§ Mr. Perceval ,in rising to move for the paper, of which he had given notice, thought it necessary to state the reasons which induced him to submit such a motion, and the object which he had in view. This paper, he was ready distinctly and clearly to say, was meant to apply to that part of the right hon. secretary's argument upon which he seemed so much to rely in the discussion of a former evening, and which in reality formed. in that right hon. gent.'s own judg- 841 ment, the strongest reason to justify his extraordinary and exceptionable proposition respecting the volunteers. The character of extraordinary and exceptionable he did not, of course, mean to apply to the whole of the right hon. gent.'s plan. But with regard to the volunteers, he had no difficulty in pronouncing it totally objectionable, as it had a tendency not merely to the immediate reduction, but at no distant day, in all probability, to the complete extinction of that useful body. The consequence of the right hon. gent.'s arrangement it could not be difficult to anticipate. It obviously must lead to one or other of these effects: either to drive 300,000 able, effective, and ardent men, to lay down their arms altogether, and quit the service in disgust, or, if not, to keep them in at least a state of comparatively less utility to the country. For what was proposed that must not operate to degrade the volunteers in their own opinion, and in that of the country also? Was it not, in fact meant to make the volunteer corps a stigmatized asylum from the operation of till compulsory levy? Could any man doubt the justice of this statement who had attended to the right hon. gent. on a former evening, or who recollected the uniform tenor of his remarks upon the volunteer institution? The right hon. gent. appeared to rest a good deal of his hostility to this institution on the expence which it occasioned and therefore it was extremely desirable that the house should be informed of the real amount of that expence, distinguishing the different heads of expenditure When this account should be laid on the table, it would be seen what part of the expence complained of, could be discontinued; and gentlemen would have a opportunity of comparing the amount of the sum to be laid out with the value of the service. It would be also seen what proportion the amount of this expenditure had to the produce of the income tax, to which the right hon. secretary allude. No doubt, the expence hitherto incurred by the volunteers was considerable, but had no difficulty in saying that a great part of that expence was such as could not recur again, and therefore could form no reason at present in support of a measure that was calculated to disband a consider able part of that body, and to disgust the whole. There were, in fact, many heads of service upon which the expence might saved altogether, without at all working 842 any diminution of the number or efficiency of the volunteers. This would appear when the paper, for which he meant to move, should be produced, and he was, of course, as a friend to the volunteer system, desirous that it should be laid before the house. He should be also desirous to have an estimate brought forward of the expence likely to arise from the compulsory training of the people. If such an estimate could not now be obtained, he should of course, defer any application for it. But, he would feel much satisfaction if it could be produced, because parliament and the country would then have an opportunity of comparing at once the expence, and the services also, that were to be looked for from the two systems, and of examining their comparative value. If the expence of the two should prove to be equal, it would be for the house to consider, whether the proposed change should take place? Whether Englishmen, who voluntarily stood forward in the hour of peril, should be disbanded, to make room for a reluctant, constrained levy? It was the first time that such a proposition had been made in this country, and it required but a little consideration indeed, to estimate the difference between the two kinds of service. Sure he was, that parliament could hardly be persuaded to adopt a measure of forcibly training, particularly where they felt it to be unnecessary, and if they felt it to be unnecessary, they must feel it to be unconstitutional. For whatever he might think of the right of the state to call upon the population of the country to arm in its defence; however he might conceive the prerogative of the crown entitled to summon the whole people together, and he remembered to have carried that doctrine further than the right hon. gent., still he always felt the right and exercise of the prerogative to depend on the pressure of the necessity. But he could not imagine the degree or nature of the necessity, which could justify the compulsory levy of 200,000 men, in preference to the employment of 300,000 able, well-disciplined volunteers. Whether such a measure should be taken, it would be for parliament to determine; but, in order that it should be enabled to determine justly, he though the fullest enquiry should be made. Having said so much as to the object of his motion, the hon. gent. proceeded to comment on some late proceedings out of doors upon this subject. The volunteers formed, he 843 was well aware, rather a delicate question at present. Considerable agitation and ferment prevailed abroad respecting it, and nothing could be farther from his wish, in introducing this motion, than to increase in any degree a ferment of that nature, the existence of which every thinking man must regret. It would, therefore, be a great misconception of his object, to suppose that by this motion he meant to encourage any disposition to discontent among the volunteers. He should most sincerely deprecate any thing that could contribute to such an effect. Indeed it was seriously to be deplored, that the volunteers, or any other description of persons, should take up any impression from the mere proposition of a measure in parliament, as to what parliament was likely to do. For just in the same degree that any such measure