་་ possession of which wonid add more than "that of any other to the security of our "East India possessions, and would put our dominions, in that quarter, in a greater degree of safety than they ever had enjoyed, from the first hour that we set our "foot upon the continent of India." In another part of the same speech, he explicil declared, that he regarded the Cape as being very far inferior in value to Ceylon and Trinidad.-Yet, this is the post that we are now, it is said. fitting out an expedition to reconquer ! Mr. Dundas, indeed, now Lord Melville, persevered in his ancient attachment to the Cape, and, regarding him as the only efficient war-minister in the present cabinet the measure now about to be adopted is consistent enough; but, if we suppose that every member of the cabinet had a voice, we shall certainly have a right to call upon the Lord Chancellor and Lord Hawkesbury for the reasons that shall induce them to consent to the sending away of a considerable part of our little army for the purpose of reconquering a post, which they thought we were happy in getting rid of. As to the measure itself, unconnected with the opinions formerly given by the present ministers, it would certainly be very difficult to shew that it is dictated by wisdom There is a vast difference between the keeping of a place of which you have obtained possession, and the undertaking of a re-conquest of such place after you have surrendered it. It is obvious, too, that every enterprize of this sort must be viewed in conjunction with the state of the country at home; its danger from foreign attack; its resources of men and money: and, if this mode of judging be, in the present case, pursued, an expedition against the Cape of Good Hope, even if immediate success were certain, must appear to be a measure not easily justified. Exactly how many men may be required for insuring the reduction of the Cape, can be known only to those who have the means of ascertaining the strength of the present garrison; but, any number less than that of ten thousand would scarcely be embarked in the exped tion, and, with respect to the wisdom of sending away a sixth part of our regular army, at a time like the present, for the purpose of making con quests, in distant regions, very little diference of opinion can possibly prevail. MILITARY PROJECT -On Tuesday, the 5th instant, Mr. Pitt brought forward his motion for leave to bring in a bill, “for "raising and supporting permanent addi. "tional force, for more effectually recruiting the regular army, and for the gradual re"duction of the militia."-Upon this very important subject I wish to deliver my opi nion with the greatest degree of candour, and yet in a manner entirely unrestrained by the respect, which, in common with others who have been accustomed to listen to him, I may entertain for the person, by whom it has been brought before the Parliament. Great allowances are to be made him, on account of the difficulties which he must have to encounter: slight errors ought not to be treated with severity: in condemning his measure, his motive may be found to merit applause. He wishes to provide the means of angiening, or rather of filling up, our regular army: so do we all: as to the end there is no difference of opinion: we only differ as to the means: and, if it should appear, that the means proposed by Mr. Pitt are not only not the most likely, but are even the least likely, to accomplish this unanimously desired end, it does not follow, that the minister bas, in making his proposition, discovered any censurable want of capacity; because, when we take a view of his life, of his habits, and pursuits, we must at once perceive, that it is next to an absolute im po-sibility, that he should possess sufficient information upon matters connected with the raising of an army. Indeed, all that be advances must be considered as purely theoretical; and, the raising of soldiers is a thing entirely practical. A regulation, good at one time, may be very bad at another time. That which is an inducement to enlist, in one country, is no inducement in another A man's knowledge, upon this subject, is not to be gathered from reading, or from calcu lations: actual experience, either by oneself, or by those with whom one freely converses, and who have such experience, is the only safe guide; and, of this guide Mr. Pitt has, assuredly, never had the assistance. There fore, though the project, as considered with relation to its invenior, is entitied to the ufmost degree of indulgence; yet, care must be taken not to suffer our opinion of his ta lents in general to mislead us here into an approbation of what is rejected either by fact or reason. His project, as near as it can be gathered from the report of his speech, is as follows: 1. To abolish entirely all balloting, whether for the Militia, or the Army of Reserve, properly called, in the language of the Act, the "Additional Military Force." And, as vacancies shall, in future, occur in the Militia, to leave them not filled up, until the whole of the militia force in