Note 634 — Chapter XXXIX · THE ARMY AND NAVY.

Brown[634] gives a description of the Admiralty in his time: 'By this time we were come to the Admiralty Office, the outside invited us in, and here we found only a Company of Tarrs, walking to and fro with their Hands in their Pockets, as on the Quarter Deck aboard; in one Room there was a company of Lieutenants, some had serv'd twenty Years without being rais'd, because they either knew not how to Bribe in the right Place, or were so tenacious of what they had so hardly purchas'd, that their only hopes were now Half Pay or Superannuation. In another place were Seamen's Wives with Petitions, and pressing Deputy B——, who was as surly to them, as a true Whigg in Office; but tho' he demanded no Fee, he could be mollified by a little Fellow feeling, that like a Sop to Cerberus, let Petitions and Men pass too; Then you fall in betwixt Scylla and Charybdis, the Clerks on one Side, and Sea Captains on the other; where Cowards that have lost one Ship, easily get another; and Men of Valour, without Interest, wait in vain for Preferment, from those who dispose of what they do not understand; for here the Land determines of the Main, and he that never see the North Foreland, disposes of things, as if he knew all the Creeks and Bays, Shelves, Sands, and Nations of the Universe.'