The navy had been greatly reduced in the year before, the men voted having diminished from 100,000 to 56,000. What became of the 44,000 men not required, of whom about 35,000 must have been of the seaman class and have been discharged from the service? There was a further reduction of 6000, to take effect in the beginning of 1803. Sir Sydney Smith, at that time a Member of Parliament, in the debate of the 2nd December 1802, 'expressed considerable regret at the great reductions which were suddenly made, both in the King's dockyards and in the navy in general. A prodigious number of men,' he said, 'had been thus reduced to the utmost poverty and distress.' He stated that he 'knew, from his own experience, that what was called an ordinary seaman could hardly find employment at present, either in the King's or in the merchants' service.' The increase of the fleet in March must have seemed a godsend to thousands of men-of-war's men. If there was any holding back on their part, it was due, no doubt, to an expectation--which the sequel showed to be well founded--that a bounty would be given to men joining the navy. The muster-book of a man-of-war is the official list of her crew. It contains the name of every officer and man in the complement. Primarily it was an account-book, as it contains entries of the payments made to each person whose name appears in it. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was usual to make out a fresh muster-book every two months, though that period was not always exactly adhered to. Each new book was a copy of the preceding one, with the addition of the names of persons who had joined the ship since the closing of the latter. Until the ship was paid off and thus put out of commission--or, in the case of a very long commission, until 'new books' were ordered to be opened so as to escape the inconveniences due to the repetition of large numbers of entries--the name of every man that had belonged to her remained on the list, his disposal--if no longer in the ship--being noted in the proper column. One column was headed 'Whence, and whether prest or not?' In this was noted his former ship, or the fact of his being entered direct from the shore, which answered to the question 'Whence?' There is reason to believe that the muster-book being, as above said, primarily an account-book, the words 'whether prest or not' were originally placed at the head of the column so that it might be noted against each man entered whether he had been paid 'prest-money' or not. However this may be, the column at the beginning of the nineteenth century was used for a record of the circumstances of the man's entering the ship, whether he had been transferred from another, had joined as a volunteer from the shore, or had been impressed.