England is reduced to forty-thousand men, and the whole militia force of Scotland to eight thousand men 2. To make the Army of Reserve a permanent establishment, always consisting of seventy four thousand men; and, out of this body, by means hereafter to be described, to recruit the regular army. 3. Of the Army of Reserve there is now, in Great Britain, a deficiency of nine thou sand men, and, of the Militia there is a deficiency of about seven thousand men. These are to be raised immediately, in the manner hereafter mentioned, by the parishes, where the deficiencies exist; and they are all to be sent to join the Army of Reserve, stationed as is hereafter described. As fast as future vacancies shall take place in the Militia, men are to be raised by the parishes respectively in numbers equal to those vacancies; but, instead of going to serve as militia-men, they are to join, and to belong to, the Army of Reserve; and this course is to be pursued, until the Militia be reduced to the numbers before stated. 4. The mode of raising the men is by quota, according to the population of the parishes respectively. There is to be no individual compulsion. The men are to be raised by voluntary recruiting, at a bounty four pounds lower than the bounty for enlistment in the regular army; which recruiting is to be conducted by parochial officers in the several parishes, and which bounty is to be paid by the government, out of a general fund to consist of the produce of fines imposed on such parishes as shall, through negligence or inability, fail in raising and furnishing their quota of men. 5. The men, thus placed in the Army of Reserve, are to serve there for the term of five years, or during the war, and until six months after a peace shall have been concluded. They are, however, to have, at all times, full liberty to quit the Army of Reserve, and to enlist into the regular service. But, to prevent this liberty from being injurious to discipline, the Army of Reserve is to be formed into second battalions, each of which is to be annexed to, and,as much as may be,quartered with,some one regular regiment, and, if possible, with that regiment that bears the name of the 66 county or district where the Reserve battalion has been raised; and, it is into this regular regiment, and this regiment only, that the Army of Reserve men of this battalion are to be permitted to enlist. Such is the project, the object of which is said to be," to raise and support a permament additional force; to recruit more effectually the regular army; and to effect á gradual reduction of the militia!" In the observations which I have to offer, it will be as well to follow the order pointed out by the above sketch of the project.-L. That the balloting is intended to be abolishcd must be a subject of sincere joy, not only to all those who are anxious to see the regular ar ny once more raise its head, but to every man in the country, with the exception of crimps and extorting constables. The traffic which has been carried on, for the last twelve months, is quite sufficient to destroy the military spirit of any country in the world. Every thing that has touched the business of raising men seems to have been impregnated with infamy. That the militia is intended to be greatly reduced in number is also a subject of joy. Forty thousand men to be locked up in this sort of establishment is a number much too high; and, Scotland included, there are still to be forty-eight thousand. However, the reduction which is now proposed to be made is of importance; it is a good begin. Ding; it will dissolve the spell which has so long rendered useless the arms of the stoutest of our inen. While, however, I most cordially bestow my approbation on this part of the project of Mr. Pitt, it is impossible for me to refrain from expressing some degree of wonder and of regret, that, in proposing it to the house and the country, he should have totally omitted to remind them, that he himself had, till very lately, held opinions, as to this point, directly opposite to those now entertained by him, aud, that the reduction of the militia was, not many months before, recommended, in that house, by gentlemen, whom he might have pointed out to his hearers. From the conclusion of the peace of Amiens, nay, previous to that event; so early as the month of March, 1802, Mr. Elhot and Mr. Windham endeavoured to put a stop to the rage for a balloted army. On every occasion, from that time to this, when any augmentation of militia has been proposed, they have strenu ously opposed such proposition, and, principally, upon the ground, that with a numerous militia it would be utterly impossible ever to have a large regular ariny, a truth which Mr. Pitt has, at last, acknowledged, but he has made this acknowledgment in the shape of a discovery of his own. Having, in the course of my Analytical View of the two pamphlets published upon the subject of the quarrel between Mr. Pitt and Mr. Addington, had occasion to refer to, and to quote from, the several speeches, made by Mr. Windham and Mr. Elliot, relative