having moved the order of the day for the second reading of the amendments made in the additional force bill, said, that it might convenience the house to be made acquainted with the amendments in the first instance, before any debate took place—The first provided, that all vacancies which may occur by desertion or deaths in the force to be raised, shall be supplied by the counties, instead of the parishes. The next material amendment related to the wives and families of the men who entered the service. The wives and families of those who entered the army of reserve were, by the act entitled to the provision which the wives of the militia received; but no provision was made for the families of those who transferred their service from the reserve to the line. It was deemed proper to do away these provisions altogether, and remove, therefore, the difficulty which might be thus raised against entering into the regular army. The third amendment provided, that this additional force should only continue for six months after the signing of a definitive treaty of peace. Thus every apprehension as to the permanence of this army must be removed, because its duration was only to be in time of war. When peace shall be made, such number will be kept up as former acts on this subject prescribed— The 4th, granted a power to establish rendezvous in certain places for inspecting the men who shall be raised; and like wise to the officers appointed for that purpose, to reject such man as they should deem unfit for service.—The amendments were then brought up successively by the chancellor of the exchequer, read, and inserted in the bill.—On bringing up the third amendment,

wished to know whether the officers of this force were to have permanent pay?

replied, that they would be entitled to half pay only in time of peace, excepting the month during which the men were to be out on duty every year; they would be thus on a footing with the former were to be in the way of promotion. The right hon. gent. then moved, "that the bill with its amendments, be engrossed."

objected to the motion. He confessed, that the bill was now less objectionable than when first introduced; yet it still appeared to him to retain so much of its native turpitude, that it could never obtain his assent. When the foundation was bad, no good superstucture could be raised upon it, but it must be deficient and fail, notwithstanding its Professed purpose was to raise an additional force. He objected to the bill, as being, in its nature, unconstitutional, and so injurious to the liberties of the country, that he was surprized should have been permitted to be brought in. The very principle of the bill was to raise men by means of fines and penalties; but the object in view could never be answered by such means. The bill called upon parish officers to raise a certain quota of men, and at the same time told them they must not give above 7l. 10 s. bounty money, which was to require them to do more than they could perform, whilst, at the same time, it levied a fine upon them for the non-performance, and, even after paying that fine, they were still liable to succeeding fines. He could never see an increase to the established military force of the country, without jealousy. It appeared that this was proposed as a system for supplying the regular standing army, whether in time of war or peace. The bill went to levy a tax on the country parishes, and in an unconstitutional way. It should therefore meet with his decided opposition.

said, he hoped the house would permit him to avail himself of the opportunity, afforded him by this stage of the bill, of very shortly assigning she motives, which had hitherto directed, and which, he was afraid, must continue to govern his vote upon a measure, indubitably of much importance and materially affecting the future strength and power of the country; for it was always to be recollected that this bill was not proposed as a temporary expedient against a sudden and transient danger, but was specifically introduced as laying the foundation of a permanent military system. The object of the bill, as he understood it, was the supply of the deficiencies in the defensive force of the country by a mode, which might render it a fruitful source of recruits, as well as in other respects, a beneficial nursery to the regular army, and which should have the additional advantage of ensuring to this secondary force a degree of discipline so nearly approaching to that of troops of the line, as might enable us, with greater security, to liberate any portion of our disposable force, which occasion might offer, in the course of the war, for employing in aggressive operations. The principles, upon which the plan was professed to rest, were two, the extinction of the competition of bounties, and the promotion of local influence and exertion. To the first he should, for a moment, not advert. With regard to the second, he certainly appreciated local influence as a very powerful instrument of recruiting, though, perhaps, he did not universally attribute that efficacy to it, which some persons of great authority seemed to ascribe to it. In the Highlands of Scotland, and some few parts of Ireland, it indubitably was efficient beyond any other means of recruiting, but he was sure that his right hon. friend (the chancellor of the exchequer) would admit that, from such partial instances, no general inference was to be drawn. He, however, was ready to acknowledge, that, in most parts of the kingdom, it was of much advantage in procuring men, and, indeed, the sense of its utility could not be more forcibly illustrated than by the expedient, to which recourse had been so frequently made, of provincial levies, where the rules of the service, in regard to promotion, were superseded, and the command of a regiment was often conferred on a person never in the army, entirely for the purpose of obtaining the benefit of local exertion, a mode of recruiting well adapted to that object, though, in other respects, highly objectionable. But he was anxious to mark the difference between the value of the influence obtained in this way, and that of the parochial exertion expected to be gained under the operation of this bill. A gentleman of provincial connexions and property, in raising a regiment acted under the stimulus both of the reputation and emoluments resulting froth the completion of his levy, whereas, upon this parochial system of recruiting no one had any incitement beyond the exemption from his proportion of the fine. In provincial levies, too, the sphere of influence was much more extended. The regulated bounty, moreover, was, in that mode of recruiting almost invariably exceeded, and the person undertaking that description of levy, employed recruiting parties in all directions, and had all the aid which the most skilful and experienced recruiting officers could supply. But churchwardens and overseers of the poor possessed no such means, and he was apprehensive that, in the execution of this measure, one of these three things must happen, either that the recruiting would be consigned to crimps, or that a most oppressive influence would be exerted by the parish officers for the purpose of instigating men to enlist, or that the whole scheme would ultimately resolve itself into a mere parochial tax. The best mode of trying the practical merits of the bill would be for every gent. to imagine himself in his own parish for a moment. Suppose the churchwarden and overseers stating to a principal proprietor in a parish the difficulty of procuring men for a bounty of 12 guineas, when it had recently been found almost impracticable to obtain them for double, treble or even the quadruple of that sum. Suppose them, too, representing their utter ignorance of the art of recruiting, and their want of leisure for it, even if they had the knowledge. What other rational counsel could such a proprietor give to the parish officers, than a recommendation to them to endeavour to supply their own want of conversance with the practice of recruiting by a recourse to the assistance of those who had experience in it? Hence, then, would originate the introduction of the contractor for recruits, who would demand more than the limited bounty, and even with an increased premium, would not undertake to procure the men within the space prescribed by the bill. No recruiter would engage to raise the quota of men for a parish within the limits of that parish, or its immediate vicinity. He would, of course, resort for them to London, Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, or the towns in which he usually recruited, and then, it men were procured at all (for he did not believe many could be gained by other means), they would be obtained by a mode, which would be in direct contradiction to the provisions of the bill, and to what his right hon. friend (the chancellor of the exchequer) had declared to be its principle. Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that alt the advantages, in respect to parochial exertion, would be reaped from the bill which the friends of the measure expected to derive from it, the exertion must operate to the impediment of the general recruiting service. For instance, when an officer went into a parish on the regular recruiting service, he, in general, had the influence of the parish, if not positively favourable, at least neutral towards him, in which case he had the fair benefit of the regulated bounty and his own activity, but under this bill the parish would be in a state of constant opposition to his exertions, as every man he raised would diminish the means of the parish-officers of furnishing the quota part of the parish. His success would, in truth, operate as a tax upon the parish. There would, likewise, remain a considerable pecuniary competition under the scale of bounties, which, from what fell from the chancellor of the exchequer a few nights ago, it seemed to be in contemplation to establish. His rt. hon. friend had stated, that, though the bounties were not absolutely fixed, it was at present intended that the bounty for the regular service should be 16 guineas, the bounty for the force to be provided under this bill 12 guineas, and the bounty for enlistment from that force into the line 10 guineas. This system of bounties, therefore, would obviously make it the interest of men to enlist first for home service, instead of entering at once into the line, for by going originally into the line they would be only entitled to a bounty of 16 guineas, whereas, by passing through this intermediate force into the regular army, they would obtain 22. Thus, in point of fact, instead of extinguishing competition, the bill would establish a competition both of money and of local influence, to the detriment of the general recruiting service.—It had been represented by gentlemen on the opposite side of the house as a very visionary and fanciful apprehension, but he could not help concurring in the fear that had been expressed by some of his friends upon the bench with him, that the influence exerted by parish-officers would principally consist in their attempts to render the situation of the indigent class of the community resident within their jurisdiction so painful to them, as to impel them to resort to enlistments as a refuge from persecution. A learned gent. (the attorney-general) had alledged, on a preceding night, that such a suspicion of abuse of authority on the part of parish-officers was not justified by experience. He was far from meaning to make any general imputation on the conduct of parish-officers, at the same time he had known them in some instances commit acts of great severity, and it was not in the spirit of a judicious system of legislation to set the interests of persons in power in opposition to their humane and social feelings. There were many laws, and very wise and salutary laws too, which were much relaxed in their execution, and which, if generally enforced, might be perverted into instruments of grievous oppression. The game laws had been alluded to, and, perhaps, furnished the most familiar example. He certainly was no enemy to the game laws; on the contrary, he maintained the policy of them, though he did not wish to see too severe an operation given to them. In many parts of the country they were put into very vigorous execution. In some parts, however, they were much relaxed, and this was the case in the part of the country, with which he was best acquainted, but he was afraid, of this bill should pass, they would be universally and most severely enforced. If a poor man was detected in snaring a hare, a parish-officer might say to him, "if you are convicted you will be fined £5. You cannot pay such a sum, in which case your goods will be distrained, and even the amount of them will probably not enable you to defray the penalty, and then you must be committed to prison. But if you will enlist in the army of reserve, we will not prosecute you, and you will at once avoid these calamities and obtain a bounty of 12 guineas." It had been asked in a former debate, where were to be found the provisions in the bill, which enacted this system of oppression? God forbid, that parliament should ever pass laws giving a positive sanction to the exercise of tyrannical authority; but it was also its sacred duty to take care that it did not legislate in a manner, which might invite and stimulate abuse, and he entered much into the fears of those who thought, that this bill, if it should pass into a law, would, by awakening into a pernicious activity many dormant penal statutes, sour and disgust the people, and poison the comforts and social happiness of every village and hamlet in the country. It had been imputed to his right hon. friend near him (Mr. Windham), that the tenor of his language was changed, that formerly the house had been accustomed to hear him inculcate the necessity of keeping alive the spirit of the people, and of raising their minds to a level with the unparalleled danger with which they had to contend, but that now there was a truce to these animating exhortations, that his right hon. friend had lowered his tone, that he ceased to urge the incitements and dwelt upon the difficulties, that the motives were now made subordinate to the objections. The chancellor of the exchequer, who had attributed this sudden alteration of conduct to his right hon. friend, had surely permitted it to escape his memory that his right hon. friend had denied the efficacy of the bill. If his right hon. friend had admitted that the bill was likely to be effectual for its object, there might have been some foundation for the remark that had fallen from the chancellor of the exchequer, because in that case his right hon. friend would have had to strike a balance between the inconveniencies of the measure, and the magnitude of the danger against which it was intended to provide; but his right hon. friend had expressly stated, that it, in his view of it, the bill would be vexatious and not efficacious, that it would be productive of nothing but superfluous and gratuitous oppression, that, in fact, it would be oppressive, because it was not calculated to be efficient for its purpose. The house, too, could not fail to observe that the evils, which his right hon. friend had predicted as likely to result from the measure, were of a nature calculated to relax that zeal, which his right hon. friend had borne so eminent a share in exciting in the country, and, consequently, materially to diminish the strength of the empire at a period which, in the opinion of all men, demanded its collected and united faculties.—He next proceeded to the consideration of the proposed arrangement of this force. In this view of the subject he would, for the sake of argument, assume, that the men were procured, and he might then, perhaps, be asked by the friends of the measure, whether he did not admit that there was a reasonable foundation for believing that many men would enter from this intermediate force into the line. He certainly did apprehend that a considerable number might transfer themselves from one service into the other, but if he were at the same time asked, what would be the most effectual mode of checking their enlistment, he should certainly answer, the prohibition of their option with regard to the corps into which they might be disposed to enter; as he could venture to assert, from the best recruiting authorities, that the motives of men for enlisting into the army were as various as the whims and caprices of the human mind. The arrangement, however, of double battalions as the means of inducing men to enter into the regular army, was said to be justified by experience, and two examples had been cited to prove that men were likely to enlist with more facility for general service for having acquired military habits in service of a limited nature. The instances quoted were the volunteers obtained from the militia in the late war, and the army of reserve in the present. With regard to the 1st instance, he must observe, that the mode which had been adopted for obtaining men for the regular army from the militia was very different from that which could be pursued compatibly with the principle professed in the present plan. Recruiting parties had been sent down to the quarters of the different regiments, many of which were kept for a considerable interval in a state of intoxication and dissolution of discipline, and by these means the recruits were procured at large bounties for regular service limited, however, for the most part, both in respect to time and space, for a large proportion of the men enlisted only for the period of the war, and for European service. The other instance which had been cited, was the army of reserve, but the men who had transferred themselves from that force into the a regular army, had not enlisted because they had acquired the habits of a military life, for most of them could never have been regimented or have joined their battalions of reserve. It was notorious that they had literally merely passed through the army of reserve into the line for the sake of the double bounty, and that they had enlisted so rapidly as to induce the commander in chief to issue orders at various times to suspend the recruiting, to prevent that relaxation of discipline, which it was found to produce. The only inference, therefore, which could be candidly drawn from this example, was, that many men had been tempted to enter for general service by the invitation of extravagant bounties, having at the same time their option of the regiments into which they were to enlist, and no inconsiderable proportion had entered into the guards and into the artillery. He did not, however, mean to assert, that several men might not be procured for the line by the intended arrangement, but he was convinced that as many, and he believed more, might be even immediately obtained by that system of recruiting which had been so frequently recommended, without any of the complicated vexation of this bill. The system, to which he alluded, consisted in the enlistment for term of years instead of for life, the declared and formal abolition of drafting, and some separate establishment for colonial service; for the dread of the noxious climate of the West Indies operated as a most powerful impediment to the recruiting of the line. These measures, together with a proper distribution of recruiting parties under experienced officers, and a judicious selection of stations for recruiting depôts, would, he was persuaded, ultimately supply the ranks of our regular army. He, nevertheless, did not expect that the country could speedily reap the full advantage even of the best scheme of recruiting, and in this respect he was not so sanguine as his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham), for he was convinced that a long interval would elapse before the memory of large bounties would be intirely obliterated. We had taught the people to speculate so much upon extravagant premiums, that it would be found they would for a long while with-hold themselves from the service in the hope of their revival.—Before he sat down there were two or three topics on which he felt desirous of touching; and to which he should advert with more satisfaction, as he had the good fortune, in a great measure, to concur in opinion on them with his right hon. friend, the chancellor of the exchequer; one was, the derelection of ballot as applied to this measure. At the same time he begged not to be understood as being universally adverse to the principle of ballot. On the contrary, one of his motives for wishing the original establishment of the militia to be maintained was, that the principle of ballot might be preserved in the country. He thought it bad as a part of a great permanent system, but temporary and unforeseen emergencies might occur, in which it might be necessary to have recourse to compulsory service, and in exigencies of so sudden and pressing a nature, that mode of compulsion was the best which was the most efficacious.—There was another part of the bill, which, he must be at variance with all his former declarations and sentiments, if he did not approve; he meant the reduction of the supplementary militia. At the same time he did not think the mode proposed altogether unobjectionable. The arrangement of the supplementary militia varied in different counties. In some counties the supplementary levy was added to the original establishment, and the whole formed one regiment, and hence there were several regiments which were certainly too large and unwieldy. In other counties this part of the militia had been formed into several battalions or regiments, such, for instance, as the 2d Surry, 2d Wiltshire, &c. These corps consisted, he believed, in general of 5 or 600 men each, and when they should be reduced to two-thirds or half of that number, it appeared to him that it would be an useless expense to keep up corps upon such small establishments. He could not help adding, too, that though the diminution of their numbers was to be gradual, he feared the decay of their discipline would be rapid, for it was not rational to expect that the interest of the officers in their regiments would not be relaxed by this sentence of reduction, and thus he must consider the value of the supplementary militia for the remainder of its existence as likely to be materially diminished. During the discussions on the army of reserve bill, in the last session, severe animadversions had been made on the late administration for their tardiness in bringing forward that measure. They had been reminded, that his Majesty's declaration had stated that the conduct of France had been one continued series of aggression, violence, and insult from the conclusion of the treaty of peace; that the French government had been detected in the design of sending military spies into this country, under the denomination of commercial agents, which act of perfidy was described in the same declaration as a decisive indication of the dispositions and intentions of that government, and that, with all these warnings, they ought to have been prepared with their system for the defence of the country immediately on the commencement of the hostilities. They, however, defended their procrastination of the measure of the army of reserve by alleging, that, if it had been earlier introduced, it would have interfered with the ballot for the militia. To this argument, however, he recollected it was replied by himself amongst others, that, as the ballot for the supplementary militia had in many counties not been begun, and as in others very little progress had been made in it, the number of the army of reserve might have been so enlarged, as to have superseded the necessity of the levy of the supplementary militia. But the gentlemen on the bench opposite to him (the bench on which Mr. Addington and his friends were sitting) had an answer to this suggestion. They alleged that the militia, upon its augmented establishment, was the proper quantum of militia for the country. They maintained the same opinion still, and therefore, though he had the misfortune entirely to differ from them, he must acknowledge they were perfectly consistent. But those gentlemen, who formed part of the late administration, and who also composed so considerable a proportion of the present, had held precisely the same language, and he therefore felt some surprise at their change of sentiment upon this subject, and at their approbation of a scheme which was partly founded on a reduction of the number of the militia. An hon. and learned gent. on the treasury bench (the attorney-general) had asserted, "that when two plans were under the consideration of the house, framed by different administrations, without any very important difference between them, that had the best claim to preference which was proposed by the persons actually in power, since they would be responsible for the execution of it." This doctrine was certainly very palatable, and he had no doubt it would be very satisfactory to the house, as it opened a fair prospect to the public of a sort of perpetuity in the learned gent.'s official assistance, an advantage which, he believed, the country had already possessed, in different situations, for three successive administrations. But without discussing the merits of this doctrine, he begged permission to remark to the learned gent., that, by a singular felicity of circumstances, he had, upon the principle of his own argument, still his option between the two plans, for he believed that half, if not a majority of the present cabinet, consisted of persons who were also members of the late cabinet; and, therefore, if the measure proposed by the late government should be adopted, it would, nevertheless, be executed by those who had been its authors and systematical supporters. But these gentlemen, it seemed, made the present plan the object of their choice, and he now had the good fortune to find that they concurred with him in opinion that the militia establishment was too large by the whole of its augmented numbers. He really could not help expressing some curiosity to know from what period he was to date this very unexpected satisfaction; since, for an interval of two years, his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham) and himself had experienced nothing but censure and reproaches from those gentlemen for their opposition to the increase of the militia of the different parts of the united kingdom. He must remind them, too, that the very last act of their late administration was the introduction of a bill for the increase of the militia of Ireland, which passed in direct defiance of the counsel of his right hon. friend, the present chancellor of the exchequer, and which was truly illustrative of the measures by which, as his right hon. friend had happily expressed it on a former occasion, the late ministers were continually marring and frustrating their own projects. He trusted, however, that his right hon. friend had come into office early enough to advise his Majesty to suspend the exercise of the power which parliament had vested in him, and that as he had been able to operate so auspicious a conversion in the opinions of his new colleagues with regard to the English militia, he hoped he would, while their minds were in this pliant and malleable state, be more successful than when he had spoken from the back benches, in his endeavours to convince them that no system could be more effectually adapted to cut up the recruiting of the regular army, than that of making new encroachments on the population of Ireland for the service of the militia.—He should trouble the house no further than to observe, that if this measure should prove in its operation to be only a means of procuring money, it would, in that point of view, be a burthen of a most grievous nature. It would, in fact, be a tax in the shape of a parochial assessment, and would fall heavily upon that description of the community, who were now scarcely able to struggle against the weight of parish rates, and whom, under a judicious and well regulated system of finance, it had always been an object, as far as was practicable, to exempt from taxes imposed for public revenue. Thinking, therefore, that the bill would be ineffectual for its purpose, and at the same time be most oppressive and unjust in its operation, he felt it his duty to give his negative to its further progress.

