WE know your Honours are not insensible of the great Advantage of the Fleet to the security of the Realm, Nature having placed your Island in such a part of the watry Globe, that the Land-men cannot be secure without the assistance of the Sailors; nor can the Nation subsist under its own Laws and Fundamental Rights, without a good understanding betwixt both. The Sea not only affords you floating Castles, which are the Walls and Bullworks of your Nation, but it supplies you with the greatest part of the Money raised for the De­fence of the Kingdom, for which Reason, the Abuses of the Sailors seem yet the more hard in point of Pay; for thus they seem to have a Natural as well as Rightful Claim to their Wages. Had the Money raised upon Land, been the only Sum appropriated for the payment of the Army, and the Tonnage and Poundage upon Shiping, with all Duties laid on Merchandize, outward and inward, appropriated for the Navy, the Sailors would have had a very generous Allowance.

We do not complain of the Allowance made us by this Honourable House, it is in­deed generous enough; we are content with our Wages, had we any way to come at our own; and we are perswaded that your Honours, when you gave us such Allowances for Provision and Pay, did intend it should be equally distributed accord­ing to the true Intent and Meaning of your Acts. We cannot find in any of your Acts the Commissioners of the Admiraltry or Navy empowered to stop our Wages, under pretence of Q's and R's. We yet believe our selves to be English Men, entituled to our Franchises and free Birthrights, and must judge our selves to be so, until such time as we are Bastardised by Act of Parliament.

The Soldiers have Judicatures appointed them, whether they may appeal, when abused in point of Pay; But the Sailors, who are bold to assert, that they have done the Na­tion as much Service, and earned their Money as hard as any, can appeal no where but to such Persons as have done them the highest Injustice, and are solely left to the Judg­ment of their Enemies.

We are here unwilling to recriminate and urge the Hardships we have met with at Sea, by being put to short Allowance in the Channel, a thing unknown to former Ages; we are willing to forget our bad Provisions, the Pease, Bread, and stinking Beef and Pork we have eaten, when this Honourable House allow'd us all Species good in their kind. But the want of our Pay, after these Hardships, is a Greivance intollerable, when after so tedious an absence from our Wives and Families, we must have the unhappy entertainment to see them Starve at Home, and be curst by the Parishes to which they are now burdensome.

We hope this Honourable House is throughly sensible of our Hardship, in having our Wages detain'd from us, under the pretence of Q's and R's, and the deplorable Con­dition of our necessitous Families, occasioned by this Greivance, is worth the Considera­tion of this Honourable House, as also of their Compassion. A Sailor is able by his Employment to keep his Family from the Parish, when his Wages are duly paid him; but when detained from him after this manner, not only he, but those that have trusted him with their Stocks, in expectation of just Payment, must be burden­some to their Neighbour.

We would therefore humbly urge our deplorable Circumstances as highly worthy the Consideration of this Honourable House: We hope our good Service may plead for us, and that the loss of our Blood and Limbs in the Service of our Country, shall be no occasion of the loss of our Pay. The Story of la Hogue will be a standing Monument of our Bravery to future Ages, and we had no share in the Affair of Monsieur Pointy, or that of Tholoun, yet kept out of our Pay, when such Commanders as run away with their Ships had no R put upon their Names in the Navy-Books. We envy them not the Bounty allow'd them; we are contented with our Wages when we can get it. All we desire is the Payment of what we ventured our Lives to get; and we in all Humility hope we shall not incure the Displeasure of this Honourable House, when we complain of our loss of Pay, and of our being whipt and pickled into the Bargain.

All which is humbly submitted to the Wisdom of this Honourable House.