In order to promote cleanliness, care should be taken that every man, on his first entering into the service, be provided with a proper change of linen, and that a frequent muster and review be made, in order to inspect their persons, and to examine their stock of apparel. A true seaman is in general cleanly, but the greater part of men in a ship of war require a degree of compulsion to make them so; and such is the depravity of many, that it is common enough for them to dispose of their clothes for money to purchase spirituous liquors. A muster and review, therefore, wherein men should be obliged once in the week to present themselves clean before their officers, and to produce a certain necessary quantity of clean apparel, would conduce both to sobriety and cleanliness. The exertion of authority, and the infliction of punishment, is so far from being considered by the men as a hardship, that they expect it; and it is the duty of an officer, as it is of a parent to a child, to constrain those entrusted to his care to perform what is for their good. It is common also for men to lay up their clothes in a wet and unwashed state, which in time is productive of the most offensive and unwholesome vapours; and this can be prevented only by their chests and bags being frequently inspected by their superiors. It must be evident to any one who reflects on this subject, that a regulation of this kind is as necessary as any other part of duty; and it deserves to be made an article in the public instructions, instead of being left to the discretion of officers. This sort of discipline is particularly necessary in ships of the line, in which one cause of the greater unhealthiness is the difficulty of taking cognizance of so great a number; for, unless some regular method, as by muster, is established, there will be men who will escape notice, and skulk below, indulging in laziness and filth. The good sense and humanity of many captains in the late war, led them to adopt certain methodical regulations for the preservation of cleanliness and order. The only public sanction given to this sort of discipline, was that of Lord Howe, who gave it in orders to those under his command, that each ship’s company should be divided into as many divisions as there were lieutenants, and that these should be divided into squads, with a midshipman appointed to each; and that the officers should be respectively responsible for the good order and discipline of the men assigned to them. It is an excellent custom, and pretty general in the navy, to allow the men one day in the week for washing, when the weather and other circumstances will admit of it. It would be a farther improvement in the rules of the service to supply sope in the same manner as tobacco and slops are supplied, that is, to let the men have what quantity they want from the purser, who is allowed to charge it against their wages[49].