§ MR. WARD JACKSONsaid, he wished to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty. If any mode and proportions have been settled for the distribution of the annual sum of £4,000 which, in the last Session, was fixed should be divided among the Merchant Seamen who had contributed to what was generally known as the "Greenwich Hospital Sixpence Fund," and how soon the appropriation of the money will commence?
§ MR. SHAW-LEFEVREsaid, he would beg leave to answer the Question instead of the First Lord of the Ad- 586 miralty. An Order in Council was passed in October last, defining the conditions and proportions under which the pensions were to be given to seamen out of the £4,000 per annum placed at the disposal of the Board of Trade by the Greenwich Hospital Act of last Session. Some time was necessarily allowed to enable claims to be sent in and examined, but pensions were now being granted at the rate of about fifty a-week. He might mention that 3,400 claims had been sent in, of which 1,115 were from men who went to sea before 1815, so that at present no person who was of less age than seventy would have much chance of receiving a pension.