said, he felt it his duty as a member of parliament, and as a member of the profession to which this measure particularly applied, to offer his sentiments. He was sure the bill, viewed in a military sense, would not produce any considerable portion of the men that were expected from it; that in a civil view it would be onerous and oppressive; that in a mixed view of civil and military, it would not get men but money, and that in an oppressive way. The late ministers had been charged with want of energy and vigour. He would be glad to hear from any body, in what manner this bill gave any proof of increased vigour or energy. He would say of it as a noble lord had said on a former occasion, that it was a mere milk and water measure: or if it had any vigour, it was vigorous only in oppressing the people. When the merits of this bill were talked of, comparatively with those of the measures produced by his right hon. friend (Mr. Addington) when in office, he thought that little indeed could be said for this measure. His right hon. friend had proposed to raise a number of regiments by recruiting for rank. To this it was objected, that raising men for rank was liable to great abuses: it was so; but it was the abuse, not the use that was the mischief. He would ask the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Windham), who was such an enemy to raising men for rank, whether there was greater mischief in a person every way qualified for the rank, for no other could have it, raising men for it, rather than purchasing from their brother officers. If they were qualified to have the step, there was no harm in raising the men. The principal objection in that case was the difficulty of restraining the bounty; but under the present measure that difficulty was much increased. The officer who would depart from the limits laid down would have to dread the charge of being guilty of a breach of orders and discipline; but no such apprehension could weigh upon the parish officers, and surely the former was a much more constitutional mode of recruiting than the latter, at the same time that it was far from tending so directly to the increase of the bounty.—He was never apprehensive of the danger of invasion so much as others; he agreed that it was now increased beyond what it had ever been. He agreed also in the propriety of increasing the regular force; but the charge of a want of exertion in this respect was not relieved by this bill. The measure was proposed to be permanent, but the foundation was false and rotten. The army of reserve had been efficient, and therefore he approved of it. The principle of the present system which he condemned most, was, that the regular and disposable soldiers were the worst provided for. Soldiers on general service should on every principle have larger pay. He did not mean to say they should have more than they had at present. He was, on this point, of opinion that the augmentation which took place in the last war was improvident, and that the army would have been satisfied with less. He would have the soldiers for limited service reduced to less pay, to 10d. a day, for instance, but that could not be done but in time of peace. This difference would place the thing on a fair footing with respect to the grand operative principle of human nature, self interest. He wished the liberty of volunteering from the reserve battalions to be general, as at present the men were disposed to volunteer into any other battalion rather than that with which they were immediately connected.

rose in defence of the bill, and endeavoured to repel the objection of its being a measure to provide money and not men; for, if the stipulated number of men were raised in the parishes, not one shilling of fine would be incurred. As to the objection of its imposing a burden on the parish officers, he would ask, what measure there was of extensive operation but must occasion some inconvenience to certain individuals? It was true, the execution of the proposed measure would engross some portion of the time of those officers; but he had no doubt of their willingness so to do for the public good.

felt himself called upon by what a right hon. colonel had stated with respect to raising men for rank. He called the right hon. gent. a "colonel," for though he had the local rank of general, his general rank was that of colonel—

rose to order. He said, he was in the judgment of the house whether it was consistent with parliamentary usage, or order, for an hon. member in his speech to step directly out of the subject before the house, to make a personal attack upon another member, with a view to degrade him. It was wholly irrelevant to the question, whether he was a brigadier-general or a plain colonel, except for the direct purposes of personality.

was proceeding to explain, but in a way that induced the chair to call him to order. He then proceeded to say, that the mode of recruiting for rank, with the recommendation of which the hon. general sat out, had already been practised under General Conway, under Lord Amherst, and lastly, under our present illustrious commander in chief, and had been productive of very bad consequences, such as for bad its continuance; and, in fact, all endeavours had been tried to bring back the business of recruiting for the army to its pristine state before Lord Amherst's day, without effect. He therefore must presume the hon. general had some new and secret mode to propose for rendering effectual the project he had so warmly panegyrised. It had been said the present bill was ineffectual, because it was but one step towards the great end desired; but would those who thus argued take two steps at once, instead of letting one be succeeded by the other? If this did not promise all they looked for, another might follow to answer their expectation. With respect to the measure of raising men for rank, under limited bounties, he conceived it wholly impracticable; for though the person recruiting on that principle did not, by his own act, exceed the limit of bounty prescribed for him, yet what was to hinder his serjeant or his friends from advancing ten guineas a man to expedite his quota? It would be no more possible to prevent such things in this case, than bribery at an election; but he was convinced the measure now before the house could have no such effect. The parishes could have but one object, namely, to raise the men as cheap aspossible. With respect to the boasted operation of the former army of reserve bill in recruiting the line, he was convinced that the latter service had received no greater addition through that means, than it would have obtained in the ordinary course, if no army of reserve had existed. The present bill he warmly approved in all its principles, and was fully convinced it was calculated to effect all those desirable purposes in which the preceding measures had failed.

