Star.
London, England, 1806-05-15 00:00:00

would it not have been diced, why they had not been'
difpnfed of? The Hon. Admiral here read the di.
reaions given by Earl St. Vincent for repairing the
flips, in which he enjoined the necefiity of working
as much extra as poffible ; and by contrafiing theft
directions with Mailer direelions in the year 1783,
when the proportion of extra work was limited, in-
ferred, that Earl St. Vincent, fo far from having loft
fight of the neceffity of repairing the (hips which re-
quired it, ax the Hon. Member would infinuate, had
been more than ufually folicitous, having given direc-
tiosito work as much as poffible, while former Boards
of Admiralty had limited the quantum and expencc
of extra work. Directions, he alfo (hewed, were given
to keep as much as poffible ready for fel-vice ; to have
the guns mounted, and that heavy articles which were
not of a perilliable nature thould be left on board. It
tight be alked why the Noble Lord bad not gone to
the merchants' yards, to have part of the repairs
executed ? and he would anfwer, be knew too much
of merchants' yards The lbips which had been built
there were very bad, and on that account it was not
- thought advifeable to employ them for repairs. The
Hon. Admiral was proceeding to thew the expence
of repairing n merchants' yards, from a lilt on the
tablet when he was called to order br
Mr. JEFFERY, who Paid, that, wifhing to prevent
the Hpn. Admiral from going the length be feemed.
to incline, and to keep the matter within fome tom-
, pafs,he felt Liturelf called on to !late, that the Hon.
Admiral's ftatements were not applicable to the mo.
does he had fubmiued to the Houfe. For what he
heti the.lift of repairs he was about to refer to might
have taken place twenty years ago.
Lord HOWICK expected his furprife, after the .
length of the, Honourable Gentleman's own fpeech,
that he fhpuld talk of faring the time, of the Houfe
in curtailing the rpeech of soother. Whether the
lift referred to by his Hon. Friend was or was hot
applicable to his motion, was of little confequence.-- •
One of the , charges or rather, the only eh-Inge,
againft the Noble Lord was,. his not having ufed the
Merchants' yards, and the lift referred to went to
- They the impropriety of nfiog them.
Admiral MARKHAM then returned. He was
not fltrprifed that the Honourable Gentleman did not
with to bear What he had to adduce on this point, as
he taint( be Mime it would completely- overturn his
cafe. He thin 'read the comparative ftatement of
the expence of building anew, and the ruins neually
expended- on repairs in merchants' yards, en feveral
different Ships. On one, the repairs were ik,oool.
where the rebuilding would hive colt only 7,0001. ;
another to' 0001. where the original colt would have
been only 60061. ; another 13,0001. where the
aal eipence was only wool. ; and particularly the
'cafe of the Lion, where the original con was only
at,eool. and the repairs amounted to 6t,0001. and
from all there examples he inferred, that Lord St.
Vincent wits right in declining to employ the mer-
chants' yards. The next affcruon of the Honourable
Gentleman was, that the Noble Earl had wantonly
difeharged a number of workmen from the dock
yards. From referring to the document on this Tub-
jea, lying on the table, it would be teen that the per-
Cons whom he had cfirmiffed, were utterly incapable
• of doing stay work, Tome of them being blind and
others lame,•sehile, at the &Me dare the* were
charged as thtiking the greateft earning. This, how-
ever, was called a wanton difeharge. There were
In the dock yards 320 fhipwrights, not one of whom
was fit for any thing, aid to whom the wages paid
fortlioo-1, was z 0,94.31. whereas, if they had been
placed on the fuperannuated lift, they would only have
received 11,2641. Not one of them was dilkhatged
enprovided for. They were ail put on the fop a-
annuated lift, but this was the wanton difmiffsi of I
which the Noble Lord was 'mitred. It was necef-
fary, however, in addition, to nate what the Noble
Lord did to keep up the flock. Apprentices were
allowed to be taken by the moll deferring of the
men, and between the years tflot and 1804 inclofire
sno apprentices were taken in, a thing which had
never been known in the yards before, all of whom
were now fit to take a man's birth. So, when he
difmilfed one let as incapable, the Noble Lord paid
correfponding attention to the keeping up of the
number of artificers which might be required. The
Honourable Gentleman had made a comparifoo be-
tween the Adminiftrations of the Noble Lord, and

thofe of Lord Melville and Lord Barham, pettiest-
lady alluding to the 'Vim", of Trafalgar, and to
thofe fince atehieved by Sir R. Strachan and Sir T.
Duckworth. He did not with to force this argu-
ment, but unqueflionabiy the Noble Lord was the
perfon who noticed the trankendant merits of
the departed hero. It was he that fent him to the
Nile, where he performed one of his moll glorious
exploits ; and it was he, too, who fira noticed the
other two gallant officers, the latter of whom ferved
as Lieutenant under him. If there was any merit in
thefe circomdanees, that merit unqueflionably be-
longed to the Noble Lord. The Honourable Ad-
miral then thawed the fuperiority of the fyftem in-
troduced into the yards by Mr. Tucker, which the
Honourable Gentle Man had called a new Jangled
•fehetne, and illuflrated this fuperlority, by (hewing
that under it the Circe and Pallas of about fix hun-
dred tons each had been laid down in June and
launched in November, 'at an expense of about
Ono'. each. While•under the old &Clem two other
frigates of too tons lefs burden took nearly two
years in building, and cull 13,6031. each. The Ho
nourable Admiral then alluded to the charge rcfpec.
tins the want of timber in the yards which, he
maintained, it was not properly the bufinefs at the
Firft Lord of the Admiralty, but of the Navy
Board, to look after. If they felt any difficulty in
making up the quantity ordered, they communicat-
ed it to the Admiralty, who then, of courfe, would
look into the matter, and endeavour to have the oh-
fiacle removed. He thawed that at the end of the
American war, the quantity of timber, inflead of be-
ing 66,000 load., as was ordered, had fallen down
to 40,000, and that in the year 1784 it had decreafid
Rill farther, and amounted only to 29,000, and in
the year 1786 amounted only to 15,000, all of
which were to he attributed to the great quantity
ufed in the merchants' yards. To fh:w the info&
cicncy of the work done in the merchants' pErds, he
ended to the (hips Ajax and Achilles, toe repairs
on which in the.years 1803 Plld 1804, though they
were then new Chips, amounted to mocol. and ar-
goed that the great quantity of timber confirmed in
the King's Docks iii repairing the deficiencies in the
Blips bulk Itt the. merchants yards, contributed: