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.
In the seventh clause, many regulations are prescribed to the commanders
of those ships which are appointed to convoy the trading vessels. These
regulations, my lords, are not all equally unreasonable, but some of
them are such as it may, on many occasions, be impossible for the
commanders of his majesty's ships to observe in such a manner as that
the masters of merchant ships may not imagine themselves neglected or
forsaken.
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