strongly objected to the bill, as being in its nature unjust, unconstitutional, and oppressive. He had formerly supported the bill of his right hon. friend (Mr. Yorke), against which this bill was now brought in. When that right hon. gent.'s measures of national defence were objected to as being inefficient, he thought the country had a right to expect better; whereas, in comparison with that measure, the present bill he considered as weak and inefficient. It held out a promise to our ear, but broke it to our hope. It abandoned the method of ballot, on which the country had hitherto proceeded, and threw off 20,000 of the supplementary militia, who might have been laid hold of at once in aid of the national defence. He meant no reflection on the volunteers at large, when he expressed his belief that many had entered among that body for fear of being drawn by ballot. Now this being removed, he feared would greatly tend to diminish the volunteer force. The bill now under consideration professed to get men, but he was of opinion that money was the object. It called into its aid the machinery of deputy lieutenants and parish officers, who were thus put into situations to render them unpopular, and disliked among their neighbours. Nor would it be found possible for parishes, in agricultural parts of the country, to procure their stipulated quotas of men. Was this, then, a method to be resorted to which could be justified? The county of Lincoln, in which he resided, would, upon a calculation, have to raise 50,000l. by way of fine, which was, in fact, a direct double land-tax on the landed property of the country; and he believed he was right in calculating that it would raise the sum of 1,500,000l. on the landed interest of the several counties of England. This plan was no other than a round about way of increasing the land-tax. These were facts which, he trusted, would have more weight with the house than flourishes of rhetoric. The bill went to impose a heavy duty upon the deputy lieutenants and parish officers. It would harass them, and put them to the greatest inconvenience, whilst it would, at the same time, put the whole country out of humour, and go to raise a standing army, and convert civil officers into recruiting officers. Its effect would be that of levying heavy fines on the several country parishes, and the landed interest of the country. In every view he was led to take of this measure, he was determined to give it his decided opposition.

objected also to the bill, on account of the task which it imposed upon the deputy lieutenants and parish officers. He could not help entertaining apprehensions that it might be found absolutely necessary for govt. to send officers, paid on purpose, into every subdivision of England, to do the business which is now required of the parish officers; who are to receive no salary for their extraordinary services, and who cannot be expected to devote any considerable portion of their time in addition to their private and parochial concerns to such a business. Viewing the measure in this point of view, it became with him a serious consideration, as he wished the house to consider whether its tendency might not be to produce some alarming alteration in the constitution.—He concluded with declaring his opposition to the bill, as a measure that went to establish a permanent force, with all the danger to the constitution of a standing army, without the protection which a standing army would afford; and he particularly objected to it as doing away the militia of the country.

observed, that upon a review of the conduct of the last administration, he could not help pronouncing upon them, that they had not that energy which was requisite in the present state of the country. Upon that ground he wished for the secession of those who composed it: and there was no man to whom he looked forward with greater confidence than to the right hon. gent. who was new at the head of public affairs. Though he was disappointed with regard to the administration that right hon. gent. had formed, yet his inclination, from old habits, and the opinion he entertained of his zeal, ability, and wisdom, induced him to approve any measure that came recommended by him. Upon this ground he had voted for the present bill in its two first stages. He had, however, hesitated upon the subject of the plan it contained; and now, upon a thorough consideration of the bill, he declared it did not appear to his mind efficient. It was fraught with difficulties, and fell so short of that energy and vigour which he had expected from it in the first instance, that he could no longer give it his support. He doubted very much whether the bill would succeed in raising the large number of men it professed to raise; and with respect to its preventing competition, he was convinced it would not have that effect, but a contrary. True it was, it went to abolish the ballot. He had certainly seen the hardships of that system, and had pitied them; but if the state of the country was such, that, with a view to its existence, we must have recourse to compulsion, he thought these hardships ought not to have any weight. Compulsion by ballot he considered preferable to the plan of this bill. By ballot there was an equal chance whether the lot fell on A. or B. but there was no possibility of the whole of a parish feeling the inconvenience of the present measure. The right hon. gent. must excuse him for saying, that, with all his experience and wisdom, if there was one point on which he was less informed than another, it was with reference to the internal interests of the country. If the bill would not raise the men but the money merely, it would be nothing more or less than a heavy tax. It was not a direct land-tax, but, pretending to be one thing, it was another. He did not think the landed interest had been supported as it ought to have been. He argued that this bill would be productive of considerable injury to the volunteer system, by destroying those exemptions, which he entertained no doubt had influenced a considerable number of persons who formed part of the immense force to which the country was so much indebted.

observed, that the measure was, in his opinion, inefficient to its professed object, and so pregnant with mischief, that it was impossible to support it. An hon. general (Gascoigne) had stated, that the opposition to the measure had arisen not from objections to it, but from a desire to oppose the persons who had brought it forward. He had desired to answer that hon. gent. but what had fallen from the hon. member who had spoken last had rendered any answer then unnecessary.—It appeared to him that the measure before the house militated against a fundamental maxim of the constitution, a maxim which had been held sacred since the revolution, a maxim which had been hither to annually sanctioned by a vote of parliament, in the passing of the mutiny bill. He confessed, when he considered the title of this bill; when he read the preamble and the first clause of this bill, he considered it impossible, until assured by the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer, to suppose that the force was not to be permanently kept up in time of peace. The preamble stated, that it was essential that a considerable permanent force should be raised; and the learned member argued, that no conclusion could be drawn from that, of its being to be laid asleep during peace, as well as that the establishment of such a permanent force as 74,000 men, to be completely under the power of the crown, without the control of parliament, would be an infringement of the bill of rights, the provisions of which against a standing army were annually voted in the mutiny bill. He had heard it stated in answer to this objection, that the mutiny bill, which was passed annually, would give the parliament a control over this force; but if even that were to be the case, it would not do away his objections to the present measure. The mutiny bill only applied to the constitution of the regular force, whereas the militia was raised under laws independent of it, as this should also be raised, if ever the bill should pass into a law. This was not a nominal but an essential difference which had been noticed by the ablest writers on the subject. The parliament could put an end to any other force, but this could not be reduced but by the consent of the three branches of the legislature, and it was to be raised in a manner contradictory to all the usages and laws of our ancestors.—Another objection was, that the measure was to raise a permanent force, entirely at the disposal of the crown, and to diminish that constitutional force which was intended as a counterpoise for the sanding army. It should be recollected, that two years ago the militia had been augmented by 30,000 men, for which he thought the country was indebted to the ministers of that period; and in the preamble of the bill for that purpose it had been stated, that it was essential to raise a large militia force, officered by men of property, independent of the governement. This bill had passed in 1802, and after that short period, they were called upon to undo what they had then solemnly sanctioned, and to deliver over to the government a large standing army, of which their ancestors had always shewn the most scrupulous jealousy. This measure had passed while the right hon. gent. was a member of the house, while he attended in his place and gave his sanction to it. He asked whether regular officers could be procured for the immense force now proposed to be raised? It had been found impracticable to procure them for the reserve. The only distinction between the officers of this force and of the militia appeared to him to be that they would have half pay, whilst the militia officers would not. No person could hesitate which to prefer, because there were many disadvantages attending this force, from which the militia was free, whilst the latter possessed every advantage derived from the former. There appeared to him no good ground of policy to reduce the constitutional force of the country, in order to raise a force of a very different description in its room. If the bill were even efficient to its object, it appeared to him pregnant with mischief. Its object was to raise a greater force than could be obtained by the regular recruiting; but how was that to be done? The army of reserve was intended to raise a force of 50,000 of which about 9000 were deficient, and when a mode of raising the men of more strength had failed of procuring them, what probability was there that one of less vigour would be successful? The reserve act possessed every thing the present measure did, because in case the substitute was not found, it imposed a penalty, and something more, because by the ballot it afforded the chance of obtaining personal service, so that it was absurd to expect from a measure of less power, what the reserve act, with greater strength, had failed to effect. If the fine and ballot had failed, the penalty alone could not succeed, and the same reason that had prevented the army of reserve act from being fully efficient would interfere with the present measure, he meant the intolerable fines. The learned member then adverted to the accumulation of fines that had taken place in the county of Surry to the amount of 20,000l. under the army of reserve act. If the bill were to pass into a law, there would be applications from all parts of the country, before 12 months, to repeal it. He then ridiculed the idea of employing churchwardens and parish officers in recruiting. If gentlemen of rank were to be employed, their rank and character might give them influence, and men would be disposed to enlist with those who would lead them into service. No such influence could be expected in the case of the parish officers, with whom men would not be inclined to engage; because no persons would be disposed to enlist with men who would not accompany them into danger. The parish officers would be merely crimp serjeants or decoy ducks, to inveigle them into the service. They could have no influence, therefore, but from the abuse of their power, by persuading the young, in consideration of their parents being likely to become chargeable to the parish, to engage in the service. The learned member contended that it was human nature to err on the side of interest. He concluded by declaring, that there was only one clause in the bill in which he agreed, and that was the clause which allowed them to repeal it during the present session. He was confident, that if, as the hon. general had observed, the motives of objection to the measure had arisen from a desire to oppose those who had brought it forward, that could not be done more effectually than by suffering it to pass into a law, and if their continuance in office were to depend on the duration of the bill, that they could not hold their situations long.

said, that the bill in question seemed to him neither to provide for future, nor guard against present, dangers. An hon. gent. had, on a former occasion, proposed a committee of the whole house to consider of the force of the country, and he remembered well the zeal with which some gentlemen had opposed it. None of the measures now proposed contradicted the arguments that were then used, yet some gentlemen now thought proper to support plans similar to those which they had formerly opposed. There appeared to be a comfortable system of morality with some people, in supporting of schemes, from an idea that the present was always the best. He supposed the right hon. gent. (Mr. Pitt) fancied he was, as it were, redeeming a pledge, by rescuing the country from those persons under whose hands it could not prosper, and with some of whom, however, he was now contented to act. It only remained for the house to consider what the measure was. He, for his part, could not hesitate in asserting that it was both oppressive and unconstitutional. It was in the first place founded upon the militia system, which was a much more effective and constitutional force. He remembered well the eagerness with which the right hon gent. deprecated the army of reserve act; and he also remembered, when he recalled to the recollection of the house, the period when the militia was first established; and that it was during the campaigns of the Duke of Marlborough, when our continental connexions were greater than ever. The right hon. gent. formerly spoke in favour of the militia, the very system which he was intending to reduce. He (Lord T.) objected to the bill, on account of its tendency to diminish the real and constitutional force of the country, and also because it went to the complete abolition of the system of ballot. One of the great recommendations of the system of balloting was, that it produced a kind of stimulus upon the man balloted to provide a substitute, if he did not chuse to serve personally. In this bill, however, there was no stimulus afforded to the men to enter, because it was their interest to lay by and refuse all temptations as to the low bounties, in order that they may get the higher ones after the parishes have agreed to pay a fine. By those means the competition was greater than ever. It was a competition created by the bill itself, which prevented its own execution. There was no stimulus to parish officers to obtain the men, while at the same time there was a competition raised betwixt them and the regular recruiting officers. He could not conceive why it was necessary to go this round-about way to work in order to procure regular soldiers, who could be procured more easily by the ordinary modes of recruiting. It was, besides, an indirect tax upon land, which was to be levied by the same means as other taxes. It was completely nugatory, and seemed to have every disadvantage of the former laws, without any of their good qualities. The militia were officered by persons intimately connected with the country, but the case would be widely different in the present instance. He was not at all inclined to commit such a large portion of power into the hands of the crown. Some might deem it ungracious to make any allusions to abuses of power, but he would not have thought it necessary to do so, had he seen this bill intended to provide only for present difficulties, and to cease when these difficulties ended. Deviations from the constitutional forms ought to cease when the dangers were at an end.

