Lords Sitting of 31 January 1809

DUKE OF YORK — DISCIPLINE.OF THE ARMY.
The Earl of Suffolkcalled the attention of their lordships to a few observations which he should wish to make upon a subject of great public interest. He allowed that it might not be altogether corresponding with the rules of that house, but on such an occasion he was convinced that their lordships would excuse him. For some time past, rumour had been exceedingly busy in spreading reports of a tendency extremely injurious to the character of the Army; he meant not only the busy whispers that prevailed among the ill-natured, but the public attacks that slander had made upon its discipline. Having been bred a soldier from his earliest days, be could not hear these scandals and falsehoods propagated without taking the first opportunity that presented itself of giving his meed of refutation to the calumny. He was the more anxious to do this, because not only the Army deserved it at his hands, but the conduct of the Illustrious Personage who has the command in chief of it, loudly called for it as an act of justice; for he could take upon him to say,

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that the British Army never was in the memory of man in so complete a state of discipline as it had arrived at since his royal highness had been appointed to that great and responsible situation. The whole object of that illustrious duke had been to bring the army to that state of perfection which by its recent demeanour, it had so nobly proved. It was that discipline which enabled our troops, after a march of upwards of 400 miles through a barren tract of country, at an inhospitable season of the year, to give battle to their adversaries, and gain over them a signal victory: it was that discipline which enabled them to sustain all the hardships and all the privations which they endured in that retreat, and, finally, to secure and save themselves from a tremendous enemy. This was the effect of the discipline introduced and acted upon throughout the British forces, and which was demonstrated in a thousand instances. Sphere was one which he would mention, however reluctant he was to do it, and that was, when his royal highness heard that the lieut. colonel of a regiment (the regiment which his lordship commanded, and which the late lieut.-general sir John Moore once commanded) was deficient in talent and knowledge to hold such a commission, he removed him, and appointed another more effective in his stead; and neither his family connections (being the son of a noble lord), nor any other interest, was allowed to prevent that removal: the consequence whereof was, that the regiment immediately improved in effective force as it did in discipline.—There was another circumstance which he wished to notice to their lordships, and that was, an ill-founded opinion entertained of that excellent institution the Military Asylum, namely, that it was a useless burthen to the state. This he lordship could most solemnly contradict, and also take upon him to say, that a more beneficial establishment, as a nursery for good soldiers, never was instituted in any country. That was all with which, on the present occasion, he should trouble the house.