DEFENCE OF THE COUNTRY

HC Deb 22 July 1807 vol 9 cc860-906

Lord Castlereagh ,

in pursuance of the notice which he had had the honour to give, rose to call the attention of the house to the military measures which his majesty's ministers had thought it their duty to propose; a subject at all times important, but perhaps never so important as at the present momentous crisis. It had been to him a subject of considerable uneasiness, that the production of these measures had been somewhat delayed by his own personal indisposition; but there ware other and more serious causes which had induced government not to be hasty in bringing them forward. His majesty's ministers could not but feel, on coming into office, that the event of the campaign on the continent which was then opening, whether favourable or disastrous, was likely to present to the observation of parliament, the truest motives for inciting then to exertion—motives much more powerful than any which the statements of government could otherwise produce. He could also assure the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Windham), that his majesty's ministers were anxious that their return to office should not be marked with any undue impatience to subvert the plans of their predecessors. Among the eminent qualities of the right hon. gent. the solicitude to destroy established systems was one, which he owned he was least desirous to emulate. Impressed with these feelings, his majesty's ministers examined deliberately the military system already in existence. He was prepared to admit, that whatever objections he felt to that system, he also felt considerable difficulty in making a fundamental alteration in it. A comparatively inferior system laid claim to protection, from the circumstance of its being in existence; and therefore, in what he should offer to the house, the right hon. gent. would not find such a deliberate purpose of alteration as perhaps he expected, or as characterized his own arrival in that department, which he (lord C.) had now the honour to fill. Having thus stated the reasons why this subject had not been submitted at an earlier period to the consideration of parliament, he should now feel it his duty to propose to them a measure of great energy, which would put the country to much inconvenience, which would subject it to severe sacrifices, but which was rendered indispensable by the circumstances of the times, and by the measures of the late administration. On this point, he felt relieved from the necessity of entering into a particular and detailed description of this necessity. The present situation of Europe was enough of itself to rouse the public attention. If the late administration allowed, when they were in office, that the military strength of the country was inadequate to its objects, how much more so must it now be, when it was hardly possible to turn our eyes to any quarter in which the interests of Great Britain were not at stake? If the sphere or action were great, when the right hon. gent. was in power, how much was it extended at the present moment? We had now to support new principles of policy, and to feed so much larger an army employed on foreign service. In the army at home also, we were called upon either to make a great effort to render the second battalions of our regiments efficient, or with a due regard to economy, to abandon them altogether. He was apprehensive, however, that should they be abandoned, the weakness which marked them, would characterize the first battalions, and that the first battalions would soon become as inefficient as it was so deeply to be lamented that the second battalions now were. It was impossible to look to the general aspect of Europe, and to the returns on the table, by which it appeared how large a portion of our force was employed abroad, and even on the most superficial view, entertain a doubt of the necessity of great exertions indeed, if we were desirous of preserving our security at home and of not abandoning our military greatness abroad. If the necessity were disputed, he was prepared, and staked his personal responsibility to prove (could he do so without divulging that which ought not to be divulged), by the most satisfactory am undoubted details, that no voluntary or other local force was adequate to the wants of the country, but that for every thing of that description, a regular and efficient force must be substituted. The question therefore, was not whether the volunteer system or the Training bill, could be improved, but what that system was which would carry our regular army and militia to the highest point, with the least incon- venience to the existing establishments, and with the most moderate pressure on the country? If he had satisfied the house that some substantive increase of regular force was necessary for the preservation of our dearest interests, it would be a proposition not very difficult to establish, that we must not rely for that amount of force which the public exigency required on the system of ordinary recruiting which the right hon. gent. opposite had projected, or on any system of ordinary recruiting which human wisdom had devised. He would not now enter into a detailed examination of the right hon. gent.'s system: that would be a subject for future discussion; but he would generally state it as his own deliberate and decided conviction, that if any system of ordinary recruiting were freed as much as it were possible to free it from the effects of undue competition, and were in every respect as well administered as it was in human power to administer it, it might keep up an army once brought to its standard, but it could never be competent of keeping up an army, and of increasing it at the same time. Let the house look at the result of the right hon. gent.'s system for the last six months—the most favourable period of its operation—they would find that, deducting the boys raised by it, the actual produce of men obtained for the army, was not so great as by the former double operation of the ordinary recruiting, and the Additional Force act, much less was it calculated to give that increase to our military strength, which the foreign measures of his majesty's late ministers (and into the wisdom of those measures he would not now enter) had rendered necessary. If therefore, it was meant to have a bona fide addition to the amount of our public force, it was perfectly illusory to depend on the ordinary recruiting; in truth, therefore, the question came to this, what measures must be resorted to to raise the army to the standard to which circumstances imposed the necessity of its being raised? Certainly, by some sort of compulsion. No desirable species of compulsion had ever occurred to any administration unconnected with ballot; and here he could not avoid condemning the unnecessary pains which the right hon. gent. opposite had taken to decry the use of ballot. If it were allowed that compulsion must be resorted to, and that compulsion must be founded on ballot, our choice was narrowed to a very limited extent. In submitting to parliament what had occurred to his majesty's ministers as most expedient on this subject, he hoped they would not expect any peculiar novelty. He acknowledged that he had not made any very great discovery: he had indeed avoided every thing that appeared mighty ingenious, because he knew very well, that on all subjects, and especially on military subjects, these ingenious and complicated theories, although they might look extremely well on paper, were found to be sadly deficient when attempted to be put into practice. He was persuaded, whatever his opinion of the military plan of the right hon. gent. was, that at all times, and in a state of war above all other times, it was infinitely better to adopt the military establishments of the country as they stood, and to fortify and support them, than to weaken and throw them down for the purpose of substituting some speculation, of which experience alone could prove the superiority. There seemed to be this simple alternative on which to decide. If we were to raise a great number of men by ballot, the country must be called upon either to submit to a ballot for men direct for the regular army, or to submit to a ballot for men for the militia, with the view of our drawing from the militia that aid which the incomplete regiments of the line required. He would state the grounds for the option made by his majesty's ministers, and shew why they thought it the less advisable measure to raise a number of men by ballot direct for the regular army. It was true that the act of 1804 (the Army of Reserve act), to which he might consider himself a party, was for the purpose of raising men by ballot direct for the army; and it was also true, that if ever a military measure was beneficial to the country, it was that act, from which, in a very short space of time, most important advantages had been derived. If, therefore, the country stood in the same situation, as that in which it stood in 1804, he should certainly have thought it the duty of his majesty's ministers to submit to parliament some proposition, analogous to the Army of Reserve act; but it was impossible not to feel that the circumstances of the country were essentially different now from what they were then, and that they were now precisely such as to afford strong reasons for a preference of the other mode of increasing our military strength. In the first place, from the magnitude of our force (however yet inade- quate) we had more nearly approached to those bounds by which every country limited in population, must necessarily be prevented from furnishing more men for its military service, or at least from furnishing them without considerable difficulty. If, therefore, a mode offered itself of procuring men with more facility than in any other way, that mode ought to be adopted. There was another striking difference between the situation of the country when the Army of Reserve act was passed, and the situation of the country at present. Just before the former period, the regular militia had been balloted, and had been called into service; now, their period of service had expired, and would terminate with the termination of the war. Whatever supplies, therefore, might now be drawn from the militia for the regular army, would consist of men whose services would be otherwise approximating to a conclusion, while the new levies, to fill up the deficiency thus occasioned in the militia, would consist of men commencing a term of service of 5 years. Thus the country would obtain a military protection ready for a new war or any other emergency, and would enjoy a diminution of those burthens which must otherwise be incurred at the conclusion of peace, to replace that very great portion of the militia which must in that event be discharged. In proposing, therefore, to levy men by ballot for the militia, rather than to revive the provisions of the Army of Reserve act, no new or avoidable burthen would be imposed upon the country, but that burthen merely would be anticipated, to which, on the return of peace, the country must submit. That part of the measure of the right hon. gent. last year, which excluded from the army any regular battalions for limited service, was another strong cause for preferring the mode now proposed of augmenting our force. It was true, that this obstacle was not insurmountable, but it was the wish of his majesty's ministers to disturb as little as possible the existing military establishments of the country. The levy of men for the militia would be less prejudicial to the country, and to the regular recruiting for other reasons. There was a greater proneness in the peasantry to enter into the militia than into the regular army. Men for the militia would not only be more easily got, but they would be of a better description; and although he allowed that the large ballot which would be required, would raise the bounty considerably, yet it would not be raised so much as if the same ballot were to take place direct for the regular army. The balloting for the militia had become congenial to the habits of the country. It was familiar with it. The people recognized it with tranquillity, and the magistrates executed it with ease. The Army of Reserve act, although a most estimable measure at the time of its adoption, yet being one of comparatively greater pressure, after it had been four months in operation, degenerated so much, that those by whom it had been proposed, thought it their duty to move for its suspension. He thought also the house would feel, that the fact of the penalties under the Army of Reserve act never having been enforced, was a most serious obstacle to any recurrence to that measure. Those who were in power had transferred the penalties to the Additional Force act and that alone; but when the right hon. gent. proposed to parliament to repeal those fines in defiance of every principle of public justice and legislative dignity, he (lord C.) had endeavoured to shew how pregnant with mischief that right hon. gent.'s proposition was; and that it was one which would render nugatory any measure similar to the Army of Reserve act. That the step then taken was unwise, now appeared pretty strongly; and were he to propose a renewal of the Army of Reserve act, he was satisfied that he should, in consequence, subject the country to all the vexation of a legislative measure, which must end in complete failure. The house would also feel as an inducement to prefer the mode which he had suggested, that looking at the present state of the country, if the gentlemen of the militia were disposed to lend themselves to such a laudable object, it was much more desirable that any temporary inefficiency should exist in the defensive rather than in the offensive part of our military force. In every point of view, therefore, it seemed preferable to raise men for the regular army from the militia, than to raise men for the regular army by a ballot. It was a mere anticipation of a burthen which must be imposed; it was a cheaper method; it was one by which better troops would be procured; and it would ultimately restore to the recruiting market that monopoly which he was as desirous as the right hon. gent. opposite, that it should possess.