The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser. — London, England, 1806-05-15 00:00:00

-~~ St. V7:-.cent presided over the Peurd of Admire!** I e as nionthe of the latter period were a time of peace, when. of course, there could have been no vessels captured from the enemy. The Hon. Gen tleman irho stated. that, in the eight years pre ceding Earl St. Vincent's Administration, there were built twenty-three ...hips of the line ; but a reference to the papers on the table would sbew, that,' ie the first year of that Noble Earl's being in office, lrom :let 19:h of February, 1501, to the tame month, in 1302, there were built three, in the next year two, and in the third year five; making, in the whole, ten ships of the line, -which was be yond the proportion of the favourable period of contrast taken by the Hen. Gentleman. When he cause into office, there were 15 ships on the stocks; when he -left it there were 18; That these 18 had not since been built and completed, was no argu silent against the Admiralty, as it was :efficient for that Board to hive ordered them. All that the Admiralty ever did on such occasions, was to order the size and dimensions of the vessels; every thing else belonged to the department of the Navy Board. As to what had been said of the timber, he ob served, char, before the Noble Earl's time, the bu sicess stood still in our own dock-yards, merely to giee a preference to the merchant-building, which Was going on for several years, furnishing vessels, which soon afterwards came to be repaired in oar dock-yards. In favour of the Noble Earl, he bad a right to take credit tor- as many ships as were laid down, as their being finish ed afterwards was a matter thet belonged to the Navy Board. He gave credit to Earl Spencer for his concha& at the head of the Admiralty, as tar as the knowledge that Nobleman had of the subjea could be applied ; but Earl Sr. Vincent had increased the ships of the line From 108 to 120, at the same time that his repairs went on in the same pro portion. It was true, that at the end of a long and expensive war, there must have been a great num ber of ships in want of repairs ; but the number of vessels reduced to that state, in which only they could have been repaired, must have been iu proportion to the number retained in employment Tho' a peace ee l s made,22o ships, amounting to almost the weele naval force of the country, Were in employment, and there wee no more than 15 which could have been put into ordinary. Besides, it should be Considered. that in ley irg t. e ships up in ordinary, great care should be taken of their preservation. He admit ted that some of the largest ships were taken to pieces, but that was on the recommendation of the Navy Beard. It was not to be expelled that the First Lord of the Admiralty would go down him self to inspeet the ships with one r f toe officers of the dock aids ; he always took their state from tee represeutation made to him. These ships, when taken to pieces, had their materials distri buted in wt a - ever roamer might be must use lel to the serv:ce, and the remainder was disposed et, which, besides the money it produced, saved also re the enertry the expence of ship-keeping, and the Warrant Of f icers were turned over to the ships that were building. The Noble Earl also gave orders, that the shipwrights should be kept at weak upon the repairs, with iacreastet allowances. as his obje.2 was to keep the fleet, as mach as po— mule, in a condition ready for immediate service; and in coniegnence of this determination, all the materials of the ships usually brought on shore, such as their guns, &c. were ordered to lemeM on board, which was an arrangement that the Hon. Gentleman did not think proper to Ore the Nehie Earl credit for. nutnher of shies repaired in the yards, from the lit of o.!toher, IVA, to the 15t!, of May, lest% amounted to 61. This, he was aware, the Hon. Gentleman could not deny ; but ha supposed Le would ask why, during that time, were there riot ra t e repaired in the merchants' yards? 1 o him the reason was obvious, and he thought the House would in a short time tie of the same opinion. Eighteen frigates were repaired in merchants' yards— Mr. JEFFERY called the Hon. Admiral to or der, as he digressed (torn the point before the Hnuse. by adverting ro circumsvinces which hap pened, perhaps. 