In your letter to this Board of December 23rd you informed us that the Commissioner and Master Attendant of the Portsmouth Yard has advised that the Seamen of the Great Ships to be fitted there will not attend these works without an allowance of twelve pence a day, at which Rate the Master Attendant proposes employing one hundred and fifty of them, and you desire our directions.
We direct you to give Orders for making the said allowances to such Men so employed as have had leave by their Majesties' Proclamation to be absent to the first of January next.
But the men being at that time to attend the services of the respective Ships to which they belong, you are not to make them any extra allowance, but to cause them to be [Chequed] if they do not give their attendance and perform the service they ought to do.