moved, that the amendments made by the Lords in the Volunteer Consolidation bill be taken into consideration. Upon which,

reminded the house, that the course here was to follow the precedent of the year 1757, and the whole matter would afterwards come before the house for its consideration.

considered this as a matter likely to involve points essentially connected with the privileges of the Commons, for which reason he thought that the report ought to be printed. This produced some conversation between Mr. Whitbread and the Secretary at War.

observed, it was important that the house should come to a right understanding, as to the principle which should regulate its future proceedings on this bill. He took it to be clear, that the rule of rejecting a bill in toto, was only on account of amendments made by the Lords in a bill of supply: where a bill was in the nature of enacting penalties, or the like, it was the custom of the House to disagree to the amendments made by the Lords, touching these points, but not to reject the bill in toto, on account of such amendments, unless it was a bill of supply.—After some farther conversation, between Mr. Secretary Yorke, Mr. Whitbread, and Mr. Curwen, the report was ordered for further consideration on Monday, and to be printed.

rose to complain, that certain papers, for which he had some time since moved, respecting the public accounts of Ireland, and the making out of which could not cause any delay, had not yet been returned. He did not wish to make any motion upon the subject; but if they should not be forthcoming in a very few days, he must be under the necessity of moving some measure to enforce the orders.

answered, that some papers had arrived from Ireland this day, which he did intend to have presented. He could not now accurately state what those papers were, or whether any of those alluded to by the right hon. gent. were amongst the number. They would be laid before the house on monday; and he ventured to say, at all events, he should be enabled satisfactorily, to account for the delay complained of.

said, he had attended the house almost daily for some time, in hopes of seeing some of the Lords of the Admiralty in their places in the house, to obtain an answer to a question he wished to ask relative to a paper which had some time since been laid before the house, but he had not seen one of them. He now saw one of his Majesty's ministers, who might, perhaps, be prepared to answer the question. He wished to know, whether the 15,000 marines were to be considered as over and above the 84,000 seamen that had been returned? It ministers were prepared for this question, he hoped some of the Lords of the Admiralty would come down to answer it.

expressed his readiness to satisfy the hon. admiral. The 15,000 he could assure the gent. were exclusive of the other. The one is stated, the right hon. gent. added, from the navy office, and the other from the weekly returns; but the two are to be added, making in all about 100,000.

rose, in pursuance of a notice he had given on a former day respecting a return of the transports employed for conveying Hanoverian troops to this country, and the date of the order for employing them, together with the date of the embarkation of such troops. He thought there could have been no difficulty in the way of obtaining such a return; but he understood this day, from an authoritative quarter, that there was an objection to the granting of it. He wished, therefore, to know explicitly, if that was the case.

said, it did not appear to him, from any thing which had been offered by the hon. member on this subject, that he had laid any adequate ground before the house, to shew the necessity for producing such a return; and until such a ground should be clearly made out, he certainly should entertain objections.

then gave notice, that he should bring forward a motion on this subject on Wednesday next.

