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.  The captain of the convoy may be, therefore, harassed by them with prosecutions, in which it may be difficult to make his innocence appear.  The convoy may be sometimes accused of deserting the traders, when the traders in reality have forsaken the convoy, in confidence that they should either arrive safe at the port without protection, or be able, if they should happen to fall into the enemy’s hands, to charge their misfortune upon the negligence of their protector.

The eighth clause, my lords, is so far from being such as might be expected from merchants, that it seems rather to have been drawn up by men who never saw the sea, nor heard of the violence of a storm.  For who that had the slightest idea of the uncertainty and hazard of a sailor’s condition, who that had been ever told of a shipwreck, or but looked on the pictures of naval distress, would propose that no ship should retire to a harbour, or quit the station to which it was assigned, on any pretence whatsoever without permission, which sometimes could not be obtained in many months, and which never could be received soon enough to allow of a remedy for sudden disasters, or pressing calamities.  It might with equal reason be enacted, that no man should extinguish a fire without an act of the senate, or repel a thief from his window, without a commission of array.

It is happy, my lords, that this clause is not enforced by a penalty, and, therefore, can never have the obligatory sanction of a law; but since it may reasonably be supposed, that the authors of it intended that the observation should be by some means or other enjoined, let us examine how much security it would add to our navigation, and how much strength to our naval power, if the breach of it had been made capital, which is in itself by no means unreasonable; for what punishment less than death can secure the observation of a law, which, without the hazard of life, cannot be obeyed?

Let us, therefore, my lords, suppose a crew of gallant sailors surprised in their cruise by such a hurricane as is frequent in the American seas, which the highest perfection of skill, and the utmost exertion of industry has scarcely enabled them to escape; let us consider them now with their masts broken, their ship shattered, and their artillery thrown into the sea, unable any longer either to oppose an enemy, or to resist the waves, and yet forbidden to approach the land, and cut off from all possibility of relief, till they have represented their distress to some distant power, and received a gracious permission to save their lives.