Did not the title of this bill, my lords, give it some claim to a serious consideration; and did not the integrity and capacity of those by whom it was drawn up, exempt them from contempt and ridicule, I should be inclined to treat a law like this with some degree of levity; for who, my lords, can be serious when his consent is desired to a bill, by which it is enacted, that men shall act on certain occasions, as they shall think most expedient?

Nor is this, my lords, the only instance of precipitancy and want of consideration, for many of the injunctions are without any penal sanction; so that though we should pass this bill with the greatest unanimity, we should only declare our opinion, or offer our advice, but should make no law, or what, with regard to the purposes of government, is the same, a law which may be broken without danger.

But general objections, my lords, will naturally produce general evasions; and a debate may be prolonged without producing any clear view of the subject, or any satisfactory decision of a single question:  I shall, therefore, endeavour to range my objections in order, and, by examining singly every paragraph of the bill, show the weakness of some expedients, the superfluity of others, and the general unfitness of the whole to produce the protection and security intended by it.

In the first clause alone may be found instances of all the improprieties which I have mentioned to your lordships.  It is proposed that in a time of war between this empire and any other state, such a number of ships shall be employed as cruisers or convoys in the Channel, as the admiralty shall judge most proper for that purpose.  What is this, my lords, but to continue to the admiralty the power which has been always executed?  What is it but to enact that the ships shall be stationed in time of war as the commissioners of the admiralty shall determine and direct?

Of these ships, it is farther enacted, that they shall be careened three times a-year, or oftener if there shall be occasion; but it is not declared who shall judge of the necessity of careening, or who shall be punished for the neglect of it when it is requisite, or for the permission or command of it when it is superfluous.

There is yet another regulation, my lords, in this clause, which ought not to be passed without remark.  It is provided, that the sailors employed in the cruisers and convoys in the Channel, shall not be turned over but to other cruisers and convoys; by which, I suppose, it was intended, that our outguards should be prevented from being weakened, and that our merchants should never be destitute of protection; an end truly laudable, and which deserves to be promoted by some establishment better concerted.  The expedient now proposed, seems to have been contrived upon the supposition that the admiralty may not always be very solicitous for the safety of the merchants, and that, therefore, it is necessary to secure them by a law from the danger of being deprived of protection; for, upon the present establishment, the removal of men from one ship to another must be made by the permission of the admiralty; and when the right of such permission shall by this law be taken away, what new security will the merchants obtain?  The admiralty will still have the power, though not of turning over the men, yet of recalling the ships, and commerce suffer equally in either case.