moved the order of the day for the house to resolve itself into a committee of the whole house, to consider further of ways and means for raising a supply granted to his Majesty.—The house having resolved itself into a committee, the right. hon. gent. rose and said, he felt it unnecessary to trespass long upon the time of the house, by going at any length into a statement of the estimates for the expences of the year in Ireland, a great part of which having been already voted. It was necessary for the present only to state, that as the permanent charges upon the Irish establishment for the years past had in some degree exceeded the appropriated funds, it had been thought proper to borrow a loan, of 1,250,000l. to be raised in Ireland, to make up the deficiency. It was impossible at this moment for him to state minutely the particulars of the increased expenditure of the public service for Ireland, both here and in that country. It would be impossible for him, at this moment, to go into a general statement of the charges on Ireland; for, though a considerable portion of the supplies were voted, a considerable number of the services remain yet to be voted in G. Britain as well as in Ireland; and until the whole supply is voted, it is impossible to ascertain distinctly what may be necessary for the one as well as the other. It was now his purpose at this time to move for a loan of the small sum of 1,250,000l., which sum had already been contracted for in Ireland, subject to the approbation of parliament, for which it was his intention to make provision in the ways and means, when that subject came before parliament. He should state the terms of the loan, in order to follow it with a motion, if it should be the pleasure of the house to adopt the contract; and it would be for him, on a future day, and that not a distant one, to state the whole of the charges which will fall on Ireland for the year, and the ways and means for answering those charges. He should now, however, state the terms of the loan, that gent. might have an opportunity of knowing how the matter stood; it was a loan of one million and a quarter, to be funded in the 5 per cents. the 5 per cent. interest to be paid in Ireland, to commence from the 25th of March last, and, discount to be allowed, according to the custom of G. Britain, on anticipated payments, at the rate of 5 per cent.—The bidding was taken on the 20th of April inst. in Dublin. He should state the terms of that bidding, and the contract which govt. was ready to enter into, subject to the approbation of parliament: for every 100l. the subscriber was to have 112l. 7s. 3d. in stock. The money to be raised was 1,250,000l. The capital to be created amounted to no more than 1,404,000l. The interest on the 100l. money was at the rate of 5l. 12s. 4d. per annum. A sinking fund was created of one per cent. to reduce the capital, which gave the whole charge of interest and sinking fund of 84,271; so that the contract was 89l. for 100l. stock. It was unnecessary for him to give any detail of the advantages of these terms which he had now to propose; he should only state, that on the day on which this bidding was taken at 89l. in the 5 per cent. stock in Ireland, it was only at 90l. so that the bidding was within one per cent. of the market price of stock. He trusted it was unnecessary for him to say more on this subject; but it might be satisfactory to the committee, that he should add this one circumstance, that as far as he understood, the price of the 5 per cents. in the market in. London, on that day, (a thing hardly to be accounted for), was not more than 80l. 10s. It was to him an astonishing circumstance, and the consideration of that price in Ireland upon this bidding, and the price here, shewed that this was as advantageous a loan as it was possible to expect under the present circumstances. He should not trouble the committee with any farther observations, meaning to go into the detail, in the course of next week, of the whole charges of Ireland, and of the ways and means of defraying them. He concluded by moving, "That a sum not exceeding 1,404,000l. be granted to his Majesty, for the service of Ireland, for the current year, to be raised by loan."—Agreed to.

moved, that the house do resolve itself into a committee of Supply, and that the several estimates relative to the army services, be referred to the said committee.

