I shall, for my part, approve some clauses, and make objections to others; but think it proper to reserve my objections, and the reasons of my approbation, for the committee into which we ought to go on this occasion. [The bill was referred to a committee, but not forty members staying in the house, it was dropped.] HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 2, 1740-1. DEBATE ON THE BILL FOR THE ENCOURAGEMENT AND INCREASE OF SEAMEN. The bill was ordered to be read the second time, and to be printed for the use of the members, that it might be thoroughly examined and understood. On the forty-fourth day, the second reading of the bill was postponed to the fiftieth; but the grand motion being debated on that day, nothing else was heard. On the fifty-first it was again put off; but On the fifty-sixth day, being read a second time, it was, after some opposition, referred to a committee of the whole house, to sit five days after. In the meanwhile, On the fifty-seventh, it was ordered that the proper officers do lay before this house an account of what persons were authorized, by virtue of the act in the 4th of queen Anne, for "the encouragement and increase of seamen, and for the better and speedier manning her fleet;" to conduct seamen or seafaring men taken upon privy searches made by applications to justices; and what number of seamen or seafaring men were returned; also, the charge attending the same. On the sixty-first day, moved that the said account should be read; which being done, the house resolved itself into a grand committee on the present bill; and the first clause being read, proposing the blanks to be filled thus: that every volunteer seamen, after five years' service, be entitled to six pounds per year, during life. Sir John BARNARD rose, and spoke as follows:--Sir, as it is our duty to provide laws, by which all frauds and oppressions may be punished, when they are detected, we are no less obliged to obviate such practices as shall make punishments necessary; nor are we only to facilitate the detection, but take away, as far as it is possible, the opportunities of guilt. It is to no purpose that punishments are threatened, if they can be evaded, or that rewards are offered, if they may by any mean artifices be withheld. For this reason, sir, I think it necessary to observe, that the intent of this clause, the most favourable and alluring clause in the bill, may lose its effect by a practice not uncommon, by which any man, however inclined to serve his country, may be defrauded of the right of a volunteer. Many men have voluntarily applied to the officers of ships of war, and after having been rejected by them as unfit for the service, have been dragged on board within a few days, perhaps within a few hours afterwards, to undergo all the hardships, without the merit, of volunteers.