20 years before the subject of the present charge arose. Visount HOWICK sprike to order. He was sue piired. after the speech the Hon. Gentleman had ma ie , and• the subsequent motion to refer the pa pers to a Committee, that he should interrupt the lion. Admiral, who argued fairly from the papers betore the House. One of the charges war, ter not repairing ships in the merchants' yards, and his Hon. Friend was only bri:lging iustences to prove the ill ttleals of that praflice. Admiral MARKHAM then proceeded. gigh teen sail were repaired in the merchants' yards. One of these, the Spitfire, cost the country for the TePair 1`2•3921.; and this ship, if she had been beet new, would have cost about 7,0001. lie then weed tome other instances similar to this, to slew that the prellice of repairing in the merchants' yards ought to be given op. ---Tlse Lem, a 74 gen ship, cost when new, about 21,0001. bbe was out of repair, and the officers of Chatham dock, after inspeSing her, reported, that she could not under go a thorough repair for a less sum than 21,7351.; the fset was. however, as appeared from the papers, that the repairs of that ship alone, aduelly emount ed to no less a cam than 61.0001. i and this instance hr ihoupht was sufficient to show, that after ships had attained a certain age, it was much better not to repair them. The next charge which the lion. Gent. bad made was that Earl St. %greens discharged the workmen from the different dock yards, without any reason whatever. Now, he tbought it necessary to examine into this mauve. Earl St. Vincent, when he came iato r {lice, found that there was a great nominal force of arteSeers ; be seal nominal, as many of there were not tit to do duty, and it would be found, tau reference to the papers now before the Heine, that many of those who received the highest salaries then. came into the yard on crutches, and some of them actually were led in blind. The number of men discharged in this way amounted to 327, and he was convinced it would not be con sidered by the House a wanton disc-huge. The eateries of 90 of these men employed in Plymouth Docks alone, for the year 1810 and 1801, amounted 10,(001. and if they had been superseded, as in justice they should, their expence would have heed ecarrely more than 4.0001. It now became nee's nor fit him to state to the House what the Noble rarl had dons to keep . op the number of shipwrights after this diminution. All tht.se men who were considered the best workmen were allowed to take apprentices. is consequence of which, from 1832 to • 18u4, 390 boys were taken in, each of whom are now, according to the technical phrase, fit to take a MASI'S birth. He merely mentioned this to show, that when these men, which the Hon. Gentleman talked so much of, were discharged, measures were instantly taken tokeep u p the number. He also thought it should be observed, thoughhe did not mean to put it as an argument, that Earl St. Vincent WAS the man who first took notice of our gallant departed hero, Lord NelSon of the Nile. - When the Noble Earl took the command of .be Mediterranean, Lord Nelson was unknown,teing only captain of a small 64. Earl St. Vincent saw his merit, with that dis: • riminatian which so particularly cheraelerized him, and gave him.the command of a squadron, which paved the way to his own glory and the glory of his country. Sir Richard Strachan and Sir John T. Duckworth had also been brought into notice by him, and he did not think there could be more pro mising officers. With respect to an assertion made by the Honourable Gentleman, that fifty-five ships could be built in the count of a year in the King's yards, he would only say, that the Ho nourable Gentlemen had misconceived the Weaning of the papers on the subject, as it 'was impossible there could be more than eighteen ships built in a year, there being not more than that number of slips ; what the Hon. Gentleman was thinking et was, that, by a paper on the table, it was stated, that the number of men, employed in the King's Yards, were equal to the building of fifty-five ships, in the course of the year, as it was considered that forty-one men were sufficient for one ship of the line. • The Hon. Admiral then referred to a system which had keen proposed by Mr. Tucker, the master ship-builder at Plymouth. This Gentleman proposed to keep the en tire Channel fleet in order, all the ordinary, and also to build two ships in the course of the year, in the King's yard. The mode proposed to do thus in, was by allowing the men to form themselves into classes, so that all the good workmen might work together, and earn as much as they could. As it now