Selected quad for the lemma: parliament_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
parliament_n	honourable_a	house_n	petition_n	3,157	5	9.0634	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44078	Humble proposals for the relief, encouragement, security and happiness of the loyal, couragious seamen of England, in their lives and payment, in the service of our Most Gracious King William, and the defence of these nations humbly presented to the two most Honourable Houses, the Lords and Commons of England, in Parliament assembled / by a faithful subject of His Majesty, and servant to the Parliament and nation, and the seamen of England, in order for safety and security of all aforesaid, W. Hodges ; to which is added, a dialogue concerning the art of ticket-buying, in a discourse between Honesty, Poverty, Cruelty and Villany, concerning that mystery of iniquity, and ruin of the loyal seamen.	Hodges, William, Sir, 1645?-1714.	1695 (1695)	Wing H2329; ESTC R2277	51,833	63

HUMBLE PROPOSALS FOR THE Relief Encouragement Security and Happiness of the Loyal Couragious Seamen of England in their Lives and Payment in the Service of our Most Gracious King William and the Defence of these Nations Humbly Presented to the Two Most Honourable Houses the Lords and Commons of England in Parliament Assembled By a Faithful Subject of his Majesty and Servant to the Parliament and Nation and the Seamen of England in order for Safety and Security of all aforesaid W. Hodges To which is added A DIALOGUE concerning the Art of Ticket-buying In a Discourse between Honesty Poverty Cruelty and Villany concerning that Mystery of Iniquity and Ruin of the Loyal Seamen Printed in the Year 1695. To the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament Assembled Humbly sheweth THAT the Providence of our most gracious God having stirred me up to see and consider and lament the most dreadful Ruin and Destruction of the Loyal Seamen of England in their Lives and Pay that ever these Nations did behold and to Represent the same in all Humility to your Honours and considering also that some of their Miseries were in my Judgment against Grace and Reason and Common Sense and also sometimes against those other Four Things that used to be esteemed of as Jewels in England that is Religion Liberty Property and their Lives To say nothing of the Fifth without Law made me to dread the Consequent and I did observe that it was hidden from his Majesty and your Honours so long until there was the Loss as I represented to you of the Lives of above Forty Thousand and of the Pay of above Sixty Thousand of them and if there had been occasion to question the Truth of it I would have proved at any time by the King's Books in twenty Four Days time without Two Pence Charge to the King or Nation and considering that his Majesty has spoken for their Relief and your Honours who had raised money enough before to have kept them from Ruin and to have spared a Million or Two of it by Capt. St. Lo's Rule Besides if they had been but managed as the English Seamen were in former days and as the Dutch and the French do at this day to save near half their money and most of their Seamens Lives But I say Your Honours being now also Resolved to study their Relief I presume in all Humility to cast in my Mite also Now in order to the same which I would intreat your Honours to accept of as Rough and Unframed Timber to be squared and fitted to what part your Honours please and one thing is many crooked pieces are made use of in the building of Shipping that when placed aright not only serve to strengthen the Ship and help to preserve the Lives of the Seamen but formally use to help tohold the Ships together while they daily beat their Enemies and tho these Pieces may not be always so readily known to all Landmen I will presume some may serve now and some another time And I do assure your Honours if I had better at hand I would present them to you But they are my own and so saved me the trouble of begging borrowing or which is worse stealing and I intreat your Honours Patience for their Miseries being so dreadful and so many years a growing and so many times Ten Thousands as they could not have been easily represented except one should have said their Case was almost all together Miserable But blessed be God that it is not They have a good King and good Countrey for their Friends if their Cases are not blinded from them And as to their Remedies it requires a great deal of Care and Inquiry And when I look back to what I represented before and forward to what strange need there is of them now and when I hear that a great many there is that are in Droves travelling in other Countries without Shooes or Stockings seeking to enter into the Service of the Merchants of England there or to serve other Nations and Run away from che Merchant-Ships also and lose their Pay