A practicable plan for manning the Royal Navy, and preserving our maritime ascendancy, without impressment : addressed to Admiral Lord Viscount Exmouth / by Thomas Trotter.

  • Thomas Trotter
Date:
1819
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practicable plan for manning the Royal Navy, and preserving our maritime ascendancy, without impressment : addressed to Admiral Lord Viscount Exmouth / by Thomas Trotter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the united imperial kingdoms, repugnant to the honourable feelings of the officer, and cruel and unjust to the seaman. Let me now turn to contemplate a more pleasing picture, the “ Practicable Plan” of Manning his Majesty’s Navy by volunteers. In the first volume of “ Medicina Nautica,’’ published in January, 1797> page 43, the fol¬ lowing opinion is given on the subject of RAISING MEN FOR THE NAVY. “ The experience collected on this subject, «c during the present war, entirely corresponds u with the account of numerous evils related w on former occasions. They must be inevi- “ table till a new system is adopted. A coun- “ try that boasts so justly of her civil rights, u ought long ago to have rescued from an in- “ voluntary engagement, a description of peo- “ pie, to whom she owes her greatness in the “ scale of empire. I am afraid that men high “ in office have a very limited idea of the “ afflictions occasioned by impressing seamen. “ Instead of calling it a necessary and politic “ measure, for the safety of the country, I “ pronounce it a most fatal and impolitic prac- “ tice. It is the cause of more destruction to
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