Excerpt from Substance of a Letter to Lord Viscount Melville, Written in May, 1815, With the Outlines of a Plan to Raise British Seamen, and to Form Their Minds to Volunteer the Naval Service When Required: To Do Away With the Evils of Impressment, and Man Our Ships Effectually With Mercantile Seamen Having your Lordship's permission to address you on the subject of British Seamen, I shall take a slight review of our Marine, since the commencement of the war, in 1793, to this time. I shall also try to fix your at tention upon the means of our retaining our rank of first maritime power; to which purpose it will be necessary to render ourselves equal to, at least half, or three-fourths. Of the maritime pc'nvers united: and the experience ol the late American war must have convinced even those unacquainted with nautical affairs, that there is but one means of maintaining a decided superiority, and that is to have always a sufficient number of regularly bred seamen. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.