nly enters the ship
because he is useless on land, and who can only incommode the sailors
till he has been instructed by them.

It appears, sir, to me, a considerable defect in our naval regulations,
that wages are not proportioned to ability; and I think it may not be
now unseasonably proposed, that sailors should be paid according to the
skill which they have acquired; a provision by which an emulation would
be raised among them, and that industry excited, which now languishes
for want of encouragement, and those capacities awakened which now
slumber in ignorance and sloth, from the despair of obtaining any
advantage by superiority of knowledge.

Sir Robert WALPOLE then rose, and spoke as follows:--That this charge,
sir, however positively urged, is generally unjust, the declarations of
these honourable gentlemen are sufficient to evince, since it is not
probable that the injured persons would not have found some friend to
have represented these hardships to the admiralty, and no such
representations could have been made without their knowledge.

Yet, sir, I am far from doubting that by accident, or, perhaps, by
malice, some men have been treated in this manner; for it is not in the
power of any administration to make all those honest or wise whom they
are obliged to employ; and when great affairs are depending, minute
circumstances cannot always be attended to. If the vigilance of those
who are intrusted with the chief direction of great numbers of
subordinate officers be such, that corrupt practices are not frequent,
and their justice such, that they are never unpunished when legally
detected, the most strict inquirer can expect no more. Power will
sometimes be abused, and punishment sometimes be escaped.

It is, sir, easy to be conceived that a report may become general,
though the practice be very rare. The fact is multiplied as often as it
is related, and every man who hears the same story twice, imagines that
it is told of different persons, and exclaims against the tyranny of the
officers of the navy.

But these, in my opinion, sir, are questions, if not remote from the
present affair, yet by no means essential to it. The question now before
us is, not what illegalities have been committed in the execution of
impresses, but how impresses themselves may become less necessary? how
the nation may be secured without injury to individuals? and how the
fleet may be manned with less detriment to commerce?

Sir,