said, that it was now his duty to state to the committee the supplementary estimates which were to be included in the general estimates of the year. The only item which he should at present forbear to state was, the expence of the militia of Ireland, which was not, as yet, ascertained. The first sum which he should propose to be voted, which was not provided for in the general estimates of the year, was 730,000l. for the expence of the volunteers. The next article would be for the expence of the new augmentation to be made to the military force, the principle of which had been already so much discussed in the house, that he should feel it unnecessary to make any farther observations on it at present; he should only state, that the estimated expence of making this augmentation would be 200,000l. which was allowing 130,000l. for G. Britain, and 70,000l. for Ireland; there would be also a considerable expence in keeping up the foreign corps, which were now to be considerably augmented. Besides the regiments of Meuron, Rolle, and Dillon, the Queen's German regiment had received considerable augmentations of late: it was now intended that it should be the foundation of a German legion, consisting of 5000 men, of which 4000 were already procured, and from the existing circumstances, this legion was attended with one peculiar advantage, that those who joined it were not raw recruits, but veteran soldiers. The whole of the foreign corps at present, including some black troops in the West Indies, amounted to 7 or 8000 men; but this number was intended to be considerably increased. There was also included in the estimates which he now presented, the expellees of recruiting of the general staff, and of supernumerary officers. There was another article in which there would be a considerable increase in the expences of this year, namely, in making allowances for the lodging of the soldiers in Scotland, who had hitherto been billeted upon the inhabitants indiscriminately, to their great inconvenience. There was also an increase this year in the expence of the barrack department of Ireland, from 334,000 which was the estimated expence of the last year, to 461,000l. which was the estimated expence of the present year. He had also to state the expences of the Royal Military College, and of the Royal Military Asylum. The latter now required an expence of 32,600l. to compleat the buildings that were necessary. The plan of it went to take in 1000 children of soldiers, although the present number there did not exceed 200. As to the Royal Military College, it was found that, although by its original institution, military men were to pay the annual suns of 40l. for the children there, yet even this sum, small as it might seem for that sort of education which was there given, and infinitely smaller than what those who were not of the profession were obliged to pay, was yet too great for the means of many officers of low rank; it was, therefore, now the plan that the children of the officers of very low rank in the army should be educated there gratis, and that there should be a scale of payment proportioned to the rank in the army of the officer who should send his children there. At present there was no sufficient building in Great Marlow to contain all the boys, and they were obliged to lodge about the town, which was a considerable inconvenience: 11,280l. would be wanting this year, for the purposes of this institution. He then proceeded to state the expences of the barrack department, which he allowed were extremely high; but when it should be recollected, that in the course of the year they had provided accommodation for 56,000 troops near the sea coasts, it was not to be expected that a measure of such magnitude could be accomplished without a considerable degree of expence. As to the expence of the building of those barracks, he thought that no contracts had ever been entered into for buildings, where the contractors were more completely under the check and control of the barrack master. The contracts were all made precisely according to the form of that which, in consequence of a motion of an hon. Admiral (Berkeley), was now on the table. The payment stipulated was on the value of the materials, and of the ordinary price of labour; whereas extra labour was generally required by the barrack master, in order to have the barracks soon finished, and yet nothing could be demanded for this extra labour on the footing of the contract; it was certainly due in point of justice, but not till the contract was properly executed. This was certainly a powerful check upon the contractors. Although the expence of building or hiring so many barracks was necessarily great, yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that it would save a great deal of money, not only in the lodging of soldiers, but in the encampments which it would otherwise be necessary to make: for instance, in Kent or Essex it would be hardly necessary to form camps, if good cantonments for the soldiers were already provided. The contract was now before the House, and was framed from a plan which met the approbation of military men of the first experience. The works were to be subject to the control of a barrack master, who was to judge and check every proceeding of the contractor, and without whose certificate no money was to be paid to any contractor. Besides this, the public would be completely guarded against any loss for waste of time, extraordinary wages, or debts contracted, as the work was to be measured, and both that and the materials paid for at the ordinary rate of the vicinage where such buildings were to be erected, unless it were in very remote situations, where extraordinary expedition should be required, and where it would be but just to make a reasonable allowance, when the contractor was unavoidably subjected to extraordinary expence, either in conveying his men to a considerable distance, or paying an extraordinary price for materials or labour. Having stated thus much for the satisfaction of the committee, he should be ready to give any further explanation which gent. might require. The right hon. gent. concluded with moving, "That a sum, not exceeding 98,635l. 12s. 2d. be granted to his Majesty, for the charge of recruiting and contingencies for the land forces of Ireland, from the 25th Dec. 1803, to the 24th Dec. 1804."

remarked on the inconsistency in the reasoning of the right hon. gent. in respect to the barracks. The expence had exceeded all reasonable computation, and deserved the serious attention of the house; the extent of the charge did not at all correspond with the expedients stated to have been resorted to for the purposes of public economy, and if some satisfactory explanation were not given, he should think it right to submit the abuses which had prevailed to the attention of the house.

said, among the more weighty charges on the barrack establishment, was the construction of barracks on the coast; and it was conceived that this measure, on a variety of accounts, would save a very considerable expence in adjacent encampments. It is rather premature to give any decisive opinion on the total charge in this important and necessary service, as the accounts are not yet made up, by which that opinion must be guided. With regard to the execution of the works, if the right hon. gent. entertained any doubts on that subject, it would be candid if he would advert to some particulars from which those doubts originated: he confessed he had understood nothing of the kind from the barrack office, and he trusted that the hon. gent. on further inquiry, would discover there was no just ground of complaint. The payments in that department were conducted with the greatest regularity, at the same time securing the interest of the public, and providing for the exigencies of the contractor. The terms on which the engagements are made, admit the latter to the benefit of instalments, and he is also entitled for money on account, in the progress of his undertaking; but 12 per cent. is retained until the conclusion of the business, to apply to any defect that may be discovered either in the quantity of the materials, or the structure of the edifice. No payment is made, excepting it be authorised by a certificate of the officers appointed to survey the buildings, and bad materials are ordered to be removed, and unsubstantial erections to be pulled down. No day-work is charged at a fixed price, but the price is regulated by the rate of labour paid in the respective counties where the service is performed. With these precautions, it is not possible to suppose much neglect can arise, or that the public money is employed without a corresponding advantage from its application.

said, that in the present thin attendance he should not make any remarks on the nature of the propositions submitted by the right hon. the Sec. at War; but conceiving that ministers had now presented the ne plus ultra of their exertions for the defence of the country, he should take the earliest opportunity of delivering his sentiments upon all they had done, and all they appeared capable of doing.

