Mr. SANDYS rose, and spoke as follows:—­Sir, the efficacy of rewards, and the necessity of an impartial distribution, are no unfruitful subjects for rhetorick; but it may, perhaps, be more useful at present to consider, with such a degree of attention as the question must be acknowledged to deserve, to whom these rewards are to be paid, and from what fund they are expected to arise.

With regard to those who are to claim the reward, sir, they seem very negligently specified; for they are distinguished only by the character of having served five years; a distinction unintelligible, without explanation.

It is, I suppose, sir, the intent of the bill, that no man shall miss the reward but by his own fault; and, therefore, it may be inquired, what is to be the fate of him who shall be disabled in his first adventure, whom in the first year, or month, of his service, an unlucky shot shall confine for the remaining part of his life to inactivity:  as the bill is now formed, he must be miserable without a recompense; and his wounds, which make him unable to support himself, will, though received in defence of his country, entitle him to no support from the publick.

Nor is this the only difficulty that may arise from the specifying of so long a service; for how can any man that shall enter on board the fleet be informed that the war will continue for five years?  May we not all justly hope, that alacrity, unanimity, and prudence, may, in a much shorter time, reduce our enemies to beg for peace?  And shall our sailors lose the reward of their hazards and their labours, only because they have been successful?  What will this be less than making their bravery a crime or folly, and punishing them for not protracting the war by cowardice or treachery?

But let us suppose, sir, those defects supplied by a more explicit and determinate specification; there will yet arise an objection far more formidable; an objection, which the present state of our revenues will not suffer to be answered.  The consideration of the greatness of the annual payment which this proposal requires, ought to incite every man to employ all his sagacity in search of some other method, equally efficacious, and less expensive.

We have already, sir, forty thousand seamen in our pay, to whom eight thousand more are speedily to be added:  when each of these shall demand his stipend, a new burden of two hundred and eighty-eight thousand pounds must be laid upon the nation; upon a nation, whose lands are mortgaged, whose revenues are anticipated, and whose taxes cannot be borne without murmurs, nor increased without sedition.

The nation has found, by experience, that taxes once imposed for just reasons, and continued upon plausible pretences, till they are become familiar, are afterwards continued upon motives less laudable, are too productive of influence, and too instrumental towards facilitating the measures of the ministry, to be ever willingly remitted.