Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/208

 the colonial yards. Notwithstanding this great shipwright strength, and the efforts exacted from them, the Admiralty was obliged to seek every possible assistance from the private shipbuilders, and to these persons Admiral Martin maintained protection was due, considering how much they had done for the country when we had enemies to deal with in every quarter.

I need not dwell upon all the other points of Admiral Martin's evidence; but that which relates to the merchant service and manning the navy must not be omitted.

If the Navigation Laws were done away, Admiral Martin believed, the shipowner who would go to foreign countries for cheap ships would, from the same motive, take foreign seamen, such as Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, or Dutchmen, who would be content with small wages and a cheap scale of dietary. In this way, a large number of British seamen would be deprived of the employment they now enjoyed owing mainly to the Navigation Laws; and, in such a case, the naval service must suffer in proportion, especially, when, in time of war, seamen are most urgently required. It had been said, and it was a "marvellous assertion," that the merchant service contributes so little towards the supply of the navy—that, so far as concerned this point, there need be