That we should need
30,000 sailors to man these 130 ships, and of them in service we
have not above 16,000: so that we shall need 14,000 more. That
these ships will with their convoys carry about 2000 men, and
those the best men that could be got; it being the men used to
the Southward that are the best men of warr, though those bred in
the North among the colliers are good for labour. That it will
not be safe for the merchants, nor honourable for the King, to
expose these rich ships with his convoy of six ships to go, it
not being enough to secure them against the Dutch, who, without
doubt, will have a great fleet in the Straights. This, Sir
J.Lawson enlarged upon. Sir G. Ascue chiefly spoke that the warr
and trade could not be supported together. Mr. Coventry showed
how the medium of the men the King hath one year with another
employed in his Navy since his coming, hath not been above 3000
men, or at most 4000 men; and now having occasion of 30,000, the
remaining 26,000 must be found out of the trade of the nation.
He showed how the cloaths, sending by these merchants to Turkey,
are already bought and paid for to the workmen, and are as many
as they would send these twelve months or more; so the poor do
not suffer by their not going, but only the merchant, upon whose
hands they lie dead; and so the inconvenience is the less.
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