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PARLIAMENT AND SOME ROOTS OF WHISTLE BLOWING DURING THE NINE YEARS WAR*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2014

MATTHEW NEUFELD*
Affiliation:
University of Saskatchewan
*
Department of History, Arts Building, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, SK S7K 5A5matthew.neufeld@usask.ca

Abstract

This article argues that the failed campaign of one former clerk against corruption in the Royal Navy's sick and wounded service during the Nine Years War sheds light on some roots of modern whistle blowing. During the 1690s, England's parliament took important steps towards becoming an organ of inquiry into the workings of all government departments. Parliament's desire for information that could assist it to check Leviathan's actions, coupled with the end of pre-publication censorship in 1695, encouraged the advent of pamphleteering aimed at showing how to improve or correct abuses within the administrative structure and practices of the expanding fiscal-military state. It was from this stream of informative petitioning directed at the Commons and the Lords that informants such as Samuel Baston, as well as George Everett, William Hodges, and Robert Crosfeild, tried to call time on either systematic injustices or particular irregularities within the naval service for what they claimed was the public interest. What they and others called ‘discovering’ governmental malfeasance should be seen as early examples of blowing the whistle on wrongdoing.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

For their helpful comments and criticisms on drafts of this article, I thank Christopher Baxfield, Richard Kleer, Joe Ponic, the members of the University of Saskatchewan Department of History research seminar – especially Lisa Smith and Chris Kent, the anonymous referees of this Journal, and Phil Withington. Financial support was provided by the SSHRC of Canada and the University of Saskatchewan's Interdisciplinary Centre for Culture and Creativity. I also thank Madeleine Peckham, Blaine Wickham, and Phil Baker for their assistance.

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35 The total cost of the sick and hurt service during the Second Dutch war came to £18,000. During the Nine Years War, by contrast, the commission for sick and wounded spent over £260,000; British Library (BL), Additional Manuscripts (Add. MSS) 30999, fo. 1, ‘Account of war-time expenses according to the Commissioners for Accounts’, Nov. 1669; The manuscripts of the House of Lords, new series (HOL, ns) (10 vols., London, 1965), v, pp. 372–3.

36 TNA, ADM 3/3/204, June 1690, ADM 3/5/11, Nov. 1690, SP 32/3/112, fo. 49, 25 Nov. 1690, PC 2/74/74, Dec. 1690, ADM 3/8, 24 May 1693; HOL, ns, i, p. 172, 25 June 1693; TNA, ADM 2/173/309, Nov. 1693; Calendar of Treasury Papers … preserved in Her Majesty's Public Record Office (CTP) (6 vols., Burlington, VT, 2008), ii, p. 55, 8 June 1697.

37 TNA, ADM 3/3/6, Jan. 1690. Less than a year later, William III ordered a review of the commission's work on account of more complaints coming from the ports; TNA, PC 2/74/74, Dec. 1690.

38 Merriman, R. D., Queen Anne's navy: documents concerning the administration of the navy of Queen Anne, 1702–1714 (London, 1961)Google Scholar, p. 218; Cook, Harold J., ‘Practical medicine and the British armed forces after the “Glorious Revolution”’, Medical History, 34 (1990), pp. 126CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at p. 6; Harland, ‘First hospitals in the Royal Navy’, pp. 172–5. This judgement is recapitulated in Rodger, N. A. M., The command of the ocean: a naval history of Britain, 1649–1815 (London, 2004)Google Scholar, p. 196.

39 TNA, ADM 3/6/376, 4 Feb. 1692.

40 Spencer Research Library, Lawrence, KS (SRL), MS 129/1, ‘Mr Dickinson's paper’, 30 Mar. 1692.

41 TNA, ADM 3/6/376, Feb. 1692, ADM 3/6/430, 3/6/441, 3/6/472, Mar. 1692.

42 TNA, T38/615, ‘An account of Mr Povey's payments to the commission for sick and wounded and their servants, 1689–1699’; BL, Add. MSS 42140, fos. 1r–1v, ‘Physicians, chyrurgeons, agents and others’ [of the commissioners for sick and wounded], 1 Jan. 1692/3. Baston's annual salary was £40.

43 BL, Add. MSS 11602, fo. 1; Richard Gibson, Publick service in, or relating to the Royal Navy … (1700?).

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45 Baston, Case, p. 6; 'City of Westminster, St Paul's Covent Garden, East Division, Curl Court', in Derek Keene, Peter Earle, Craig Spence, and Janet Barnes, eds., Four shillings in the pound aid 1693/4: the city of London, the city of Westminster, and metropolitan Middlesex (London, 1992).