lamented the magnitude of the burden in the barrack department, and considered that, contrary to what the right hon. gent. had stated, the present plan was subject to objections, both on account of the public and the individual. He would mention a single fact, by which it would appear that the interest of the last was not very sedulously consulted, A small contractor delivered in his account, and was surprised to find a gross deduction made in it. He applied to the barrack office to be informed of the particular items to which the deduction referred: it was in vain that he remonstrated; he could obtain no explanation, and he was at last told, that if he would not take the amount thus reduced, he might bring his action. Although the deduction exceeded the amount of his profit, yet the whole affair was so small, that he could obtain no redress by bringing an action at the expence of 50 or 60l. The hon. member was of opinion, that the large discretionary powers given to the principal barrack officers, was neither consistent with public policy or private convenience; but at least it would be expected, where they have such extensive confidence reposed, that they would use it with some moderation, and not only avoid injustice, but the appearance of it, by explaining to a creditor their objection to his claim.

explained, that the general character of the officers to whom the barrack department was assigned, would incline him to avoid hastily concluding that they were culpable in the particular to which the hon. gent. adverted. All the corrected accounts he had seen in the course of his official duties, had the ground of objection stated on the face of the account against the item to which it applied. If the hon. gent. would privately communicate the circumstance of the grievance to which he adverted, the matter should be examined, and any just ground of complaint should be immediately removed. At the same time he begged to observe, that all men who dealt with the barrack office, entered into contracts with their eyes open, as they were perfectly apprised of the discretionary power with which the barrack board was invested. It was not such a discretion, however, as was likely to be abused from the character of those with whom it rested.

stated, that the man to whom he had alluded, had come twice from the Isle of Wight without being able to get his account settled.

then moved, "That it be the opinion of the committee, &c. that the following sums should be granted for the following purposes, from the 25th of Dec. 1803, to the 24th of Dec. 1804:" viz.

The above resolutions were put and unanimously adopted.

observed, that the excess last year in the Extraordinaries of the army would not appear, under the existing circumstances, at all extravagant, when he stated it to be 339,207l. 18s. 7d. He then moved, that it is the opinion of this committee, that there be applied to the extraordinary expences of the army for the year 1804:

again rose, and addressed the committee to the following effect:—The only remaining resolution I shall now submit to the attention of the committee, relates to what has been called the Caledonian Canal, intended to connect the Eastern and Western seas by Inverness to Fort William, for which the sum of 25,000l. has been already granted. It will be immediately seen, that this is a concern of too much magnitude to be undertaken by individuals. This vast intersection of the country is not to be on the contracted plan of ordinary canals for inland navigation; it is intended to be conducted on a superior scale, and to admit the passage of frigates of 32 guns. There are many local considerations connected with this subject, which should not escape the attention of the committee. In the year 1801, the Lords Commissioners of the Treasury directed a survey to be taken of that part of the Highlands. The spring and ensuing summer were employed on this duty. During the last session the report was made, and the house in consequence adopted the measure. Commissioners were then, under the same authority, appointed, who pursued their inquiries with great diligence and ability, and they were assisted by a gent. perfectly conversant in undertakings of this kind, from whom they derived the most valuable information. The report was directed to two principal objects, the importance and the practicability of the work. The expence was stated at from 4 to 500,000l. The zeal of the country has been so great to forward the project, that in many instances the land for the canal has been offered free of all expence. Among the motives, I must not omit to notice the considerable emigrations from the Highlands, which this improvement is calculated to prevent. I beg it may not be supposed that this emigration is in any degree to be attributed to the neglect of the great landed proprietors. A variety of causes have conduced to incline the Highlanders to abandon their native soil, and it is the duty of govt. as much as possible, to remove these, that this gallant and valuable body of men may be disposed to listen to the dictates of their own patriotic feelings. This great national work will provide employment for a great number of the people of that country, and it is expected that the blessings of commerce and of the arts will emanate from the same spring, and diffuse not only the means of bare subsistence, but the comforts, conveniencies, and luxuries of life. I think I should detain the house improperly, were I to dwell longer on the importance of this measure. I shall therefore conclude with moving. "That 50,000l. be granted towards defraying the expences of making an inland navigation from the Eastern to the Western sea, by Inverness and Fort William."—The resolutions being agreed to, the house resumed, and, on the motion being put from the chair, the report of the committee of supply was ordered to be received to-morrow.