—Having thus detailed the grounds on which the measure now proposed had been adopted, it became necessary to state the extent of the levy. At the termination of five years service, all men balloted for the militia were entitled to their discharge. The official documents proved, that from December next to the succeeding May, between 5 and 6 thousand of the militia would be so entitled to their discharge, besides the waste produced by other circumstances. He was anxious when the subject of ballot was agitated, to submit to the house the expediency of providing not only a cover for this deficiency and this waste, but also such a number of supernumeraries (for whom the officers now in the militia would be sufficient), as would render any further ballot for two or three years wholly unnecessary; so that a security would be given to the line, that a continual ballot would not exist in competition with their ordinary recruiting. In looking to the number of men which it would be proper to raise for these purposes, two questions offered themselves for consideration. What number of men could the militia afford to spare? and what number of men did the army indispensably require to put it in a state of adequate efficiency; that was, to place every regiment, including the second battalions, on its proper footing? Having duly weighed these points, his majesty's ministers proposed that all those men now serving in the militia exceeding three-fifths of the militia establishment in Great Britain, and one half of the militia in Ireland, should be transferred to the line. By this arrangement, about 21,700 men would be gained from the militia of Great Britain, and about 7,000 from the militia of Ireland. It had been thought better to propose to take the excess above three-fifths of the British militia establishment, and the excess above one-half of the Irish militia establishment, rather than to take two-fifths of the British militia and half the Irish militia, because as several of the militia regiments were not completely filled up; the latter mode would weaken them too much. In one word, by the proposed plan, the British militia would remain at three-fifths, and the Irish militia at one-half of its present establishment. The men to be raised by ballot were, as he before stated, for three objects, to cover the waste in the militia, to supply the deficiencies occasioned by so great a transfer from the militia regiments to the regular army, and to provide a body of supernumeraries large enough to prevent the speedy recurrence of the ballot. To effect these objects, it had been thought better to mention a proportion, rather than a defined number. As the law at present stood, his majesty was empowered to call on the counties to ballot far a supplementary militia, amounting, in Great Britain, to 24,000 men, viz. 20,000 in England, and 4,000 in Scotland. As the number of this supplementary militia was exactly half of the established militia, so it had been deemed advisable to propose that the counties should be called upon for a supplementary militia and a half, making 36,000 men for Great Britain, besides 8,000 for Ireland. Allowing for the necessary waste, this would add at least 38,000 men to the gross military force of the country, and 28,000 men to the regular army; leaving with the militia a large body of supernumeraries, sufficient for a long period to release the standing army from the embarrassments, which a ballot must occasion; and, when peace should arrive, instead of not having any militia at all, the country would possess a militia of 36,000 men, and would only have to raise the difference between that number and the full establishment, namely, a fourth, or 12,000 men.—Having thus stated the extent to which in the present public exigency it had been thought wise to carry the increase of the regular army from the militia, he observed, that no pains had been spared by his majesty's government to digest a mode of transferring the men from the militia to the line, more free from objection than any that had hitherto been devised, more palatable to the officers of the militia, and less likely to hurt that just pride in their different regiments, which they so laudably entertained. On this part of the subject his majesty's government would be extremely happy to receive any suggestions from the officers of militia, with which they might think proper to favour them. It had occurred to his majesty's ministers, that there were two objections which were likely to press on the feelings of militia officers; the first was, the large amount of the force that would be extracted from the militia; the other, the danger which the militia regiments would for a while incur of a relaxation of discipline by the volunteering and recruiting for the line. With respect to the first objection, he trusted it would not be deemed a very serious one, when it was considered that, although a great diminution in the numbers of the militia must certainly take place for the increase of the regular army, yet that a greater number would immediately be supplied from the counties. With respect to the second objection, it was proposed, in the first instance, and for a certain period, to submit the recruiting for the line from the militia solely to the direction of the militia officers. It was proposed, that for 30 days after the issuing of the warrants, no soldier or officer of the regular army should interpose, or have any intercourse with the militia. It was in the contemplation of his majesty, and of his royal highness the commander-in-chief, to give as usual, commissions in the line, in proportion to the number of men raised, and to commission the officers in the regiment to which the men might be invited to go, should the wished-for number not be produced within the 30 days: but it was also proposed to accept a smaller proportion of men, provided they were produced in 30 days, in preference to the allowing of volunteering in round numbers, if a third was thus produced instead of two-fifths. He would submit to the house but a few observations on the terms of enlistment, because they would with more propriety become the subject of a future discussion. He was certainly far from wishing to anticipate the decision of parliament, on a question of so interesting a nature, as whether or not the men should be allowed to enlist for life; though he confessed that he differed very widely from the right hon. gent. opposite in his opinions on that point; he was by no means disposed to advise that the regulations adopted last year by parliament should be rescinded, and things restored to their former state. Yet still he thought it would be wise to give to individuals the alternative whether they would enlist for life or not; but he admitted that the only fit opportunity for discussing this question would be on the introduction of the Mutiny bill, and that such discussion was irrelevant to a collateral measure like that before the house. He would observe, however, that the right hon. gent. himself had not thought that no case could occur in which a deviation from his regulations would be advisable. He had certainly held out an expectation to all those who had served 21 years in the army, that they would be immediately discharged; but prudence would not allow him to venture on this step, and in the face of his own principles he abstained from discharging these men, who were very numerous, and who were still in the service. If, therefore, the right hon, gent. relaxed the regulations of parliament, to suit his own convenience, surely he (lord C.) might call upon parliament to relax them for the convenience of the public and for the advancement of the general interest. If he were so fortunate as to persuade the house to agree to his propositions for transferring a portion of the militia to the line, and for raising a great number of men by ballot for the militia, he was convinced he could shew them, that whatever might be the expediency of granting such an option to the peasantry enlisting for the line, it would unquestionably be adviseable to give to the militia enlisting in the line, the option of a limited or an unlimited term of service; of course with an increased bounty for the latter; that those who were not so sensible of the charms of a limited term of service as the right hon. gent. opposite, might be empowered to make their election accordingly. He did not mean to make this a part of the general measure, but would submit it in a separate clause. He must not omit to state what it was the intention of his majesty's ministers to propose with regard to that part of the military force of the country which was not regular nor militia, but which was ready to support and come in aid of both;—and first, as to the right hon. gent.'s measure of last year, the Training bill. In duty to him and to the house, some explanation was necessary of what had been done by his majesty's ministers on this subject, since they came into office, and of what they meant to do. The fact was, that if they had been the original advisers of the measure, or had partaken of the right hon. gent.'s partiality for it, it would have been out of their power to carry it into effect; for so happily was it contrived, that the ballot could not go forward in many of the counties, and though in this double carrying bill, the militia ballots were suspended, it left the training lists completely in the back ground. Consistently with the sentiments which he had already stated, he declared that though not an original admirer of the right hon. gent.'s measure, yet, being in existence, he wished to draw even from that measure, as much military resource as possible. He would, therefore, not propose to parliament to abolish that part of it which related to classifications, ballots, &c. for the due execution of which government had it in contemplation to suggest some provisions; but as to the training part, he confessed that he had never been able to obtain information; and he called upon the right hon. gent., if he could, to afford it to him, how that could possibly take place under the superintendance of a constable alone, the only way presented by the bill. Indeed, the right hon. gent. had contrived to throw such a ridicule over this part of the subject, that it was vain to hope we could inspire a rustic feeling upon it, or convert the training so directed into a rustic amusement. He pledged himself, therefore, to propose that this part of the training bill should not be realized; but he repeated, that he would not abandon the bill altogether, or rather he would not abandon that part of it which was taken from the Defence bill, which was the only efficient part of the Training bill, and which the right hon. gent. had contrived very much to disfigure. A fundamental objection which he entertained to the Training bill, was, that the time of service was too short. It was impossible to train men, unless they were organized; and when so organized, he thought that they ought to be liable to a longer service. What with the registering, balloting, &c. &c. the year appointed by the Training bill would soon vanish, and the ballot would soon be to recommence. If the volunteers should find themselves unable to continue a sacrifice, which was unquestionably a severe one, which had reflected the highest honour on their character and conduct, but which, in many instances, would scarcely be expected to be permanent; in this case, in the Training bill, or rather in the Defence bill, might be discovered a basis on which the military establishments of the country might be founded. Instead of balloting the men to be trained for a year, he would propose that they should be balloted for two years at least; indeed, three years would not be too long a period. If parliament consented to this, they might gain two objects; in the first place, the discipline thus diffused would be greater, and would qualify the subjects of it for the regular army if wanted; in the second place, looking to that amount of force which parliament had declared it was necessary, should be six times larger than the militia, or, in other words, 200,000 men, the seeds of a permanent military force might be planted in it, which might grow up as the volunteers might decline. His notion was, having laid the foundation of this force, to enable his majesty to direct that, where the volunteers were not in this proportion of six times the number of the militia, a local militia should be created, by ballot, out of the men disciplined by the Training bill, to be officered out of the regular militia. He meant to propose that this local militia in peace, should be disciplined the same number of days as the regular militia, but that they should never serve out of their counties, except in cases of rebellion or invasion. Thus would be produced a regular and organized force, out of that which, according to the measure of the right hon. gent., could create nothing but embarrassment. By this, the Training bill might be rendered useful, for he entered his solemn protest against throwing down any great public establishment, for the mere purposes of speculation. Here was the difference between the right hon. gent. and himself; when the right hon. gent. came into office, he most unwisely did every thing in his power to relax the volunteer system, for the purpose of introducing his Training bill. He (lord C.) on the contrary, was not desirous to subvert any thing done by that right hon. gent.; the fact was, indeed, that with his best endeavours he had done nothing. He (lord C.) had always advised that the character and spirit of the volunteer corps should be upheld until some other decisively superior establishment could be discovered as a substitute. His majesty's present government had re-established the system of inspection of the volunteers; without that system it was impossible that any principle of economy could be observed—that any security could be enjoyed for the proper administration of the funds, appropriated to various parts of the volunteer service, or that the volunteer establishment could be kept in an organized state. It was in the contemplation of his majesty's ministers to encourage volunteer corps, not to substitute permanent service for their drill days, for that in most cases would be inconvenient, and in many impracticable, but to pass those drill days in exercises from home. It would then be seen which of those who entered into volunteer corps, did it for the sake of exemption, or for other motives. If parliament should think fit to adopt any subsequent measures on this subject, his majesty's ministers would not shrink from it. Let them, however, be deliberate in their undertaking, recollecting the old saying, "the more haste, the worse speed." The noble lord here entered into a brief recapitulation of his arguments. He had been called upon to propose to parliament, in a time of exigency, a measure adequate to meet that exigency, and which therefore, whatever its nature might be, was open to strong and plausible objections, since it must be one of great burthens and imposing great sacrifices on a country which had already borne great burthens and made great sacrifices, not with patience only, but with pleasure. But he was convinced that the country would feel now, as it had always felt, that those who proposed these burthens were its best friends, because they were proposed for the security and welfare of the country. On subjects of this nature, considerable difficulty existed in giving a preference to one among various measure, all standing on the ground of solid argument and ingenious reasoning; but he could assure the house, that the proposition which he had the honour to submit to them was the result of the most anxious consideration from the earliest period after the acceptance of office by his majesty's ministers. They had made the best proposition they could—had disturbed, as little as possible, the existing establishments, and had not allowed themselves to enter the field of military discovery. Unquestionably, the militia service would, for a time, be disturbed, but it would soon recover itself, and he was sure that when the officers of the militia considered that the men taken out of the militia for the advantage of the country, were only those men who must soon have been discharged by law, and that in lieu of them they would receive fresh and abundant materials for rendering the militia efficient both in peace and war, they would give their cordial support to the measure. It was a consolation to reflect, that the history of this country did not afford an instance in which, when the public mind was called upon to encounter difficulties, it was not the peculiar characteristic of Britain to rise superior to every obstacle, and never to be so strong or so distinguished, as after the pressure of distress. That individual, who, unfortunately for the world, had acquired such an ascendancy on the continent, was little aware, that by that very ascendency he was creating in this country a power to which the world might ultimately look for deliverance; and that out of the necessity which his inordinate ambition produced, the military character of Great Britain would probably be raised to a greater height than any to which it had hitherto attained. The noble lord concluded by observing, that he should divide the measure into two bills, and that if the bills, for which he was about to move, should not be ready for delivery to members on that night, of which he was somewhat apprehensive, he should not press the second reading on Friday, but propose that it be postponed to Monday. He then moved for leave to bring in a bill, for allowing a certain proportion of the militia in Great Britain voluntarily to enter into his majesty's regular forces.

