Propositions for Gaining and Encouraging Seamen in his MAJESTY'S Service.  
I. That an Account of all Shipping in employ be given in by a day set. A penalty on Commanders employing unregistered Vessels. The penalties to be divided between the Informers, and to the use of married Seamen; the recovery thereof to be provided for by the speediest Methods.  
II. That all Seamen between 6 and 60 Years of age offer themselves to be Registered; yearly, if required by Proclamation. To encourage Registering that all the Registered be allowed Smart Money and Pensions, tho' wounded, when Licenced in Merchant's Ships. And this will also cause a good defence of Merchant's Ships.  
III. That Bounty Money be given to all that come into his Majesty's Service, by the times set.  
iv That Licenses be given each Year to as many as can be spared from his Majesty's Service, which have been longest in it, to go into Merchant's Ships.  
V That their Wages be stated and cleared to them when discharged or turned over to another Ship.  
VI That a Moiety of their Wages be paid to their Wives, or other Assigns, every six Months, during their foreign Voyages.  
VII. That all Vessels sailing with licenced Men and Registered, shall not be liable to any interruption or stop in their Voyages.  
A Penalty on any Master entertaining an unlicensed Seaman; an Officer to go on Board all Vessels coming in and going out of Port, and examine their Licenses; the Master refusing it, to be liable to a Penalty: The Master obliged to have a List of his Ship's Company always fixed up in some public place of the Vessel.  
Ships coming home from foreign Voyages not to be liable to the Penalties, till 20 days after they arrive in the Port they are bound to.  
VIII. A Penalty on such as shall Conceal, or knowingly entertain unlicensed Seamen.  
A Reward to be given to such as shall discover an unlicensed Seaman; to be paid to the discoverer by the Collector of the next Seaport, and sent by the Officer who Conveys such Seaman, with allowance for his Journey.  
IX. That, for Increase of Seamen, Licenses be given to any Land-men to serve in Merchant's Ships for two Years; who shall afterwards be obliged to come into his Majesty's Service.  
Land-men to bring Vouchers for their being such. A Penalty on vouching falsely; on counterfeiting Licenses, or personating another.  
X. Certificates to be given to Masters of all Vessels above 50 Tuns.  
XI. Certificates to be given to aged Seamen.  
THe ground is a Register with a Discipline annexed, interwoven with Encouragements; by which all advantages to be made in the Sea Service, either in the King's or Merchant's Ships, will fall to them who shall be the forwardest in complying with their Duty.  
The Register of Sailors (tho' all are commanded to it, and will find themselves obliged by their Interest to come into it) is so far voluntary, that no Man that stands out will be under the Penalty of one penny, or the least corporal Punishment, or any new Obligation, but being denied the advantages proposed to those who shall actually do what he refuses with the Condition of them.  
The Penalties on Masters of Vessels, and some others, tho' sometimes necessary, will be liable to no exception, when it shall be considered, that no one can be here incurred but by obstinacy and wilfulness; and that when they shall be acquainted with the whole Course, the observance will appear so plainly their advantage, that all temptation to the breach thereof will cease; for that they will thereby have more Men, at all times, and on much easier terms then at present they have.  
The Officers for this Service need not be formidable as to their number or charge; one Register and a Clerk will be sufficient in any out-Port to receive such as offer themselves or Vessels to be Registered, and to make their returns to the head Register in the Port of London; and to give out the Certificates and Licenses: And the going on Board and examination of Licenses may be performed by the Custom-house Officers used to such sort of services, with some small addition for this.  
The Registering of all Shipping in employ will be a useful measure whereby to know whether the Sailors as to their number, have complied in Registering themselves; and for ascertaining the Masters: A pretence under which it is judged that three times the real number shelter themselves from the King's Service.  
The Registering or survey of Seamen yearly, will give a certainty of what number may be depended on for the Service of the following Year for the King, and what may be Licenced for the Merchants.  
The giving Licenses to serve the Merchants, to such as have served the King, is the greatest Encouragement that can be given to Seamen; it being the expectation of those extraordinary Gains that makes all the hiding and skulking; and 'tis therefore but just that they who have readily complied with their Duty should have them; and not they, who by their refractories are the cause of all the difficulties the Service now labours under.  
If the Reward to the discoverers of absconding Men be made equal to the Bounty Money, 'twill soon appear to them more their Interest to take it themselves for coming into the King's service, then to let another have it for bringing them in.  
The making the Merchant's Ships the Nursery of Seamen, as 'tis the natural way, and that by which all ours have been bred, so 'tis still to be pursued: 'Tis to be seen how useless raw Men are in the King's Ships: That Men accustomed to easier living on Shore, cannot bear the hardships of a Seafaring life, that therefore the giving them so long time in Merchant's Ships will harden them by degrees, and make them serviceable.  
The ways in present use for employing Seamen either in the Kings or Merchant's service, appear to be nothing but a confused scramble for Men; as if a thing taken up on some sudden occasion, when there was not time to use Order, or fall into Discipline.  
'Tis the duty of all Sailors to serve the Nation in War; and for their readier compliance therewith, several advantages have been given them: The trading Vessels to get Men for their use, outvie the King's advantages by giving greater Wages: For the gain of these, the Men hid till they think the danger of a Press over; being then sure of Employment, and double gains for their whole time: By which means the greater advantages come to them who avoid the duty.  