said, that perceiving there was a disposition in the house rather to evince their opinions by their votes than by speaking, he should have been unwilling to trouble them upon the present occasion; but as he not yet spoken respecting the present measure, he wished to deliver his sentiments upon the subject. If he had been willing to use any argument of deprecation, it would have been that this measure had never been fairly considered with respect to the objects which it had in view, but had been referred to some imaginary standard of excellence, which no gent. had described, but respecting which so many various opinions had been given, that the opponents of the bill differed more amongst themselves than with its supporters. It had been said that his right hon. friend had brought forward a measure unworthy of his great name and character, as if he could recruit at will without any impediment or obstacle whatever. Was this a fair way of arguing? ought they not rather to look whether his right hon. friend had used the best possible means to accomplish that which all agreed to be necessary? A right hon. gent. (Mr. Windham) had expressed his opinion that all our present military establishments ought to be done away, with a view to have a clear stage, and to erect something upon the ruins of what they had overturned; others were of opinion that the regular force ought not to be increased. He admitted that these two classes must necessarily divide together against the bill, but he should wonder much if they did not quarrel in the lobby. His right hon. friend, when he came into office, found that the ballot had done as much as it could; be found the regular army too small, and the militia larger in extent than was fairly compatible with the means of the country; he found a force in some measure of the quality of militia, and experience had shewn that the principle of raising this force might be applied to the recruiting for the regular army; this became the object of his right hon. friend, and these his means. If his right hon. friend had only made the greater force applicable to general service, and the smaller to a limited service, and if he had done no more, he would still have done much, and would have redeemed the pledge which he had given. The next charge against his right hon. friend was, that there was nothing grand or striking about the plan. In answer to this he would only observe, that if gentlemen had conceived a great, and perhaps impracticable measure, the plan of which they did not state, they had no reason to complain if the measure proposed did not come up to their ideas. The present, contrasted with the former plan, appeared to every advantage, He admitted, at the same time, that those who voted for the former, upon first hearing it, were not bound to vote for the subsequent alteration. The ballot was done away, and now, for the first time, the poor deceased ballot had found its panegyrists. With respect to a competition against the recruiting for the regular army, what remedy was proposed on the other side? Only one, by the right hon. gent. (Mr. Windham), who said that they did best when they did nothing; that they need only strip away the impediments from recruiting, and it would go on. To this he answered, that the plan of his right hon. friend came in the second resort to that of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Windham); his right hon. friend had not been prepared to say that men could be procured in the parishes, he only wished to try the experiment, and if they could not be found, then the fines would create a recruiting fund at the disposal of government, which would come exactly to the plan of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Windham), who wished for such a fund to be placed at the disposal of government, and for the recruiting to be carried on by officers appointed by the crown, which would then be the case, with a bounty to be given both for limited and unlimited service. The next point, relating to the parish officers, had been so much argued that he should say very little about it; he should only remark, that those who denied the eligibility of making parish officers recruiting officers extolled the exploded system of crimps, and recurred to the equally exploded idea of ballot. The objection that this measure was compulsory, had been very ill supported. It had been argued, that it would be a fraud upon the men, and their parents and relations, to inlist them first for limited service, with a view of afterwards inducing them to enter for general service. He could not, however, see any distinction in this respect between limited time and limited space. If a man was inlisted for service in Great Britain and Ireland, Guernsey and Jersey, and was afterwards induced to enter into the regular service for unlimited space, where was the distinction between him and one inlisted for a limited time, but for unlimited space; and who, perhaps, in the West-Indies, might be persuaded to extend that period of service to an unlimited extent? He did not say that both modes might not be wrong, or that both might not be right, but one could not be wrong and the other right; and if one was a fraud, the other was equally so.—The next objection he should notice, related to the burdens upon the parishes; but it would be but fair to state, as a set off, the burden from which the parishes were relieved. When he saw, in many instances, an accumulated fine of 80l. incurred to government, from some parishes, he could not conceive that to substitute 20l. for that could be considered as a burden. Added to this, those who had witnessed the distress and misery to which the ballot had, in repeated instances, given rise, could not, he conceived, be adverse to the abolition of that system. The most extraordinary argument, however, which he had heard stated against the measure was, that by relieving the parishes from the burden of the ballot, they would do a gross injustice to the volunteers, and that, by doing away the ballot they would take from the volunteers the principal motive for their patriotic services, which necessarily supposed that the principal inducement for the volunteers to continue together was, that they might witness the vexation and distress experienced by their neighbours. That such an argument was of no avail, was evident from the consideration that the exemptions were not attached to the volunteers until long after the voluntary spirit of the country had risen to its utmost height; that those exemptions were never intended to be given, nor were they ever expected, or looked for; that they were at last given by mistake, and were a complete surprize both upon the house and upon the volunteers, and it would be a most extraordinary argument to say, that the taking away of such a kind of boon would tend to lessen the number of volunteers. The next objection was, as to the burdens imposed upon the country. He should not here be told, he imagined, that there was a question between burden and no burden; but if, as he contended, we should at all events, even in case of peace, require a larger military establishment, and a greater military force under the present circumstances of Europe, the question was not whether they would bear the burden, but how to render it least onerous? He would ask his right hon. friend (Mr. Windham) how he would provide for the increase of our military establishment, in conformity with that right hon. gentleman's opinions, so often declared? He would, no doubt, vote for increasing the regular standing army; if so, he would refer him to the learned serjeant (Best), who had quoted black letter authorities, and brought forward a circulating library of law to prove, that such a measure was highly unconstitutional; but perhaps they might settle the point in the lobby, and agree to-morrow. Did he mean that a large standing army should be kept up during peace? It he disbanded it there was an end of it, whilst in the former case it would be highly unconstitutional. It was evident something must be done to provide a permanent force against a period of peace, and the present measure he contended was practically the best calculated for that purpose — He should now advert to another subject highly interesting at the present moment, but upon which he should not detain the house long. He saw no objection to a struggle in parliament to discover whether the servants of the crown were intitled to its confidence; but it was very extraordinary that a number of gentlemen should unite against a government which was scarcely yet in existence. He fairly and candidly avowed that he gave the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Addington) credit for the systematic opposition which he had commenced against his majesty's government the moment he had left his majesty's councils; he was glad to see an inefficient administration atoned for by a vigorous opposition. And here he wished to take notice of an expression made use of by a noble lord (Temple), as if his right hon. friend (Mr Pitt) had been a mere accession to the former ministry, without any change having taken place. He should content himself with vindicating his own consistency: he had objected to the administration of foreign affairs, and that had been changed; he had objected to the naval administration, and that had been changed; he had objected to the military administration, and that had been changed; he had also objected to the general superintendance of the whole, and that had been changed. In objecting to the inefficiency of the late ministers, he had been joined by almost all those who were now in opposition. The noble lord had said, that the public were disappointed in the formation of the present administration; amongst that public, he candidly confessed, that no man was more disappointed than himself He only expected equal candour on the other side; and he hoped that when they talked of exclusion and of proscription, they would object to the principle, and not to the application. He wished it had been otherwise. He had himself no object of personal ambition; but when his right hon. friend thought he could gain assistance from him, he did not feel inclined to relinquish the part he was called on to act, because it was an arduous one.

felt it his duty to say a few words in the absence of a right hon. friend of his (Mr. Addington) to whom the right hon. gentleman, who had last spoken, had made some very pointed allusions. He did not expect that any thing could have occurred in the course of the debate, which would have placed him under the necessity of troubling the house; but the observations of the right hon. gent. (Mr. Canning) were so decidedly directed against those honourable persons with whom it was his pride to have co operated, that he thought it was but doing justice to them, and to himself, to assert, that neither they nor he had ever given a factious opposition to his majesty's government. Some of the respectable persons to whom he had with such peculiar delicacy alluded as being totally unqualified for the situations they occupied, would, perhaps, be unable to a swer the observations of the right hon. gentleman. He could not comprehend that singularity of sentiment by which the right hon. gent. seemed to be influenced; but he could not help recollecting that the introduction of that right hon. gent. to public life, and eventually to the exalted situation to which he was lately elevated, was principally to be a cribed to the early friendship of the noble lord (Hawkesbury) who lately filled the office of secretary of state for the foreign department.—He rose with the intention of adverting to what that right hon. gentleman had thrown out respecting his right hon. friend (Mr. Addington); but when he reflected that the object of his speech was to conciliate gentlemen on the other side of the house; when he heard the mitigated and desponding tone in which he expressed himself, he felt some compassion for the right hon. gentleman's situation, and a disinclination to repel his charge in the manner it deserved. What right, he would ask, had that rt. hon. gentleman to charge the conduct of his right hon. friend as a decided system of opposition? By what title did he exclaim against all fair consideration of the measure now before them, as originating in a determination to give an unqualified opposition to the measures of his majesty's government? If the measure had come from a new and untried administration, as it was said, it would be fair to try it on its own merits; but when it is not brought forward with either the advantages or disadvantages of novelty, but as a measure which it is proposed to compare and prefer to another, surely it would not be irregular in those who supported that plan with which it was to be contrasted, to enter into a rigid examination of it, in the hope of discovering some inferiority in it to that which they had proposed. Although he was not disposed to enter captiously or contentiously into a discussion of the present bill, yet he was persuaded the house would feel that he had some title to do so, if he were so inclined. The right hon. gentleman had truly stated the question before the house to be between a measure of a former administration and the present plan. He could not view the bill before them in any better light than as a mere reduction of the militia, and by which the country surrendered an efficient force, for the probable chance of raising, at a distant period, another description of force which might possibly be applicable to less limited service. The right hon. gentleman had been pleased to expend much of his wit in endeavouring to depreciate the merit of the measure which he had formerly introduced, and which was still before the house, professing himself incapable of Comprehending the principles upon which it was founded. He would neither take up the time of the house in defending that measure, nor in explaining the principles upon which he had acted, of which the right hon. gentleman seemed to have a very imperfect notion. With respect to the imputations which had been thrown out against his right hon. friend, the late chancellor of the exchequer, he should only say that the integrity and manliness of his character warranted him to declare in his absence, that he never would be found to enter into any opposition that was not dictated by an imperious sense of public duty.

observed, that the right hon. gent. who had spoken last but one (Mr. Canning), had complained that all those who had opposed the present plan had set up in their own minds some imaginary standard to which they wished either to raise up or to bring down all projects for providing for the national defence, and that they rejected whatever did not minutely agree with that standard. He must confess that, generally speaking, he should, in some measure, fall under that censure, for he had also his standard by which he wished to try it, and that was neither more nor less than its practicability. He much doubted whether a considerable, or, indeed, any force, could be procured within any reasonable time, by the operation of the present bill, if it should pass into a law. In a financial view, his objections were even more decided against it, for as a tax, he was persuaded it would be found both partial, oppressive, and unconstitutional. The question was not now whether we were to submit to an extended scheme of taxation, but whether we were to have equal and unequal burthens. He would contend that the operation of the bill before them would prove exceedingly unequal, and that some parishes would be nearly crushed by it, while others would scarcely feel any effect from it. In populous neighbourhoods, where wages were high, the consequence of a great demand for labour, it would be impossible to raise men, and those parishes must of necessity incur the penalty, which would be an additional burthen to those that the natural operation of the laws, from local circumstances, unavoidably subjected them to. The clause for creating second battalions had a tendency, in his view of the subject, to narrow, instead of widening the means of introduction to the army. He could compare it to no other measure but the quota act, in which, as it was said by a right hon. gent. (Mr. Addington), an assertion which he had never heard yet contradicted, the very worst description of the population of the country had been enlisted. He saw both danger and risk in the bill before them, and would consequently give it every opposition in his power.

stated the objections which he had formerly urged against the bill, and maintained the superiority of his plan for recruiting the army over the one now submitted to the country.

said it was immaterial to him by whom the plan was proposed. If the object of it was to provide for the defence of the country, that was a sufficient motive to induce him to give it his most cordial support: one great objection to the measure, as it appeared to him, when the general outline of it was first stated to the house, had been done away, namely, the principle of ballot; and, therefore, he thought it deserving of a fair trial. The hon. member defended the principles by which the late administration had been guided, and gave his concurrence to the bill, which he regarded as an improvement upon that originally proposed by them.