Sir George Warrender

thought that the noble lord had not made out any case to shew, that any considerable addition was necessary to the disposeable force. It appeared to him extraordinary that with the views entertained by the hon. gentlemen opposite, and considering the charges made by them against their predecessors, for not having sent expeditions to the continent,they had not made this proposition to parliament upon their first coming into office. If the measure had been brought forward last session, and he had had the honour of a seat in that house, he might have supported it; but he could not give his consent to it on the present occasion, when the country had only to look for a defensive force. As to the transfer proposed from the militia to the regiments of the line, he felt considerable difficulties upon that subject, because the measures necessary to replace the men so transferred would interfere with the regular recruiting. The militia was certainly a favourite service, because it was limited both as to time and place, and was attended with a provision for the wives and families of the persons who engaged in it. There could be no doubt therefore that men would be more readily had for that service than for the line, a circumstance that would materially interfere with the ordinary recruiting. The system that had beer adopted last year, he contended, had proves eminently successful. The right hon. gent. who had brought forward that system, had uniformly stated that the benefits to be expected from it would be progressive, and the event justified his statement. The effect produced by it in the northern counties was very great, and by the papers upon the table, it appeared that by this system the number of men raised in the year 1807, was greater by 700, than the number raised in the corresponding period of last year under the last system. If the remaining months of the year should be equally productive, of which he had no doubt, the whole number raised under the new system, in the year 1807, would be 22,000. The noble lord had said, that it was not his intention to alter any part of that system by his measure, but whilst the ballot would be going on, it would be almost impossible to obtain a man for the regular army. He was sure the house would be disposed to make every sacrifice that the occasion might require, but the country had a right to consider, whether it could look with confidence to the efficacy of the sacrifices it was called on to make, and to expect that its resources should be properly applied. And if they looked to the manner in which the present ministers came into office, the country would have no reason to be satisfied on this head. He felt that the measure proposed, would not add to the military force of the country, but transfer a portion of one branch of it to another; and, therefore, should not think that he was discharging his duty, if he did not oppose it in every stage. The noble lord had said, that the king had at present the power, without resorting to parliament, of calling out the supplemental militia to the number of 24,000. Of this he doubted, because there were some of the supplemental militia at present in the service; and if the power existed at all, he could not think it would extend to a greater number, than the difference between the number of those of the supplemental militia now serving, and the whole amount of that militia. There might be different opinions respecting the propriety of calling out the supplemental militia, but of this he was certain, that the measure of the noble lord would do away the benefit derived from the regular recruiting. The system now in force would in the present year produce 22,000 men, and would prove progressively more productive in every future year. The plan of the noble lord would impede its progress, and operate as a very unequal tax upon the public, for every gentleman must know, that not one of six of the balloted men served in person, so that, in procuring a substitute, the individual was subject to a most severe and unequal tax. Upon all these grounds he should feel it to be his duty to oppose the measure, unless it should undergo such modification in the committee as would remove his objections.

