e so positive as not to receive information, nor so rigorous
as not to listen to entreaties.

If the merchants have nothing to offer, nothing but complaints, and can
propose no better measures than those which they lament, if their
arguments should be found to regard only their present interest, and to
be formed upon narrow views and private purposes, it will be easy to
detect the imposture, and reject it with the indignation it shall
deserve; nor will our proceedings be then censured by the nation, which
requires not that the merchants should be implicitly believed, though it
expects that they should be heard. Let us at least have a _convention_,
though we should not be able to conclude a treaty.

I know not, sir, why we have not taken care to obviate all these
difficulties, and to remove the necessity of petitions, debates,
searches, and impresses, by the plain and easy method of a voluntary
register; by retaining such a number of seamen as may probably be
requisite upon sudden emergencies. Would not the nation with more
cheerfulness contribute half-pay to those who are daily labouring for
the publick good, than to the caterpillars of the land service, that
grow old in laziness, and are disabled only by vice?

Let ten thousand men receive daily a small salary, upon condition that
they shall be ready, whenever called upon, to engage in the service of
the crown, and the difficulty of our naval preparations will be at an
end.

That it is necessary to exert ourselves on this occasion, and to strike
out some measures for securing the dominion of the ocean, cannot be
denied by any one who considers that we have now no other pretensions to
maintain; that all our influence on the continent, at whatever expense
gained and supported, is now in a manner lost, and only the reputation
of our naval strength remains to preserve us from being trampled on and
insulted by every power, and from finding Spaniards in every climate.

Sir William YONGE spoke, in substance, as follows:--Sir, the violence
and severity of impresses, so often and so pathetically complained of,
appears to be now nothing more than a punishment inflicted upon those
who neglect or refuse to receive the encouragement offered, with the
utmost liberality, by the government, and decline the service of their
country from a spirit of avarice, obstinacy, or resentment.

That such men deserve some severities, cannot be doubted, and therefore
a law by which no penalty