e, which no
endeavours of mine shall be deficient in attempting to remove; for by
this the sailor is condemned, notwithstanding his industry and success,
to perpetual poverty, and to labour only for the benefit of his
plunderer.

[The clauses were then read, "empowering the justices of the peace, etc.
to issue warrants to the constables, etc. to make general privy
searches, by day or night, for finding out and securing such seamen and
seafaring men as lie hid or conceal themselves; and making it lawful for
the officers appointed to make such searches, to force open the doors of
any house, where they shall _suspect_ such seamen to be concealed, if
entrance be not readily admitted; and for punishing those who shall
harbour or conceal any seaman."]

Sir John BARNARD upon this rose up, and spoke to the following
effect:--Mr. Chairman, we have been hitherto deliberating upon
questions, in which diversity of opinions might naturally be expected,
and in which every man might indulge his own opinion, whatever it might
be, without any dangerous consequences to the publick. But the clauses
now before us are of a different kind; clauses which cannot be read
without astonishment and indignation, nor defended without betraying the
liberty of the best, the bravest, and most useful of our
fellow-subjects.

If these clauses, sir, should pass into a law, a sailor and a slave will
become terms of the same signification. Every man who has devoted
himself to the most useful profession, and most dangerous service of his
country, will see himself deprived of every advantage which he has
laboured to obtain, and made the mere passive property of those who live
in security by his valour, and owe to his labour that affluence which
hardens them to insensibility, and that pride that swells them to
ingratitude.

Why must the sailors alone, sir, be marked out from all the other orders
of men for ignominy and misery? Why must they be ranked with the enemies
of society, stopped like vagabonds, and pursued like the thief and the
murderer by publick officers? How or when have they forfeited the common
privilege of human nature, or the general protection of the laws of
their country? If it is a just maxim, sir, that he who contributes most
to the welfare of the publick, deserves most to be protected in the
enjoyment of his private right or fortune; a principle which surely will
not be controverted; where is the man that dares stand forth and assert,