These requisites being laid before the house of commons, they went into
a committee on the twenty-third day of their sitting, heard one of the
petitioners, several witnesses, and desired to sit again.
In the mean time were presented to the house seventeen other letters
concerning sea affairs, and an account when the East India company first
applied, since the war began, for a convoy to St. Helena, and when they
sailed, and what number of ships came under the said convoy, and on the
twenty-fifth day of sitting the committee heard more witnesses.
Next day they proceeded, when an account was brought in of the Spanish
prisoners released, by what orders, and on what conditions; also an
account of the number of seamen employed the last year, distinguishing
how many at home, and how many abroad, also of the number of ships and
vessels of war, distinguishing the rates.
The secretary of the admiralty also presented a list of the names of the
merchant ships, and the masters, as have behaved so negligently as to
delay the convoys from whom they had taken sailing orders, or that have
abandoned the same, or that have been any ways disobedient to the
instructions established for good government, with the narration of the
facts since the beginning of the war.
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