If short voyages are not comprehended in this provision, what are we now controverting?  What but the expedience of a law that will never be executed?  The sailors, however they are contemned by those who think them only worthy to be treated like beasts of burden, are not yet so stupid but that they can easily find out, that to serve a fortnight for greater wages is more eligible than to toil a month for less; and as the numerous equipments that have been lately made have not left many more sailors in the service of the merchants than may be employed in the coasting trade, those who traffick to remoter parts, must shut up their books and wait till the expiration of this act, for an opportunity of renewing their commerce.

To regulate the wages for one voyage, and to leave another without limitation, in time of scarcity of seamen, is absolutely to prohibit that trade which is so restrained, and is, doubtless, a more effectual embargo than has been yet invented.

Let any man but suppose that the East India company were obliged to give only half the wages that other traders allow, and consider how that part of our commerce could be carried on; would not their goods rot in their warehouses, and their ships lie for ever in the harbour?  Would not the sailors refuse to contract with them? or desert them after a contract, upon the first prospect of more advantageous employment?

But it is not requisite to multiply arguments in a question which may not only be decided without long examination, but in which we may determine our conclusions by the experience of our ancestors.  Scarcely any right or wrong measures are without a precedent, and, amongst others, this expedient has been tried by the wisdom of former times; a law was once made for limiting the wages of tailors, and that it is totally ineffectual we are all convinced.  Experience is a very safe guide in political inquiries, and often discovers what the most enlightened reason failed to foresee.

Let us, therefore, improve the errours of our ancestors to our own advantage, and whilst we neglect to imitate their virtues, let us, at least, forbear to repeat their follies.

Mr. PERRY spoke to this purpose:—­Sir, there is one objection more which my acquaintance with foreign trade impresses too strongly upon my mind to suffer me to conceal it.

It is well known that the condition of a seaman subjects him to the necessity of spending a great part of his life at a distance from his native country, in places where he can neither hear of our designs, nor be instructed in our laws, and, therefore, it is evident that no law ought to affect him before a certain period of time, in which he may reasonably be supposed to have been informed of it.  For every man ought to have it in his power to avoid punishment, and to suffer only for negligence or obstinacy.

It is quite unnecessary, sir, to observe to this assembly, that there are now, as at all times, great numbers of sailors in every part of the world, and that they, at least, equally deserve our regard with those who are under the more immediate influence of the government.