.—Sir; I have hitherto abstained from troubling the house with my sentiments on the bill before you, partly from an earnest wish to hear the opinions of others, and principally to see whether it might not, in its progress through the house, have received such amendments as might have tended to improve it; although I had no expectation they would have removed the many great objections I have always entertained against it. My principal motive, Sir, for now addressing you, is to remove some misconstruction of what I said when this measure was first introduced. It has, I understand, been imputed to me, that I wished to defer to an undefined period, all measures for providing for our national defence. That no such sentiment was ever entertained by me, I require no better proof than a reference to a bill now on your table; a bill not defunct, as it has been stated, but to which it is within the competence of parliament to give vigour and operation to-morrow. That bill was calculated to raise a large additional force, and by means, I flatter myself, more expeditious and less burthensome than any that the present measure can offer to the country. I trust, Sir, the house will excuse me in repelling that most unfounded charge, that I was willing to delay any measure for the defence of the country. Sir, the opinion which I then delivered did not deserve the imputation of a tendency to procrastinate all active exertion for the protection of the state. The grounds upon which I gave that opinion merited more gratitude than has been bestowed on them by those who profess to direct their political conduct by the best principles of the constitution. I never wished, Sir, to throw any delay in the way of the national defence; I only wished that a measure, which involved in itself great constitutional considerations, should stand over to another session. The grounds on which I proposed the suspension of the army of reserve act were, that it interfered with the regular recruiting service. We proposed to raise 18 battalions, of 1,000 man each? we proposed to augment the Irish militia to 10,000 men; we proposed to fill up the deficiencies in the militia of G. Britain: those were the measures which we had in contemplation, for maintaining the security of the country, and asserting our national rank in the scale of nations: and I leave it to the candour of the house, whether they deserve the imputation of a wish to delay any measure for the national defence. A right hon. gent. now at the head of his Majesty's councils, stated to the house, that it was necessary to create a great addition to our force, and he induced a great number of members to coincide with him, and to defer the suspension of that measure, from the effect of which we looked to a considerable accession to our disposable force. When he opened his plan, I understood that the practice of ballot was to have been persevered in; now, I find that idea is abandoned, and I am therefore warranted in pronouncing, that the present measure has only commuted a principle of rigour for one of inefficiency. Sir, I do not mean to trespass much upon the indulgence of the house, but I owe it to those gentlemen who have honoured me with their support, to state why I prefer those measures in which they have coincided, to the present one. Notwithstanding all the mortifications that I have been subjected to, notwithstanding all the odium that some persons have endeavoured to throw on my efforts for the improvement of the national security, I have had the happiness of seeing and of hearing the house declare, that our military force was every way equal to our defence, and to meet the most desperate attempts of the enemy. That measure, so much decried, the army of reserve act, produced no less than 32,000 men; within the course of the last year we drew from our population no less than 200,000 for the supply of the army and navy, and with all this immense drain, there was, in the mean time, scarcely any deficiency in the regular recruiting I say then, Sir, the experience of the last year has not constituted such a necessity as should induce this house to sanction a measure so unconstitutional and objectionable as that before you. The object of the present measure, as stated by the right hon. gent. embraces three points. It is proposed by it, to remove all difficulties in the way of recruiting, to provide for the deficiencies that have occurred, and to create a great disposable force. Sir, I am not one of those who, on every unimportant occasion, think it right to throw constitutional difficulties in the way of measures that may be proposed; but I must confess that the experience of the last 12 years has disposed me to look rather with a jealous eye on any measure that tends to create a great permanent force not directly under the control of parliament. I would draw as much military efficiency as I could from the country, but without creating such an alteration in our domestic habits as might by any possibility tend to endanger the constitution. We, Sir, possess a constitutional army, against any reduction of which I must express my disapprobation. I think, Sir, that army should always be commensurate with what is called the regular military force of the empire, and it was upon that principle the militia was increased to 72,000 men two years ago. This house, I think, should never forego this truly constitutional principle, which is at the same time the best safeguard of its independence, whether attacked by domestic treason or foreign hostility. I do not see any sound reason for not adhering to the principle of ballot as applicable to our militia force. By relinquishing it you give up 7,000 militia, without the certainty of raising a single man for general service. The proposal also of employing parish officers as recruiting serjeants, is in my mind not the least objectionable feature of the bill, as by it you endanger that harmony which it is to be desired may alway exist among the lower orders of the people. Nor do I think this mode of recruiting likely to be effectual, or successful among those who in the thoughtless hilarity of the moment at fairs and markets are sometimes induced to surrender themselves to a recruiting serjeant. No, Sir, they will lie by, as it is called, for the bounty; they will get as much as they can, they will first go into this probationary army, into those second battalions for the bounty of 12 guineas, and they will probably afterwards, perhaps, to a considerable number, enlist into the regular battalions for the farther bounty of ten guineas. I must confess that with every disposition on my part to give effect to every measure that has for its object the national defence, I cannot consider the present plan as one likely to be very efficient in that respect. For domestic defence I should prefer our national militia, and for foreign service I think it can bear no comparison with our regular army. It in my mind is so decidedly objectionable in a constitutional view, that I think there is scarcely an objection which has been ever urged against a permanent standing army, that it is not fully liable to. The supporters of the present plan are lavish in their praises of one great advantage, the mildness of its operation, which it possesses over a former measure. But, Sir; this is a lenitive quality which it has very lately acquired, for at its first introduction, the principle of ballot was predominant in it. I do not object to it on that account, for I, and those with whom I had the honour to act, from a conviction of the inefficacy of that austere measure, wished to suspend it. I always lamented the rigour of that measure, but it was justified by the necessity of the state, and the momentous crisis in which we were placed. I think it may be fairly urged against the present plan, that it creates in effect two bodies of militia; for this heterogeneous force, it seems, is to be called out in time of peace as regularly as the constitutional militia of the country.—I understand some comments have been made on my conduct by a right hon. gent. (Mr. Canning), during my temporary absence. To these I do not think it necessary for me to make any reply. I will make no professions; I know the motives by which my conduct has been governed; they satisfy myself, and they were such as obtained the approbation of this house. By those motives I shall be influenced in whatever share I may take in the discussion of such measures as may be proposed to us, and those motives have determined me to give my most decided and conscientious opposition to the present bill.

.—Sir; to the arguments which have been urged in support of the measure before the house, the rt. Hon. gent. who has just sat down has given such a full and fair reply, that I do not think it necessary to enter so fully into the subject as I had otherwise intended. The objections offered to this bill have been so forcibly maintained by that rt. hon. gent. and he has put the subject upon such clear and constitutional grounds, that I should decline troubling the house upon this occasion, if it were not for the observations of my rt. hon. friend (Mr. Canning), who has not confined himself to the bill under consideration, but has thought proper to introduce matter not strictly relevant, but yet of infinitely more importance than the bill itself; I mean my rt. hon. friend's allusion to the degree of confidence to which the present administration is entitled. My rt. hon. friend stated that he was not disposed to adulation towards his rt. hon. friend who sits near him (Mr. Pitt), and for whom, no doubt, he entertains the most sincere respect and regard. I hope he will do me the justice to think, that I am equally incapable of adulation towards my rt. hon. friend on the same bench with me (Mr. Fox). I certainly am no flatterer, although, in point of attachment to my rt. hon. friend, I will not yield to that which my rt. hon. friend on the opposite side can or does profess to feel for his rt. hon friend beside him; with this difference, however, on my part, that my attachment to my hon. friend on this side of the house is of a much longer standing—that it is the first, the strongest, and the only political attachment of my life. But my rt. hon. friend disclaims adulation towards his rt. hon. friend, and, indeed, he seems to me to have had no occasion to do so, for he certainly did not at all deal in it; on the contrary, he has taken occasion to pronounce upon the conduct of his rt. hon. friend one of the bitterest satires that could well be imagined. My rt. hon. friend expresses his surprise that we who oppose this bill can contrive to co-operate, and that we can avoid quarrelling when we get together in the lobby; but is it not equally, if not more, a matter of surprise, that he can avoid quarrelling with some of his friends near him, to whom he has been so very lately in decided opposition, and particularly with the noble lord (Castlereagh) who appears now to have determined which of the two "strings he should put to his bow." (see p. 312). If my rt. hon. friend will look at those about him he will find that the compliments and the censure which he meant for the rt. hon. gent. on the lower bench (Mr. Addington) were applicable also to some of his present connexions. Whatever praise or condemnation applies to the one, applies equally to the other, with this difference, that the compliment called forth by the retirement of the one from office, when the voice of parliament and the country called for it, is not deserved by the other, who still remains in power. Some part of the administration of the rt. hon. gent. on the lower bench I most cordially approved, and his intentions in every instance I respected, because I firmly believed them to be pure and honourable. I thought I saw in many prominent features of his administration, a regard for the rights and feelings of the community, and an attachment to the constitution of the country; and it gave me great pain to find, that in my support of that rt. hon. gent. I was compelled on several occasions to differ from my dearest friends. But I now say of that rt. hon. gent's. ministerial career, that his entering into office was a sacrifice; his going out a triumph. But did my rt. hon. friend, I would ask him, mean it as a compliment to the rt. hon. gent. that immediately upon his retirement from office, he started into an open, manly, and systematic opposition, or did he mean it as an indirect sarcasm upon the conduct of his rt. hon. friend? When the rt. hon. gent. went out of office, he gave no insidious promises of support. He did not take his seat immediately behind his successor, professing and pretending to protect him, by all the aids of his talents and his influence, and deserting him when his aid was most wanted. He did not, when direct accusations, and threatened impeachments, and every other mode of determined opposition, was employed against him, he did not come down to the house, and offer him the shabby shelter of the previous question, which to have agreed to, would have conferred eternal disgrace on those who composed the leading part of the late administration. No, says my rt. hon. friend, that was not his conduct. He went at once into a fair, a manly, and an open opposition. Why then, Sir, what must we think of those who having experienced all this, have nevertheless become the supporters of the present arrangement, as it is called; who have not adopted this "fair, manly, open" system of opposition, which he affects to compliment; but have acted in a way directly contrary to what he has affected to panegyrize? Nothing, he says, in the rt. hon. gent's. ministerial capacity, was so becoming of him, as his leaving his situation. When that rt. hon. gent. found himself opposed by so formidable a minority in this house, he retired from the helm, for which he has my right hon. friend's unqualified eulogium. Why then, Sir, I am to expect, if he deserves such approbation for that conduct, in having taken the broad hint that was given him, that my rt. hon. friend will lose no time in advising the rt. hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Pitt) to pursue a similar line of conduct, and entitle himself equally to his high approbation. But what will he say of the 6 members of the last administration, who, instead of adopting the same noble plan of action, which would have given them a claim to his praise, have thought it more advisable to keep their places and stay in? If the one line of acting be so open, fair, and manly, surely the other must be, in my rt. hon. friend's opinion, equally mean, shabby, and unbecoming: but yet, without any explanation or justification of himself, he seems perfectly content to take an official situation, and act under them. But there is yet one consolation remaining. His praises are, beyond all doubt, sincere, and I hope he will, in a just regard to the consistency of his sentiments, give a similar hint to his rt. hon. friend, and shew to him also the prudence, and indeed the necessity of retiring. The last minister did retire when he found he had no greater a majority than 37; surely then, if it were necessary, or at least prudent, for him to give up in such circumstances, it must appear advisable for his rt. hon. friend to yield in his turn, when he can only count upon a majority of 28. I hope, therefore, that my rt. hon. friend will induce him to follow that noble, patriotic, and gallant example, and not dream of going on with a small, miserable, and pitiful majority, such as no minister can think an honour to him. Let him not persist in keeping his place, when he finds, and must deeply feel, that he has lost the confidence of the great interests of the country, and of the members of this house.