_Admiralty Records_ 1. 2732--Capt. Young, 24 June 1740.] On shore
he was treated for thirty days at his country's charges. If incurable,
or permanently disabled, he was then turned adrift and left to shift
for himself. A clean record and a sufficiently serious wound entitled
him to a small pension or admission to Greenwich Hospital, an
institution which had religiously docked his small pay of sixpence a
month throughout his entire service. Failing these, there remained for
him only the streets and the beggar's role.

His pay was far from princely. From 3d. a day in the reign of King
John it rose by grudging increments to 20s. a month in 1626, and 24s.
in 1797. Years sometimes elapsed before he touched a penny of his
earnings, except in the form of "slop" clothing and tobacco. Amongst
the instances of deferred wages in which the Admiralty records abound,
there may be cited the case of the _Dreadnought_, whose men in
1711 had four years' pay due; and of the _Dunkirk_, to whose
company, in the year following, six and a half years' was owing.
[Footnote: _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1470--Capt. Bennett, 8 March
1710-11. _Admiralty Records_ 1. 1471--Capt. Butler, 19 March,
1711-12,] And at the time of the Nore Mutiny it was authoritatively
stated that there were ships then in the fleet which had not been paid
off for eight, ten, twelve and in one instance even fifteen years.
"Keep the pay, keep the man," was the policy of the century--a sadly
mistaken policy, as we shall presently see.

In another important article of contentment the sailor was hardly
better off. The system of deferred pay amounted practically to a
stoppage of all leave for the period, however protracted, during which
the pay was withheld. Thus the _Monmouth's_ men had in 1706 been
in the ship "almost six years, and had never had the opportunity of