In what manner this blessing of fair winds and fine weather, would affect the mariners themselves, and the breed of sailors, may be easily conjectured from what has been said already. As there would hardly one ship in four be made use of, so the vessels themselves being always exempt from storms, fewer hands would be required to work them, and consequently five in six of the seamen we have might be spared, which in this nation, most employments of the poor being overstocked, would be but an untoward article. As soon as those superfluous seamen should be extinct, it would be impossible to man such large fleets as we could at present: but I do not look upon this as a detriment, or the least inconveniency: for the reduction of mariners, as to numbers being general throughout the world, all the consequence would be, that in case of war, the maritime powers would be obliged to fight with fewer ships, which would be an happiness instead of an evil: and would you carry this felicity to the highest pitch of perfection, it is but to add one desirable blessing more, and no nation shall ever fight at all: the blessing I hint at is, what all good Christians are bound to pray for, viz. that all princes and states would be true to their oaths and promises, and just to one another, as well as their own subjects; that they might have a greater regard for the dictates of conscience and religion, than those of state politics and worldly wisdom, and prefer the spiritual welfare of others to their own carnal desires, and the honesty, the safety, the peace and tranquillity of the nations they govern, to their own love of glory, spirit of revenge, avarice, and ambition. The last paragraph will to many seem a digression, that makes little for my purpose; but what I mean by it, is to demonstrate that goodness, integrity, and a peaceful disposition in rulers and governors of nations, are not the proper qualifications to aggrandize them, and increase their numbers; any more than the uninterrupted series of success that every private person would be blest with, if he could, and which I have shown would be injurious and destructive to a large society, that should place a felicity in worldly greatness, and being envied by their neighbours, and value themselves upon their honour and their strength.