means the poor are and shall be pinched for petty things, and rich men or favourites shall swallow their unjust gains without control. Not that I delight in propounding this way, for I know an oath to be a sacred thing, and tremble to think how desperately men undertake it; yea, if I could have devised any way that might have secured the State's damage in any measure, I should have declined this of all other; yet in regard it is already taken up and practical for some, and that there is no other way advisable (as I think) to prevent these intolerable abuses that attend false certificates and accounts, I thought fit to propound this way, provided it be as equally administered (if not rather) to the commissioners themselves, and other the chief though subordinate officers of the navy, as to poor or mean instruments that scarce understand what it is to swear in righteousness and judgment. And till this be settled, and so settled that all men may alike partake of its justice, certificates may and will work more and greater wonders than I have mentioned.

CHAPTER IX

OF A FREE MARKET

By a free market I understand a mutual liberty of the buyer and the seller-that is to say, when I am not tied to him to buy nor he tied to me to sell, but when, if I can supply myself better or cheaper elsewhere, to be free to find or choose my chapman, and when he can sell dearer or for quicker payment, to use his liberty in the choice of his customer.

That the State doth both buy and sell by the commissioners of the navy no small quantities of provisions of many kinds and sorts, amounting to great sums of money by the year, will not be denied by any; but if it be queried whether the State hath a free market, either in buying or selling, as every private man hath or may have, I must needs deny it. The The way of the navy in buying was in the late King's time to grant commissions by the lord admiral to several men of several callings to serve the State with those provisions that referred to their callings. Thus for all East country and Norway commodities, such as hemp, masts, tar, deals, &c., there was settled by commission one under this title of the King's merchant,1 and from him for many years together I have known the navy supplied with those provisions. So also other were called the King's flagmaker, sailmaker, ironmonger, blockmaker, slopseller, &c.

1 See p. 59, supra.

The ground of this practice was (as I think) more for honour than profit, being carried on in allusion to the practice of the then court, where the King had men of all trades to serve his occasions at court under appropriated titles, of the King's vintner, saddler, apothecary, &c., and it may be the same honour was affected for him in the navy; or rather I think it was brought up by the lord admiral's secretaries, the better to bring grist to their mill for the purchase of their respective warrants or commissions.

I shall not trouble myself nor my reader with fancies about its rise; that which is before me is to show my reader what the practice is at present, and the great inconvenience to the State's service to be debarred of a free market for any provision in the navy. The late Long Parliament blasted, together with the power of the lord admiral, such warrants and commissions as these were, and the commissioners of the navy then in being did not a little assist therein, as finding them very prejudicial to the service. Since that time the service hath not been so tied up to this or that man as formerly it was; yet I cannot truly say that the State hath at present a free market. For whereas heretofore the commissioners themselves were limited by the lord admiral's orders, now they themselves do limit all subordinate instruments, whom they have as much at their beck as ever they themselves were formerly at the beck or command of the lord admiral. It is true they do not give warrants at large, as the lord admiral did, without limitation of time, but their manner is to publish five or six days beforehand that they resolve to contract for one whole year the supply of the navy with such a provision, and that all those that desire to deal with the State for it may have access to the office to treat, and by their

papers compete with other men for the contract for that year; and he that proffers at the lowest rates shall have the contract for that year. This a

man would think is very fair, and nothing more fair than this way to accommodate emergent occasions ; especially if the commissioners themselves be fair and disengaged in the management of it, as they ought to be. But when they shall first design the men that shall serve the State, and then to colour their design with a specious pretence of a free market, by competition or papers with one or two more that will rather lose the service than anger a commissioner-nay that will come and bid an higher rate of purpose to gratify the commissioners and carry the deceit cleanly for his friend-I say when things are thus, whatsoever is pretended, this is no free market.

Of all men a commissioner should be free from engagements, either to men or the provision itself; if either of these appear in the transaction, let the pretence be what it will, and the carriage of the business never so smooth and seemingly fair, I shall never believe but there must be design of profit or friendship as the ultimate end of that action. And admit this way hath much of a free market in it, yet nor is (nor never was) it held forth by the commissioners as universal to all men of all callings and for all sorts of provisions, which renders their practice of it the more suspicious, because the same justice which is due to one is or ought to be free to all. But instead thereof the manner is to observe and find out where any man hath a contract by which there may be a supposed profit at the rate given, and (under pretence of thrift or frugality for the State) to set up one or two more to compete

1 MSS. 'competite.'

with that man for that contract at the end of the year, not so much to do the State a service as to give that man a gentle wipe or back-blow upon another account, especially if he be one that doth not please or serve some men's interests. Yea, it may be the same zealot for the State may have a friend, a brother, or a son, that knows (or may soon be taught) how to supply the State with that commodity, and if so, I will not give the other sixpence for his contract, so impatient will they be till the year comes about, that the commodity contracted for by another shall yet be supplied during the term of that contract by the premised friend, and when the year expires, my son, &c., must have it, and that not only for a year but for ever. For after that he is once settled the bird is caught, and there is no more good husbandry pretended for the State. The man that serves is a most able, and honest, godly man, can hardly live upon the price given, supplies better than ever his predecessor did, trusts the State with great sums of money which another man cannot or will not do, makes it his care to have the provision always in a readiness for emergent services, &c. Such glosses as these shall fend off all future competition by any man, or if any man be so bold it shall be told him, you will anger the commissioner to make such a tender, and those whom he pleasures, another time, another way, will not refuse to pleasure him for such a courtesy as this to one so nearly related, &c.

By this trick of boxing, or competition by papers, the State's service is indeed so far from a free market that it is bought and sold to whom and how the commissioners please. I have heard that

''Boxing' is a term applied to the lodgment of pleadings or other documents in a court of law, and might be used also for the depositing of tenders.