o_199m9vaui14ib1cnu10di10pocoj4h.pdf

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98 THE NAVAL MUTINIES OF 1797
whole year was fixed at ^351,000.
The Admiralty had decided
to make various improvements in the quality of the provisions,
but it was impossible to prophesy how much the improvements
would cost. The estimates for victualling were therefore based
on the old standard of 19s. a month for every man. There were
120,000 men in the navy, including marines ; and the expense of
their provisions was to be increased by one-eighth. Thus the
additional cost of provisions for a whole year would amount to
^185,250—in the estimates it was given as ^185,000—and the
total increase for a year was reckoned as ^536,000. The sum
demanded by the Admiralty and voted by Parliament ^372,000,
was nine-thirteenths of this amount ; with the allowance of a
small margin (Pari. Hist., xxxiii, 505).
It may be observed that as the nominal pound of provisions
previously served to the seamen only weighed 14 ounces, the
increase in weight, and therefore the increase in cost, ought to
have been one-seventh instead of one-eighth. The only possible
explanation not involving a mathematical blunder is that 19s. a
month covered the cost of the full 16 ounces. If this were so, it
would seem that the Admiralty made a quasi-profit by only
providing 14 ounces ; and that instead of yielding up this profit
to the seamen, they demanded the cost of another 2 ounces per
nominal pound from Parliament. Thus they would really
receive a grant sufficient to provide 18 ounces in a nominal
pound, and while supplying an honest 16 ounces they would
still have the same margin of quasi-profit. Otherwise the
question would arise whether the Admiralty ought to have
asked for an increase of one-seventh in the grant for victualling
or whether the new one-pound weights that were being prepared
by the Victualling Board (see A.S.M. 118, 2 May) were actually
only heavier by one-eighth than the old 14 ounce weights, that
is whether they weighed only 152 ounces. But it is much more
likely that 19s. a month was the full cost of providing each man
with victuals at the rate of 16 ounces in a pound, not the net
cost at the rate of 14 ounces. If it were not so, it would
be difficult to account for the system of allowing two ounces for
leakage. Apparently the two ounces were now added in the
estimates instead of being subtracted from the rations.