46 Baston, Case, pp. 1–5.

47 Although Baston does not use the man's first name, he was almost certainly referring to Major William Churchill; BL, Add. MSS 42140, fo. 1v; TNA, SP 32/5/106, 6 Apr. 1694.

48 Baston, Case, p. 7. The record compiled for the commission for public accounts in the autumn of 1703 suggests that Baston was not paid after Dec. 1693; TNA, T38/615, ‘Mr Povey's payments’.

49 SRL, MS 129/2, ‘The representation of John Leakie and Sam[ue]l Baston of ye illegal and clandestine management of the present commission[ers] for sick and wounded seamen’; TNA, ADM 1/4080/1127, Shrewsbury to Admiralty; ADM 3/9, 8 Mar. 1694.

50 BL, Harleian Manuscripts 1492, fos. 36r–v, 38, 7 and 19 Mar. 1694. Baston might have also informed the navy board, since by late March 1694 it apparently suspected sick and wounded agents were falsifying forms and forcing seamen to bribe them prior to issuing discharge papers; Merriman, R. D., ed., The Sergison papers (Navy Records Society, vol. 89, London, 1950), pp. 213–14Google Scholar.

51 SRL, MS 129/2, fo. 2r. Since the Second Dutch war, tallies were issued as numbered paper standing orders which were linked to specific future revenues; they were supposed to be paid out ‘in course’; Dickson, P. G. M., The financial revolution in England: a study in the development of public credit, 1688–1756 (New York, NY, 1967)Google Scholar, pp. 76, 350.

52 I thank Richard Kleer for clarifying this point. Quarterers were allowed 1s per day for lodging a sailor, and 6s 8d for cure; Royal Navy Museum, Portsmouth (RNM), Corbett papers, MSS 121/13, p. 9.

53 Baston, Case, p. 53.

54 Lucy Vickers, ‘Whistleblowing in the health service’, in Lewis, ed., Whistleblowing at work, pp. 70–83, at p. 74; Ellsberg, Secrets, pp. 326–8, 365–6; Gold, Gerald, Siegal, Allan M., and Abt, Samuel, eds., The Pentagon papers as published by the New York Times (Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar; Rudenstine, David, The day the presses stopped: a history of the Pentagon papers case (Berkeley, CA, 1996), pp. 42–7Google Scholar.

55 TNA, SP 42/2/105, 24 Sept. 1693.

56 TNA, ADM 3/9, 14 Mar., 20 Mar., 9 Apr. 1694.

57 SRL, MS 129/3, ‘Report of the commission of the Admiralty on the complaint against the commissioners of the sick and wounded’, 14 Apr. 1694; Baston, Case, pp. 8–18.

58 TNA, PC 2/75/397, 18 Apr. 1694.

59 TNA, PC 2/75/424, 31 May 1694; Luttrell, Brief relation, iii, pp. 307–8, 8 and 10 May 1694, p. 322, 2 June 1694.

60 TNA, PC 2/75/424.

61 The tallies carried interest as high as 8 per cent, which was 2 per cent above the legal maximum for private loans; Richard Kleer, ‘“Fictitious cash”: English public finance and paper money, 1689–1697’, in McGrath and Fauske, eds., Money, power and print, pp. 70–103, at p. 74.

62 SRL, MS 129/4, ‘Proposals of John Leakie, surgeon, to Sir Robert Rich’, member of the Admiralty commission, 4 May 1694; Cumbria Record Office, Kendal, Admiralty papers of Sir John Lowther, DLONS L/13/7/2/44, pp. 26–37, 15 May 1694; Baston, Case, p. 23.

63 TNA, ADM 99/5, 5 Feb. 1705.

64 Baston, Case, pp. 22–38; BL Harl. MSS 1492, fos. 36r–v, 38v; BL Harl. MSS 1493, fos. 47r, 54r–55v, 61v–63v.

65 BL, Harl. 1493, fos. 54r, 55v; Baston, Case, pp. 24–36.

66 BL, Harl. 1493, fos. 61v–62r.

67 Baston, Case, pp. 25–9, 32–4, 35–6.

68 BL, Harl. 1493, fos. 61v–62r.

69 BL, Harl. 1493, fos. 77, 78v.

70 Robert Crosfeild, England's glory reviv'd demonstrated in several propositions (1693), Wing C7243, pp. 6–11, 13–17; Knights, ‘Parliament, print and corruption’, pp. 53–8.

