HISTORY OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE.

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become mistress for a time of the British Channel, no other advantage was gainedbn one part, or injury effected against the other, than the plunder and igno-ble

As to the insufficiency of convoys.

The lord-high-admiral does not observe any instances given, where the trades that usually proceedwith convoys have ever wanted a reasonable and sufficient strength for their security ; and even in thelast year, the stated convoys have been much stronger than formerly. The misfortunes of severalconvoys being attacked by a superior force were in no way to have been prevented, but by wholesquadrons, and it is to be observed, that all the instances mentioned in their lordships report hap-pened in the later years of the present war. In the two first years of her majesty’s reign there werenot many ships employed in or towards the Mediterranean, and even those were not long absent fromour own coasts; so that there were undoubtedly many more ships, and those very proper too to beemployed in the defence of the trade of the nation, with respect not only to convoys, butto cruizers: whereas, in the later years of her majesty’s reign, the public service hath required theemployment of great part of our fleet abroad in the Mediterranean ; and although several ships havereturned from thence to England in the latter end of those years, yet they have not been fit for anyservice until the time appointed wherein it was necessary they should be sent abroad again ; for theywere such as were the least able to continue out, and, consequently, wanted the greatest repairs.

2. As to the merchants waiting long for convoys after the time promised, and fixed for theirsailing.

The many constant, as well as accidental, services which have absolutely required the use of thequeen’s ships, have often left but very little choice of ships for foreign convoys : but when applica-tions have been made by the merchants, the proper convoys have been always appointed and orderedto be got in readiness by the time desired, and not afterward diverted to other uses : yet it hath some-times happened, upon their coming into the dock, that.they have been found, by a long and constantuse, in a much worse condition than was hoped and expected. The necessity of fitting ships at dif-ferent ports for the same convoy, and contrary winds, have often prevented them joining at the ren-dezvous : sometimes the men, and the necessity of removing them from ship to ship, and theconstant care to p3y the men so removed before (hey sailed, may have occasioned the delays com-plained of: yet upon a strict enquiry it will appear, that these delays ate as often to be imputed tothe traders, who are seldom ready to sail at the same time; and that the queen’s ships have as oftenbeen delayed for the merchants as they for their convoys.

3. As to the want of sufficient cruizers in the Soundings and Channel.

There hath every year been a provision made for cruizers in the Soundings, Channel, and NorthSeas; and never less than twelve for the North Seas, and fifteen for the Soundings, which were asmany as other necessary and pressing services would possibly admit of; but they have been very fre-■quently diverted from the service of cruizing upon the applications of merchants themselves, eitherfor the convoying up the Channel their homeward-bound ships, or fetching them from Ireland orother parts; and in convoying the trades to Archangel, the Baltic, Holland, &c. there has been■a necessity to comply with this, because those services could not possibly be otherwise accommodated,unless some of the few ships had been taken off, which were on various stations placed on the coast tosecure the trade from one port to another,

Vot. III.

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