some of them not being willing to come home for fear of the Press This makes my Heart dread the Effects of it and do suppose these Two Things would be worth while to be inquired into by the Parliament to know how the Case stands with them in these respects First Let every Man of War's Book that hath been in the Streights or Spain or Portugal be searched to see what Numbers Run away out of any Ship or every Ship at any Port or Place And Secondly To have an Account of the Men of War and Merchant-Ships lost this Eighteen Months to the French with the whole Number of Men taken in each Ship and in the whole Shipping lost and then have also the Number of Men return'd from France in that time that did belong to those Ships and what is wanting may be supposed to be entred into the French Service if not dead and if of the East-India Ships taken there be come home short near an Hundred of those men that were taken it is to be fear'd the rest will stay until warm weather and then get some Money and Cloaths if our Press is so great this Winter that they meet the poor Captive Wretches when they Return home in their Lousie Cloaths from France and beg their way near an Hundred and Fifty Miles then before they come to London catch them and carry them on Board Rags and Lice as they Run put them down in the Hold of the Vessel to lie on the Boards or Ballast or what they please if they be without Bedding and as Queen Esther said if they perish they perish This is a Notable Age to tame Prodigals in if they be ordinary Seamen but if they be Double-Pay Officers then it may be they Run up and down and be as bad or worse than before and so it may be will not be worth some of them a Groat a Dozen when the War is over tho they most times Live For the Officers that have Liberty to come on Shore die very few of them But this by the way But I am too large in the Introduction I did think to say something more as to the Seamen's Encouragement in this Preface as that without the Seamen be paid off yearly on Shore and have a Fortnight's or Month's Liberty to Recruit their Healths I am afraid they will never be encouraged to come into the Service neither stay there and if they do and die it is as bad as Running for if they Run away in England and the Merchants get them it is an help to Trade and the King may have them again and I could never know the Reason of that pretence of keeping the Seamen in such slavery in their payments in this Age more than any other to be paid on Board as if his Majesty's Service was not as good as in any Age of the World For

penny for them Honesty I will not say what they must do but I will say if they be not prevented they that please to give their mind to it and have Tickets at their command I fear can get Powers fill'd up and witnessed by themselves or other Officers and leave Blanks for such Names to receive them as may serve to be put in afterwards And therefore it was my Advice That if the Parliament pleased they should make it Felony and Transportation to receive a Seaman's Pay by a wrong power for time to come And if they had been Seamen and cheated of their Pay ten times as often as men have Robbed on the High-way or had their Pockets pickt at Land they would have striv'd to make a Law against cheating for time tu come and not left it to will and pleasure to hinder small Officers from receiving mony by a Lawful Power although they fed them and cloathed them several Years before to assist them whsle they served the King and in the mean time leave so many ways open to cheat the King and the Seamen by other Officers still in private ways instead of those Hundreds of Pounds in a Ship received for the Captains of Seamens Pay publickly in former Years Poverty It is a Wonder that you will meddle with such Diseases as are Noli me tangeries that though they are heard of publickly now and then as the Noli me tangere is in the Weekly Bill yet hardly One in an Hundred knows what a dreadful Distemper it is although some die of the same And therefore pray if you meet with any Offices that are infected with the Ruining and Plaguing of the Seamen as the Houses of some were of Old in Israel with the Leprosie that they could never be cleansed until the very Walls were scraped And although the whole Priesthood should by the Law of God Judge them Unclean pray Honesty say no more of it And when you hear I have been sick a Year or Two or in the Hospitals and Run out of my Pay to the Ruin of my Family and I and my Family cry and groan to Heaven for Relief or Vengeance and others of my Poor Poverty Brethren be crying to Heaven and Hell for Damnation against them that Ruin them and Run away to other Nations to see if there be Mercy and Justice there pray hold your Peace for time to come Let things sink or swim you have done your Duty and you being sensible every Leaf you write must be such as must be true before God and man