stood, they were all miseJ, good, bad, and middling ; so that though the good workmen would have fiaished their portion of the job long before the bad, they would be obliged to wait for their companions. From these considerations, he hoped the House would see the there was not, in f. 40, any occasion to have recourse to the Merchants' yards for the supply of the navy, when the workmanship was bad, and the price excessive. He then exem plified this by stating, that the Ajax, a ship built in a trietchale's yard, and launched in March, 1793, was, in the same year, withiiiit having gone any voyage, on account of the bad workmanship, obliged to be taken into port and repaired. ethic:), with a further repair in 1802, cost the oration 23,0'001. .I'he Hon.A•laiiral then referred to the charge eoeiest the Noble Lail, lot not procuring a sufficient supply of timber: and, after going into many minute al guments to disprove it, said, that if there were any blame, it lay entirely with the Navy Board, as the flooded Admireityhad meshing to d i with the sup ply of umber, there was some difficulty in procuring it. The lion. Gentleman then said, that having adverted generally to the charge, he would not tremble the House further, but thought than, in the preseet state of things, it was not neces sary to proceed further with the business. Lord G A RLI ES conceived, that the whole tines rion resolved itself into one point, namely, whether the navy could be kept(' up without the assistance Fent - the merchants' yards ? He knew that the Hon. Admiral had long entertained the opinion he had Osis night stated to the House, but for his part he sincerely hoped the Noble Lord at the Head of the Admiralty would never give his assent to that new fangled doctrine. With respect to the motion which had been this night made, he most undnunt edly would give his vote against it ; as, though he I was not an admit er of the proceedings of the Noble Earl, yet he was convinced that he had ever acted frpm the purest motives. He could not, nor would he attempt to follow the Hon. Gentlemen through the whole of their very able statements, but he could not help expressing his surprise at the con tradiction that existed between them. This he thought might originate from dates, as the ships stated by the Hon. Admiral to have cost so much mrObe then their original value in repairs, might have been built 2o years ago, when labour lie. were cheap. lint was wiling to take it, that that was not the he was convinced that the expeace of repairs was extravagant ; but he could not give any other reason for it, except that if a man wished to repair an old house, the bill world come to very nearly as much as Lie house originally cost There was another idea which steuck him, and that was, that merchants made very little by building ships; and, indeed, if they were not promised the repair ing of some ships, they would be found very 'm eriting to undertake the building ; as by the latter they cut the timber to waste, and by the former they made use of those pieces of wood which other wise would be of no service. He had himself com manded the Ajax ; it certainly was, he said, as bad a built ship as he had ever seen, and he 'had no doubt but there were others equally bad; but, be cause five or six of the ships built in the merchants' yards were bad, was that a reason why we should be deprived of the advantage of recruiting our navy (here, patticular ly as our own Officers inspette4, or at least on.tht to inspeet; the different wo•ks ? He had ne hesitation in saying, that Earl St. Vincent had doom a great deal of good ; he might have been peiheps a little to rigorous in discharging the workmen 1 but, however, the motive was good, and the balance was in hii favour. Before he sat down, he could not avoid slaking an ob servation on what had been said in praise of Earl St. Vincent, with reaped to his first taking notice of Lord Nelson. He was aware it was the peculiar chareSer of the Noble Earl to make a most judicious telethon amongst office's, but he could-not subscribe to the praise which had been given to his discrimination in the present in stance, as it was not he who bad first given Lord Nelson the command of a squadron. He (Lord Galles) had carried Earl St. Vincent out in his ship to take the command of the Meditertaneau fleet. and when they came there, they found Lord Nelson with the command of a ojuadron, and a dis c tniguishing pendat.t. The Noble Lord concluded by sayine, leliad stated this, not to