was unjust or unwise, or likely to press severely upon them, should any portion of the people feel that parliament would not feel disposed to adopt it. The people should at least wait until the decision of parliament was known. And until that decision, instead of apprehending evil, their presumption ought to be, that such a measure would not be adopted. The character of parliament, and the just respect which the people entertained for it, should naturally incline the public mind to that presumption. To the volunteers he particularly addressed these obvervations; and to indicate a disposition different from that he recommended, would on their part, to say the least of it, be impolitic and unwise. For any indecorous conduct, at present particularly, must be injurious to themselves and their advocates, by furnishing to their enemies the strongest arguments against them. He felt, however, that it must be confessed the disgust and discontent of the volunteers was, in a great measure, excusable. It was very natural for them to complain when they heard language used respecting them by a government composed, for the most part, of men who originally encouraged their formation, and who almost uniformly panegyrized their conduct. When they saw any part of such a government, instead of patronizing them, manifesting a wish to throw impediments and obstacles in their way, the same feelings which led the volunteers to quit their habits and employments to prepare for the field of war, must now dispose them to chagrin and disappointment. When they were held up as a disgrace to the military 844 profession; when told that it was degrading to the army that they should be dressed in the same uniform with them; that it was an affront to military officers, that volunteer corps should have any thing like similar distinctions. That although their want of discipline had been the general complaint heretofore, the remedy now proposed was to relax that discipline—it was no wonder if the zeal of the volunteers was in some degree damped, and their dispositions soured. But still they should not suffer themselves to be agitated, but wait in respectful confidence the decision of the legislature. The hon. and learned gent. concluded with moving for "An account of all sums issued and expended for the service of the volunteers of Great Britain, from the commencement of the present war to the latest period at which the same could be made out, distinguishing each year,and also each head of service.
Mr. Secretary Foxdid not rise to object to the motion of the hon. gent., because, without such a motion, it was intended by his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham) to lay this document before the house. But the hon. gent.'s speech and his motion being far from the same thing, he must say, that although he acquiesced in the one, he very much objected to several parts of the other. The hon. gent.'s observation, that the volunteers should, before they took a strong impression as to his right hon. friend's plan, wait the decision of parliament, was certainly, unexceptionable; but he could not help observing that that sentiment very ill consisted with other parts of the hon. gent.'s speech. When a person of understanding, competent to conceive the proceedings of that house, was found to misrepresent words which it was impossible to misconceive, it was not difficult to infer his object. Nothing could have been more explicit than the meaning of his right hon. friend. When he alluded to a relaxation of discipline, he meant merely that the volunteers should only be seldomer called out to exercise, and that being obvious, it ought to have been beneath the hon. gent. to catch at words. Was it possible that the hon. gent. could be so mistaken as to understand that any intention existed of disbanding the volunteers? Sure he was, that if his right hon. friend entertained any such intention, he had concealed it from him. That his right hon. friend said any thing, on the day alluded to, to warrant such an inference, he most peremptorily and absolutely de- 845 nied. It would have been rather more becoming in the hon. gent. to have waved any remark on this plan until it was perfectly understood; for it was quite clear that he did not understand it; and it was much to be regretted that some industry was made to propagate a similar misunderstanding throughout the country, but, thank God, with very little success! With respect to the use made by the hon. gent. of the word "asylum," it could only have been applied by his right hon. friend to the volunteers, as the body which those men in the higher classes of life, who might wish to be exempted from the compulsory training, would naturally choose. The hon. gent. talked of substituting 200,000 men, trained according to the new arrangement, for 300,000 disciplined volunteers. But the hon. gent. did not seem to recollect that it was not 200,000 men merely, but the people of the country in rotation, that would be trained, in addition to the volunteers. The only change on the whole, in the volunteer system, was merely to retain those only who should serve without pay, and that would be conformable to the original principle of their formation. Therefore, the change could occasion no murmurs, unless men were predetermined to complain. He was sorry to hear of the existence of any discontent, although he was persuaded that it could proceed only from misconception. But when the hon. gent. deprecated any intemperance on the part of the volunteers, lest it should furnish their enemies with arguments against them, he would wish to know whom the hon. gent. considered the enemies of the volunteers? For he knew of no such persons in that house. The hon. gent. might say whom he suspected, but he rather believed that he would feel it difficult to state the grounds of his suspicion. That a difference of opinion prevailed upon this question, both in and out of the house, he was perfectly convinced. He could not hope for unanimity. But, upon a fair and full understanding of the measure, he bad little doubt that the number of its opponents would be comparatively very few.
