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HISTORY’ OF MARINE ARCHITECTURE

were owing, was to be confined to one point only, that of sending insufficientconvoys with those fleets on whose safety the welfare, and commercial prosperityof Britain were considered very materially to depend.

As

The sixth observation is, that in the last war the trade of the nation had the misfortune to lose near■1000 ships.

This appeared so strange to their lordships, that they sent to the Admiralty-office to be informedif there was any list of those ships, or what ground there was for making that assertion.

The answer sent in return to this message was a printed paper, without any name of the author orprinter, in which are these words: “ It is generally allowed, that the number of ships and vesselsmiscarried does not fall short of -1000.”

Upon consideration of the paper, it appeared to be a libel, written as a pretended answer to anaccount published by authority in the year 1695 , of what men of war and privateers had been takenfrom the French from the beginning of that war; and it contains in it, not only scandalous reflec-tions upon the parliaments of that reign, hut notoriously false representations of matters of fact, whichmight easily have been known to be so at the Admiralty-office ; and therefore it seems very strangethat such a libel should be offered as a proof to the lords, in an answer which is supposed to comefrom that office.

May it please your majesty,

We having thus performed what we take ourselves indispensably obliged to, cannot doubt but itwill be graciously accepted by your majesty, as coming from most dutiful subjects, who sin*cerely wish they may never have occasion hereafter of making addresses to your majesty, but tocongratulate your successes, or to return our humble acknowledgements for the blessings of yourreign.

We beseech your majesty to believe, that none of your subjects do exceed us in true respect to hisroyal highness the lord-high-admiral; his great personal virtues require it; and his near relation toyour majesty makes it our duty ; and as we do not mean that any thing in this addiess should in theleast reflect upon him, so we are very well assured his royal highness will never suffer oilier personsto protect themselves under his name from a just pursuit of such faults and negligence as immediatelytend to the ruin of trade, and the destruction of Britain.

There cannot be a plainer proof that some persons employed by the lord-high-admiral have madethe worst use imaginable of the trust he honours them with, than in presuming to lay such an answerbefore the house of lords in his name. '

For (not to take notice of the many things which, in the second report, have been already laid be-fore your majesty), throughout the whole paper there are not the least hopes given, that, for the future,any better care shall be taken of the trade ; on the contrary, the whole turn of the answer seems to beintended for exposing the complaint of the merchants, rather than pitying their losses. We are surenothing can be more remote from the goodness and compassion of the lord-high-admiral’s temper, andthe tender regard he has always shewn for your majesty’s subjects.

May