* * *

The London Gazette of the 1st April, 1706, contains a proclamation
by the Queen for putting into execution an Act of Parliament for the
encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and
speedier manning of Her Majesty's fleet, which authorises all
justices to issue warrants to constables, petty constables,
headboroughs, and tything-men, to enter and, if need be, to break
open the doors of any houses where they shall believe deserting
seamen to be; and for the further increase and encouragement of the
navy, to take able-bodied landsmen when seamen fail. This Act,
which occupies four columns of the Gazette, and another of similar
length and meaning for pressing men into the army, need not be
quoted at length here; but caused a mighty stir throughout the
kingdom at the time when it was in force.

As one has seen or heard, after the march of a great army, a number
of rogues and loose characters bring up the rear; in like manner, at
the tail of a great measure of State, follow many roguish personal
interests, which are protected by the main body. The great measure
of Reform, for instance, carried along with it much private jobbing
and swindling--as could be shown were we not inclined to deal mildly
with the Whigs; and this Enlistment Act, which, in order to maintain
the British glories in Flanders, dealt most cruelly with the British
people in England (it is not the first time that a man has been
pinched at home to make a fine appearance abroad), created a great
company of rascals and informers throughout the land, who lived upon
it; or upon extortion from those who were subject to it, or not
being subject to it were frightened into the belief that they were.