§ Mr. Perceval ,in explanation, said he might have misunderstood the meaning of .the right hon. secretary, as it was now explained. But from the words used, and the concomitant circumstances, of allowing no. drill serjeants, no inspecting field-officers, no permanent duty, he left it to the house to judge, whether he was not warranted 846 in making the interpretation. The right hon. gent. might say, he had explained himself to mean, by relaxation of discipline, only a reduction of the number of days of exercise; but he gave the right hon. gent. to understand, that there had been no misinterpretation of what he had said, farther than what he had said was naturally calculated to suggest, till it was explained. No wilful misrepresentation was intended. The right hon. sec. who had spoke last, possessed a key to the right hon. gent.'s, meaning, which he did not possess; but he appealed to the house for the fairness of the meaning he had assumed, before he was corrected by the explanation of this night. He was glad, that he had been id any way the instrument of drawing out the declaration, that it was not the intention of his majesty's ministers to diminish the volunteer force.
§ Mr. Foxin explanation said, the hon. gent. was equally called upon to acquit his majesty's ministers of having done any thing offensive to the volunteers.
Lord Castlereaghhad never heard any speech of the right hon. gent. with more pleasure than that which he had now closed. Whether from the discontents expressed in the house, or those expressed out of it, or from whatsoever cause, the bill brought forward was extremely different from the opening view of the right hon. gent. who had brought it forward. He wished that the amendment might be carried still further; that the branch of the military establishment appropriated to foreign service, might also escape the innovating grasp of the right hon. gent.; and that the destructive reform he meditated might be sacrificed either to the public disapprobation, or the right hon. gent.'s own better consideration. He should be sorry to pin any man to a particular expression that might have escaped him in the warmth of debate; but the expression alluded to, was too distinct to be liable to misunderstanding or misinterpretation. The right hon. gent. had expressly spoken of loosening the discipline of the volunteer force. The right hon. gent. had besides opened his speech with lamenting, that the stage was occupied by the volunteers. The right hon. gent. might not have been prepared to proceed to the immediate dissolution of the volunteer force; but he called on the house to recollect, that the right hon. gent. in agreeing to grant clothing for this year, expressly withheld himself from any pledge 847 to grant it in any future year. He called on the right hon. gent. to say whether he had not expressed himself to this effect. He knew the right hon. gent. was too manly to deny it. The right hon. gent. had said, that the volunteers were prepared for a service to which they were wholly inadequate; and that whatever the inspecting field officers might say of their fitness to serve in the line, they were wholly unqualified for that service. But however the term of loosening the discipline might be explained, a material change was to be made by taking away the drill serjeants, and the inspecting field-officers, the only point of contact with the government the volunteers had. Instead of being in a situation where they could be of essential service to the country, they were to be sent back to their homes. In every step, from the highest retrenchment of the staff, to the lowest retrenchment of the drill serjeants, every thing short of absolute disbanding was proposed, in the reduction of the volunteer force, with a view to an armed populace, or a drilled mass. Was it possible to conceive such a military body as a drilled mass without officers, to be taken out of the people, and after 25 days of drilling, after being shewn the use of the musket so far as they could learn it, to he sent back again among the people, whether with or without the muskets, to the use of which they would have been trained, the right hon. gent. did not say. If this mass was to be thus trained without officers, how was it possibly to be collected in case of invasion?
