When one man is empowered to hold in check, and to insist upon the obedience of a large proportion of his fellows, it can only be by "opinion" that his authority can be supported.

By" opinion," I mean the knowledge that he is so empowered by the laws of the country to which they all belong, and by which laws they will be punished, if they act in opposition to his authority. The fiat of the individual commanding is in this case the fiat of the nation at large; to contend with this fiat is not contending with the individual, but with the nation, to whose laws they must submit, or return to their country no more. A commander of a vessel, therefore, armed with martial law, is in fact representing and executing, not his own will, but that of the nation who have made the law; for he is amenable, as well as his inferiors, if he acts contrary to, or misuses it.

In the merchant service martial law is not permitted; the by-laws relative to shipping, and the common law of the country, are supposed to be sufficient and certainly the present system is

more advisable than to vest such excessive power in the hands of men, who, generally speaking, neither require nor are fit to be intrusted with it. Where, as in the greater number of merchant vessels, the master and his subordinate officers compose one-third, if not one-half of the complement on board, nothing but the most flagrant conduct is likely to produce insubordination.

But in the East India service the case is different. The vessels themselves are of dimensions equal if not superior to our largest class of frigates, and they carry from thirty to forty guns; the property embarked in them is also of such an extent, that the loss almost becomes national: their commanders are men of superior attainments, as gentlemen and as officers; finally, the complement of seamen under their command is larger than on board of many of the king's ships.

The above considerations will at once establish that those by-laws which afford protection to the well-governing of the merchant service in general, are not sufficient to maintain the necessary

discipline on board of the East India ships. The greater the disproportion between the unit who commands and the numbers who obey, the greater the chance of mutiny. Sedition is the progeny of assembly. Even where grievances may be real, if there is no contact and no discussion, there will be no insubordination; but imaginary grievances, canvassed and discussed in assembly, swell into disaffection and mutiny. When therefore numbers are collected together, as in the vessels of the East India service, martial law becomes indispensable; and the proof of it is, that the commanders of these vessels have been forced to exercise it upon their own responsibility. A letter of marque should be granted to all vessels carrying a certain number of men, empowering the commanders, under certain sureties and penalties, to exercise this power. It would be a boon to the East India ships, and ultimately a benefit to the navy.

To proceed. The merchant ships of the Company are men-of-war; the men-of-war of the

Company are what shall I call them? By their right names-they are all Bombay Marine: but let me at once assert, in applying their own name to them as a reproach, that the officers commanding them are not included in the stigma. I have served with them, and have pleasure in stating that, taking the average, the vessels are as well officered as those in our own service; but let us describe the vessels and their crews. Most of the vessels are smaller in scantling than the rundown (and constantly going down) ten-gun brigs in our service, built for a light draft of water, (as they were originally intended to act against the pirates, which occasionally infest the Indian seas,) and unfit to contend with any thing like a heavy sea. Many of them are pierced for, and actually carry fourteen to sixteen guns; but, as effective fighting vessels, ought not to have been pierced for more than eight. I have no hesitation in asserting that an English cutter is a match for any of them, and a French privateer has, before now, proved that she was superior. The crews are

composed of a small proportion of English seamen, a small proportion of Portuguese sea-cunnies, a proportion of Lascars, and a proportion of Hindoo Bombay marines. It requires two or three languages to carry on the duty; customs, religions, provisions, all different, and all living and messing separate. How is it possible that any officer can discipline a ship's company of this incongruous description, so as to make them "pull together?" In short, the vessels and the crews are equally contemptible, and the officers in cases of difficulty must be sacrificed to the pride and meanness of the Company. My reason for taking notice of the "Bombay Marine" arises from an order lately promulgated, in which the officers of this service were to take rank and precedence with those of the navy. Now, as far as the officers themselves are concerned, so far from having any objection to it, I wish, for their own merits and the good-will that I bear them, that they were incorporated into our navy-list; but as long as they command vessels of the above