company for many months together, and the owners paid accordingly. Tenthly, to take the advantage of victualling their own ships when the market is low, or that they may have it from the State's stores by compliance with the contractors for victuals, either as their own victuals, or as so much money imprested by the State to them to victual, when other owners shall neither get liberty to victual, or if they do, yet no money for victuals to carry on the service according to contract. Eleventhly, to continue their ships in the service, one, two, three, yea sometimes four years together without intermission, or at the most but for ten or fourteen days in every eight months, to wash, tallow, rig, and victual, when all men know the profit of a voyage lies in the length of time, and at the same time other men's ships be forced out of the service at every six or eight months' end, according to contract. Twelfthly, to put the State to pay victuals and wages to whole ships' companies for want of treasure to comply with the owners according to contract, though the ships be commanded into port, and lie at anchor at Blackwall, &c., and the owners be bound by contract to pay off their men within three days after their arrival there.

But, secondly, if they either do or suffer to be done such things as these, as is too much to be suspected and not difficult to be proved they have both done and suffered, to the State's insufferable damage, I know no reason why they should enjoy that liberty or privilege. All men are so great lovers and seekers of themselves and their own interests, that it is a difficult thing for men in trust and power to carry themselves without partiality and selfish ways. Upon which account, I should rather incline (as to my private opinion) to infringe them in the use of that which otherwise I

am not against, as lawful in itself, rather than suffer the high inconveniences that attend liberty to men in trust to be at the same time parties and judges ; especially in the freighting of ships, which is a vast, expensive, and eating charge to the State; witness the huge sums of money paid and due to men then in and out of trust for the hire of ships in the late wars. But this is only private opinion, wherein also I desire not to be positive. Other men may see farther into the point than as yet I discern, to whose judgments I freely submit.

CHAPTER VIII

OF CERTIFICATES AND OATHS

I HAVE often thought and sometimes said that certificates are the grand cheat of the navy. The ground of their use is to lead and enlighten the commissioners of the navy to the truth of what is desired or certified, either as to persons or things, and to enable them to make a right judgment of both in dispensing rewards, promoting to subordinate offices, rating provisions, and in general, signing to all bills, books, tickets, contracts, accounts, and other things whatsoever, referring to any person, provision, service, or employment in the navy. These certificates are in all clerks of the store, check, pursers, &c., the immediate trust of their places, and that without which the service of the State cannot be managed; but in other men not so, but as called upon by the commissioners of the navy upon the occasion of some particular or special service; and are sometimes made by such as are immediate servants of the State, such as captains, masters, &c., at sea, or else master shipwrights and their assistants, master attendants, clerks of the survey, ropeyards, victualling office, &c., on shore; they are also sometimes made by those that have no dependence upon the service at all, such as the masters of the Trinity House, master builders of the Thames, &c.

I shall not run division upon these things, nor yet

handle them in any distinct manner. You see their rise and use, and I am not against their continuation in the present way and use of them, as well knowing that there cannot be too much caution used to find out and prevent the abuse of the State by those that are in trust, and whose hands do pass away the State's treasure. Yet give me leave to ask, are not these very things, which in prudence were first made use of for the fuller satisfaction of a commissioner, ofttimes used in design by commissioners the better to colour their giving away the State's treasure, either to wrong parties, or for bad and unserviceable provisions, especially where the commissioner is himself a contractor? Shall I think, because all commissioners are ignorant of some things, and therefore deal prudently in fortifying their own judgments with the opinions of skilful men in particular cases, that therefore in no case a commissioner should act in his trust without a certificate, or so pin up his judgment to the certificate of a fool, or a knave, or both, that he will not act against what is certified, though he be convinced that the certificate is both simple and false? Surely for any man thus to act renders him under an high suspicion of compliance, and that he only makes use of the certificates as stales or panders to his design, that if at any time the thing should be questioned, the certificate may be produced for its justification and vindication, whenas yet the intention thereof was only to colour the unworthiness of parties concerned.

Thus for the purpose in the case of victuals. Suppose beef, pork, beer, &c., shall be returned from sea as unserviceable for the State, being either stinking, short-cut, &c., and that the commissioners will not receive it, though certified by the captain, master, boatswain, quartermaster, &c., of the ship's company, and this certificate produced by the purser,

but a new survey by new men must be taken of it, and a favourable certificate made thereof in order to its future expense, if not in that, yet in some other ships after a new pickling, &c.-is not this last certificate a good warranty to the commissioners for compliance with the contractor to necessitate the eating of that by men which a dog would loathe, rather than the contractor should suffer by the loss of his provision, or be questioned for his neglect, &c.? Did not all or most of the beef and pork stink in the Resolution in her voyage to Lisbon in the year 1650 or thereabouts, insomuch that the then general, Colonel Popham, resolved to send home the ship, and threatened to hang the contractor, till such time as he was otherwise pacified by the influence of some, and the victuals certified for good and serviceable provision after it was distributed by order of the general to the whole fleet the better to despatch it out of the way, and the men forced to eat that or none, and that in the first place, though they had better aboard?1 I have seen such wonders (I had

1 When Col. Edw. Popham was ordered, early in 1650, to join Blake at Lisbon with a reinforcement, there was great delay in completing the victualling of the Resolution, Andrew, Phoenix, and Satisfaction. Wm. Holt and Hugh Salesbury, the victuallers at Plymouth, who were already busy shipping victuals for Blake's fleet, reported on May 5 that they had done their utmost, but if their lives lay at stake they could not provide for Popham also upon so short a warning, in this unseasonable time of the year, when serviceable flesh is not to be had upon any terms' (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1650, p. 142). It was accordingly decided, with the sanction of the admiralty committee, to take two months' beef, pork, and peas out of the Paragon and Rainbow to make up two months' victuals for the Resolution (ibid. pp. 151, 157). This made it possible for her to sail almost immediately, and by May 14 she had sailed (ibid. p. 161). But on June 12 Popham wrote from on board her from Carrick's Deep, Lisbon, to Sir Henry Vane, 'Our provisions fall out to be extremely bad; of eight months' beef and pork in this ship there was not a fortnight's meat fit to eat; the Andrew is the same, and that part of the victuals that was

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