§ Mr. Francisto order, asked whether this was a motion on the general subject of the volunteer force? for if it was a mere motion for papers, it was very wrong to go into it at such a length without notice.
§ Mr. Paullstated the right to the attention of the house to belong to his motion, of which a long notice had been given, and not to this of which there had been no notice.
§ The Speakersaid, there had been a notice of the motion for papers relating to the volunteer force. The motion had certainly branched out into a more general range than such a motion seemed to require. But it was in the discretion of the house to permit or to restrain such extraneous proceedings. He did not feel warranted in interposing to check it before, nor did be now.
Lord Castlereaghsaid he bad been natu- 848 rally led into a comparison of the volunteer force with that which the right hon. gent. meant to substitute. He was glad that so material a change had been made in what the right hon. gent. had proposed. All the regulations proposed were calculated to produce practical relaxation of discipline, and diminution of numbers.
§ Mr. Windhamwas glad his right hon. friend had stepped forward to answer the learned gent. who had brought forward this motion. He had himself been thrown into an agitation which rendered it not quite fit for him to stand up, not by the poignancy of the wit of the learned gent. who had introduced this debate, but by a sort of figure of speech adopted by the learned gent. which excited feelings in him which it was fit to keep down, and to forbear addressing the house, till they had given place to feelings of a cooler nature. Part of the arguments urged on the other side, applied to questions very proper to be discussed at another time, when the measure that gave rise to these questions should be before the house. The other part called not so much for argument, as for flat contradiction. It was an open undisguised mistatement of what he had said on a former night. He had not only never said, but he had never thought of what had been imputed to him. The learned gent. had expressed an anxiety to explain the object of his motion. It was not necessary to explain the object of the mover. That was clear, and he should be exceedingly sorry if the learned gent. had not been as perfectly successful in that point as he was. It was a kind of parliamentary warfare, resorted to in some few instances before, but now adopted without limit by the hon. gent. on the other side, to influence every passion right or wrong,—[a cry of no, no]. That was at least the tendency of what had been said; and though it might not he parliamentary to charge it directly, he was more justified in collecting it from the speeches of the hon. gentlemen, than they were in collecting the misinterpretation of this night from his. The hon. gentlemen might, if they thought fit, adopt this system of parliamentary warfare: but he wished them to abstain from misinterpreting his speeches, and making their own misinterpretations the foundation of attacks upon him. He should be happy to follow the contradictions imputed to him in their order, but that was impossible. The learned gent. had charged him with 849 saying the army was degraded by the volunteers wearing the same colour. All he had said was, that as the army everywhere existed as a distinct body, and its character depended in a great measure on that distinction, a part, of its discipline and character was lost when that distinction was multiplied. He utterly denied using any expressions to the extent the learned gent. charged upon. him, As to the charge of having made the volunteers a degrading asylum for those who fled from the Levy en masse, his right hon. friend had so fully vindicated him from it, that he was almost ashamed to revert to it. His object was, that persons who from their situation and rank, in life would be averse to being trained. in the general mass, should have the option of being trained in a more congenial manner in the volunteer force. It was, on the same principle that the volunteer system was formed on the basis of the Levy en masse act. The exemptions from the militia, and the other inducements to enter into volunteer service, were made matter of reproach to the volunteer force. He did not make them matter of reproach; but the learned gent. did, in making them matter of contrast between the volunteer training, and the Levy en masse. And by whom was this distinction made? The learned gent. was the author of the army of reserve bill, by which 50,000 men were to be raised, who had given to the volunteers an exemption from this act and from the militia, and who had, as his noble friend (lord Temple) had very properly reminded him, given it as his opinion, that a volunteer could not resign—[hear! hear!). Yet he was the person to come forward now, and to say the volunteers were degraded by the admission of those who preferred voluntary training to the training en masse.