to the militia, I shall content myself here with pointing out the part of this work where the several passages are to be found; viz, in the present volume from page 5 to page 17. It was, however, during the debates on the Army of Reserve Bill, in the month of June, 1803, that the opinions of Mr. Pitt were first decidedly and openly expressed upon this subject; and then, particularly in the sitting of the 23d of June, no small portion of his speech was occupied in expressing his dissent, not entirely unmixed with sarcastic censure, from the opinion given by Mr. Elliot, who, in one of the best speeches ever made on the subject, had opened the debate, and who, in speaking of the militia establishment, made use of the following remarkable words: "I have always been against car"rying this establishment to the extent to which it has been carried. Though I "know I am speaking treason to the sen"timents of some gentlemen, I must avow, "that I have, with great concern, seen the "militia augmented beyond the number of 66 30,000. The rest of the population of "the kingdom I would have left to the fair "operation of the recruiting service. For "the same reason I should now recommend "the suspension of the levy of the supple"mentary militia." To these observations it was that Mr. Pitt gave the answer contained in the motto to the present sheet; and, he began his speech with remarking, that he not only differed in opinion from Mr. Elliot as to the propriety of passing the bill, but, that he approved of it for precisely the reasons that Mr. Elliot disapproved of it. "This mode," says he, in another part of bis speech," will be much more effectual in its execution for recruiting the regular army, "than that which my right hon. friend" (Mr. Windham, alluding to a former debate) "would build on the reduction of the "militia." He further said, that "he ap"proved of the Army of Reserve plan, be"cause it was built upon that of the militia, "and was to proceed in its execution by "ballot, a mode that was known and fami"liar to the community." Yet, in order the more effectually to provide for the recruiting of the regular army, this very gentleman now proposes to reduce the militia to forty thousand men, and to put a stop to balloting altogether! Very well: he is, in these respects, doing what is very wise; but, he should have taken an opportunity of ob serving, that he was now adopting advice which he had rejected (I will not say with disdain) a twelve month ago; and, the pub lic will not fail to perceive, that, if Mr. Elliot's proposition for suspending the ballot for the supplementary militia had been listened to, Mr. Pitt would not, at this moment have had to pronounce the dismal sentence of gradual decay upon the militia of Great Britain. If that advice had been followed, the Army of Reserve would have been completed many months ago, and there would now have been, perhaps, three or four thousand men more in the regular army from that source, as well as a considerable number more than there now are from the source of general recruiting --2. The second head admits of only this one remark, that the augmenting of the Army of Reserve to 74,000 men greatly lessens the merit of that part of the plan which goes to the reduction of the militia. The establishment is to be 74,000 men. Seventy-four thousand men are always to be kept locked up in the e islands, which, added to the militia, make a total of 122,000 men, not one of whom can be sent upon foreign service. Was there ever such a thing heard of before in the world? Consider, too, that we boast of having 400,000 men in our volunteer corps! Can a nation having 522,000 men under arms, and not able to order one of those men on the duties of real war; not able to send one of them in pursuit of the enemy, or in search of conquest; can such a nation be said to possess one spark of military fire?Nay, can it, for any length of time, defend its own shores?--3. The first demand to be made upon the parishes is for the men necessary to make up the deficiencies, which now exist, in their returns to the Army of Reserve and the Militia. As a way of coming at some fines, whereby to begin the recruiting fund, this part of the project will certainly succeed; for, if these parishes have hitherto been unable to furnish men, though at a bounty of forty or fifty guineas, what probability is there, that they should be able to furnish them, when nailed down to a bounty four pounds lower than that of the regular army; that is, about five or six guineas? And this demand is to be made, too, you will observe, in that season of the year, which is, of all others, the most inauspicious for recruiting: in hay-time and harvest. If this project is to be adopted, some reconsideration ought to be bestowed upon this part of it. These parishes have been stigmatized as delinquents: a milder term would have been adopted, if due regard had been paid to the feelings of the pari-h officers and magistrates concerned. I hap the law, in some way or other, that description of persons will form the first supply of