—My rt. hon. friend has told the house that he, as much as any man in the kingdom, wished for the formation of an administration, on a broad and comprehensive scale. No man in the country, he says, was more disappointed than himself, in the failure of those hopes and wishes which he entertained upon that important subject. Sir, I believe him. I think he is sincere in that declaration, and every view I can take of public matters, tends to confirm me in that opinion; for when he considers what his rt. hon. friend once was, and what he now is, I am readily persuaded, that he must be inclined to entertain such wishes and hopes. He says, his rt. hon. friend has taken a situation in which there is much difficulty and danger. I believe that both he and his rt. hon. friend know and feel it; and I believe more, that his rt. hon. friend has no idea that this administration can, or that it ought to last; for they must be aware; that it is an arrangement which has excited discontent and complaint through every part of the country. It is, indeed, an arrangement of such a nature, that my rt. hon. friend thinks it necessary to offer something in the shape of an apology for the part he has taken in it. My rt. hon. friend has taken occasion in some degree to contrast his attachment to his rt. hon. friend at the head of the administration, with my attachment to my hon. friend beside me (M. Fox); but there is this difference between us, that I can never follow the same line as that which my rt. hon. friend has done this night to excuse his acceptance of a high office under the administration of his rt. hon. friend. I do not feel it necessary to enter into any justification of my attachment to my hon. friend; for although I do not find him holding one of the first offices in the govt., I see him surrounded with honour; although I do not find him leading a cabinet, I see him followed by all the rank and character, and population of the country. I see him restored to the friendship of those good and great men, from whom he ought never to have been separated. In a word, the public character of my hon. friend never stood upon a more exalted eminence than it does at present. My rt. hon. friend, in the course of the justification which he has attempted for his conduct in co-operating with his rt. hon. friend, has dwelt a good deal upon the happy event of the removal of what he termed the late inefficient ministers; but my rt. hon. friend second to forget that that removal was far from being complete. To be sure, some of those, with whom my rt. hon. friend professed to have been, dissatisfied, have been removed. He was dissatisfied with the conduct of the department for foreign affairs, and therefore out goes my Lord Hawkesbury: and here, Sir, with grief and vexation I perceive that that noble lord has put the seal to his own condemnation; that being charged with mismanagement and incapacity, he consents to be degraded in order to make room for another noble lord (Harrowby), who certainly has yet to prove his ability, and who has at least no experience to recommend him. But this alone was not enough to satisfy my rt. hon. friend and to reconcile him to the administration. He disliked the conduct of the admiralty, and therefore that silly, incapable person, Earl St. Vincent, is removed; and his place is filled by that most tried and experienced seaman, Lord Melville. The military department did not please him, and therefore that most military personage, Lord Camden, who, so far from being formerly considered a man eminently qualified for military affairs, was removed from the govt. of Ireland, in troublesome times, to make way for the Marquis Cornwallis, is now discovered to be the fittest person to preside over the war department, in the present important situation of the country. But, after all, there is another change, and that is one made in what my rt. hon. friend considers the great situation which regulates and directs all the rest; this change is made in favour of the rt. hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Pitt); and to that, as a matter of change, I have nothing to say. It must, however, be remembered by all, for it is not a very old affair, that the last administration was composed of ten members; now of these ten, six actually remain. My rt. hon. friend declares, in the warmth of his desires, for the prosperity of his friend's undertaking, that he wishes he had abler supporters. One would suppose that the discarded 4 were the unsound and rotten part of the ministry. But it happens rather oddly, that those 4 were the very portion of the last administration that were recommended to the support of this house, by the eloquent eulogiums or the rt. hon. gent. opposite; the other 6 he never mentioned. Lord Hawkesbury was "so eminently qualified for the foreign department," he was matched with my hon. friend (Mr. Fox). The noble lord's qualifications have, however, as I suppose, yielded to the vast and superior acquirements of Lord Harrowby. Of Lord St. Vincent, "it was quite enough to name him; he was the glory of the British navy, and the terror of all our foes." But we have not yet heard of any praises upon any of the newly appointed successors of those noble persons. Perhaps the rt. hon. gent. has at last found out that his panegyrics are not exactly the best recommendations in the world. Considering the fate of his former recommendations, I should not be surprised to hear that a positive agreement had been entered into by the new ministers, that the rt. hon. gent. should not say a word about them. He has certainly shewn a great knowledge of human nature in his Dutch expedition; and an equal degree, perhaps, in avoiding the praises of his new colleagues. As he praised the 4 he has turned out, so ardently, he is undoubtedly entitled to some claims for modesty in saying nothing on that subject now. Those persons very probably said: "give us ribbands, give us places, give us titles; for God's sake, do any thing but give us your panegyric: if you praise us, both you and we shall be laughed at."—My rt. hon. friend has frequently said, "away with the cant of measures, give us men; as it was not the harness, but the horses which drew the carriage;" but I would ask my rt. hon. friend, what is to become of the harness and carriage with such horses as his rt. hon. friend has now engaged? There are six of them that are old, and six new. The former are part of that "slow paced, lumpish, aukward administration," upon which my rt. hon. friend so severely commented last session. They of course can be of no use, and so the 6 new nags will have to draw not only the carriage, but those 6 heavy cast-off blacks along with it. Now, if in such a situation my rt. hon. friend does not feel himself embarrassed, and anxious for the release of his rt. hon. friend and himself, he cannot have that feeling of dignity and solicitude for honourable reputation, I am willing to ascribe to him.—Among the arguments advanced by my rt. hon. friend in favour of the bill before the house, there were some which struck me to be very extraordinary indeed—[Here there was a short pause on the part of Mr. S., who had mislaid some papers, but which was relieved by his observing, that the gentlemen opposite would not be sorry that he had lost his notes.]—My rt. hon. friend says, that it is unfair to judge of this measure, merely as a measure to augment the army; but that we are to judge of it under all the circumstances that attend its introduction into this house. He says, here are all the volunteers, all the sea fencibles, all the militia, and all the other different descriptions of force which are already embodied, and there is not enough left of the population of the country, that are disposed or fitted for martial exercises, to recruit from, according to what the exigencies of the times, or the hopes of gentlemen may suggest. Now, Sir, before the rt. hon. gent. got into his present situation, he did not make any such allowances for his predecessors. He seemed to have no idea of that kind. He had agreed to all their various measures of public defence, and then he comes down to the house, and peremptorily demands new measures of vigour and efficacy, without the slightest possible allowance for any consideration of circumstances of any kind whatever. But now, says the rt. hon. gent., objections are raised, which spring only from warm imaginations respecting some prodigious matters of expectation, impossible to be realized. But, Sir, who created that expectation? Why, himself. He reviled the last ministry for not bringing forward something commensurate to the extent of our difficulties and dangers, and held himself forward as the possessor of plans sufficient to rescue us from all our evils. 'Oh,' says he, 'I shall just give you an outline of my scheme; but, when I get in, I will shew you what ought to be done. I'll give you the plan that is wanted to set you all right.' Why, Sir, we certainly did look with no small expectation, and with eager curiosity and anticipation, to see what was coming forward; to see what armed Minerva was to spring from the head of this political Jupiter; and not a little surprized, indeed, were we all, at the sight of this little puny ricketty bantling, who, after being sent to the parish nurse, will never have gristle nor bone enough to attain the age of manhood. Who is the man; Sir, that has disappointed the house and the country, but he who has been so vaunting and gigantic in promises, and so puny and miserable in performance?—The object of this bill is taxation. It is a farce to call it a bill to raise men. It is a bill to tax all the landed property of the country. It is a tax operating in the most unfair and ignoble manner. It goes to enforce confiscation, where there is no forfeiture, fines where there are no offences, punishments where no crimes are committed. But the rt. hon. gent. knows, as well as I can tell him, that such a measure as this will not succeed. Supposing, however, that the parishes were to raise the men in the manner now proposed by this bill—a most extraordinary supposition I admit—why, Sir, I believe the rt. hon. gent. would be much in the same situation as he was in the other morning, when he suddenly discovered that the principals who were drawn for the army of reserve bore but a small proportion to the number of substitutes. No man could be more surprised, or in a greater state of embarrassment than he, at such an unexpected event, I really believe. But what would he do in that case? He would call for the officers. But where would he, where could he, find 6 or 7,000 officers? He would be flurried and teazed by the unexpected success of his own scheme. But let us assume that his second battalion is complete and fully officered, the rancours between the two battalions would be curious enough. We well know, that there can be no discipline where the officers of a military corps have favours to ask or to expect of their men. If the men should be found tippling or wasting their time, they may make a tolerable excuse, that they are only doing their duty to gain over the second battalion. In fact, the bill might be fairly intituled, a bill for the better destruction of all military discipline. My rt. hon. friend below me (Mr. Windham) seems to think only of a large permanent regular army, as the means of defending this country against an invading enemy. Some recommend a limited time of service. For myself, Sir, I feel, upon a view of all the arguments, disposed both in favour of a service limited for time and limited in space. In sending troops, however, to the West Indies, I would send those only who might be considered as seasoned soldiers; not raw recruits, such as perished in the charnel house of Saint Domingo. With respect to the army, however, I wish to observe, that in my opinion men should be enlisted for that service, not only on terms limited as to time, but as to place. The latter regulation would tend to save the lives of many soldiers, while the policy of the former is so generally acknowledged, and has been so often discussed, that the surprise is, that ministers hesitate to act upon it. Upon this question, as to the augmentation of our regular army, I cannot forbear to say, that I always look upon such augmentation with jealousy, I would not risk the liberties of the country, by the enlargement of our standing army. If I were asked whether I would nor rather trust our defence in the field against the attack of a foreign foe, to regular troops, I would immediately answer in the affirmative, still, however, keeping in view the compromise between difficulties, the necessity of securing our freedom against the influence and power of a large standing army. I would have our volunteers and militia aided by a due proportion of the regular army. The people of this country are competent to their own defence, and are ready to take the tone from those above them. They have a regard for the high station which freemen may be supposed to feel; they have none of the slavish attachment to clans, but they look up to their superiors, and I use this word in its liberal sense; they look up to you, their superiors, with confidence, because you do not look down on them with insult. Give, then, to such a people proper example and encouragement, and you will not have any occasion to look for a large standing army to defend your country. The people of England know the value of the objects for which they have to contend. They feel that, from the constitution of the society in which they live, there is nothing of honour, emolument, or wealth, which is not within the reach of a man of merit. The landlord, the shopkeeper, or mechanic must be sensible that he is contending not merely for what he possesses, but for every thing of importance the country contains; and I would call on the humblest peasant to put forth his endeavours in the national struggle to defend his son's title to the Great Seal of England. Acting upon this plan; employing proper means to animate the country, would render it unnecessary to hire an army to defend us or to resist any enemy. It is because I am satisfied of this fact, because I know that in this important conjuncture, which so strongly demands the valour of the brave, the vigour of the strong, the means of the wealthy, and the councils of the wise, we could obtain all that is requisite by operating judiciously upon the character of the people, that I object to the frequent call for an increase of our regular army, as I know that such increase must invest the executive govt. with a power dangerous to the existence of liberty. I object to it. I like an army of the people, because no people were ever found to commit a fela de se upon their own liberty; but I dislike a large standing army, because I never knew popular liberty in any state long to survive such an establishment. It is upon these grounds that I disapprove of the sentiments so often urged as to the augmentation of the regular army, and particularly by an officer (Col. Craufurd) whose information upon military subjects is no doubt entitled to the utmost respect; but whatever may be his information and experience upon military topics, if he had the ability of the Archduke Charles, until he shall look at the whole of the subject, until he shall examine it as a statesman, with a mixed attention to the rights of the people and the military defence of the country, I cannot defer to his opinions. With regard to the principle upon which the present administration is formed, I shall conclude with a few observations. The cause of the exclusion, which is so much and so justly complained of, we are all tolerable well able to conjecture; but it would be, I am aware, indecorous to describe it in this house. I know it would be unparliamentary to introduce into debate any particular allusion to this circumstance. Of the personage, however, to whom it refers, I cannot speak from any particular knowledge; but of him who is next in rank and consequence, I can say, that that Illustrious Personage, whose name I know my duty too well to mention, who stood forward at the commencement of the war, displaying a noble example of his wish to promote unanimity, to rally all parties round the standard of the country, entertains no political prejudice against any public man; though, God knows, he has had much to forgive. Far however from indulging resentment, I am sure that he would be forward to accept of the services of any political character who could contribute in this great crisis to the safety of the empire.