Mr. Yorke

wished to take the earliest opportunity of stating his objections to the measure proposed by his noble friend, because, however disagreeable it might be to him, it was the duty of every gentleman in that house, to state candidly his impressions upon a subject of such importance. He was undoubtedly aware, that what he was going to state, would not meet with general concurrence, but he was acting under a feeling of duty, and should declare his sentiments with candour. We had now come to a crisis when the situation of affairs would not admit of blunders, when an error might be fatal, and every member was therefore bound to make a free communication of what he felt upon the subject. He approved most cordially of that part of his noble friend's proposition, which provided for the transfer of so many men from the militia as could be induced to volunteer into the line. That part of it was most efficacious, and if the proposition were to stop there, it would produce great public benefit, because the men so added to the army would be applicable to the protection of Ireland, where the militia could not be expected as a body to serve. The men also, who should volunteer into the regular army, would very soon be fit for service in the regiments to which they might be transferred. As he understood his noble friend, his plan was to raise 38,000 men by ballot for the in order to replace those who should volunteer into the line, and to provide a certain number of supernumeraries, in order to supply the vacancies as they should occur by casualties, and the expiration of the men's service, so that it should not be necessary to resort again to the ballot for some time. To this part of his noble friend's plan he objected, because it did not appear to him to be efficacious. As to the application of the ballot, he had objections to that too, but not on the ground stated by the hon. member who had just sat down. It was his conviction that the ballot was necessary, and when that particular mode of raising a supply for the army had been the subject of much obloquy in that house, he had defended and supported it. He had on that occasion stated, what he was now ready to repeat, that no force adequate to the protection and defence of this empire could be obtained without some species of compulsion. No great army could be raised and kept up without having recourse to a compulsory levy. And it surprised him to hear gentlemen who applied their minds to such subjects, and supported the reputation of statesmen, assert, that, when an army of three or four hundred thousand men was to be raised, such a force could be supplied by voluntary service. He agreed with his noble friend, that this was not the time for discussing the merits of the measure, and he equally approved of his intention not to disturb the system of the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Windham) this session. It had always been his wish to allow any measures that might be adopted by parliament a fair trial, and it was on that principle he acted, when he had proposed to give the late Defence act an opportunity of fair trial. With respect to the plan of the right hon. gent. opposite, however, he was bound to state that it did not appear to him efficacious, and might be dangerous. That plan, he admitted, might be adequate to keep up the numbers of the army, if once the army was raised to the establishment voted by parliament, and he had said the same of the measure of the right hon. gent. now no more (Mr. Pitt). But though he admitted this, the measure would not answer his purpose. The system, he allowed, had produced something more than the ordinary recruiting, and the Parish bill. But the noble lord had stated, that the deficiency of the army, from the establishment voted by parliament, amounted to between 52 and 30 thousand; the casualties amounted to 13,000; so that the number to be raised within 12 months, in order to answer the purpose he had in view, would be 38,000. He had also another objection to the present system, arising out of the alteration of the terms of service. The system might for that reason produce more men, but fewer soldiers. British soldiers should be military men, sui generis. They were often engaged against twice their number of enemies, and under disadvantages of situation and circumstances, of debarkation and embarkation; they must therefore be real soldiers, and British troops had always proved themselves to be of that description. If our brave but unfortunate countrymen in Egypt, where the efforts of every individual was necessary to repel the superiority of numbers that assailed them, had not been troops of that character, it would have been impossible to save the remains of that army. He did not concur in the objection to the ballot, because it would interfere with the system of the right hon. gent. This measure was to furnish 38,000 men to the army, and he could not see any reasonable objection to it on the ground of its interfering with a part of the supply under the present system. They could not apply the conscription which had enabled France to overrun the continent to this country. But the ballot was applicable, both because it was necessary, and conformable to the practice of the constitution; but he could not assent to its application as proposed by his noble friend. By the papers upon the table, it appeared that the regular force at present in Great Britain and Ireland, was 25,000 less than when he went out of office, a period when so much was said about the necessity of augmenting that description of the national force. Upon this subject the house, he thought, ought to have some explanation. Though no person ought lightly to make a charge upon ministers for their distribution of the public force, yet when he considered how that force had been last year distributed, or rather scattered, he could not avoid saying, that the matter ought to be explained. A considerable force had been sent to South America, and though he should not say any thing of the merits of the first expedition to that country, because an hon. officer, a friend of his, had been tried for having undertaken it, he was ready to admit, that it was advisable to support the force that achieved the original conquest. But he wished to know from the right hon. gent. opposite, (Mr. Windham,) why, after the battle of Jena, so large a force as 5,000 men had been sent out under general Craufurd to America. These troops, from the manner in which the expedition had been conducted, had been nine mouths at sea. The troops which had been employed in foreign service, were the best of the British army. There was an army likewise in the Mediterranean, from which the expedition to Egypt had been detached. That expedition he felt it difficult to appreciate, nor should it have his approbation, unless it could be proved to him, that under all the circumstances of the case the project was well concerted and the force dispatched fully adequate to its object. From the circumstances he had stated, it appeared that a recruit for the army was necessary. The regular force in Great Britain and Ireland at present, was 15,000 less than even last year. It would be obvious how necessary it was in the present situation of the world, to concentrate the British army in these Islands with all possible expedition. As that was impracticable with respect to the distant troops, he agreed to the use of the ballot to raise a considerable force; but he thought the ballot should be employed to raise an army of reserve, which would be disposable for the protection of Ireland, rather than to recruit the militia. The Army of Reserve act, and the other defensive measures which he had formerly brought forward, were only so many great steps towards making the country a military nation. He had long been a militia officer, but should not suffer his natural partiality for one branch of the military establishment, to prevent him from stating his opinion on it freely as a part of the whole. The militia had done much service, but was not now adequate to the object of its establishment, for it was not numerous enough. The number of the militia had been calculated upon the exigency of the wars in which this country had been heretofore engaged, and was consequently inadequate to the present crisis. A much smaller establishment was sufficient, when the most formidable expedition that could be equipped against any country, in 1744, which was composed of 30,000 troops, under Marshal Saxe, assembled at Boulogne, than under all the circumstances of the present war. Besides, the war had continued now 14 years with little intermission, and the officers of the militia, who had submitted to considerable privations and inconvenience, in order to make themselves soldiers, would not be disposed to continue during a war, of which they saw no end. He did not think it therefore possible that proper officers could be obtained for the militia during such a length of time. There were at present 56 second battalions in the country, which generally did not consist of more than 250 men each. It would, of course, be necessary to send 750 men to each to complete them, and all the men which were proposed to be got from the militia would not be sufficient to complete 36 of them. He should, therefore, propose that the remaining twenty should be added to the nine garrison battalions that were nearly complete, and that then the ballot should operate to fill those 29 garrison battalions. The advantage that he would propose from this would be, that instead of 25,000 men gained for the regular army for the defence of the country, there would be 46,000. As to the objection of his noble friend, that the ballot for the reserve would be productive of expence, by raising the price of substitutes, he was sure his noble friend must have been misinformed upon that head, because undoubtedly the ballot for the reserve in the former instance, had not the effect of raising the bounties for substitutes for the militia. As to the remission of the penalties he had disapproved of that measure, but he could not agree with his noble friend, that it would be an objection to the effect of a bill for raising a similar one now, because it would equally apply to the militia acts, which had not been impeded by it. He had never thought the Defence act which he had brought forward perfect, but he had always considered it as a step taken upon the country towards its military organization. When he brought it forward, he had looked to it more as a stimulus to the volunteer force to keep it up to that amount, which would be adequate to the necessity of the times, than for any immediate effect from its own operation. He did not think that the militia should be reduced below 30,000, and therefore he wished that after it should be reduced to that number, the militia should be left in that state, and another force arising out of the general training act should be engrafted upon it. As to the observations of his noble friend with respect to the employment of the constable under the training act, he should only say, that as all these measures were new, it had not been thought advisable to subject the persons to be trained to the mutiny act, but rather to try how much the country would bear, and to leave the discipline to be maintained by the constable, who, in former times, was a person of even considerable military command. But he saw no reason why the persons, who should be called out as he proposed, should be subject to the new mutiny act in the same manner as the militia in time of peace. They might be taken out for a fortnight in spring, and a fortnight in autumn each year, and disciplined by the militia regiments,which should be marched into their counties for that purpose. A levy of 200,000 or even 100,000 armed and clothed, and thus engrafted upon the militia, though not to be regularly embodied till the occasion should arrive that called for their service, would compose a most formidable defensive force. This idea was not new, for a similar course had been adopted in 1796, with respect to the supplemental militia.—He had thought it right to state thus freely his sentiments upon this question, and was confident the country was ripe for such a measure as that he had proposed, if the parliament should set the ex- ample, and that in consequence, by Christmas next, the country would be in a situation to defy all danger. In stating his sentiments on the subject, he had discharged his duty. He saw that the military system of the country was far from perfect; he was afraid they talked too much on these subjects, whilst so little had been done. He had hoped that they had done with discussions of this description; but as the subject had been again broached, he trusted the house would take effectual measures for procuring a great army, which, added to our naval pre-eminence, would enable us to bid defiance to the tyrant, who had trampled upon the independence of so many of the continental states.

Mr. Bathurst

coincided in most of the sentiments expressed by his right hon. friend, though he could not help being surprised at his having introduced into his discussion topics that had no immediate connexion with the question then under consideration. He contended that the measure of his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham) was adequate to the purposes for which it had been intended, though it might not be sufficient to afford an immediate supply,such as the crisis demanded. His noble friend needed not to apologize for having made his proposition to parliament; the apology should, according to his impression, be for not having made it before. If the country was to be saved, it was by becoming an armed nation that its salvation was to be effected. He agreed with his right hon. friend, that the question now was, whether the ballot was to be employed for recruiting the militia, or raising an army of reserve; but he had some doubts of the propriety of allowing the militia to volunteer into the line, especially as the principal object of the measure was the internal defence. He was afraid, however, that his noble friend had his attention too much bent upon foreign and continental expeditions. The house should keep in view that it was desirable to have a force disposeable for Great Britain and Ireland. His right hon. friend had stated that the militia was in a declining state, but he had omitted to state that this measure would destroy the spirit of those who commanded and kept up that force. His noble friend had said, that it was not his intention to interfere with the existing establishments, but by this arrangement he would most materially injure a more important branch of the national force. Whenever the Militia had been before drafted into the line, it was in the contemplation of foreign expeditions, but the present measure was brought forward with a view to home defence. After this measure should be carried into effect, no militia officer could look upon himself as belonging to a military establishment, if the house should sanction the impression, that it was unfit for the defence of the country. By adopting the proposition of his noble friend, they would run, the risk of breaking in upon a most important establishment. He could not agree in the recommendation of his right hon. friend, to have the militia regiments marched into their respective counties for the purpose of drilling the mass, because if marched from the military posts they occupied on the coasts, they would be rendered inefficient for immediate defence. The noble lord had stated as a ground of his measure, that about 6000 of the militia would be withdrawn from the service, in consequence of the expiration of their terms: but if these men were to withdraw from the militia, how could his noble friend expect to get them to enter for the general service? It was his opinion, that the militia ought rather to be increased than diminished. When the noble lord stated, that if the circumstances of the country were the same now, as when the Reserve Act had been brought forward, he should have preferred that measure, he could have wished that he had been more particular in pointing out what those circumstances were that influenced his mind. When the Reserve act had been resorted to, the object was to provide for the home and foreign service, but now the object was to provide for the home service only. Besides, an objection in the former case lay against the Reserve act, because the Militia, and Supplementary Militia had been raised by ballot immediately before. At present, the country had had the advantage of a long respite from the ballot, and the population of the nation had not for some time been called upon to make any very extraordinary efforts to assume a military character. The measure of the Army of Reserve was as perfect in its detail as the Militia acts, and had proved as efficacious in a short period as any measure that had ever been proposed. The suspension of the fines under the Reserve Act had been an act of justice. His noble friend had omitted to touch upon several other modes of recruiting, viz. such as give a single step of promotion for raising a certain number of men. The Training bill, too, he thought ought to be put in force, in some shape or another; and he was sorry not to have heard his noble friend state in what manner he proposed to do that:—as we approached the point of danger, the attention of all thinking men in the community was awakened to the means of repelling it. The right hon. gent. concluded by stating, that these extraordinary measures must of necessity interfere with the ordinary recruiting, but that in this country there should be as many channels as possible of procuring a supply for its military force.

