HC Deb 21 December 1819 vol 41 cc1401-9
Lord Nu- gent

rose, pursuant to notice, to move, "That there be laid before this House, a return of the number of persons liable to be struck off from the Chelsea Out Pension List, in consequence of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent's Proclamation, dated 28th October 1819; distinguishing those who originally enlisted for seven years under the Act 46 Geo. 3rd, whose time of service, according to engagement, has expired, and who are entitled under that act to certain pensions in consideration of wounds." His object in so moving was, to be enabled to move hereafter, for leave to bring in a bill to expunge so much from the act, commonly called the Chelsea Pension Act, as affected a certain number of persons now deprived;, unjustly as he conceived, of pensions intended for the reward of their service. He did this with the greater pleasure, not only as he conceived that his motion affected a strong subject of public inquiry, and a subject involving points of no small constitutional importance; but also, because it affected a class of persons, than whose claims, he would venture to say, on the justice, the sympathy, the humanity, and the gratitude of this country, it would be difficult to conceive any of a more sacred or imperious character. These men had come forward at the very time when it was found necessary to recruit the army by a new and invigorating system, in order to enable it to cope against a veteran and successful enemy. They had earned their well-contested glories, and had now retired on small but honourable pensions; which pensions, if the law had any power at all, the law of the land ought to establish as their property. He required parliament to look at their own acts, and to look at, what he thought, the illegal proclamation of October last. That proclamation; set forth, that all those persons (excepting certain regiments only from its operation) who should not report themselves for a certain length of service, should be deprived of the pensions which they then enjoyed. Now, there were many hundreds who, would be affected by this proclamation; particularly those (whose, claims he should support) who were originally destined for seven years service; and who, having received certain wounds, were entitled to certain pensions, settled: by the provisions of what was commonly called Mr. Windham's act. Such persons having received their discharges, and being in fact, no longer soldiers, he would ask by what right, by what law, by what power, they could now be deprived of the pensions awarded to them by the act. He confined himself to that description of persons whose term of service had expired, and who received such pensions. An hon. gentleman the other night had required them to admit the right of the Crown to deprive persons of their pensions, even in cases where they had been granted for life: he did not not intend to answer his requisition; he would not answer it, because it was not relevant to this subject—but more particularly because, if necessary, he could find cases directly to the point, which would go quite counter to the hon. gentleman's assertion. His own case was that of persons who had served their term of service; and he rested it upon three grounds —upon enactments, upon regulations, and upon authorities: on enactments, because of Mr. Windham's bill; on authorities, because of the opinions expressed in the speeches of all the hon. gentlemen who had spoken upon that bill, at the time of its introduction into that House; and on regulations, because of those which were adopted conformably to it. [The noble lord here read two clauses of the act. 46 Geo. 3rd]. If this bill did not give to the soldier a vested right and property to such pensions as should have been appointed by the rules and regulations in force at the time of the enactment, he should be glad if the hon. gentlemen opposite would tell him what it did do. In fact, he could not in any other way understand what it meant. If it intended otherwise, it was an absurdity, or worse than an absurdity; for it would hold out certain advantages to men enlisting themselves for a certain number of years; whereas, after so enlisting and serving, they would find that they were liable to be called out at any time of life under penalties. These men had retired with honourable scars, and had received pensions to which these honourable scars established their best title; but then came the proclamation of his majesty, dated in last October, and turned the whole of their claim to pension into waste paper. It called them out, perhaps at very great inconvenience to themselves, from their wives, their families, and their homes, and possibly from their trades and occupations, under penalty. He would ask, how were they to punish men such as these for desertion? He should apprehend they could not do so: for being, in fact, no longer soldiers, they could not come under the enactments of the Mutiny bill, which only applied to the precise description of persons mentioned in its preamble: and although these "might not be actually discharged" from further service, yet the case was quite different with this body of men (for whom he addressed them), who might be broken in spirits and enfeebled in body, in consequence of wounds received in their country's service; and could not therefore be contemplated by the provisions of the Mutiny bill. Those individuals, in consequence of those very wounds which obliged them to retire, would be placed under the necessity of obeying any call made on them by government, under the penalty of being deprived of their pensions. If the bill were to have a contrary operation, it would be a measure, not affecting the unwounded soldier, but grievously affecting that class of men, who, having performed great public service, deserved a commensurate public reward.—He next came to the rules and regulations of Chelsea hospital, which applied to their case. If any one of those could be pointed out that tended to nullify Mr. Windham's bill, he then should deny the right of the Crown, by promulging any set of resolutions, to nullify existing laws. There was, however, nothing of the kind in the rules and regulations. There was not amongst them any one provision, which in any degree affected the interest of those persons. If a reference to these rules and regulations did not make his case strong enough, he should further support it by quoting several authorities, the force of which, he believed, would not be disputed by hon. gentlemen opposite [Here the noble lord read an extract from Mr. Windham's speech, in which he insisted upon the necessity of keeping strict faith with those who should enlist under the idea of engaging for limited service; and explained the advantages of his bill.] In addition to this, he possessed also the authority of the noble lord, the secretary for foreign affairs, of the right hon. the president of the board of control, and of the late Mr. Perceval; and he denied the noble lord (Palmerston) to produce any thing of equal authority which could be held to affect the claims of these men. He would venture to say, that no act could be found which might authorize the taking away of similar pensions, except in the cases of persons who had engaged for life, or for a certain number of years, and had not gone through their stipulated service. A departure from a compact like that to which he had directed their attention, would be fatal to the spirit, and almost to the existence of the service. The superannuated soldier had imposed a debt of gratitude upon his country, which could never be repaid but by the most anxious, the most tender, the most vigilant solicitude, to secure for him that reward and that repose which his past services had so eminently merited.

