the captains, the answers of the officials accused, and the order eventually taken by the King in council, are printed in the Appendix to this volume.' These papers confirm in some points the statements made by Hollond in the Discourses, but they have also a special biographical interest, for Hollond himself, as paymaster, was one of the incriminated officials. It was pointed out by Northumberland in his ninth article2 that the paymaster was in the habit of refusing to pay men turned over from other ships unless they brought with them tickets from the ships where they had first served, and evidence was adduced to show that this had lately grown a grievance' among the seamen.

The replies submitted by the treasurer of the navy and his paymaster on this point are a sufficient defence, and throw the responsibility for miscarriages upon the ignorance or carelessness of the pursers; but in meeting the other accusations they were not so successful. The tenth article 4 accused Hollond of refusing to pay tickets except 'to the parties themselves unto whom the money is due,' and to the charge itself he was able to give a satisfactory answer, but two of the witnesses asserted that the paymaster had in some cases paid absent parties, apparently for a 'gratification,' and no denial of this appears in the case for the defence. The thirteenth article 7 also contained an accusation

1 P. 361, infra.

2 P. 385. On the ticket system, see note 1 on p. 129.
3 Pp. 392 and 397.

4 P. 386.

5

Pp. 393 and 397.

7 P. 387.

6 Pp. 386-7.

of a more serious kind, and to this the plea was practically one of guilty. It was the practice for the paymaster to stop out of the seamen's wages any moneys that they might owe for clothes, drink, or advances, for the benefit of their creditors, and to charge for this service a commission of 2s. in the pound for the benefit of himself. Robert Halsted, the contractor for clothes, asserted that he had paid to Hollond 2007. 'for stopping of money due unto him from the common men for clothes, sold to them in the time of the last employment,' 1 and he even went so far as to attribute to these commissions the exorbitant prices of the clothes he sold. It was said also that an officer in the Assurance upon occasion lending 40l. among the ship's company, was forced to pay 2s. in the pound for his own money before he could get it charged against the wages of the men. The only defence offered by the treasurer and his paymaster was that the poundage had been collected by Hollond's predecessors in office 'by the space of thirty years past without complaint.'4 Such a defence, though it might do for the officials, was not accepted by the ultimate authorities. The matter eventually came before the King in council, and on March 16, 1637, measures were taken for the remedy of the abuses complained of. Amongst other things it was ordered that the paymaster shall not presume any more to abate or take to himself 25. of the pound, or any other sum of any seaman's or

1 P. 388.

3 Ibid.

2 Ibid.

4 Pp. 394 and 398.

mariner's wages, for collecting any sum for their creditors, or upon any pretence whatsoever.' 1

Though on this point the action of the council was sufficiently decided, Northumberland appears to have been greatly dissatisfied with the result of his indictment against the administration of the navy. 'This proceeding,' he wrote to Strafford, 'hath brought me to a resolution not to trouble myself any more with endeavouring a reformation unless I be commanded to it.'2

So far it is clear that Hollond's iniquities were of the minor order only. His official superior, Sir William Russell, had been fully informed of all the acts for which he was called in question; he had joined heartily in the defence of his paymaster; and in some matters he had acknowledged that Hollond was acting under direct instructions from himself. Moreover, the precedents of the office had served to salve the official conscience. But while we can acquit Hollond of any deliberate intention to defraud, the high moral tone of the First Discourse, written in 1638, seems a little incongruous when we know that its author had been found guilty of unjustifiable exactions in 1637.

From the date of the First Discourse to the Civil War we hear nothing of Hollond, and the only allusion to him in the State Papers-unless indeed it is a case of mistaken identity-is not entirely to his credit as the moralist of the navy. Russell's treasurership continued down to the outbreak of the war, and although from 1639 to 1641 he was dividing the office and its emoluments with 1 P. 404, infra. 2 Dictionary of National Biography.

the younger Vane,1 there is no reason to suppose that he changed his paymaster. It is clear from the First Discourse 2 that at the time when it was written its author was holding an official post in the navy; and it is clear from the Second Discourse 3 that both before his last period of service as a commissioner and after his final withdrawal from the navy, Hollond was associated with a partner in the timber trade. But the State Papers show that in September 1639 Sir William Russell took up for the use of the navy about 270 loads of timber and plank in Essex of the goods of Thomas Brown and John Hollond.' Thus, if it is not unreasonable to assume that there were not two men of the same name both trading in timber, and that Hollond, who was Russell's paymaster in September 1638, was occupying the same office in September 1639, the high tone taken in the Second Discourse concerning trading by commissioners of the navy is somewhat inconsistent with the former position of the author as a trading paymaster.

5

On the outbreak of the Civil War the control of the navy passed in the first instance to parliamentary committees. Subordinate to these was a financial board-the commissioners of the navy and customs' --and a body called the 'commissioners of the navy,' which discharged the functions of the principal officers other than the treasurer. The post of lord high admiral was at first occupied by the Earl of Warwick. The commissioners of the navy, ap

1 Signet Office Docquet Book, and E. H. R. ix. 475. 2 P. 66, infra.

4 Cal. S. P. Dom. 1639, p. 525. 5 Pp. 309-23, infra.

3

Pp. 209, 217, 220, 312.

6 E. H. R. ix. 480.

a

pointed by an ordinance of September 15, 1642, at a salary of 200l. a year each,' were Richard Crandley, John Morris, and Roger Tweedy, and to these John Hollond was soon after added. He continued to act in this capacity until 1645 or 1646,3 when he resigned, perhaps in consequence of differences with his colleagues, and reverted once more to the timber trade. But his retirement was not destined to be of long duration, for early in 1649 he was appointed to two posts of considerable importance. By an act of January 16, 1648–9,5 a new commission or 'committee of merchants' was appointed to regulate the navy and customs, consisting of nineteen persons, of whom John Hollond was one; and soon after, by the good offices of this commission, he was

6

1 Commons' Journals, iv. 390.

2 A letter of December 10, 1644 (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1644-5, p. 223), written by the parliamentary committee of the navy to the navy commissioners, shows that Hollond was then acting with Crandley, Morris, and Tweedy as a commissioner of the navy; a reference in the Second Discourse (p. 139 infra) carries his appointment back to 1643; and although no mention is made of his name in any of the official documents, it is quite possible that he became a commissioner as early as 1642. As Russell ceased to be treasurer in that year, and was succeeded by Vane, Hollond's appointment as paymaster naturally lapsed, and although most of the navy officials remained faithful to the Parliament, and not many vacancies occurred, an officer of experience and energy was too valuable to be passed over. The fact that the appointment is not noticed in the Signet Office Docquet Books is explained by its not being a royal appointment; its absence from the Declared Accounts of the Audit and Pipe Offices only shows that it was an extra commissionership, and not one charged upon the navy accounts.

'Hollond's total period of service as a commissioner was seven years (p. 312, infra). His second term was nearly four years (see infra); thus his first was about three. He was probably acting as late as September 1645 (Cal. S. P. Dom. 1645-7, p. 168). 5 Scobell, ii. 2.

* See p. lxiv, infra.

6 See note 3 on p. 122, infra.