71 Robert Crosfeild, Great Britain's tears humbly offered to the consideration of the Lords and Commons (1695), Wing C7244, pp. 9–13.

72 Baston, Case, p. 4.

73 Robert Crosfeild, Justice perverted, and innocence loyalty oppressed (1695), Wing C7245, p. 26; LJ, xv, 9 Mar. 1695, pp. 515–16; HOL, ns, i, p. 526.

74 LJ, xv, pp. 532; HOL, ns, i, pp. 527–8.

75 Baston, Case, pp. 45–52; BL Harl. MSS 1492, Jan. to Apr. 1695, contain no mention of Crosfeild or Baston.

76 Baston, Case, pp. 50, 53.

77 Ibid., sigs. A2r–v, pp. 8–18.

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82 Robert Crosfeild, An account of Robert Crosfeild's proceedings in the House of Lords (1696), Wing C7240; LJ, xv, p. 654, 29 Jan. 1696; p. 678, 22 Feb. 1696, p. 688, 29 Feb. 1696; CSPD William, viii, p. 140, 12 Apr. 1696.

83 TNA, SP 32/13, Nov. 1696, Crosfeild, ‘Case of Robert Crosfeild’, p. 2.

84 Raymond, Pamphlets, pp. 213, 218–19.

85 Discourse betweene a resolved, and a doubtfull Englishman (1642), Wing D1572; Roger L'Estrange, Citt and Bumpkin in a dialogue over a pot of ale, concerning matters of religion and government (1681), Wing L1220; Withington, Phil, ‘‘“For this is true or els I do ly”: Thomas Smith, William Bullein, and mid-Tudor dialogue’, in Pincombe, Mike and Shrank, Cathy, eds., The Oxford handbook of Tudor literature, 1485–1603 (Oxford, 2009), pp. 455–71Google Scholar, at p. 458.

86 Freist, Dagmar, Governed by opinion: politics, religion and the dynamics of communication in Stuart London, 1637–1645 (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar, pp. 248, 252; Harris, Restoration, pp. 218–19.

87 Baston, Dialogue, pp. 7, 9, 10–11, 13, 12; TNA, ADM 2/171 fos. 200–2, Mar. 1691; Admiralty Commission, Rules and directions appointed to be observed, in order to the returning to their Majesties service, such men as shall be put on shore, sick or hurt (1691), Yale Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, BrSides By6 1691; RNM, Corbett papers, MSS 121/13, p. 7; Ehrman, Navy in the war of William III, pp. 128–33.

88 Baston, Dialogue, p. 12; a very unsubtle reference to the court's homiletical self-presentation, analysed in Claydon, Anthony, William III and the godly reformation (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar.

89 [Charles Lawton], An honest commoners speech (1694), Wing H2580, p. 6; Goldie, Mark and Jackson, Clare, ‘Williamite tyranny and the whig Jacobites’, in Mijers, Esther and Onnekink, David, eds., Redefining William III: the impact of the king-stadholder in international context (Burlington, VT, 2007), pp. 177200Google Scholar.

90 Baston, Dialogue, pp. 26–8.

91 Ibid., p. 16.

92 TNA, SP 32/13/219–220, Nov. 1696, Crosfeild, ‘Case of Robert Crosfeild’, p. 2.

93 Crosfeild, Government unhing'd, pp. 4–5; Baston, Dialogue, sig. A3v.

94 Jones, D. W., War and economy in the age of William III and Marlborough (New York, NY, 1988), pp. 21–2Google Scholar.

95 CTP, i, p. 522, 24 June 1696, i, p. 550, 27 Oct. 1696.

96 Coxe, William, ed., The private and original correspondence of Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury (London, 1821), pp. 411, 414–15Google Scholar; Horwitz, Parliament, pp. 184–7; Aldridge, ‘Russell’, p. 161; Hayton, ‘Russell’, pp. 330–1; Hopkins, Paul Anthony, ‘Sham plots and real plots in the 1690s’, in Cruickshanks, Eveline, eds., Ideology and conspiracy: aspects of Jacobitism 1689–1759 (Edinburgh, 1982), pp. 89110Google Scholar, at p. 98.