—He now lo the charge of relaxing the discipline. It was rather singular, that,in a speech which he as well as others had thought long for the occasion, this Was the only point he Could fasten upon as a subject of discontent to a large body of men whom the learned gent. and his friends found it convenient to agitate. Perhaps, critically speaking, the world relax might have been inexact and unfortunate; remit might have been a better world—[a laugh from the other side];the hon. gent. might feel amused, but the house would recollect, that all objections of this nature would be. nothing More than mere verbal criticisms. The lear- 850 ned gent. who collected so much mischief from the wonder-working word "relax," must, as well as the hose, be aware, that he meant by it nothing more than, that the volunteers should attend a smaller number of days, and that there should be no permanent duty.—With respect to their attendance at drills, on the other days, or their being subject at proper times to military law, no alteration was to be made. The ,inspecting officers had no power to enforce attendance at drills, and that, among others, was a reason for getting rid of them. How the learned gent., who must have known that the application of the word relax was confined to these points, could give such a latitude to it, he was at a loss to conceive. In himself he felt awkward at being put upon his justification, When he was so perfectly unconscious of any thing wrong. The whole of his alterations in the volunteer system consisted of a few subordinate measures of economy, which could have no effect one way or the other. They went merely to put the volunteers on the original footing of voluntary service, a footing on which 300;000 of the 350,000 now existing already were. The object was to reduce them from the June to the August allowances. There were now but 50,000 on the June allowances. If this could have the effect of disbanding the volunteers, of whom 300,000 were already on the allowance to which all were to be reduced, it was matter of astonishment to him, as it would be to all the world. The proposed arrangement would have no other effect than that of placing the allowances on the footing on which they had been at first, and on which-it was acknowledged to be desirable that they should be. The tendency of his preposition was rather to add to than to wish the numbers of the volunteers, There was nothing dote to disband, and those who would find it eligible to go into the volunteers to avoid the training en masse, must pro tanto be an increase. To leave the allowances as they were, without any increase, must have the effect of doing what he did. The bill only went to put into the mass those that would not serve at their own expence, and to take out of the mass those who wished to serve at their own expence. As to the general argument on the measure, he would reserve himself till a future occasion, as the learned gent. ought to have done, if he had contented himself with moving for papers, to 851 the production of which he must have known, there was not the smallest objection. When the learned gent. made a speech of such length, in such language, and with such matter, it was fair to impute to him objects different from his mere motion. He had not the smallest objection to the production of the papers.
§ General Tarletoncongratulated the house on the difference of the right lion. gent.'s sentiments this night from what he thought on the night on which he brought forward his measure. Every one must remark the vast difference of tone, language, and manner. In the short sketch of the former night the right hon. gent. took away from the volunteers their drill-serjeants and their inspecting field officers, thinking it sufficient that they should be seen some time in the year by the lord lieutenant or his deputy. That must indeed relax their discipline. The difference of tone that was observable this day, must be imputed to the sense the country had manifested on the contents of the speech made by the right hon. gent. on a former day. Resolutions had been entered into by many corps, which had been submitted to his majesty's ministers. He had seen many such resolutions, and had recommended to wait patiently till Mr. Windham's system should be fully explained. The right hon. gent. and the house would pardon the irregularity of mentioning the name; but the system was known, as Mr. Windham's, in contradistinction to all others that had ever existed. The object of the motion was to simplify and elucidate the statement of the right hon. gent. The right hon. gent. had stated that 5 million had been expended in three years for volunteer service; and the question was, a Nether there was in that service merit adequate to the cost? The merit of the service was unquestionable: and was service of such unquestionable merit to be recompensed only by the refusal of rank, as if they were unworthy of it, by telling them, that the colour of the army was degraded by their wearing it? This was a mode of increasing the strength and security of the country, which could not easily be paralleled.—The question was then put, and the paper ordered.