eike from the merit Of tbe Noble Eatl, but merely t., shew that the abilities of the Noble and immortal Nelson had distinguished him before Earl St. Vincent took a cominand over him. Viscour.t HOWICK was happy that the Noble Lord, who had just sat down, had borne testimony in favour of his Noble Friend the Earl of St. Vin. cent. To every thing he had said on this head he willingly assented ; but he mmlil roes agree with him when he stated, that the wholeettestion here reduced itself to il:4 single point of, whether we were for the future to have recourse to merchants dock-yards for the repair of our ships? That ques tion merely arose from the necessity there waNffir his Hon. Friend going into detail in answeh-to the variety of arguments whicls had been used by the Honourable • Mover. He could not forbear expressing big surprise it hearing the Hon. Gen tleman make a motion which implied a censure on a distinguished personage, and then tell the House that he had thrown the burden *wifely off his shoulders. He was also surprised at hearing an other Right Hon. Gentleman state, th.it he second ed the Motion, because he did not understand it ; and be would ask, was it decent in a Member of Parliament, to second such a motion ; and at the same time fay, that he knew nothing of the tenth ? Was there no other ground than this, he thought it would be sufficient for him at once to say, he would give his decided negative to its going into the Com mittee. Charges of supineness, neglea, and inac tivity, bad been brought against F.a.l St. Vincent, but who cou!ri be brought to suppose for a moment, that the man, who with others had contributed to raise t::e naval renown of Dreat B ritain , was guilty of any of them. The charges tan generally that he had not built a sufficient number of ships, and that he had not kept up a proper supply of naval acmes in the dock-yards, and indeed be thought his Honourable Friend had answered these com pletely by saying, that it was impossible the Noble Earl could be present at all times to see that the business was transacted according to his orders. Here the Noble Lord entered into a detailed account of the number of ships, which had been in com mission at the time Eat! St. Vincent came into Office, and the number be bad left in commission. I -There were five ships launched since the year 17304, when the Noble Earl went out of Office, and he hoped the Hon. Gentleman would give him credit for these. While he was in Office, tight sail of the , line had been laid (diem, and 103 of a smaller sort ; I of these 90 had been sime :lunched, and were ac tually now in commission ; for these, and for all other services, he thought the thaqics of the country were due to the Noble Earl ; but instead of receiving these thanks, charges of a criminal native were brought against him. The Hon. Gent. had said, that if Earl SO/intent had continued in office, the country would hare been ruined, the battle of Trafalgar would not have been won, and oat navy would have been in a state of irretrievable dilapidation Bute it there really had been any remissness, it had not been with Earl St Vincent, who had been tilamed even for too much intetfering with the Navy &nerd. When it was remembered. tbat 120 sail of the line were paid off when the Noble Ad mit al entered into office, and were so soon after to 13c supplied again, on the renewal of the war, it was not to be wondered, that more did not appear to be done towards increasing the numerical strength of the navy, than at any former period. But it was said, that he crippled the operations of the artificers, by employing them to lay up ships in s ordinary.— He would ask, whether it was not cmsistent with the soundest policy to preserve what we had from decay, rather than to create by neglea additional necessity for new ships ? This was the policy pur sued by Earl St. Vincent; and, to guard against any sudden emergency of the state, he did what had never been done before ; he ordered the guns of the ships laid up to be kept on the decks, instead of being landed, and put into the ordnance store-houses. The Hon. Mover of this debate said, that our navy was increased very little by the addition of enemy's ships,during the administration of hi s L or d s hip.