Admiral NORRIS rose and said:—­Sir, if any such practices had been frequent, to what can it be imputed, that those who employ their lives in maritime business should be strangers to them?  Why have no complaints been made by those that have been injured?  Or why should officers expose themselves to the hazard of censure without advantage?  I cannot discover why these hardships should be inflicted, nor how they could have been concealed, and, therefore, think the officers of the navy may be cleared from the imputation, without farther inquiry.

Sir John BARNARD spoke again, to the following purpose:—­Sir, it is in vain that objections are made, if the facts upon which they are founded may be denied at pleasure:  nothing is more easy than to deny, because proofs are not required of a negative.  But as negatives require no proof, so they have no authority, nor can any consequence be deduced from them.  I might, therefore, suffer the facts to remain in their present state, asserted on one side by those that have reasons to believe them, and doubted on the other without reasons; for surely he cannot be said to reason, who questions an assertion only because he does not know it to be true.

But as every question, by which the liberty of a Briton may be affected, is of importance sufficient to require that no evidence should be suppressed by which it may be cleared, I cannot but think it proper that a committee should be formed to examine the conduct of the officers in this particular; and in confidence of the veracity of those from whom I received my information, I here promise to produce such evidence as shall put an end to controversy and doubt.

If this is not granted, sir, the fact must stand recorded and allowed; for to doubt, and refuse evidence, is a degree of prejudice and obstinacy without example.  Nor is this the only objection to the clause before us, which appears very imperfect, with regard to the qualifications specified as a title to the reward.  The reward ought not to be confined to those who shall hereafter be invited by the promise of it to engage in the service, while those who entered into it without any such prospect, are condemned to dangers and fatigues without a recompense.  Where merit is equal, the reward ought to be equal; and, surely, where there is greater merit, the reward proposed by the senate, as an encouragement to bravery, ought not to be less.  To be excluded from the advantages which others have obtained, only by avoiding the service, cannot but depress the spirit of those whose zeal and courage incited them, at the beginning of the war, to enter into the fleet; and to deject those from whom we expect defence and honour, is neither prudent nor just.

Nor is it, in my opinion, proper to offer the same reward indiscriminately to all that shall accept it; rewards ought to be proportioned to desert, and no man can justly be paid for what he cannot perform; there ought, therefore, to be some distinction made between a seaman by profession, one that has learned his art at the expense of long experience, labour, and hazard, and a man who only enters the ship because he is useless on land, and who can only incommode the sailors till he has been instructed by them.