97 Baston, Dialogue, sigs. A3v, B1r; cf. John Lilburne, The oppressed mans importunate and mournfull cryes to be brought to the barre of justice (1648), Wing L2148.

98 Baston, Dialogue, ‘Epistle dedicatory’, sig. B1r.

99 Ibid., sig. A4v.

100 Ibid., sig. B1r.

101 St Loo, England's safety, pp. 35–8.

102 Crosfeild, England's glory, pp. 6–9, 11, 13–15; cf. Lincoln, Andrew, ‘The culture of war and civil society in the reigns of William III and Anne’, Eighteenth Century Studies, 44 (2011), pp. 455–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 457.

103 Everett, Pathway to peace, pp. 5–6, 11, 13–14, 17–18; Robert Ledgingham, The humble recital of Robert Ledgingham … (1698), BL 816m793, is a petition to instal pumps on ships.

104 Crosfeild, Justice perverted, p. 16.

105 Hodges, To the two most honourable Houses, pp. 1–2; idem, Seamen's misery, pp. 5–8; idem, Ruin to ruin after misery to misery (1699), Wing H2332, pp. 16–17.

106 Crosfield, Justice perverted, pp. 16–17; Baston, Dialogue, p. 12; William Eccles, Reasons for the taking off the Q---s and R---s (1700?), Wing E131; John Dennis, The seamens case with respect to their service in the navy (1698–9), Wing D1043; idem, Some reasons … to hear the petitioner John Dennis, when the report of the Q's and R's is read (1699), Wing D1044; The case of divers seamen … and the wives of seamen … together with several widows and others their friends … (1700), BL, 816m791; The humble case of the sailors … some further reasons … offered by the sailors … for taking off the Q's and R's (1700), Wing S4507B.

107 Crosfeild, Justice perverted, pp. 5–8, at p. 8.

108 George Everett, A word in season … Being a prospect of publick grievances, with some particulars relating to the imbezling of prizes and prize goods (1699), Wing E3549.

109 Hugh Speke, Some considerations … concerning the Lords of the Admiralty and the commissioners of the navy (1698?), Wing S4914B.

110 Crosfeild, Justice perverted, p. 11.

111 George Everett, Loyalty and fidelity rejected and oppressed (1699), Wing E3547, p. 16. Earlier in the same work, Everett stated that the Admiralty had encouraged another employee to take ‘his discoveries’ to the navy board, p. 11.

112 Hodges, Ruin to ruin, p. 28. For a similar suggestion see Crosfeild, Justice perverted, p. 21.

113 Hodges, Ruin to ruin, pp. 18–19, 25; idem, Humble representation, pp. 1, 9.

114 Baston, Dialogue, sig. A4v.

115 Everett, Loyalty, p. 13.

116 Crosfeild, Government unhing'd, p. 4.

117 Edward Chamberlayne, Angliae notitia, or, the present state of England (1700), Wing C1836, pp. 548–50.

118 Johnston, ‘Parliament and the navy’, p. 98.

119 Hodges, Ruin to ruin, p. 25.

120 Crosfeild, Government unhing'd, p. 5.

121 P. K. Watson, ‘The commission for victualing the navy, the commission for sick and wounded seamen and prisoners of war, and the commission for transport, 1702–1714’ (Ph.D. thesis, London, 1965), pp. 190–3.

122 Baston, Case, p. 7; for the commissioners' claim to have managed their financial affairs in a ‘husbandly manner’, see TNA, T1/72, fos. 123–6, Jan. 1701.

123 TNA, T38/615, ‘Monies charge on the late commission for sick and wounded seamen and its servants by the hon. commission of accounts compared with the office charge’, Oct. 1703.

124 HOL, ns, v, pp. 368–9, 372–3, Jan. 1704. Indeed, the report claimed that £124,416 of the total £260,000 the sick and wounded received from the navy's treasurer went to salaries and ‘travel costs’.

125 Ehrman, Navy in the war of William III, p. 596.

126 Johnston, ‘Parliament and the navy’, p. 113.

127 Merriman, R. D., ‘Gilbert Wardlaw's allegations’, Mariner's Mirror, 38 (1952), pp. 106–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johnston, ‘Parliament and the navy’, pp. 91–6; Brooks, ‘Country persuasion’, pp. 140–4; Aldridge, ‘Russell’, p. 163; The chief heads of the articles of impeachment against the earl of Orford (1701), Cambridge University Library, Broadsides.B.70.41.