recruits. When this source is dry, and when all endeavours to replenish it shall have pen to be acquainted with some of these gen-failed, the parish officers will inquire what is tlemen, and I know, that it is impossible that in zeal, toil, or anxiety, in this respect, they should have been surpassed by persons in similar situations in any part of the kingdom. The gross amount of the population is a very uncertain standard whereby to judge of the ability of a parish to furnish men for the ballot; and, it is a fact which can be proved at the bar of the House of Commons, that, in some of the parishes termed delinquents, it was physically impossible to supply the number of men demanded. I have heard, and from very good authority, that, from a hundred to two hundred men are frequently ballotted, without obtaining above one man, and sometimes not one, who is not, from some cause of other, exempted from the effects of such ballot. Under such circumstances, I submit whether it be just to stigmatize a parish as delinquent; and, I appeal to Mr. Pitt whether fines ought now to be imposed on such parishes, if they should be unable to raise the men that are wanted to make up for their deficiencies.-4. As to the mode of raising the men, though 1 heartily rejoice at the abolition of the ballot, I can never approve of the recruiting service being committed to the hands of parish officers. Either the quotas will not be completed, or they will be completed by such means, and will produce such men for the army, as one cannot but be shocked at thinking of. The parish officers are to be forbidden, under a penalty of course, to give so high a bounty as that which is given for the regular army; that is, they are not to give above six or seven guineas at most. Does any one think, that they will obtain men for this sum, just after from thirty to fifty guineas have been given as a bounty for the very same service? They are to be restrain ed, too, as to the locality: they are not to extend their recruiting perambulations beyond certain limits. Thus circumscribed, can it be believed that they will ever fairly raise their quota? If they fail, however, their parish is to pay a fine in amount proportioned to the number of men deficient. The consequence of these regulations will be: the parish officers will first endeavour to get the men at the stated bounty: it is pretty evident, that no man will take that bounty, unless he is compelled to do it; and, as the parish officers and magistrates will have a power of compulsion over none but thieves and vagrants, or, at least, offenders against the amount of the fine; and, having ascertained that, they will give some crimp as much for each recruit, within a pound or two, as they would have to pay for each deficient man in the shape of a fine. No regulation, no order, no injunction, no law, will prevent this. Oaths would be useless, and penalties would be a jest. Regulations of this sort have frequently been in force in the army, when men have been raised for rank; and, they have invariably proved unavailing; because detection and proof of guilt are next to impossible. The competition will, then, still remain, and will receive increased powers of mischief; because, there will be more men now raised for this limited service than before, and they will all be raised for the Army of Reserve, instead of being in part raised for the militia, for which service the county did not present so strong a temptation. Besides, it must be recollected, that the ballot produced some men at least, who served in person, and whose entrance into the limited service did not increase the competition against the regular army; whereas, now, the whole are to be raised by bounty; and, as I have before said, after the houses of correction are emptied, this bounty will have, and can have, no other limit than the amount of the fine imposed on the parish for each deficient recruit, and, if this fine be of small amount, the parish will take but very little trouble to avoid the payment of it. Hence it appears to me, that one of three consequences must inevitably result from this part of the project: first, that the quota men will consist of thieves, vagrants, and other offenders against the law; second, that, if the fine be small, the parish will pay it rather than be plagued with recruiting; or, third, that, if the fine be heavy, the parish will give high bounties, and the competition against the regular armywill be as injurious as ever. Balloting is to be got rid of, and every one must be glad of that, because the effect of it was to produce great hard-hip upon individuals, and to force men into clubs to insure one another against serving their country, as if it were a calamity like that of a fire or a foundering at sea; but, the other evil of the ballot, the competition against the regular army, will remain, and must operate in full force, unless the fine upon the parish for each deficient man be lower than the full bounty for enlistment in the regular army, in which case it will be much too small to insure the exertions of