of the provision in the sixth clause, my lords, I am not able to conceive; for to what purpose, my lords, should the ships appointed for any particular service be nominated at any stated time? What consequence can such declarations of our designs produce, but that of informing our enemies what force they ought to provide against us? In war, my lords, that commander has generally been esteemed most prudent, who keeps his designs most secret, and assaults the enemy in an unguarded quarter, with superiour and unexpected strength.