This was more exactly done under Queen Victoria than it
was under Queen Elizabeth. Naval officers are more hostile to
'red tape' than most men, and they may lament the vast amount
of bookkeeping that modern auditors and committees of public
accounts insist upon, but they are convinced that a reasonable
check on expenditure of stores is indispensable to efficient
organisation. So far from blaming Elizabeth for demanding this,
they believe that both she and Burleigh, her Lord Treasurer,
were very much in advance of their age.
Another charge against her is that she defrauded her seamen of
their wages. The following is Froude's statement:--
'Want of the relief, which, if they had been paid their wages, they
might have provided for themselves had aggravated the tendencies to
disease, and a frightful mortality now set in through the entire
fleet.' The word 'now' is interesting, Froude having had before
him Howard's and Seymour's letters, already quoted, showing that
the appearance of the sickness was by no means recent. Elizabeth's
illiberality towards her seamen may be judged from the fact that
in her reign their pay was certainly increased once and perhaps
twice.[78] In 1585 the sailor's pay was raised from 6s. 8d. to
10s. a month. A rise of pay of 50 per cent. all at once is, I
venture to say, entirely without parallel in the navy since, and
cannot well be called illiberal. The Elizabethan 10s.
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