River could find but 12 or 14, and of them the five ships taken up by
these merchants were a part, and so could not be spared. That we should
need 30,000 [sailors] to man these 130 ships, and of them in service we
have not above 16,000; so we shall need 14,000 more. That these ships
will with their convoys carry above 2,000 men, and those the best men that
could be got; it being the men used to the Southward that are the best men
for 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 fleete in the Straights. This, Sir J. Lawson enlarged
upon. Sir G. Ascue he chiefly spoke that the warr and trade could not be
supported together, and, therefore, that trade must stand still to give
way to them. This Mr. Coventry seconded, and 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 3,000 men, or at most 4,000 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 lit dead; and so the inconvenience is the less. And yet for them he
propounded, either the King should, if his Treasure would suffer it, buy
them, and showed the losse would not be so great to him: or, dispense with
the Act of Navigation, and let them be carried out by strangers; and
ending that he doubted not but when the merchants saw there was no remedy,
they would and could find ways of sending them abroad to their profit.
All ended with a conviction (unless future discourse with the merchants
should alter it) that it was not fit for them to go out, though the ships
be loaded. The King in discourse did ask me two or three questions about