Mr. Windham ,

though he admitted that that was not the proper time for discussing the measure proposed in detail, yet found it impossible to omit that occasion of contradicting and confuting, as he trusted, to the satisfaction of the house, some of the statements that had been made by the noble lord opposite. He felt it also necessary to trespass upon the indulgence of the house, in order to reduce the question to its real grounds. Since the noble lord had opened his plan, another, the competitor of that plan, had been recommended by the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Yorke), and his right hon. friend who had just sat down. If the ballot was again to be resorted to, he was inclined to think with those right hon. gentlemen; that it might be better used for raising an army of reserve, than in the way recommended by the noble lord. The plan of the noble lord was calculated to break down a most valuable branch of the military establishments of the country, and for the attainment of a force, which for a considerable time could not be superior to it. He had often been in the habit of contending in that house, that regiments of the line must be superior to militia regiments; and certainly he did not conceive that, in so doing, he was giving reasonable cause of offence to any description of persons whatever. It was not in the nature of things that troops, who could not by their constitution have any opportunity of real service, except in case of invasion, could acquire the same spirit and character, or attain to equal discipline, with troops accustomed to act together, and to witness the conduct of their officers in circumstances of real danger. The officers, too, of the militia, who entered that service young, and with a view to pass a few years agreeably, would not devote themselves to their profession in the same way as persons who had nothing else to depend on for their subsistence, and for all their success and prospects in life. He had often contended that such a difference existed; and, until the more favourite charge respecting the Volunteers had been started, he bad been, for so doing, represented as the enemy of the militia. The gentlemen opposite had, on all such occasions, put themselves forward as the champions of the militia; but their present measure exemplified the truth of the Spanish proverb,—Defend me against my friends, and I will defend myself against my enemies." He had often told the militia officers in that house, that it was not from him, but from those that professed to espouse their cause, that they had any thing to dread. The gentlemen opposite would not suffer any person to touch the militia but themselves. They had fatted them up for their own eating; they secured them as country gentlemen do the game in those places near their houses, which, by an odd misnomer, are sometimes called the preserve, where the game are, indeed, preserved, but only till some circumstance (the arrival perhaps of some favoured guest) shall furnish an occasion for falling upon them with redoubled fury. It was not to be expected that militia officers, who had made such sacrifices in the service, and bestowed such pains in disciplining their respective regiments, should not be disgusted at having their best disciplined men taken from them. It was still more provoking to hear, that this was done for the purpose of erecting a force for home defence. It was not, as had been well observed by his right hon. friend, for foreign expeditions that this measure was resorted to, but for home defence, for which the militia had been expressly formed. If the crisis called for such a measure, he was convinced the militia colonels, who had already made so many sacrifices in the service of their country, would be willing to submit to this also; but, then, they had a right to expect that the necessity of the sacrifice should be proved: as the country also had a claim to be satisfied, that it was necessary and proper for the purposes of immediate defence to begin by breaking up so large a portion of the existing force.—This, however, was only the first effect of the noble lord's measure. The further and more lasting consequence was the destroying the ardour and confidence of the militia service for years to come. What could the men in the militia think of their offi- cers, or what could the officers think of themselves, when they were told, that, if invasion was really to come, it was necessary to put the men under other leaders, and that those who had hitherto been at their head, who had been devoting their lives in preparation for a crisis such as was now arrived, were not the persons fit to conduct them into action, but must give way to others more proper for that office? If this was not an indignity, he was at a loss to know what was; or how it was possible to do more to put down, from this time forward, all zeal in the officers of militia to improve their regiments, and all belief on the part of the regiments that it was worth while to improve them, or that they could ever be brought to a state in which they should be able to face the enemy.—But, to return to the immediate effects of the measure, and abandoning for the moment all consideration of its future consequences, how was it to tell for its professed purpose of immediate defence? For a certain time to come, the effect of this measure of strength could be no other than weakness. In whatever degree the hon. gentlemen might choose to describe the superiority of a regular regiment over a regiment of militia, they would hardly go the length of saying, that the worst of the first class was superior to the best of the other. They would not pretend to say, that there was not a period, and perhaps a pretty long one, during which the regular regiment, with its new recruits, would not remain inferior to, what the militia was before these recruits were taken from it; and during this period, whether of longer or shorter continuance, the country must be the weaker. Thus far, therefore, there could he no plea of necessity; for it never could be necessary for a country, with a view at least to any immediate pressure, to make itself weak. But a time will come, it seems, when the measure will make us strong. And with a view to this it is that we are to begin to calculate, comparing the degree of strength to be thus obtained, and the length of time during which it is to last, with the temporary weakness that will precede, and the increasing and endless weakness that will follow it. For it happens whimsically, that the measure now proposed as necessary for the salvation of the country, will be good for that purpose only on the supposition, that the attempt of the enemy shall be made within a certain prescribed period. Should it be a little too soon or a little too late, should we be unable to bespeak the invasion, and to fix it exactly to our own time, all that we shall have been doing will have rendered our situation only so much the worse.—The period of strength will, however, at last arrive, namely, when the men transferred shall have been so settled in their new regiments, as to give to the regular army more strength than the removal of the men shall have taken from the militia, and when our numbers shall, upon the whole, have been increased by the difference of those raised through the medium of ballot beyond what might have been raised in the same time by recruiting. We were to consider the price at which this increase of strength would be purchased, joined with the consideration of the time for which it was likely to last.—He had already observed, that we were to pass to this period of strength through the medium of a period of weakness. He had observed, also, on the lasting evil that would be incurred in consequence of the effects produced on the militia service.—The third head remaining to be considered, was the value of that system of military measures which was adopted last year, and to which we were now about to put an end. Upon the subject of these measures something of a preliminary question had arisen at the time, how far what was proposed was entitled to be called a plan. He for one had always rejected that title, disgusted, as he had been, by the applications which he had seen made of it: Yet he certainly did not mean thereby to admit, that in the best sense of the word, as implying the just distribution of a subject into its proper parts, and a systematic direction of those parts to the common purpose intended, the measures of last year were not as well entitled to that appellation, and indeed a good deal better than any measures that had preceded them; or, as far as at present appeared, than any that were likely to follow.—The measures, however, of last year, had so far less of a plan, that their pretensions to merit, contrary to what might be the case now, was more in what they un-did, than in any wonder-working powers which they professed to have in themselves.—The army had been, for years, supported by shifts and expedients. It was supplied by means which could not last, and which, while transitory themselves, were continually destroying the resources from which any supply could be expected in future. It had been kept alive by drams and cordials. Its con- stitution, in fact, had been so broken by the experiments which had been tried upon it, and the discipline which it had undergone, it had been so bled and cupped, and blistered and purged, that, when the new Practitioners were called in last year, there remained no hope (conformably indeed to the opinion which they had often given) but by discarding medicine altogether, and trying what might be done by nature, when left to operate for herself. If the patient was to be saved, it must be by air and exercise, by diet and regimen, by good and wholesome food, given too in sufficient quantities. The best service to be rendered in the first instance, was, to tear the prescriptions, and throw all the physic bottles out of the window. This was the basis of the plan of the late ministers with respect to the army. They were led to this plan as well by consideration of the general nature of things, as by reflecting on what had been the history of the military establishments of the country for many years past. Within a period not exceeding the memory of many whom he was then addressing, a guinea to buy necessaries, and a crown to drink the king's health, was all that was given to a recruit upon his entering the army. A bounty properly so called, that is to say, a price to tempt a man to do what he was otherwise disinclined to, was unknown. The service was its own price. So late as at the beginning of the American war, examples were found of officers reprimanded by the war-office for having extended the bounty so far as to two or three guineas. Among the general causes operating to produce the change which afterwards took place (those great ones, namely, of the depreciation in the value of money, and the continuance of the pay at the same rate at which it stood in Charles the Second's time), a cause of a more limited, but of a more immediate effect, was the militia. This system, for reasons which he had often stated, and would not now repeat, did not, for several years after its establishment, produce any consequences affecting materially the recruiting of the army. But at last, as the militia assumed a more regular form, as the practice gradually prevailed of calling it out, and keeping it constantly embodied during every war, as its discipline improved, and the practice of substitution took place of that of serving in person, its effects upon the army began to be severely felt. The demand for substitutes on the part of men placed in circumstances the most disad- vantageous for obtaining what they wanted upon reasonable terms, soon brought things to a state, in which service in the militia (a service for a few years, and within the kingdom), could be purchased only at a high premium, and in which men, therefore, could hardly be looked for in great numbers, who would be willing to forego this premium, and enter the army for nothing. The only expedient that occurred for remedying this evil, was to give a bounty for the army also; and thus to enable the army to hold up its head, and bid against the militia. But though this succeeded for a time, its very success was such as contained a principle destructive of its continuance, the effect of the competition being to raise the price upon both services, till at length a sort of limit was produced, not merely by the consideration of expence, but by the effect which the high bounties had in producing desertion. Nothing now was thought to be left, but to have recourse to compulsion, that is to say, ballot: but as ballot could not be applied directly to the army, the expedient devised was to augment the militia, in order that afterwards the men might be induced, by bounty, to extend their services, and become soldiers complete.