HC Deb 06 February 1809 vol 12 cc365-6
Sir A. Wellesley

in pursuance of notice, moved for leave to bring in a bill for amending and reduciug into one, the several Acts for raising and training the Militia in Ireland. The first act respecting the Militia in Ireland had been passed in the year 1793, but the provisions which were then found efficient for the raising and training the then first raised Militia in that country were afterwards found inadequate when the Militia had once been embodied. Consequently, several acts had been passed in the Irish parliament, and since in the imperial parliament, to amend, the act of 1793. In these acts there were many provisions which were inconsistent and contradictory; and in bringing forward the measure he proposed, his object was to reduce them all into one, and to amend and class under proper heads the different provisions they contained. Another object ha had in view was, to amend the law, as it now stands, respecting the Oath taken by militiamen upon their enlistment. A doubt was entertained whether the men who took the present oath were bound to serve only for five years, or during the war, and this doubt his measure was to remove. Another object he proposed by his bill related to the ballot. As the law at present stood, the governors and deputy governors of counties had no power of compulsion to alter the lists; which ho proposed to amend by giving such power, whenever the lord lieutenant shall call for the alteration of the lists. Another provision he meant to introduce was, to enable the lord lieutenant to substitute the mode of parish assessments for the ballot; and also to authorise the governors to raise men for the militia by volunteering. These were the principal provisions of the bill he proposed to bring in, and which he had, since last session, submitted to the consideration of the lord lieutenant and country gentlemen of Ireland, and taken their sense upon them; it was his intention, after the first and second reading of the bill, to suffer it to lie over for a month, in order to give gentlemen time to form a judgment upon its contents. He concluded by moving for leave to bring in the bill; when leave was given accordingly.