Lord Palmerston

objected to the shape in which the noble lord had brought forward his motion. The paper which he had called for was not that which was necessary for his purpose. He was very willing, however, to meet the noble lord upon the principle of this bill. Its intention evidently was, to enlarge the military force of that day, by holding out farther inducements to recruits. The noble lord thought that this bill gave a permanent and indefeasible right to the soldier to enjoy his pension, under whatever circumstances he might have received it. This was not the case, nor had such a regulation ever been contemplated by Mr. Windham: all the law did was, to create a right under certain conditions, which conditions or regulations were reserved for the Crown to make. What were the words of the act? With regard to the 5th section, it did not bear at all upon this question. The only meaning of the 5th section was, that men, who entered the service under certain regulations should not be deprived of the benefit arising from those regulations by the Crown, at any subsequent period. In short, it went to secure to the soldier the benefit of the regulation which existed at the time of his enlistment. But the third section was that on which the question turned. The 3rd section said, "that from and after the passing of the act, &c, any soldier shall be entitled to his discharge by reason of the expiration of the period of service, fixed in the orders and regulations of his majesty's government;" leaving it in the power of the king to fix the period of service: and it further provided "that men so discharged should be entitled to receive such pensions, allowance, or relief, as should be fixed in the orders and regulations in such cases respectively." These words he apprehended, did not give a perpetual right to ║ the enjoyment of a pension; and if they did not, what did they give? In his opinion, these words were introduced to give conditional pensions to those who had not received pensions previous to the passing of the act. The noble lord, he thought, had entirely mistaken the object of this clause. It was well known, that previous to the passing of the act, the pension granted to the soldier was entirely dependent on the bounty of the Crown; and in this state of things, not alone was the man bound to prove a case of service and disability from wounds, but he must also produce the recommendation of his commanding officer. Now, in the opinion of Mr. Windham, it was desirable to do away with this discretion, and to enact, that if a man should present himself, in every other respect with a sufficient claim, his pension should be granted, and he should not be subject to the caprice of his commanding officer, or to the unjust or improper exercise of the authority of the Crown. It only remained then to say, what was the period at the end of which a man should be entitled to a pension, or what degree of disability would justify his claiming. This point was left in the discretion of the Crown, who adopted such regulations as the circumstances of the service seemed to warrant; and to these regulations, whatever they might be, the soldier was bound to submit. This he thought, was the only fair interpretation of this act. But the noble lord said that he had authorities which led to a different interpretation. Now, he was sure he could refer to the authority of Mr. Windham himself, as corroborative of his proposition, that this bill did not give to a man an indefeasible right to his pension. If either Mr. Windham or general Fitzpatrick had entertained such a notion, they would have distinctly stated it on the passing of the bill; but so far from this being the case, the regulations adopted under their auspices, after the passing of the act, clearly proved the converse of such a proposition. In fixing the periods for which the men should enlist, it was seen that for the first seven years no pension was granted; but that if an enlistment took place for fourteen year's and that period was completed, the right to a pension existed; and if the service was extended to 21 years, the right arose to a larger pension; but if a soldier were discharged before the completion of the three full periods of service, namely, 21 years, and should be in the receipt of his pension, it was further provided, that he should forfeit that pension, unless when called upon he agreed to complete the full three periods—that was to say, if a man were discharged at the end of 14 years, and was in the enjoyment of his pension, if occasion existed for his services for the 7 remaining years of the whole period of 21 years, and he should refuse to serve them, he lost his pension altogether. It was impossible to place any other construction upon the words of the act. Unless this were the case, he apprehended the House would think a very bad bargain had been made for the country. The regulation which fixed the rate of pensions given to men disabled from wounds was open to precisely the same construction; and if the man were able, he was equally liable with the man who had received his pension for length of service, to be called upon to serve his full three periods of service. If this were not the law, the country would be placed in a most preposterous condition. The object of Mr. Windham obviously was, to keep a corps de reserve, but this object would have been altogether defeated, if the conclusion come to by the noble lord were correct. And what else would be the result? Why, men who had entered the service at 18 years old, would, at the end of 14 years service, when they had arrived at the extreme old age of 32, be for the rest of their lives entitled to partake of the bounty of the country, without any opportunity existing of calling upon them to make some return for such generosity! This would indeed be a monstrous state of things. Of pensioners there were not less than 75,000 men, none of whom would then contribute to the public service. It was true, that many of these men were unable to serve; but a great number of them were useful and effective troops. He very much regretted the noble lord had chosen this particular period for bringing forward this question. All he could say was, that the act granted pensions under particular regulations, and that those who received pensions must, in order to entitle themselves to their continuance, act in conformity with those regulations.