as to the substance of it And now you may admire at the mercy of God in keeping you hitherro as in mercy you have been hitherto Honesty That is true and that I only trust to the infinite Free Grace and Free Love and Rich mercy of God to me and all mine in Christ Jesus our Lord and only Saviour for all Time and all Eternity desiring the Eternal God to be our Refuge and Portion for ever And that underneath us may be his Everlasting Arms of Love and mercy for all Time and all Eternity to us and all ours Amen Poverty You have chosen well but do not you consider That there was an Age wherein it was said Hold thy peace for we may not mention the Name of our God But do not you think that those sad and barbarous Villains who do Cheat and Ruin and Destroy the Seamens Pay and Families in this Age do neither fear God nor Regard man but are as Ungodly Hard-hearted Case-hardned Brutes that seem as the Boy said by his Learning the Primmer some of them to be past the Graces and to be come almost as far as the Devil and all his Works And as it was said of the Gentleman by his Jackanapes An Ill Life may Expect an Ill End Therefore pray be wary how you Discourse about those sort of men Honesty I bless God I have no prejudice against the Persons of any men in England and know not any man in England but I would shew him a civil kindness and it may be there is hardly a man but would do the like by me if occasion were and I find Anger is often Folly but malice is the Devil and a dreadful burden certainly for any man to carry and I bless God who keeps me clear of that hitherto as I desire to be kept from flattery and that makes me write such plain honest homely English to serve my King and Country without much minding who are pleased or displeased and that makes me labour as heartily to endeavour the preserving of our Lives and Liberties and encouragement of our English Seamen with as much earnestness as ever I heard of any did to secure a Wall or Bank that was to keep out the Sea from drowning the Country And therefore having said it may be too much I may pass over a great part of the Art of Ticket-buying in silence for want of Time and Patience and so say little of the Buyers Skill in getting the poor Wretches in that are not in the greatest of miseries making them drunk and getting their Pay as they please Or of any buying at Five Shillings and paying them part of their money and then afterwards will have them at Ten Shillings Profit or demand their money again and extort money for Extortioning Interest besides Trouble if they cannot pay the money Neither mind I to represent how there have been some Hundreds of Pounds worth of Tickets offered without Powers at a time in One Ship Neither the making out of Twenty Hogs alias Seamens Tickets in One Ship allowed about Fifty men Neither the very great multitudes of Tickets Captains Clerks have made out privately for Seamens Pay Neither need I trouble my Head for time to come much more than other men if the King and the Nation should ever be found to be cheated of a sixth part of their money for if I pay about Twelve Pound the Year this War Taxes as I have done it is but Forty shillings Charge Extraordinary the Year And I suppose I have printed as many Thousand sheets of Paper freely to inform the most Honourable Houses of Parliament and these Nations this Last Three Years as hath cost me about Ten Years Purchase for my sixth part of the said Twelve Pound And I bless God I was never imployed by any to do it but as the good will and pleasure of God stirred me up out of a true design to serve God and my King and Country and I never had to my knowledge Ten shillings advantage from all others for the same And I am of no Club nor of no Faction neither am I any mens Instrument or Tool so that if I do any service the glory will be to God and the benefit to these Nations And if I mistake and suffer for it I must submit with Humility Love and Patience And so intreating the pardon of his most gracious Majesty and the Two most Honourable Houses of Parliament for what is amiss and begging of the Eternal Jehovah for his Grace and Blessing on his Majesty our most gracious King William and on the Parliament and People of these Nations and on me and all my Family I subscribe my self a faithful Subject to his Majesty and Servant to him and all good men while I remain to be W. HODGES Hermitage-Bridge Feb. 20th 1695. POSTSCRIPT SInce I writ my first book of the Seamens miseries and presented 500 of them to the 2 most Honourable Houses of