—.. Surely the Hon. Gentleman did not think that a criterion of care and zeal, On the part of the Board of Admiralty. It was not to get ships that we fought, but to defeat the enemy ; and the additioa of the whole Toulon fleet to our navy, in 1794, could not be said to reflea greater credit on the Lords of the Admiralty, than the battle of Trafalgar, in which we only acquired bout ships. But, allow. Mg this mode or argument, the Honourable Gentleman had seleaed a most unfair compaii , son of periods; the one was entitely a period of ' war, and the other almost wholly an Era of peace, when of course no ship, could be taker. In the years 1791, 2,3, or 4, he would find even a lower calculation of ships in commission than at the thee he had instanced; and, upon a general view of our naval establishment, would find the ships employed in Earl St. Vincent's Presidency at the Admiralty, to be as many as, upon an a v erage , were emp l oye d ' during any administration. The Hon. Gentleman fuither says, that, considering the stateet our navy, and the insecurity of peace, the Noble 'Earl ought to have embraced every means to increase the force of our marine, and ought to have resorted to mer chants' yards in furtherance of that increase. Surely his not having done so was not made the ground of a criminal charge. He stated, and truly, that a very large force of ships and tonnage was possessed in met chants yards; but did it, theretore, follow, that we should ream e to these yards, even when the King's docks were competent to the service requited ? Certainly not ; for in the King's yards ships would be better con structed, and upon terms more moderate. Earl St. Vincent had himself, for a long time, entertained the opinion, that it was necessary to build in mer chants' yard,; and he was only dissuaded from acting upon the impression, by the representation of the Comptroller of the Navy, who advised him to forbear as long as possible, because the building in private yards raised a competition for timber against him in the King's docks. The Noble EMI acicuow 1-•i7ed the cogency of the advice; but he was surf dente surprised by the Comptroller suggesting the building in merchants' yards ; and, AS he was i t ime se ll absent from indisposition, advertisements were pub . - fished for contrails. He was alas med for the con sequences, instituted an investigation, and the Board of Admiralty actively interfered (undet the e nvicaion arising ft= strong evidence of the defeseive (lust • • lily and enormnat prices of pi isately hilt ships) to prevent any contra,fts being made. Froth the in vertigati.ot it appeared, that the .Ijaz and I:+e AMA-. two 74%4 114.1 undergone a repair :sefore they went to see; and yet, in the course of two years from that time, their further repairs, in Mer chants' yards, cost Gi.vernment sizty•six thonsar d pounds. Eighteen ft igates, in the same pi:iod, c( st tor ',pail ing in pi ivate yards, 252,000 i.; ZIA yet the Hon. Gent. (Mr. Jeffery) had said, thAt merchants woold mania to build them new for 150,0001. H^ ( Viscount :lowicl) would adduce an instance of t! e►travagance of resorting ru manchants' yards,whicts had UCcui led whiht he had been in the Admiralty. The Li4lll.ot (14 guns, was built in 1776, fur 76,0001. and had had considerable •repairs since. In ISO; when she again wanted repairing, it appeared from the Surveyor's report, that she would cost 24,00P1. P-s other things of more consequence required to be done, she was put aside for some time, and on being lately repaired in a merchants' yard, she cost no less a stiles than 00 than the immediate inspedioa of the Surveyor of the Navy, whose condu ton the occasion, would most likely cause his removal from office. It the building of that ship had been contracted for at 341. per ton, which was the highest price ever demanded, the whole cost would have been 14,0001. short of thts expence of repairing her. Was it WI, then, the duty of Earl St. Vincent to avoid a mode of proceeding so ruinous—a proceeding which, for an extravagant price, yielded a ship of inferior ma terials ? It was an anxiety to screen the public from excessive burdens, and not, as it had been termed, a niggardly, parsimonious system of the Noble Admiral, that prompted bun to pursue the course he did. The necessity for resorting to private yards might sometimes be such, as would make it culpable not to use them, inasmuch as had ships were preferable to none;but this necessity nut exist at the time Earl St. Vincent was First Lad of the Ad miralty. It had become his ( Visct. I lowicl's) duty to inquire into the p..wers of the Merchants' dock yards, and he had some information to submit to the House on the subjea. The number of shipwrights in those yards was 2345 ; in the