Lord Althorp

perfectly agreed in the construction put upon the first part of this act by the noble secretary at war; namely, that where pensions were granted to soldiers for length of service, the Crown had a right to call for their ser- vices until they had completed the full periods which the conditions in the regulations alluded to distinctly stipulated. He did not agree with him, however, in the other branch of his definition; namely, that which referred to pensions received for wounds. In such cases he thought a similar right of calling for the services of the soldier did not exist. At all events, doubts existed on the subject; and he thought those doubts should be construed favourably for the soldier.

Mr. C. Long

said, the only question here was, what was the condition upon which the soldier enlisted? The regulations adopted by the officers of the Crown was, that a soldier, in order to entitle himself to the enjoyment of his pension, must render himself liable to be called upon to serve the three full periods of his enlistment, amounting to 21 years. These regulations were suggested by Mr. Windham himself; and if he had meant to come to a different conclusion, he would no doubt, have made his bill clearly intelligible. From the beginning, it was evident that Mr. Windham contemplated the securing of the service of the soldier for 21 years; and very few instances had occurred in which the soldier was disposed to question this proposition: on the contrary they were generally anxious to disguise their wounds, so that they might get into the veteran battalions.

Mr. J. P. Grant

said, that with regard to the question of pensions for length of service, it clearly appeared that the soldier was subject to the conditions laid down in the regulations adopted by the Crown. The same rule, however, did not apply to that class of persons who received pensions for wounds. In the former case, the words of the regulation were, that they should only receive their pensions on the condition that when called upon they should complete their service for their three full periods; in the latter, however, the words were that they should "complete their service for the period for which they had been engaged." In these regulations, therefore, there was a marked distinction, and he apprehended if a man had only engaged for seven years, and received a pension for a wound obtained during that period, he would, according to the words of the regulation, have, to all intents and purposes, completed the period for which he had been engaged, and could not be compelled to serve longer than seven years.

Mr. Calcraft

thought the question in this case was extremely narrow. The only point at issue was, what construction was to be put upon the words "the period of service for which they had been engaged." In his opinion, if a man enlisted for seven years, that was the period of his engagement; and if he became entitled to a pension during that period, the Crown had no right to call for his services any longer.

The question was negatived.