.—Sir, in the observations which I mean to offer to the house, I shall confine myself to the latter part of the speech of the hon. gent.; because, extricated from the variety of desultory remarks and extraneous matter which he has produced, it is the only part that comes at all near to the real question. I mean the view of the question, as it affects the constitution, the character, and genius of the country. Upon this subject, a great many doctrines have been broached, and many theories have been brought forward to dazzle the imagination. The hon. gent. who spoke last, has, in the most beautiful language, and that captivating style of eloquence peculiar to himself, laid it down as the privilege and prerogative of our happy constitution, and the characterestic quality of the genius and spirit of the nation, that the people can be blended and consolidated into a military mass, more fit for its protection than a regular standing army. Now this is the very principle for which every one of us has contended, the very system which we all wish to establish. We always admitted the zeal of the country, and applauded its noble and patriotic devotion. In these feelings we perfectly agree with the hon. gent.; but, much as we admire that military spirit and enthusiam, few, I believe, would be inclined to push it to the extent which the hon. gent. wishes; for his argument, in its full latitude, is neither more nor less than this, that in the present state of Europe we are not to look up to a standing army. Now, Sir, without examining that position too minutely, I say, whatever may be the sufficiency of the spirit and courage of the mass of the people for their own protection, it is our duty, in justice to our country, to protect the spirit, to spare that courage, and, by the formation of a regular force, to save, as much as possible, the blood of those brave volunteers who have come forward with so much alacrity, and shewn themselves so ready to risque their lives in our defence. Now, in order to attain this end, I do not believe it will be supposed that we are to exclude a regular force from among the necessary means. If not, then, the question is only to what degree a regular force is to be maintained; and from hence two other questions necessarily arise first, whether we have at present a standing army of sufficient strength, under all the circumstances in which we are placed? and, secondly, if we had not, whether the present measure is not the best mode that can be devised to supply the deficiency? As to the first question, it would be idle to argue it. Every gentleman who has spoken this night, as well the hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Sheridan), as the rt. hon. gent. on the floor (Mr. Addington), admits the necessity of farther exertions, not merely for the purpose of a general defence, nor the extension of our military system, in all possible ways which ingenuity might devise and contrive; but in the very line and course now recommended, and for the very specific and identical purpose of a regular army. If then the necessity of an increased regular force be admitted, I wish to know how the objection upon the ground of the constitution applies? A great part of the argument in favour of an armed mass was, that it added to the variety of our force; but this is in the very spirit of my plan, as it proposes to place all the leading and principal members of that force upon their proper and respective foundations. Now if we are to look to the keeping up of these different species of force, we must also look to what are to be their proper proportions. Some say the militia ought he raised to exact that extent which should make it a balance to the regular army. I disapprove of this view of the subject: the balance and the warfare to which I look, and by which I estimate, are, as it relates to the enemy, as it is more or less competent to resist the foe, and defend the country from the attack of the external foe, and not in relation to any equipoise between the regular and irregular force, or the policy of dividing and subdividing them, with a view to produce an equality. Of the militia, I will say, that its officers have conducted themselves in a manner—as constitutional towards the country as its men have proved themselves vigorous and brave against the enemy; but if it be not a force as available as the regular army, what are you to do? Why, you are desired to carry it higher than its constitutional limits would admit. Some insinuate that I mean to reduce the militia below its constitutional principle; but the fact is, that though I wish to reduce it, yet still I mean to leave it higher than even those who complain of the reduction think, according to their own arguments, upon constitutional principles, it ought to stand. I only mean, that the excess shall be taken off, and applied to a more available force.—We are next told, that there is something in this measure that violates the bill of rights, so far as the same respects a standing army. According to the bill of rights, I have always understood, that to keep up a standing army in time of peace, without the consent of parliament, is contrary to law. This, I conceive, to be the principle of that bill. But how do I violate it by proposing to maintain a standing army in time of war, with the consent of parliament; an army, too, amenable to the mutiny-bill, and unobjectionable, I think, in many other respects, particularly after the clause which I moved this day, that it was not to remain embodied longer than 6 months after the signing of a definitive treaty of peace, and to be subject, while so embodied, to martial law? Such being the case, I give gentlemen all the benefit of the arguments derived form the bill of rights and the spirit and practice of our ancestors.—Now, Sir, in reference to the state of Europe, let us see how this measure operates upon our future safety. Unless we can be perfectly sure, and indeed I know not any degree of foresight and sagacity that should tempt us to suppose that it would not be folly and presumption to be sure; unless, I say, we can be perfectly sure, that at the end of the present war, and when that period shall arrive, we have no means to calculate or ascertain, we shall see Europe and France reduced to such a state, that we may return to our old system; unless we shut our eyes and are wilfully blind to our destruction, we may find ourselves obliged for years to make the country a more military nation than it has ever been before thought necessary. Now, if this be the case, there are only two ways by which it can be effected; either by laying the foundation of a large supply in peace that may be brought forward in a prepared state upon a sudden emergency, or by creating a large force which, though disembodied, when its services are not necessary, may be reproduced as occasion shall require. Those who look back to the public feeling at the commencement of the present war, cannot surely forget how desirable it would have been, had we attained that state at which we have only now arrived, after several months of anxiety and protracted danger. With this experience will you then have a regular force, which is only efficient while embodied, or a force which may be produced for the necessary occasion without the constitutional objection to a large regular army? Even the very persons who are jealous of a standing army in peace, recommend it in war; and the present measure is such as may be easily efficient when necessary, and facilitates the filling up of the regular force. Upon every ground of public safety and economy, it is particularly recommended to those who would have a large force in war, and a small one in peace. It is the means of a provisional force, which is attended with no expense in peace, and may in time of war be rapidly brought forward for the emergency.—A rt. hon. gent. (Mr. Addington) says, it is not wise to change the character, manners, and habits of the people. The general principle is right; but if it be necessary to have a large force, I ask, what is so little likely to interfere with the habits and manners of the people as the present measure, which establishes no permanent force, and only requires a month's exercise in the year? To hear him, one would suppose it would operate so great a change, that the plough was to stop, and the country was to be converted into a nation of Spartan soldiers, and yet the measure is neither more nor less than to raise by a milder mode that very number of men which the parliament thinks necessary, I mean 16,000 in England, and 3,000 in Ireland, being the amount of the present deficiency, and when that is completed, to raise annually a force of 12,000. Now, whether this is likely to produce a change in the genius and habits of the nation, I leave to the understanding of the house. As to the difficulty stated, of procuring a sufficient number of commissioned and non-commissioned officers for the number of men proposed to be raised, this certainly applied with equal force to the former plan, and, indeed, is essential to any mode of recruiting to any considerable extent the regular army; and, therefore, it amounts to nothing as a particular objection to this bill. If, as it is generally admitted, it is necessary to enlarge the army, it is surely right, in the present circumstances of the country, to begin that increase as soon as possible. Every experience under the army of reserve act shews that the present bill is likely to be successful, and attract men to enter, when they would have objections to do so for general service. Being once entered they will gradually become acquainted with the military life, and will, by a natural operation of causes, without any kind of deception, be the more readily induced to enter into the regular service. Without, however, attending, in the first instance, to its effect in recruiting the regular army, it will immediately have one beneficial consequence, namely, that of setting free a portion of the regulars nearly corresponding to the numbers raised, which are now locked up in defensive service. The next consequence will be, that by a slight and natural transition, great numbers will enter into the regular army, and constantly supply its wasting numbers. That it will be successful to its objects, the example of the army of reserve system holds out the best grounded hope. The plan promises to raise men more expeditiously than any other mode we are acquainted with; at the same time it is free from the evil consequence of high bounty incident to the army of reserve system, which induced many to desert from the regulars to enlist in the army of reserve, and then to desert again for the repetition of the bounty. This great and increasing evil, it is manifest, will be totally corrected by means of the regulations of the present plan, which diminishes, and renders fixed the bounty both for limited and unlimited service. From the first effect of a reduction of bounty it is natural to expect some check in the numbers recruited, but this circumstance will soon correct itself; and when the recollection of high bounties is worn away, the service will thrive as much with a diminished and fixed bounty, as it does at present with a higher and uncertain one. Be this, however, as it may, the house having already come to a resolution against high bounties, the experiment must be made. It is obvious they have no other choice, having once made up their minds that high and fluctuating bounties are to be diminished and rendered stationary. Against this diminution of bounty it is to be seen under this plan, what may be the inducement of limited service and local influence, the benefit of which I doubt not will fully counteract the evil otherwise to be apprehended from a decrease of bounty. This measure being already determined on by the house, I must take it for granted that there will be no objection to this plan on that account, but rather, on the contrary, that it will therefore meet with general approbation. It has, however, been said, that by striking out the ballot, I had destroyed the only effectual part of my own plan. I must, however, ask gentlemen gravely to consider the subject a little farther before they urge objections of that nature: whatever the plan was originally in my mind, the house has decidedly expressed its dissent, both to high bounties and ballot; so that however desirable either might be on general principles, yet, with respect to this measure, they are equally inadmissible; and therefore, though efficiency is desirable, it is only to be expected in proportion to the opportunity left us to make use of.—With respect to recruiting the army, let it be recollected, there were only four possible modes: 1st, the usual mode of recruiting for bounty by the officers of the regular service; 2d, recruiting by limited bounty and local influence, as pointed out by this plan; 3d, recruiting by ballot and compulsion, now generally exploded as an oppressive system; and 4th, recruiting by personal ballot, without the possibility of substitution, a mode yet more objectionable. In times of great emergency, this latter mode may doubtless be resorted to, but, in general, it has a rigour not suited to the habits and feelings of the country. Supposing, as is the case, that the first of these modes is not sufficiently productive, and a greater force is wanted, we must, of necessity, have recourse to the second, the third and fourth being, as has been shewn, of a nature not, at least in the first instance, to be resorted to. In adopting the second mode it is also evident, that the first, that of mere simple recruiting, remains wholly unmolested, and has a concurrent operation. Under the present plan we have all the benefit of what may be called regular recruiting; and add to that whatever may be obtained by the secondary mode. If any other plan equally productive, and as little objectionable, can be suggested, I can have no possible wish but to adopt it: none such, however, has been suggested, and, perhaps, it is not presuming too far to conclude, that none such can be found. According to the regulations as laid down in the provisions of this bill, the newly-adopted system with respect to the army of reserve bill, in no degree, interfere with the higher bounties left to the regular service.—Before I sit down, I shall say a few words with respect to the expectations which I have held out to the country. Gentlemen have said, that they have expected something from me very far beyond the present bill. I am not conscious that I ever encouraged the idea, that I had discovered some miraculous mode of providing for the defence of the country. I say this is the very measure of which I gave notice, except so far as it is improved by the omission of the ballot entirely, and the imposing the payment of the bounty upon the parish instead of the individual. Whether the measure be worthy of my situation I do not say, but that it is the identical measure which I held out, and taught the public to expect from me, I must contend. That there were other points within my contemplation I also admit, I mean in the naval department, with regard to the proper craft to be used in the narrow seas, and the means necessary to ensure a succession of ships to a proper extent. These subjects, however, as I said before, cannot be comprehended in the present bill, but it does not thence follow that they are neglected by his Majesty's ministers. There were other points I also admit, which were the subject of my observations before I came into office. If gentlemen will look back, they will see that I did propose a measure for our future defence; but that as to immediate defence, I considered that all that could be done was, to improve the discipline of force then subsisting. But has nothing been done since? I recommended originally, that the volunteers should be called out upon permanent duty. That system has been adopted; and not less than from 158,000 to 100,000 volunteers have been placed in that state for improving their discipline. Now I would appeal to every officer of experience, whether the result of this proceeding, by the improvement of their discipline, has not increased their strength more than if their number had been increased one-half? I will not therefore have it said, that administration have been wholly idle, and that nothing has been done for the defence of the country. That being the case, I know nothing on my part inconsistent with any rational expectation that the house, or any man who has attended to the notices I gave, could have formed. I am ready to have my measure decided by experience, and I am confident that every discussion will be beneficial to it, as it will place it more and more in its true light. Of the mode of opposition which it has experienced, I have a right to complain. There has been a disposition to draw into argument foreign topics, which divert the attention from the real subject, and in such hands as those of the hon. gent. who spoke last, may be productive of entertainment, and relieve the tediousness of debate by the brilliant display of wit which we have just witnessed. As to the argument, that the administration is not worthy of confidence, I am at a loss to conjecture upon what ground it rests. This, its first measure, surely cannot be the cause, for it looks to an object upon which all persons of all parties and all descriptions are agreed. There must then be something awkward or unfortunate in the manner of bringing it forward, if it be the cause of this loss of confidence, I confess this is a very delicate subject, and I know not well bow to deliver myself upon it. But whatever opinion some people may entertain of the advantages of an administration formed on a broad basis, I am satisfied that the principle, that it is the prerogative of his Majesty to chose his ministers, will not be denied. I am the more convinced of this, when I remember that some weeks ago the hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Fox) stated in this house, when it was thrown out as a matter of speculation, who were to be the new ministers, if the late ministry were obliged to retire, that it was not within the province of the house to take any notice of such a circumstance, and if it would have been unconstitutional to agitate such a topic before the removal of that ministry, it is equally unconstitutional to deny the King's prerogative as to selection in every instance; and is it reconcilable with any ideas of constitutional principle and of public duty, that when a ministry has been changed, their successors should be obstructed in their very first operations, by any combination founded upon any circumstances connected with the recent exercise of his Majesty's prerogative? It has been said, indeed, that I should take the hint to resign, which the proceedings of the house, on this question, have given; and the hon. gent. thus admits the object of the extraordinary zeal with which this bill has been contested; but I can assure him that the hint is not broad enough for me to take it. I am sanguine enough to believe that the bill will pass, and that it will pass with an increased majority. I am sanguine enough to hope, the opposition to the bill being now avowed, it will make its way through the house with an increased concurrence; if not, I shall lament the failure of a measure which I sincerely believe to be calculated to promote the public advantage. It is now obvious what are the motives for that zeal and perseverance that have animated the late contests, and have combined in one cry troops, who upon no other occasion could ever be made to speak the same language. I trust, at least, that the hon. gents. on the other side will not feel themselves under the necessity of questioning as to every individual object, the right of the King to chuse his minister. I have been at issue upon this point in former times, and I am now ready to maintain it as necessary to our free and as yet monarchical constitution. As to my sufficiency, or the sufficiency of those in office with me, it is not necessary to say a great deal upon that subject; but I am surprised at the language that has fallen from a noble lord (Temple). I think it a little singular that my acting in concert with a part of the late administration should be made a bar to the confidence of him and his friends. Does my noble relative think, that on this account, I have justly forfeited the confidence of him and of his friends? I do remember the time when, in the moment of his bitterest opposition to the hon. gent. (Mr. Fox) the noble lord and his friends were so partial to me, that they declared, that my admission to a share of the executive power would, in a considerable degree, remove their apprehensions of the public danger. I hope that since that time I have not, by concurring very frequently and acting very cordially with my noble relative and his friends, forfeited the good opinion they were then so partial as to express of me. I confess my surprise too, that after such public declarations concerning me, they so soon find themselves compelled to with-hold their services from the public, on account of the exclusion of an hon. gent. (Mr. Fox), with whom they have been so little accustomed to think or act in unison. Much has been said of the inefficiency of the members of the present cabinet. But is it to be said, that the present ministers are unequal to the duties of the stations they fill? With respect to the members of the present ministry, and who were members of the last, being liable to the charge of inconsistency, I cannot see that there is the least foundation for it. The present bill is better than that which it supersedes, and aiming at the same end by juster means, is fairly entitled to the support of those who supported the former bill. It is said, however, though not quite correctly, that the members of the last administration are a majority of the present. But what, if it were, would be the inference? There is no reason why those who sat in a former cabinet should not sit in this. I hope the present cabinet is not one in which there will always be a necessity of counting noses, and of coming to a vote upon every measure. When differences of opinion exist, there is room for mutual concession and accommodation where men agree in a general object. If this were not the case, how could any administration go on? far more an administration formed on the broad basis which some gentlemen consider so desirable? Were I to take the "broad hint" which has been given me; had that sort of administration been formed, the failure of which is represented as having struck such despair throughout the country, how could any measure have been carried in the cabinet among men who have had long and important differences, unless mutual accommodation and concession had taken place? It is said, however, that there has not been a sufficient change in the ministry. But, surely, the rt. hon. gent. below (Mr Addington) must at least be satisfied that the change is sufficient, and that the present is really a new administration. And, notwithstanding all that has been said of it, I hold it to be substantial enough to answer the purposes for which it was formed. Many objections have been urged against it by the hon. gent. who spoke last, who has indulged himself in that vein of pleasantry and humour, for which he has most deservedly acquired so much celebrity, in comparing some of the his members of the present administration with those whom they have succeeded in office, and has indulged himself particularly in contrasting Lord Melville with the Earl of St. Vincent. I should unquestionably think myself extremely wrong, were I to say that Lord Melville was as good a sailor, or understood how to work or fight a ship of war as well as Earl St. Vincent; but yet I can have no hesitation to say, that in my opinion, there is every reason to suppose that Lord Melville will make a better first lord of the admiralty; for experience has often forcibly strewn us, that it is by no means necessary that a first lord of the admiralty should be a naval character; and though it may not be fit to speak of myself, it surely will not be considered that it is no change that the office of first lord of the treasury, reckoned that which has a leading influence in the executive government, is now held by me. Few will doubt that a very real change has taken place. With respect to any differences of opinion which I may have had with the late administration, it will not be pretended that they were of such a nature as to prevent us from acting in the most cordial and satisfactory manner upon general affairs. For those my rt. hon. and noble friends I have uniformly entertained the utmost private friendship and esteem. With them I have thought and acted almost without interruption on every public question since our acquaintance commenced. Neither is there the slightest ground to imagine that another noble friend of mine (lord Hawkesbury), whom I have always loved and esteemed, is degraded by taking the home, instead of the foreign department; though I confess there were some parts of the foreign system which I did not approve, and of which it is not now necessary to say more. Those who know the fact know how far that change was from any motive that could infer degradation. Indeed, Sir, I cannot see with what view such a thing could be mentioned, unless it was for the purpose of sowing jealousies and dissentions among his Majesty's present ministers, and, as such, it deserves my severest animadversion.—If the present bill should be lost, I shall be sorry for it, because the house and the country will thereby lose a good measure; but the hon. gentlemen opposite will be much mistaken, if they think they will thereby be any thing the nearer getting rid of me. It is well known, and has ever been allowed to be one of the first and most established privileges and prerogatives of the crown, that his Majesty has a right to chuse and nominate his own ministers; and with that conviction on my mind, I shall not be deterred from bringing forward such measures as may be necessary in aid and support of the present bill, which I have no doubt will meet the approbation of a considerable majority, notwithstanding all the opposition it has met with from the hon. gent. on the opposite side of the house.