If it be thought expedient for the King's service to give yet greater Encouragements, the Merchant is still ready to bid against them: So that the greater the Advantages are that are given to the deserving on the King's part, it does but advance them higher to such as reserve themselves for the Merchants.  
The husbandry of such conduct to the public, which pays on both sides, I shall not insist on, but shall farther show, that this will be the consequence: For tho' it were urged that it must come to an end, for that such charge could not be born by some parts of Trade, yet when Trade is reduced to consist in almost nothing but what is of absolute necessity to us (how far 'tis come towards that I do not determine) the price must be paid let it be almost what it will: This is visible in the Trade to Newcastle, upon which the Wages are whatever they please to demand: But Penalties would be too great an advance for them at once to get over, being always liable and made the Interest of the Officers and others also to look after.  
How far such offer of Advantages will prevail may appear by a late Experiment; when for six weeks together there was offered three Months pay as a Bounty, (and what Advantages can be given greater than ready Money) yet with such success to the Fleet now fitting out, as shows how little such ways alone are to be depended on.  
The mischievous Effects of this growing daily more dangerous to the Nation, several expedients have been offered for redress; in which a Register is laid down as a foundation by most, tho' with some difference in the practice of it.  
'Tis the opinion of some, that a voluntary Register should be established, for a set number of Men, who, 'tis expected should enter themselves into it, being prevailed on by the Advantages and Privileges given thereby; and that all others be incapable of those Advantages, and left at their liberty to take their chance, of being pressed; or escaping it, and making their best Market on the Merchants.  
Voluntariness and Liberty indeed sound well, but let it be considered how far they are so in this Case, and what effect they may probably have towards a Redress. If these Privileges be things at a distance, as the being excused from Parish-Dutys of Constable, etc. they usually weigh not much, and are things such Men think themselves little concerned in; but a true test will be, what will they be worth in Money? (for all Advantages are are reduceable to Money, either gained or saved) will that be more than the Bounty-Money late offered? Why then should it expect a better effect? But, granting that they will come in upon it; the Traders will have so many the fewer, and they who stand out, the greater Advantage from them: What hold is there then on these Registered Men, but that they should run into their service? If it be answered, that they are Listed into the King's service, and shall be accounted Deserters, and liable to be prosecuted as such; the voluntary Register proves nothing but a new way of Listing; and those in it under a much severer obligation, than is here offered; and all the circumstances will appear to be the same as before, that the greatest Advantages will accrue to them that stand out, and the hardships lie on those that do their duty.  
From the foregoing Considerations, I infer the necessity of a Discipline, with the Encouragements: By which I understand, a steady course of obliging all Equally to do their Duty, by giving the Encouragements to those only who actually do it; and that they may have the first Advantages, who have already that way deserved them.  
I shall now show how that may be done, under the Propositions above inserted. The first step into the Register entitles them to Pensions, if hurt in the whole course of their Service: They have Bounty-money when they come into the King's Ships: They have their Pay when turned over; which is a redress of one of their greatest Grievances: And having served, such time as their Numbers found will allow for their being relieved, will have all the Advantage to be made in Merchant's Service; which (tho' probably the price of Wages per Month may fall) will be to them greater Earnings than at present; for that they may with good assurance and security employ their whole time, without the loss of any by hiding in Times of Press.  
The manner and time of relieving, and giving out Licenses, may properly be at the time the great Ships are laid up; the Register, or Survey, having been taken the forepart of the Year: The Licenses for the whole following Year, to be given to a proportion of each Ship's Company; the remainder, some to be kept for the relief of such as are to be licenced out of the Cruising Frigates, when they come next into Port, and the rest to be dismissed with Furloes, till their attendance shall be required the next Spring.  
The suffering none but licenced Men for the Merchants, will be no hindrance to Trade; they can now have no more than the King's Service can spare; and by this way they will have as many; and having them at all times without interruption (whereas they now hid, and lie still out of all Service half their time) it will be equal to double their number; beside the additional Provision of permitting Land-men for their Service; and being secure from having their Men taken from them in the middle of a Voyage, or when their Business most wants them. Nor need the Traders be at a stand one day; for the Men, now protected in their Service, may be allowed the Licenses till the King's Ships come in, and then it directs others to be assigned them.  
What is offered for the bringing Land-men into the Sea-service, is from this ground, that a War necessarily puts a great stop on some Handicraft Trades and Manufacturers, who can turn themselves to no new thing which will bring them in better Earnings than the Merchant's Service, which is an Employment that has something in it of Trade also; who, when they shall see that they may have a certainty of time, will, probably, good numbers of them take to it, who will not venture in under the apprehension of being pressed the next day.  
The want of Seamen will be every day greater, by the course of natural Mortality, which takes away a constant proportion; by the losses at Sea in Storms and Hurricanes; by Fights and Imprisonments; by the want of the usual Supply from Trading Vessels; and by the greatest of all, as to the King's Service, the improvements made in the Arts of evading the present ways of bringing them into the Service.  
All which enforce the necessity of a speedy and effectual remedy; lest the Cure come too late; or an imperfect one being offered at, prove the same in effect as none at all; and give some Men an Apprehension that any future Attempt will be fruitless and in vain.  
FINIS.   

LONDON, Printed for John Whitlock near Stationers-Hall.