In November he wrote to the Admiralty that in hot climates "the Pease and Oatemeal put on board his Maj'y Ships have generally decayed and become not fitt to issue, before they have all been expended." He proposed taking instead of peas and oatmeal a proportion of "Stockfish, Grotts, Grout, and Rice." The Admiralty sanctioned the change; but the purser seems to have failed to procure the substitutes. Whether, as was the way of the pursers of that time, he pocketed money on the occasion, cannot be known. He died at sea long before the lack was discovered. A more tragical matter took place in this November. A Mr. McKie, a naval mate, was attacked on Gosport Beach by twenty or thirty of the _Centurion's_ crew, under one William Cheney, a boatswain's mate; and the said William Cheney "with a stick did cutt and bruse" the said McKie, and tore his shirt and conveyed away his "Murning ring," which was flat burglary in the said Cheney. "Mr. Cheney aledges no other reason for beating and Abusing Mr. McKie but the said McKie having got drunk at Sea, did then beat and abuse him." As Hamlet says, this was hire and salary, not revenge. Months went by, doubtfully enlivened thus, till June 1740, when the pressing of men began. The _Centurion's_ men went pressing, and got seventy-three men, a fair catch, but not enough. She despatched a tender to the Downs to press men from homeward bound merchant ships. This method of getting a crew was the best then in use, because the men obtained by it were trained seamen, which those obtained from the gaols, the gin-shops, and the slums seldom were. It was an extremely cruel method. A man within sight of his home, after a voyage of perhaps two {xv} years, might be dragged from his ship (before his wages were paid) to serve willy-nilly in the Navy, at a third of the pay, for the next half-dozen years. An impartial conscription seems noble beside such a method. Knowing how the ships were manned, it cannot seem strange that the Navy was not then a loved nor an honoured service. Nineteen of the _Centurion's_ catch loved and honoured it so little that they contrived to desert (risking death at the yard-arm by doing so) during the weeks of waiting at Portsmouth.