King's-yard 2481. Of tonnage, 2,268,570 was k-pt ii repair in Mer chants' service, and 100,000 tons of shipping an nually buil; ; besides which, 256,000 tons of the Royal Navy have been allitailftleoe in private yards, as well as repairs. In the King's-yards, and those of Merchants, the number of tons was 6 1 3,000. According to the Report of the Navy Hoard, the number of ships of the line, which ought to be con struEtad in the Royal Docks, was 55 sail of the line in a year, if the shipwrights were employed upon nothing but new work. At this rate, 664 sail ought to have been built, from January, 1793, to J unary, 1904 ; *whilst. the truth is, that only 41 , ships of the line had been construded. To curious statement quoted from the Navy Bn might be added the insulting fact, that Mr. W. in a printed letter addressed to Earl At : Vino, has stated, that in his yard, at Deptford, hay only 160 shipwrights, 8,000 tons more of shipp have been finished in a year, than in any three of • King's yards in that period. Certainly, prig yards peesseued the advantage °Clueing all a men, whose relative speed must be superior to th of many pers•ins who continue to receive emplc ment in the King's yards ; but upon the Void! Al NartiSSUS frigates, which were built in Well's yar 7,400 men were employed (or so many die work were done) ; and, upon the Circe an !'glues, two 31-gut. frigates, 7,600. The Nob! Lord hoped he had 'hewn that the endue of Elirl St. Vincent was not attributable to so pureness, bat that Le refrained from making use of merchants' yards, from a settled aad well s, ounded c,,nvictien of the bad policy of that coutse. He next came to notice what the Hon. Gentleman liad preferred as a charge against the Noble Admiral—a scanty supply of ship timber. This. however, lay enrirely within the province cf the Navy Board, and except in cases of evident remissness, the Admiralty had no right to interfere. Headmieted that the quantity of timber was rather smaller than in former years, or doting the 14•. t years of Earl Spencer's Administration. The Hon Gent. had said there was no difficulty in procuring timber, but he Lad only to refer to the leiter of the Navy Eloatd, to ,hew that it was getting very scarce. It the Noble Admiral would only accept pt line wood, all that he obtained was serviceable; but the defi ciency in the yards was not owing to him, as he found that the order at 1776, for kiepnix clime yeas, supply of timber constantly in hand, since the year 17;,6, had been negleEted. To obviate this. he took steps fur procuring it is, South %Valet. an.t had in contemplation to dire,l the builelin, f of ships in the East ludic,, and to get wood Dalmatia : ibis last idea met with oppositne , acid the advantage of the Noble Earl's intentioi.. and inqiiiries teiulted to the enemy, as 40,000 uni, which hark been felled on the coast of Dalmatia, fell tate their hands. The com plaint of a deficiency of timber, arose at present only from Deptford and these yards where they complained ot wanting small timber fur the taws of their small vessels, but stated, that they were even overstocked with the larger sorts used for ships of force ; and in others of the dock yards, it was stated, that the stores of un.ber were really in the way. 'lle Noble L.oid then read some extracts from the Appendix to the Report of the Commis siotlet s of Naval Enquiry, to show that abuses in the receipt and management of thither prevailed in tl e ; public yards. amounting to evidence of gloss timid, and rel-ixation of dory, which he hoped to sea speedily remedied. This distil:leery had been under Earl Spencer's administration and ne Noble Earl, who was charged with vexatious piecision in the dealings wit'a the timber-nterchanta.had only enforced the delivery of propel timber, accordrue to the controels (hear! beer!). It was said, if Earl St. Vincent hid not interrupted the procuring of Foseign timber in the usual channels. no scarei'y would ever have been felt; the obj,:ct of the Noble Earl, however, was most salutary; it was to pre vent the expenditure of vast sums of money which had been advanced to pnr:base timber in Holland and elsewhere, the best of which, when obtained. was not superior to the worst of this kingdom ; and out of 2900 feet of which, cut up lately at Le l , - ford, only 170 a feet were serviceable; wig then Lill St. Vincent liable to censure? Not or.ly was no charge brought against him wbiei , unanswered (liege! bear!) but tacit elnerse Lad let P I tO of 4: 2 1Y" bei