the parish officers, and may be considered merely as a tax; but, let it not be forgotten, that it will be a tax of a most odious kind, and one peculiarly well contrived to make the whole nation impatient and discontented under the continuation of the war. In taking leave of this part of the subject, it seems necessary just to notice the changes, which appear to have taken place in the mind of Mr. Pitt. In his speech of the 23d of June, 1803. be strongly reprobated the imposing of any fine at all. Mr. Windham hal proposed a fine to prevent substitution and competition, which fine might go to a fund for raising recruits for the regular army; but Mr. Pict was for a substitute, or for personal service, seeing that this wa the only alterna tive that was sure to produce men, and men, he said, we wanted, and not money. Now he is for a fine, and for a fine, too, which is to go to a general recruiting fund, having clearly discovered, that a system of substitution is totally incompatible with the existence of a regular army of any considerable strength. But, it is to a much more sudden change, that I particularly allude. When he first broached to the parliament his present project, he appears to have had no notion at all of abolishing the ballot, which, on the contrary, he seems to have relied on as the main pillar of his scheme. 1 -hould "propose," said he, that the ballot should "go on as it is conductel in the militia esta"blishment. If an individual is balloted, "he will have the choice either of pay ng a penalty, or to accept of the bounty, which "should not be less than that offered for the regular army. Per-ons drawn would have "the option either of receiving a bounty, "or of paying a penalty, and, I have no " doubt, if this were a short time persisted in, the system of substitutes would be "materially diminished." Had Mr. Pitt taken but one moment to reflect, he would have perceived, that this was extremely fallacious, seeing that every drafied man would have been found to be a person well able to pay the fine, or else, a member of some club, by which membership he would have been placed exactly in the same situation as if he had not been drawn. change, however, from this ball a system of no ballots is what I w the readers' attention to, and to remind him, that, at the time when the former system was brought forward, which was on the 25th of April, Mr. Pitt said, "he hoped he "should meet with the indulgence of the house, while he stated the out-lines of a 66 he sudd n system to sh to direct 46 plan on this subject, the result of long "and careful examination, the effect of digested and careful comparison of the wants and circumstances of the country." A noble Lord in the other house was, too, induced to postpone his motion for an inquiry into the state of the national defence, because he understood that Mr. Pitt "had “ turned his thoughts to the subject." After this have we not reason to be surprized, that the plan now presented to Parliament should so widely differ from that of which they were furnished with a sketch only five weeks before? The very principle of the present plan is entirely different from the other; for whether the men are to go into a militia or au army of seserve is not a matter of half so much importance as whether there is to be a ballot or not. The entire aboution of the ballot is the great characte ristic of the new plan, and, in the other pan, the ballot was to be preserved. Mr. Pitt tells us, indeed, that this change has arisen from the information which he has, since his former speech, obtained, with re-. gard to the effects of the ballot. He had," he said, "been, in the first instance, convinced that the ballot system was favour "able to personal service. With a view, "therefore, of accomplishing this very de"sirable object, he had been disposed to "make the ballot the foundation of his plan; but, having within these few days, "made particular inquiry into this matter, "he had found, that of the whole number "of men raised by the army of reserve bal "lots, only between two and three thou"sand had actually given personal service. "In England the proportion had been not more than 1 in 12, in Scotland it was "about 1 in 16, and in Ireland the proportion was so small as not to be worthy of no"tice. This appeared to him, as he trusted "it would appear to the House, a strong "reason for not placing so much confidence 66 as he had formerly been disposed to do "in the balloting system." Yes, certainly, a very strong reason, a reason perfectly irre sistible by any thing but a majority of good ministerial votes;" but, let it be remembered that it is a reason, which, in that very Parliament House has been fifty times urged by Mr. Windham and Mr. Elliot since the month of March 1802. What! was it not till" within a few days" that Mr. Pitt bad obtained information respecting the ef fects of the ballot? And was he, neverthe less, several weeks ago "perfectly prepared”, to submit his plan to the Parliament? Why! there was scarcely a man in England, who did not know, that the ballot was almost |