then rose and spoke to the following effect:—Sir, I shall not at this late hour (four o'clock on Tuesday morning), and on a question which has been so often and so victoriously discussed, take up much of the time of the house in adverting to the topics which the rt. hon. the chancellor of the exchequer has thought proper to take up. In a discussion on a bill of this kind, I am not surprised there should be so great a difference of opinion. But in one of the arguments of the rt. hon. gent. with respect to these topics, he has said, that the mode which has been pursued to get rid of this bill, has been very personal. I can only say, Sir, that in every business that comes before this house, on whatever subject it may be, no one can be more averse to personalities than myself. I will ask him, and I think I can safely appeal to the house, whether, till he brought them forward, one single word was said on that subject? and whether they were not entirely owing to himself, and to the rt. hon. gent. (Mr. Canning) sitting by him. Whatever may be the inclination of the rt. hon. gent. opposite me to enter on subjects of a personal nature, I can assure him that I do not feel the smallest inclination to follow his example; age has diminished my propensity to such contests, and instead of wishing to shew my prowess, I wish rather to shew my prudence. I can say,

Lenit albescens animos capillus,

Litium et rixæ cupidos protervæ,

although in other times, and in other circumstances of the country, the latter part of the quotation would have better suited my disposition,

Non ego hoc ferrem, alidus juventâ,

Consule Planco.

In addition to my disinclination to treat the subject in such a way on the present occasion, my principle would be to avoid it. I certainly have entertained the opinion ever since the commencement of the present war, that it would be of the greatest advantage to the country, if, forgetting all former animosities, it were possible to form an administration on a broad basis, combined of all parties, and uniting all those whom the country think proper to look up to. There are, however, one or two points of the rt. hon. gent.'s speech, on which I must beg leave to make a few observations. He says, that his Majesty is by his prerogative unquestionably entitled to choose and appoint his own ministers. This is a position which nobody is more inclined to recognize than myself. But how does it apply to his argument? He admits that it may be wise in the House of Commons so to conduct itself as to convince his Majesty that he ought to remove them. He has admitted it more than in words; he has admitted it in fact. I do not know what the rt. hon. gent. means by an opposition composed of such discordant materials, that there is scarcely a point on which they can agree. If I recollect rightly, there was a period when what he has said of my hon. friends would equally apply to himself. There was a period, and that at no very great distance, in which that rt. hon. gent. himself supported, and a time also quickly succeeding, in which he opposed the late administration. In the course of a few months, he supported, with the utmost warmth, all the military measures of the rt. hon. gent. his predecessor, and very soon afterwards he opposed the army of reserve suspension bill, in order to make way for the present measure, which he gave the house to understand would be found so much more efficient at the present important crisis.—To return, however, to the prerogative of the crown. If it be, which I do not deny, the prerogative of the King to choose his own ministers, it is equally the right and the duty of the House of Commons to judge of the capacity and the intentions of those ministers; and if they should be found deficient in the confidence of the House of Commons, and in the confidence of the country, such disapprobation is a strong and fair ground for the King to dismiss them. If ever there was an administration that was deficient of that confidence, I think I may fairly and justly say it is the administration now in Mike. When the rt. hon. gent. is attacked on the subject, he has no other answer to give, but "look at me," as if the whole administration were wrapped up in himself. He says, Lord Melville is likely to be a better first lord of the admiralty than Earl St. Vincent; and, after speaking with the greatest complacency of himself, and the two secretaries of state, he asks the rt. hon. gent. (Mr. Addington) on the bench below him, whether he is not practically convinced that this is a new administration? If any one person was more disappointed at the formation of the new ministry than another, I should have thought that it was the rt. hon. gent. himself; it is what his friends give out for him. I should be sorry to give credit to the rumours which are abroad, and which go strongly to prove, that all his wishes centered in the object he has attained. But he has dealt harder with my friends on the lower bench. He says they wished to see him at the head of the government, and, provided that were the case, they should be happy. He then taunts then with refusing him their support in his new administration. Undoubtedly, Sir, he had a right to offer situations to whomsoever he pleased, and they as undoubtedly possessed the power of refusal; and if they thought that in an administration so formed they could do no good to the country, their refusal was meritorious. The rt. hon. gent. says, he thinks the opposition to the present bill extraordinary, and that it is dictated by a desire to give a hint to ministers to retire. On some principles of the bill, he says, the opposition totally differed, and then he asks, how they would have agreed, had they formed part of an administration? There, indeed, I cannot answer the rt. hon. gent. How far he might have insisted on any one or more parts of his bill, and how far he might have conceived that we ought implicitly to yield to his opinion and to his direction, I cannot pretend to say; but this I know, that an administration formed on a broad and comprehensive basis in times of danger, would be highly beneficial to the country, and that we should have entered into such an administration with the spirit of conciliation. The rt. hon. gent. says, we may give as many hints as we please; he will not take them; but I should be glad to know, if the House of Commons shews that it has no confidence in him, does he mean to say that he will not take the hint? Did he not give a hint to the rt. hon. gent. on the lower bench, his predecessor? If public rumours are not very much mistaken, there are some of the present administration who did advise their colleague to give way, when he saw the sense of the House of Commons was against his measures. I do not know who they were, but I hope they did not give the hint, in order that they might have "two strings to their bow" (see p. 312). The rt. hon. gent. pleased to say, that it would be absurd in the cabinet to be counting noses as we do in this house. I dare say, Sir, he is perfectly right; and if his intention was to form an administration where there will be no counting of noses, I believe he has completely succeeded. If, Sir, for our opposition to this bill, we are told that we are "a faction," we are told no more than the rt. hon. gent. himself was, a few hours before the late administration were turned out of office (see p. 342); and told, too, by that very noble lord (Hawkesbury) who has consented to accept the office of secretary of state for the home department, under the administration of the rt. hon. gent. The rt. hon. gent. has mentioned the change which has taken place in the secretaries of state with some exultation, and contends, that in such a proceeding there is no degradation. The rt. hon. gent. is most undoubtedly at liberty to form his own judgment on such a humiliation; I can only say that I totally differ from him in opinion.—Now, Sir, having made these few observations on a subject which it is my constant desire to avoid, I shall trouble the house with a few words on the bill itself; which, whatever the rt. hon. gent. may please to surmise, I declare to be the sole object of my opposition. After all that has been said of the army of reserve bill, the rt. hon. gent. must be perfectly aware that this bill cannot be agreeable. The right. hon. gent. has laid great stress on the clauses which he has introduced this day, by which 70,000 men are to be embodied during the war, and then disbanded at the peace, but registered, so that in case of any future war, they may be called on to serve again. I cannot help thinking that these clauses are a new thought, and not at all belonging to the present bill. This, I will venture to say, is by no means so good as a militia; for in that kind of force you know where to find the men. You look for the Yorkshire militia in Yorkshire, and the Kentish in the county of Kent. But where will you find this army? These battalions are to be composed of such a mixture of men from all parts of the kingdom, that you may have to look for the Yorkshire in Cornwall, and the Cornish in Lancashire. In short, there will be no knowing where to find them. The rt. hon. gent. says, is not my mode more likely to be efficient than any other system? I answer, no. It will not be so efficient either as the militia or the army of reserve. The mode of raising recruits by parish officers, I must severely condemn. The influence of parish officers can be attended with no further or other advantage in the raising recruits than what results from a system of terror and oppression, which cannot fail to be the case in such a system as the present, where persons are to be fined for not doing what it is impossible they should be able to do. Besides, fines are in themselves a species of punishment, and punishment ought never to attach to persons who have been guilty of no crime.—As a measure of finance, the public most assuredly have not gained by the present bill. I contend that there is the greatest inequality in a system of taxation by fine, such as this is. For instance, suppose I send my servant to market to buy a bushel of wheat, or any other grain but I tell him, at the same time, that he must not; on any account, give more than half-a-crown for the bushel. "Half-a-crown, Sir," says the servant, "I cannot buy a bushel of wheat for that sum; it is worth 7 shillings a bushel, and no one will sell it for less." "No matter," say I; "yeu must give no more than half-a-crown, and if you do not buy it for that money, you shall be punished with a fine." In the same way will it exactly turn out with the recruits under this bill. Men will not enlist for the sum to which these parish recruiting officers are restricted, and then the parishes must be fined, which will prove as great a hardship as can well be conceived. The whole system is also very unequal, for it falls much heavier on the landholder than any other description of persons, and with the greatest inequality even on those. I see no reason why the mode of recruiting for the regular army advised by my rt. hon. friend (Mr. Windham), who has taken the lead on military subjects, in a manner so honourable to himself and so beneficial to the country. I say, I see no reason why that mode should not be tried. Why not enlist men for a limited time, or for limited service? I am one of those who are exceedingly sanguine of such a mode of recruiting the army. I have no doubt but such a trial would be attended with success. I can, however, see no possible advantage, but only the contrary, in enlisting men for a limited service, in order to seduce them afterwards into general service, which is to be the operation of the present bill, and from which I cannot see that any benefit can possibly be expected. Because the army of reserve could not do its service with the ballot, it is rashly presumed that this bill will effect the same purposes without the ballot; a mode of arguing, which militates expressly against the nature of things, For my own part, I voted for the suspension of the army of reserve bill, for the express purpose of giving this measure an opportunity of bring fairly and fully discussed; and now that has taken place, I am convinced it is one of the most oppressive, as well as one of the most inefficient measures, that could well be devised, for the purposes it is intended to effect. Indeed, to speak of the absurdities of the bill in detail, would be ridiculous. I just now said that the bill would be found both inefficient and oppressive. But then comes the rt. hon. gent. with his famous dilemma. "How," says he, "do you make that out? How can my bill be oppressive and inefficient too." I say, Sir, the bill will occasion very considerable oppression without producing any considerable addition to your force. The bill appears to me, in every part of it, full of oppression and injustice, and tending to a more circuitous mode to recruit your regular army, than the plan proposed by my rt. hon. friend (Mr. Windham), and as such I must continue to give it my determined opposition.—Before I sit down, there is one observation which fell from the rt. hon. gent., upon which I cannot avoid saying a few words. The rt. hon. gentleman says, "if you throw out my bill, I shall be sorry; because you and the country will lose a good measure, but you will not thereby be the nearer getting rid of use." A more indecent and disrespectful expression from a minister to a house of commons I never heard. Is not this bill a bill of considerable detail, requiring the general consent and approbation of all ranks of the community? Is it possible, I ask, that this house can so far lose sight of its duty as to send a bill of such unexampled severity and oppression to be executed all over the country, contrary to the opinion of nearly one half of its members? Can such a bill be well executed by a country that disapproves of it? It must be allowed, that the bill, with all the influence of government, will be carried by only a very trifling majority. Under such circumstances it cannot be executed with that general good will and general consent by which only its operations can be rendered beneficial to the country.

After Mr. Fox sat down, General Norton endeavoured to say a few words in support of the bill, but the question being loudly called for, a division took place, when there appeared,

The bill was then ordered to be read a third time that afternoon.—Adjourned at half past four on Tuesday morning.