would say it is well for all the Nobility's and Gentry's and Yeomen's Horses in England that they have not Pursers to feed them that if their Masters allow them 10 or 20 Quarters of Oats for a Stable the Grooms that should feed them take a third of them and sell them and drink away the mony between the Drivers and the Grooms and reckon so many Pecks a day and if the Horses are abroad at work and come not in time charge their Oats to the Master's Account tho they are sold away and they eat none in 2 or 3 days or a week And indeed bad Drivers and bad Feeders is enough to spoil any Team of Horse in the World I have heard among Countrymen in Kent some say There is half in half difference in driving Cattle some will beat them and whip them and knock them over the Pate and swear and damn like Devils at the Cattle and spoil them that they will hardly drive at all or it may be break their Traces and run away and spoil the Team at last whereas if another that knows how to manage them with care and cheereth them up clappeth them on the back with his hand and chirups lovingly to them they will draw like Lions And in short I will appeal to all the Yeomen in Kent many of whom are my Relations if ever they knew a Team of Horse get a Groat clear Gains for their Masters at 7 Years End whose Drivers and Hostlers had ruined them half and near starved some of the rest and cheated their Masters in the mean time of more a great deal than their Provender came to But I had need intreat pardon for my rambling but sometimes there may be Abundance of homely Truths spoken in Jest and it may be too true to make a Jest of But however now to the Seamen of England They are Really as true to the Interest of King William to the last as any sort of men whatever and many of those who have stood in the King's Books as Run-aways are either dead in his Service and that is the last they can do for him and others are still in his Service to this hour tho Run out of their Pay in other Ships And in short it looks very miserable also to be Run out of their Pay in other Ships and cannot obtain leave once in 3 or 4 Years to come to shew Cause or hear Reason why they should have their mony I remember the Heathen Romans are said to take care not to condemn men without being heard speak for themselves and also seeing their Accusers Now if it be objected that it cannot be expected all that are made Run should see their Accusers yet for the 2d they might have this priviledge Heathens allowed of speaking for themselves And therefore I think in the next place 40. It is but Reason and Justice the Seamen that are made Run should be protected 14 days to petition to get off their R. S. But I am much afraid that it will be found Cruelty at last to make men lose their Pay that are dead a-shore or sick in the Hospitals or not a month out of the King's Service these several Years or discharged fair by Tickets signed by all the Officers And this I would ask Whether the King's Service be a perpetual bondage That tho a man be Really sick and have a Ticket given him to discharge him sick signed by all the Officers to clear him and get his Pay whether it be not Oppression and Cruelty in those that should pay the mony to deprive these men of their mony because they that they left their Powers with do not know presently where the man is or whether living or dead or in what Ship and it may be it is some Years past since he was discharged and whether this way of management be like to encourage the Seamen or any that trust them or the like In plain English Such managers would fright away the Seamen and fright others from trusting them And now I have said this it may be some will think I write this for interest and am concerned with such a Case To that I answer No for I left off buying 3 Years past and now write only to serve God and my King and Country And if I were in another Country and should hear these things it may be I might be ashamed of those kind of Actions and Abundance more that I fear are against Law and Gospel and Honesty and Policy yea and I fear against good Heathen Morality and seems to be all Arbitrary But now I hope our Gracious King and Loyal Parliament have espoused the Seamen's Cause they will as an honest Gentleman of the House of Commons said endeavour to do them Right And this short Prayer I will put up for the Seamen for time to come That the King and Parliament would not leave them and their Families to the tender mercies of the wicked for the Scripture that cannot lie saith That the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel And it may be some that have been a year a getting a Petition for Justice Answered may understand something of the meaning of that when they come to beg nothing but their own that was due to them by plain Justice bare and thread-bare and stark naked Justice and Honesty Therefore if there be not some way to secure poor Seamen's Pay for time to come it is past my skill to warrant our Sea-Port Towns will send their Men Children or Servants into the Service so freely as before and it may be they that have been so served as aforesaid if they are not dead yet will not come without good words And 41. Therefore if I might humbly presume to give my thought I would suppose it