HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



129 



considered, as ■well from bis great 

 iiaval skill, as from the variety and 

 extent of his services, in which ma- 

 ny other useful branches of know- 

 ledge might have been learned, a 

 most valuable acquisition to a set of 

 men, new to otEcc, whose talents 

 had hitherto been confined to the 

 narrow circle ol our domestic po- 

 licy. 



In this estin>ate, however, it 

 should seem, that government had 

 greatly over-rated the powers of the 

 noble person in whom they reposed 

 so great a trust, or at least, his 

 application of them to the duties of 

 this important station : but it was 

 the fate of Mr. Addington's admi- 

 nistration, to fail in all its compo- 

 nent parts, and always most strik- 

 . ingly so, in ' those in which it was 

 supposed lay its principal strength. 

 In the case before us, the truth of 

 this conclusion is eminently conspi- 

 cuoHs; and the thorough disorga- 

 nization, and impending ruin of 

 their favourite service, must have 

 painfully convinced ministers of the 

 crroneousjudgment they had formed. 

 It was strongly impressed upon 

 the mind of the first lord of the ad- 

 miralty, that the most enormous 

 abuses and peculation existed in the 

 civil branch of the naval depart- 

 ment ; and although, in a consider- 

 able degree, these ideas might be 

 well founded ; yet, unfortMuately, 

 so little did he avail himself of those 

 acute powers of mind he was sup- 

 pos(.'d to possess, or so little was he 

 acquainted with the nature of the 

 service over which he presided, as 

 to conceive that those evils admitted 

 of an instantaneous and radical 

 mode of cure. Dear bought experi- 

 ence could alone convince him, that 



this objeft, however meritorious to 

 attempt, or desirable to attain, 

 could not be accomplished either in 

 the time, or by the meatis which he 

 proposed; and that the knife which 

 amputated the mortified part, might, 

 when not used discreetly, prove fatal 

 to the patient. 



So deeply, liowevcr,^ was this im- 

 pression rooted in the mind of the 

 admiralty, that the ordinary pro- 

 gress of the naval system was entire- 

 ly suspended, until- (as it was as- 

 serted) its projected plans of reforni 

 had taken place. A board of com- 

 missioners was appointed accord- 

 ingly, upon whose reports several 

 of the oldest and best officers of 

 the dock-yards, and a vast number 

 of artificers of every description, 

 were turned adrift, without being 

 heard in their defence : while, by 

 the orders of the admiralty, the navy 

 board were forbidden to make any 

 contraft whatever for stores ; nor, 

 during this period of interdict, M'ere 

 the usual and regular supplies of the 

 naval arsenals kept up. The con- 

 sequence of these measures (as ia 

 every other vast and complex en- 

 gine, where the failure of one wheel 

 in its duty, deranges the whole ma- 

 chinery) was dreadful, and was, in- 

 deed, prognosticated by ail the 

 wisest and most experienced of the 

 naval profession. Our account of 

 the debates in the session of 1803-4, 

 will shew, that even then, an ho- 

 nourable gentleman, high in the na- 

 vy, apj)rized and vvarned adaiinistra- 

 tion of the ruinous system wliicJi 

 was pursuing ; but no pointed at- 

 tack was made in parliament upon 

 the subject, until the agitation of 

 the '*• defence bill," in the house of 

 commons,* when it gave rise to 



Vol. XLVI, 



• Vide C'liiip. 



III. 



many 