—Upon this view, a grand attempt was made, in the years ninety-six and ninety-seven, to raise the militia from thirty thousand to very near 100,000 men; and in the years 1799 and 1800 out of the force so raised, to transfer to the army a force of about 46,000. Neither attempt succeeded to the full extent. The projected 100,000, with all the endeavours used, could never be made to rise much higher than 70,000; and of the 46,000, the first portion, or 20,000, with whom the trial was made, were obtained in the year 1799, at the time of the Dutch expedition: but of the remaining 26,000, to whom permission was given to enlist in the year following, not more than 12,000 were obtained at the time, the rest were left to enlist at their leisure, and, if they should still decline, were to continue subject to be called upon for the militia. The militia laws had, in the mean time, fallen into great confusion, owing to these successive changes; and a right hon. gent. (Mr. Yorke) making part of the government the time, had, in consequence, in the year 1802, introduced an act, meant for the purpose of consolidating all the former acts, and settling the system upon a permanent footing, but still keeping in view the grand object, the augmentation of the number, on account of the difficulty that was found of adding, by any other means, to the military force of the country. The establishment of the militia for this country was to be 40,000. But even here, unfortunately, the authors of the measure reckoned without their host. War came, and the price of a substitute rising in consequence above the amount of the penalty, the measure produced only money and not men. New expedients were then devised, to make the amount of the penalty keep pace with the bounty; and the whole scheme being, after all, insufficient for its purposes, new militias were created, new augmentations made to those already subsisting, and new measures brought forth on a similar principle, though of a different form. He had forgot, in the enumeration of the measures previous to this period, the famous Quota bill, by which mutiny was introduced into the navy, and the Provisional Cavalry bill, the most diverting certainly, if not the most efficacious of all the measures of the class in question, by which sums had been paid to the amount of 70 or 80 guineas to rescue old ladies from the terrors to which they were exposed of being turned into light-horsemen. Greater designs were now conceived, and greater powers brought into action. Besides the militia in Ireland, which was created or augmented about this time, a new militia, on somewhat more extended terms of service, was set on foot, under the name of the Army of Reserve. Many gentlemen had expressed their opinion, not without great show of reason, that if a measure of the sort at present proposed was to be adopted, it should be a repetition of the Army of Reserve. The great objection, of course, was the extreme hardship, which, besides that it was a strong objection in itself, had the effect also of rendering the measure, after a certain point, incapable of being executed. Such had been the case in the instance in which the measure had been already tried. After a certain time, a re-action had been produced which made it incapable of proceeding a step further. The measure was therefore abandoned, not from any caprice or jealousy in the government which succeeded, who, on the contrary, shewed a desire to continue it as far as they could; but because it was functus officio; it had done less indeed in some degree than it had hoped, but all that it could do. The Parish bill succeeded to it; and it was not necessary to point out to the house what the failure of that bill had been. [A cry of no, no, from the treasury bench.] If this measure had not failed, it must be because some new definition had attached a different meaning to the word failure. He knew of no criterion of failure in any undertaking, but that of not doing what it had intended and engaged for. The Parish Bill had engaged to raise 40,000 men in about 15 months, that is, by the 1st of October 1805: in about twenty months, that is, by the 1st of March following, it had not raised 13,000; and during its whole continuance, it never produced to the amount of 16,000. This, according to common ideas, would be called failure. But had it succeeded ever so well, it never could ultimately have furnished to the regular army more than 9000 men a year. Nay, there was a degree of success which would have prevented even that, and have put an end to the measure altogether. If all who had been raised under the bill, had agreed to extend their services, and to enter the army, fulfilling thereby the very purpose which the measure had in view, the bill from that moment would have ceased to exist. It could not continue but by failing in part to execute what it intended. In that way it might, it was true, continue to operate, though its success was for its maximum limited in the way which he had stated, and had for its minimum no limit all, but might be reduced to the supply of the casualties on a portion of the Army of Reserve, however small. No further failure need indeed be looked for in the bill, than its being one which, from the burthens it imposed, the injustice which it committed, the serious oppressions and abuses to which it led by converting into an engine of recruiting all the parochial government and smaller police of the country, was rejected by the general voice, was thrust out of the statute book by the universal conviction of its unfitness to continue there The Parish bill therefore died a natural death, and was not put an end to prematurely by any desire on the part of the ministry of the time, to make way for a favourite measure of their own, It ended as all its predecessors had done, if not like some of them, by having absolutely run itself out, and having reached the point beyond which it could not stir a step, yet by shewing, that, after all that could be hoped for from it, the evils attending were such as to make its continu- ance no longer tolerable. The proof is, that no one has ever thought of reviving it. If its merits were what the hon. gentlemen had so often contended, if it really was that system of recruiting which had accomplished the object so long sought for, and discovered a source of recruiting on which the army might safely rely, why, in God's name, did not the hon. gentlemen propose to the house to re-enact it? It was in vain for them to say, that the remission of the penalties under the former bill had rendered this impossible. To make any thing of this, they must shew that the remission of these penalties was avoidable; that four or five hundred thousand pounds, he believed, of penalty, incurred by acts for which the parties were not blameable, inasmuch as the service required was wholly out of their power, for which many of them were even meritorious, inasmuch as the impossibility arose from the restriction which they had imposed upon themselves of not breaking the law, could be levied without a degree of injustice which nothing could authorize. If this could not be shewn, the return to the measure was not precluded by any other cause than the vices inherent in the measure itself. Here, then, the same difficulty recurred as the country had been struggling with for the last 30 or 40 years. If the Parish bill was not fit to continue; if continuing, it could not produce to the army, at the utmost, more than 9000 men a year; if the recruiting, for a long time declining, was now further reduced by the effect of these very measures, something must be done, not so much to augment the army, as to prevent its going down, and to supply the number of men by which it must annually be diminished. The same necessity which existed for supplying the place of the Army of Reserve-bill, existed now for supplying the place of the Parish bill, or for making good at least what would have been wanting to that bill, had it been possible that it should have continued, and had it produced the whole of the 9000 men, which alone it was capable of producing. To say the truth, none of the measures that had been successively tried, down at least to the present time, had been rejected in consequence of any idle desire of change, and still less of any mean and envious spirit of jealousy on the part of persons newly succeeding to the government, and following those of whom they were the opponents and rivals. In fact, the measures were most of them changed without any change of ministry, and by the very same persons who had brought them in. They were changed, either because they were found impracticable or objectionable, or because, being of a temporary nature, their continuance became useless after a certain time. On one or other of these grounds was a stop put to the several augmentations of the militia proposed in 1796, 1797, and 1802. In part the measures were found to be impracticable; in part they were rendered no longer desirable by incidents which had happened in the mean time. The Quota bill and Provisional Cavalry bill passed away without any enquiry as to the cause of their decrease, and certainly without any lamentation for their loss. These two, any more than the others, were no sacrifice to party rivalry; they died in the life-time of their parents, and were by them quietly conveyed to the family vault, without the least suspicion of their having come by their death, through any undue means. In like manner, the last of the Militia Augmentation bills which he had mentioned, that, namely, of 1802, was superseded by the authors themselves, who, finding the measure impracticable in its first form, (the price of a substitute having soon risen above the amount of the penalty,) and not likely to prove effectual, even after all the additional rigour of making the fine cumulative, had recourse to the measure of the Army of Reserve, being in fact a militia of something of a different from with something more of effect, but at the same time with more of severity. He had already observed, that no charge could be brought against those by whom this measure was superseded; if any supersession could in fact be said to have taken place, where the measure in question had ended itself. The same was true of the ministry of last year, with respect to the Parish bill. That measure had not indeed, like most of the others, ended itself: it was not even clear, that the numbers to be raised by it, though at the expence always of the regular recruiting, might not for a time have gone on increasing: but it was demonstrable that it could not finally have answered its purpose, and in the mean while the objections to it were such that all the world was crying out for its repeal. This was the state of things in which the late ministry came into office. The same difficulty remained that had subsisted all along, the difficulty namely of providing a fund from which the army might be regularly supplied; and for this the measures adopted had not only furnished no remedy, but, for the most part, had not even attempted one. After every new turn, though a considerable addition might in the mean time have been made to the numbers of the army, the country was equally to seek for the means by which those numbers were to be maintained. The difficulty was in fact continually increasing: every new attempt in the course hitherto pursued having tended to throw new obstructions in the way of those that succeeded it. Ballot created the necessity of bounty. Bounty, rising to excess, and losing as much by desertion as it gained by recruits, created. in return the necessity of new ballot: then bounties shot up to a height, which not only stopped all ordinary recruiting, but created a burthen which it was impossible the country should long endure. Forty, 50, 60 guineas became the price of a recruit. Ballot and bounty were indeed the only resources that seemed ever to have been thought of. The whole compass of our invention, the whole scale of our music, seemed to comprise only these two notes. It was the sort of poverty of conception, reproached by some foreigner to English cookery, that we had but one sauce, and that that sauce was melted butter. The ministry which then came in, ventured an opinion, that possibly more men might be found to enter the service, if the service was made more eligible, by holding out more advantages or fewer objections. It seemed to them, that the hope of inducing men by bounties to enter into an engagement, which was to last for life, was little less than an absurdity, if it was not something worse. If the engagement was not in itself desireable, could it be hoped, or was it (he would add) to be wished, that many should be found so rash and foolish, as to be determined in their choice by the attraction of a few guineas paid in the shape of bounty? If such a resource could even be relied on, it might well be doubted, whether a government ought inconscience to have recourse to it, and so to place itself with respect to its subjects, as to be trading for ever with the ignorant and thoughtless for the purpose of inveigling them into engagements, which it was confessed, by the very form of the transaction, they were likely afterwards to repent of; this repentance moreover being of a nature to last for life. It was not a question however of duty or propriety. It was found by experience, that the military service had by degrees, and in consequence of the change of times, fallen into a state in which it could no longer attract men in sufficient numbers; and that any attempt to supply by bounties what was wanting in the service itself was, as might be supposed, a vain attempt which could go but a little way towards remedying the evil. They took, therefore, the only means which, according to their ideas, could hold out a hope of success, the only means in fact which were left them, that of a general improvement of the conditions of the service in such a way as should not be attended with too great an expence, nor be inconsistent with the discipline and well-being of the army. They might have gone to the old resource, as the noble lord has done, of plundering the militia: that expedient was as open to them as to his majesty's present ministers, and required no great genius to invent, nor talents to execute. But besides that it did not meet the difficulty, and would have left the country, in a short time afterwards, just in the same situation in which all similar measures had left it, it did not appear to them a measure to be resorted to, even for the purposes for which it was good, except upon a necessity greater than that which they considered as existing.