requisite not only to take all care imaginable to secure the Seamen's Lives and Pay and Health but also to have the Act for their Encouragement read in every Ship once a quarter and an Abstract of the Encouragement set up in the Sea-Port Towns of England or at least the Heads of it put in the Gazette that the Nation may see for time to come that they do not pay their many and the Seamen ruined but that the Seamen shall be encouraged and also honestly paid 42. That they might be paid in London that the City of London that is always ready to assist his Majesty with money may have some again from the Seamen and not let those who manage the Seamen put the King to extraordinary charge to pay the Seamen several miles off to the depriving the City of their Trade and the spoiling of near half the Seamens Pay besides For in short in London the Seamen can buy all things at best hand can send home their mony to their Families to any part of England or Scotland And if they but spend their mony here or send it home to their Families and injoy a months Liberty and fresh Air and fresh Victuals the Sea will

Parliament who were graciously pleased to pass by my infirmities in representing the fame for which I am in all humble duty obliged to be thankful to them And I have presumed to attempt the foregoing rough Peice being heartily willing any that can represent better Rules for the safety and encouragement of the Seamen to serve his gracious Majesty King William and the Nation I shall rejoice But if any say some did by my other book they could have represented it in fewer as words and yet never had themselves neither wit or sense or heart for to represent it at all I shall look on their words as idle prate and to try their skill if they are excellent at any thing I will recommend the miserable Case of our Trading People and the poor in these Nations in respect of our mony which I fear the loss of will be fatal to both And I wish it may not be miserable in respect of the raising the Taxes for his Majesty for I fear that as our Mill'd Money was bought up to carry away or melted down above 20 years when it was worth but a Groat in the pound to make it away then I fear it will be ten times more in danger to be all melted down or carried away or both now it is worth ten Groats in the pound to make it away either way Neither do I see how Tradesmen can escape Ruin for want of Trade if there be not mony to Trade and Exchange and pay the poor And the Loss of Trade already to some I fear hath been and is like to be ten times worse than their Taxes and unless there be a new Coinage that is about 3 Ounces to 20 s or the Mill'd mony raised to 6 s and 8 d the Crown Peice I fear whoever lives 9 months will see hardly any of it passing about and for Guinea's they are at present a perfect Plague and Trick to mankind and a means for men to prey upon one another and if they fall will be carried away but if setled at but 28 s the Guinea certain would pay in Taxes and out again and there might be One per Cent. allowed for profit of those who carried Silver and Gold to Coin and the rest to go towards the Calling in the Fragments of our Old Mony at last And there would never want Silver nor Coiners and we should be in a few Years full of mony to the Joy of the King and Country and Landlord and Tenant And this I would represent that our Seamen at Sea and the common people at Land tho called the Mobilly have been entirely in the Interest of our gracious King William and this Nation And I fear our Enemies would rejoice it they could find the Ordinary people to be Ruined at Land for want of mony and then they would say as they begin already Where is your mony and I fear if possible will make the worst use they could of the same And if I mistake not our Case in the Suburbs of London is so bad already that One may go to ten Tradesmen before One meet with a man can change a Guinea So that here is Work for the Wits to propose a help that is past my skill to think or understand how ever the common people of England shall keep Silver mony any more if there be none but what is worth a great deal more to melt down or carry away They may kiss it at parting as Friends that do never expect to see One the Other more I fear and have not sense to get over my fears but rest in them this 27th of Feb. 169● W. H. By reason of the Author 's great distance from the Press there is divers Errata 's which the Courteois Reader is desired to correct ERRATA PAge 4. line 6. read formerly p. 9. l. 14. r. he would p. 9. 1. 16. r. I might p. 10. r. 14. January p. 15. l. 28. r. Once a year or two p. 21. l. 29. r. not having p. 25. l. 6. r. Breamen p. 26. l. 35. r. Imbezzlement Ibid. l. 11. r. in the last Ship p. 45. l. 15. for 4 months r. a month p. 50. l. 24. r. Out of this Nation Ibid. l. 15. r. Arts Master-peice p. 53. l. 33. r. and sad if it do ruin us p. 56. l. 23. r. A loss