—Whether the experiment thus made had succeeded or not, as procuring a supply for the army adequate to its consumption, it would be difficult to say that the attempt ought not to have been made, since it was by a change of this sort, that is to say, an improvement in the service, in some way or other, that a prospect of complete success could alone be afforded, and since, even if such success should be unattainable, the partial success of every other measure must be greatly promoted, by whatever should render the service more palatable to those who were to enter into it, whether voluntarily, or by compulsion. The trial hitherto made, not only shewed that the measure ought to have been tried, but that it was likely to be attended with the most complete success. To have put the army upon a footing in which it might have stood by itself without the aid of continual props and supports, was, if accomplished, no small service; but it was far from the whole which the circumstances of the country at the present moment unhappily required, and which the late ministry might flatter themselves with having effected. Against the new dangers which now threaten every country, armies alone are not a sufficient defence. When the army has been carried to its greatest extent, means must still be looked for from the population at large, from the great mass of the community whom it is idle to talk of turning into soldiers, by whom the state must be maintained, and whom it cannot maintain, and who could not therefore be spared, even if they could be forced, except occasionally and momentarily, from the labours and occupations of common life. To devise the means by which the great mass of the inhabitants might be made to contribute to the general defence, and come in aid of the operations of the army, was the object of the Training act,—a measure which, if the noble lord thought to decry by shewing, could he even succeed in so doing, that in the details much was still imperfect and wanting, he must be answered as Dr. Johnson answered some one who, on similar principles, was criticizing a dictionary, that he who thought to destroy the credit of a work of that sort merely by pointing out particular faults, only betrayed his own ignorance, for that no work of that nature was ever put forth, in which examples might not be found of faults of every description. Such faults he was ready to allow might exist in the Training act, but not more than would naturally be found in every similar measure. No bill of the sort in question was ever completed in the first instance, or came perfect out of the hands of the framer. Much must always be left to be supplied and corrected by trial and experience. These additions and amendments let the noble lord supply. But let him not set aside or seek to depreciate the measure, or deny that a measure of this sort, this or some other, must form a great and leading branch, the very basis and trunk he would almost say, of every system of military measures, which it would be right to adopt in the present circumstances of the world. An army is the great instrument by which a country must act, whether for foreign wars or for home defence. But an army must be supported, and, what is more, an army must be supplied. An army itself may want the co-operation of other less regular force: for which purpose, part of his system would be, as it had been, to keep on foot an establishment of corps similar to our present volunteer corps; that is to say, corps that should act as such, and under the immediate command of their own officers. But a further and still more important use to be derived from the population of any country, was to keep them in that state in which there might be a sufficient portion ready at all times to supply the deficiencies, and make good the losses of the regular army, that is to say, in which there should always be a certain number of men ready enrolled and liable by law to be disposed of for those purposes, and in which the men so enrolled should be in a certain degree prepared for the service assigned, by having received as much training as it might be convenient or possible to give them. The enrollment and the legal preparation might be always complete. The training would vary according to circumstances, and must at all times be to a great degree imperfect. But a bill for such purposes must always exist, and be more or less acted upon, as long as the circumstances of the country and of the world should continue what they were. Such were the objects of the present bill, and which as far as enrollment went, the first and main object,—was already complete or nearly so. The country had at this moment, in virtue of that bill, 200,000 men, whom his majesty might immediately proceed to train, and whom he was immediately authorized to dispose of for the purposes of defence in his regular regiments, or in any other way that he should think fit. Such a body of men so circumstanced would be no bad present to the country, even though to as late a period as that at which the preparations of the enemy should have actually begun, not a man of them should have had a musket upon his shoulder. But why was that to be their situation? The bill, if not prevented, was proceeding in its natural course, and would soon give to these men as much training as the circumstances required, as much at least as it was thought desirable to attempt consistent with a due regard not to render, the measure more burthensome or vexatious than was necessary. Difficulty, he denied there was any, more at least than must attend every measure of detail, when tried for the first time. If more training was necessary than the bill had provided, let more be given. As much had been done as seemed to be wanted at the time when the bill was brought in.—This part of the plan of the late administration, which the noble lord seemed inclined to overlook, was, on the contrary, that one of the three members of which it consisted, which operated in the most directions, and did, more than any other, give to the whole its character of unity and system. It was not a little which the Training bill was likely to do for the recruiting service: the volunteer establishment, such as it was meant to be under the late acts, would grow out of it altogether. This last fact was so true, that, according to the system of volunteers now proposed, there ought to be no Training act at all. The view entertained upon this subject by the late administration, and which he must contend to be the true one, was, that the volunteer service should be considered as the privilege of those, who were willing and able to contribute by their purses, as well as by their persons, but who did not choose, for whatever reasons, to subject themselves to the compulsion of the Training act. Three classes of persons were supposed: those to whom service in person, in whatever mode, either was, or was considered to be, a burthen, but who were ready to contribute their money; those who were willing to serve, but who wished to be indulged in the privilege of serving in corps by themselves, and under officers of their own; those, lastly, who having either not the wish or not the means to purchase one or other of the above exemptions, yet being comprised within time prescribed limits of age and stature, and not included in any special exception, must be content to perform their share, by no means a severe one, of the common duty, upon the terms, which the act had laid down. But it would be the cruellest and most unjust of all proceedings, if persons so circumstanced, were, in addition to their personal service, to be called upon to contribute to the expences of those who were allowed to perform that service, upon terms more agreeable to themselves; if the poor were thus to be called upon to pay for the privileges of the rich. This must be the case if volunteers were no longer to serve, agreeably to what had been supplied by the acts of last year, at their own expence. The acts of last year had provided, that volunteers already enrolled should be allowed to continue, with the exception only of certain special cases, upon the same rate of allowances, which they had before enjoyed; but that all who should engage hereafter, instead of being trained under the general act, should serve in corps of their own, with the condition of never being compellable to serve out of those corps, should be required to serve at their own charge. A more just condition could not well be conceived, nor one, in consequence, from which the departure would be more unjust with respect to those on whom such departure must be the means of imposing an additional burthen. The condition was indeed as judicious as it was just: a due provision was thereby made for those distinctions of rank, which in many points it was most important to preserve, and which it would rarely be desirable to confound, even on those points which might seem to regard more the feelings of the individual than the interests of the community. The force thus provided would not only cost the public nothing,—a circumstance that he believed would be found hereafter of some account when the charges should come in upon the system as then established—but would consist precisely of the description of persons, selected as by a rule, whom you would wish to have in it, and be limited to the extent to which alone it would be desirable that it should be carried. No rule could probably be invented which would distinguish with such exactness those whom it would be desirable to collect into volunteer corps, from those who would be left with more advantage to be disposed of by the executive government, (to be distributed for the most part into the regular and militia regiments,) than that which resulted from the single condition prescribed by the act, namely, that all persons serving in future in volunteer corps, should serve at their own, expence. With a view to police, a most important consideration in the establishment of the force in question, nothing could be more desirable than that those entrusted with arms and subject so little to any military controul, should be persons of some substance and stake in the country. Even in a military view, a certain portion of corps composed of men in the higher ranks, similar to those that we meet with in the history of the times of Charles I., might be of the most distinguished use, and render services not to be accomplished by any other means. Such was the volunteer force which the late system of measures would have given the country, arising naturally and insensibly out of the measure (the Training act), of which the noble lord was disposed to make so little account, and forming a contrast which he hoped the house and country would not lose sight of, with the volunteer force as before subsisting, and as now intended to be re-established. He for one was fully convinced not only that the plain and simple plan adopted last year, was the best that could have been chosen, but that it was the only one, consistent at least with sense and reason, which the nature of things afforded. In respect to the particular part to which allusion had last been made, viz. the Training act, it was that which could not be withdrawn without weakening the measure throughout, and in part entirely destroying it. It was the sole foundation and basis of what was proposed as the volunteer force; it was the source to which the army must look for an immediate and instant supply in case of invasion: it would, in the mean while, contribute, probably, most powerfully to the recruiting service: it would have the constant effect of training the people gradually to arms, and of preparing them for the great dangers, to which they must long look to be exposed. A Training act of some sort or other there must be. He had no claim to originality on this point. He had stated from the first, when introducing the measure, that, he took for his model, and was anxious to be understood as doing so, the measure of a similar sort introduced by a former administration, adhering to the same whenever he could, and departing from it only, as he would wish his own to be departed from, where, by later and further consideration, mistakes might be corrected, or improvements introduced. Were a scheme of national defence to be prepared entirely from the beginning, he should be disposed perhaps (though it was a question of nice consideration) to make it consist of three only out of the four members, of which our present force consisted, viz. the army, the volunteers, and the Training act, leaving out that great and now most important part, the militia. But it was one thing to say upon any subject, what should have been done originally, and another, what was proper to be done with things already formed and established. It might have been better possibly, that the militia hsd never been established; but it was a far different question, whether you would now abolish a force of that description, making often more than a half of your army at home, and wrought to its highest possible perfection. Upon these grounds the late administration abstained carefully from every thing, by which the militia force could be injured or weakened. It would have been just as easy to them as it is now to the noble lord, to make a large addition to the army, by robbing to the same amount the militia. Such a measure had in fact, many temptations to them which it had not even to the noble lord; and might have been adopted also, in the then state of the country, upon infinitely better grounds, and with far less risk and inconvenience than it was by the noble lord at that moment. A measure of that sort would have given a great, real and a still greater apparent activity to the new regulations for the improvement of recruiting. It could not be that the ministers of the day were incapable of imagining such an expedient, or that all the inventive talents of the noble lord were necessary to repeat a measure which had been already tried, ever and over, and which, to say the truth, never required originally any greater force of mind or thought than that which consists in wishing for what you want, and taking it when you have the power. The house would hardly fail to remark the whimsical circumstance, that those who doubted of the original expediency of a militia force, were the persons to preserve it when established, and that the noble lord, and others its friends and champions, were those who began the work of its demolition. With these changes in the thing itself, and these proofs of the disposition of those to whom its fate was committed, he had only to entreat of the hon. gentlemen that they would put an end to the measure altogether, and would not keep it in a state in which it was nominally to subsist, while all its real virtue and efficacy was withdrawn. When the noble lord was dealing out his opinions about the practicability or impracticability of the Training act, the house would recollect, that he (the noble lord) was in the situation of the man, who wished the oracle to declare whether the sparrow was alive or dead, which he held in his hand. The noble lord had nothing to do but to give a squeeze, to verify at any time his own predictions. Nothing as yet had caused any difficulty in the execution in the Training act, but the unfortunate substitution of the militia lists in the room of those originally intended, and which certainly, as it now appears, would have been far more correct as they were likely to be more suitable to the ends proposed. It was a point on which he had yielded to the judgement of person more conversant with such matters that himself, but whose judgement had certainly proved erroneous in that instance. The pleasantry of the noble lord on that provision of the bill which required the attendance of the constable, was both un- lucky in itself, and still less fortunate in its application. If it could have wounded any body, it must have been a gentleman to whom the noble lord was disposed to pay compliments, the right hon. gent. opposite, (Mr. Yorke) by whom the clause was first introduced, and from whom Mr. W. had only the merit of borrowing it. But in truth the joke was perfectly harmless. It was a very good one when the noble lord first heard it, (for it was not new,) but somehow or other it missed fire in his hands. In truth, what more proper person could be found than the constable to keep order among men, all of them of his own parish or district, who, not being yet soldiers, would, if not placed under the controul of some civil officer, be under no controul at all? A much severer blow than all the noble lord could inflict by his wit, or than had in fact been inflicted in any other way, was now levelled against the success of the measure, by the option which it was proposed to give to those who entered from the militia, of entering, if they should think fit, for life. This little clause, so moderate in its operation, so reasonable in its pretexts, so innocent in the eyes of those by whom the subject had been but little considered, so well understood by those by whom the clause was brought in, was just the most mischievous, as well as the most dexterous stroke that could have been contrived by persons who wished the destruction of the measure, and were not disposed for the moment openly to avow their hostility. It was a stroke given by a poisoned dagger, which, though it might make a wound no bigger than the scratch of a pin, would soon be the means of spreading disease and gangrene over the whole body. It had been observed repeatedly, that the great effect to be hoped for from the measures of last year, must depend on the opinion that would be entertained of their stability, on the confidence to be placed in them, founded in the assurance that they would not be departed from or made the cover for designs other than those which they professed to have in view. Confidence, as had been remarked on some occasion by the late lord Chatham, was a plant of slow growth in an aged bosom. It might be said with equal truth, that it was a plant of slow growth in ignorant bosoms. Ignorance was always prone to suspicion; and besides that the persons to whom measures of this sort were addressed, and upon whom they were to operate, were among the most illiterate and the most ignorant, something far short of ignorance might be allowed to be suspicious, on a subject where, for a long series of years, deceits and impositions of one sort or another had, he feared, been so repeatedly practised. The moment it came to be understood, that the system of last year was to be changed in any part, all confidence in what was left, and all reliance on what was to happen in future, would be, if not at an end, at least greatly impaired. It would be in vain to tell the people, that nothing was changed but what depended upon their option; that they were still at liberty to enter as before for a limited term, and that faith in that case would be equally kept with them. The general impression remaining upon their minds, and upon the minds of those by whose opinions and feelings their own would be governed, would be, that a change had taken place in that which they had been told would be permanent, and that the same security no longer subsisted, that what should be held out to them as the condition of a soldier, should continue to be so a few years hence. It was not to be supposed, indeed, that even without this change, the confidence of the people in the measures of last year had attained to any thing like its maximum, or that it would perhaps for a period of several years have become so fully established, as to give to the country the entire benefit of that system. That distrust upon such subjects was not wholly unreasonable, was proved pretty clearly by the present events. The measure could hardly be considered as having reached its maturity, till service for seven years as a soldier should have become as familiar to the minds of the people, as service for seven years in an apprenticeship; till they should have seen the examples of men returning after such service, and exhibiting a living proof among their friends and relations, that promises of this kind were really meant to be kept, and were not liable to be changed by every change which might happen to take place among the rulers of the state. Conformable to these views was the experience of what had already passed. The first great pledge which operated with the people respecting the late measures, was the increase of allowance, the payments on which commenced only at Christmas last, to the Chelsea pensioners. Then they began to see proofs that the government was in earnest, that all which they had heard upon the subject was not mere talk. These proofs, fortunately for the country, these and some other parts of the late system would still continue to operate, and would promote the success of the hon. gentleman's measures even in spite of themselves. There were parts, which the hon. gentlemen, with all the laudable spirit of mischief by which they had shown themselves to be actuated against the measures of last year, had not yet ventured to touch, and of which they would, on the contrary, be very glad to transfer the benefit to themselves. Had the benefit thus produced, been suffered to remain with the system which gave it birth, and to which it might seem of right to have belonged, had all the parts of that system been suffered to work together, according to the views of those who originally framed them it is not too much to say, that they would have risen more and more, the longer they had continued, in the estimation of the country; that they would have improved upon acquaintance; that as it would, and as it had, far outstript its competitors in the outset of its course, so it was not a measure which was likely to lose on longer trial the advantages which it had once obtained. If ever there was a measure formed on principles having a view to permanency, composed of materials which were likely to last, which, being good from the beginning, was for a long time certain to improve and never to grow worse by keeping, it was the measure to which he was alluding. The hon. gentlemen knew and felt this, and were determined therefore betimes to destroy it. Though for this intention he could not be supposed to feel much good will towards them, he might have felt more respect had they sought to execute their purpose upon better pretexts and by nobler means. The pretexts indeed did not depend wholly upon themselves: they must take up with such as they found or such as they could make. He was happy to think that in neither way their success had been such as could make it much a subject of congratulation. There was no pretence to say, that the measure had not succeeded, in the period for trial which had yet been given, to the full extent of what its authors had ever promised. In the last six months, the produce of the bill had exceeded what had been raised during the corresponding period, by the ordinary recruiting and the Additional Force act put together. This was all that need be required. No one had ever objected to the Additional Force bill upon the score of its not being likely to raise, men. The objection was to the means which it employed, to the expence which it incurred, to the lasting evils which it would entail upon the country. When it was considered, moreover, that the men raised under this act might be received at a standard lower, by two inches, and of an age higher by fifteen years, than in the regular army, that is to say, at 5 feet 2 inches, instead of at 5 feet 4 inches, and between 18 and 45, instead of between 18 and 30, to have exceeded at once the produce of that bill, joined to the undiminished produce, according to the hon. gent., of the ordinary recruiting, was a degree of success, in the early stages of the measure, with which the authors of it might well be satisfied. He for one had never promised himself, and assuredly had never ventured to promise others, that it would attain, so soon after its commencement, a degree of success exceeding, or even equal to that which he had stated. So far as to success.—It could as little be stated that the measure had, as yet at least, produced, or showed a tendency to produce, any of those evils which had been predicted of it, in respect to its effect on the feelings or character of the soldier, or on the discipline of the regiment. Such an objection, so far as related to the mixing of men upon different terms of service, would come with an odd grace from those, who were now studiously and wantonly augmenting that inconvenience, by an infusion of men, not only serving for different periods, but serving for different periods with men raised at one and the same time with themselves. Formerly, when this consequence had been so much objected to; though then even, (by the way,) with the most perfect inconsistency on the part of those who had been concerned in the Army of Reserve or Additional Force acts; the men who came in for term of years were men raised professedly upon a new system, and were to be added to those who had entered the army before the system in question had been introduced or thought of. Many of these, from the length of their past service, were not further removed from the period of their discharge than those who had newly entered upon a term in itself shorter. None could complain, or feel even any discontent, that others had the benefit, and without prejudice to themselves, of a change of system which had not taken place till after their time. Of part of the benefits of this change they had been made to partake; and it had been objected to him more than once, he must confess not wholly without reason, that he had not followed up his own professed intentions in that respect, by giving to all who were then serving. and whose period of service amounted to not less than 21 years, the option of retiring, should they be so disposed. He was fully persuaded both that such permission ought to have been given, and that it would have been attended with the most beneficial effects: and it was not without much regret that he found the opinion of others different from his upon that point, more especially after the expectation which had been held out, though certainly such expectation has not amounted, with respect to the soldier, to any direct pledge. But, in point of fact, no injury had yet arisen to the service of the army from any of these sources, even if the measures of the hon. gent. were calculated to afford a remedy, or it they did not on the contrary directly tend to introduce the evil of which they formerly affected to be so apprehensive. In the mean time, he was happy to find that the general judgment of military men, and the general sentiment of the country at large, confirmed his statement, notwithstanding that the known inclination of government might operate even without any exertion of undue influence, to give a different turn to the opinions of those dependent upon them. If it was true, as the noble lord said, that the British army could not at any time derive a sufficient supply from the volunteers alone, this was a serious grievance. Such had not been the case formerly, and his measure would provide a supply for future exigencies, in the number of persons retiring with persons, at the end of their times of service, who would be liable to be called forth again upon such exigencies. So far as he was himself concerned, he wished his measure to be repealed, as he was sure it would not be allowed a fair trial. He denied the existence of an emergency sufficient to justify the breaking up of the militia, and the overturning of the new system. If such an emergency did exist, he would prefer a direct ballot into the line as the means of meeting it. It was not true that the regular army was in a continued state of decrease. It had increased in 1804; it had increased in 1805; and notwithstanding a reduction of 3000 men at Ceylon, there had been an increase of 8000 men from March 1806 to March 1807. The new measure according to its last rate would afford a supply of 24,000 men a year, which was 11,000 above the common casualties as commonly calculated. The measure was now in the hands of his majesty's ministers, who would probably act by it like a parish nurse, stinting its meals, disturbing its rest, and giving it a sly pinch as often as opportunity offered. He would move for further returns, though the sense of the country was so clear that it, seemed superfluous to take further pains to shew the success of his measure. He had said that it would be useful to commence the system of discharges by dismissing those who had been 21 years in his majesty's service. He was sure these men would have been immediately replaced by others induced by their example to come forward; such would be the effect of other cases of discharge also. His opinion, however, had been surrendered to persons whose judgment he respected, and who thought otherwise. He had given no pledge, of course no engagement was broken. With respect to the employment of our troops on foreign service, the troops sent to Alexandria, had gone not from home but from the Mediterranean, where they had been sent by the late ministers. He should, if called upon, be ready to argue the policy of the expedition. The sufficiency of the number of troops sent was another question. There had been every reason to think that the expedition had been undertaken with the concurrence of the natives. Under these circumstances, and if it had not been for the misconception that led to the disasters that befel our troops, they would have been able to maintain themselves unhurt. With respect to the expedition to South America, it was undertaken not by the choice of the late government—it was undertaken contrary to orders, by an officer who, it was to be presumed, acted not improperly in undertaking it, as he was again in employ. [Hear! hear! from the opposition.] It became necessary to send out aid as soon as the first account was received. The promptitude and sufficiency of that aid he was ready to maintain; for the delay in the passage of general Craufurd's expedition, the late government was not culpable. No expedition had ever sailed from this country better manned and found. No force had ever enjoyed better health, or suffered so very little by casualties. All the letters received from the fleet spoke in the highest terms of the general to whom the merit of this was given, as well as to the naval officer commanding, to whom he was glad to have an opportunity of doing this justice, as he knew the arts practised to injure him.

Mr. Herbert

expressed much regret, that at the time of the union something more effectual had not been done to assimilate and in some measure identify the constitution and services of the militias of the two countries. If such an assimilation in all respects could be effected between these two bodies, the advantages resulting from it to the military strength of the empire would be incalculable. He had only to wish that the noble lord (Castlereagh) had proposed some measure to that purpose, at the time when he had it so much in his power to exert the influence and weight of the situation in which the noble lord was then placed.

Mr. Shaw Lefevre

thought the Army of Reserve act was the best military system this country had ever seen. When the late ministers quitted office, there were 600,000 effective men ready to defend the country, and he defied the present administration to keep up such a mass of military force, by their new systems.—The question was then put from the chair, and leave was given to bring in the bills moved for by lord Castlereagh.—The noble lord then brought up a bill "for allowing a certain proportion of the militia in Great Britain voluntarily to enlist into his majesty's regular forces;" and also, a bill "for the speedily completing the militia of Great Britain, and increasing the same, under certain limitations and restrictions;" which were read a first time.