disinterestedness conferred an honour on themselves, and shed a lustre on their country:-to see men of rank, independence, and elevated characters enrolling themselves in the ranks of their country, was, in his opinion, a circumstance which conferred the greatest honour on any age or nation.

Sir W. Wynne said a few words on the danger of giving the volunteers the option of withdrawing their services.

Mr. Pattison said, that in the last war he had a corps of 150 men. On calling them together in April last, when he got permission to raise a second corps of 350 men, he found that 80 of them had entered into the King's service. Since that, several had gone in the same manner, either into his Majesty's service, or as substitutes into the militia, the supplementary militia, or the army of reserve; and though he might have some regret at losing a good soldier, he never thought himself at liberty to interfere to detain them. This was a proof that the volunteer system, instead of impeding, assisted the recruiting service so far as to the men, now how was the fact as to the officers? This touched him more nearly, as it affected his own family. His eldest son, who had been one of his officers, had gone into the East Norfolk militia; his second son, whom he was educat ing with the greatest care, to assist him in his commercial pursuits, had conceived so strong a partiality for a military life, and for the King's service, that he held himself under the necessity of yielding to it. He was one of his ensigns, and had never conceived any notion of a military life, till the corps had been ordered to Yarmouth; and now he had written to him in a most pressing manner to obtain him a commission in the King's service, and he would be much obliged to the hon. Secretary if he would. procure him one,

Colonel Craufurd said, it was true a private may be turned out of his corps for impertinence to his officers; if he was to be turned out by his officer, the case was clear; but if it were to be done by the Committee, it should be recollected, that the majority of that committee would be privates.

Mr. Yorke thought it would be a very difficult matter indeed to define the precise quantum of assistance to be given to the wives and families of such volunteers as were sent on actual service, as that must depend on a variety of circumstances; it must be first ascertained who stood in need of any assistance at all; then, whether those families, who sought assistance, were wholly dependent on the professional exertions or manual labour of those persons sent on actual ser

vice; then the quantum of assistance to be afforded such families, which must vary ad infinitum, according to the number and helpless state of such families, &c. &c.-Such has been the difficulty of ascertaining this point, that even in the constitutional militia, where such provisions were always made, it depended on the time of absence and interruption from business, as it frequently happened, after devoting part of the day to drill, they apply the remainder of the day to business, which would consequently diminish, in proportion, the assistance his family was to receive from government, &c. these various points required the most mature deliberation, as they were extremely intricate, and should not be precipitated through the House.The report was ordered to be received to

morrow.

HOUSE OF LORDS.

Wednesday, December 14.

[MINUTES). Counsel was heard at some length in an appeal cause, Keighley, v. the East-IndiaCompany. The further hearing was ordered for Friday next.-The Earl of Suffolk informed their lordships, that he wished to deliver his sentiments on the bill, which he understood was now before the other House, respecting the services of the volunteer corps. He therefore should take the opportunity, when that bill was introduced, to deliver his sentiments upon it, most probably on Friday. -The Lord Chancellor observed, that it would give him much satisfaction to hear the sentiments of the noble lord ont hat day. -The Irish Habeas Corpus Suspension Bill was read a third time, passed, and a message was ordered to be sent to the Commons, acquainting them therewith. Several other bills were also passed, after which their lordships adjourned until to-morrow.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Wednesday, December 14. [MINUTES.]-A message from the lords informed the house, that their lordships had agreed to the English Bank Restriction Bill, the bills for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act, and authorising trials by martial law in Ireland, the English Promissory Note Bill, the bill for preventing distillation from cats in Ireland, the bill for bonding Portugal wines, the Irish Crop Exportation Bill, the Sugar Drawback Bill, and the Curates' Relief Bill. On the motion of Mr. Hobhouse, the Mutiny Bill was read a second time, and committed for Thursday, the 2d of Feb.On the motion of Mr. Corry, the house went

into a Committee of Supply, in which 21,600l. Irish currency, being the annual sum, was granted for the service of the trustees of the Linen Board in Ireland. The report was ordered to be received to-morrow and the Committee to set again on Friday.-Mr. Vansittart presented an account of, the amount of the sums paid for premiums and bounties under the act of 41 George III. for the better supplying the markets of London and Westminster with fish. Ordered to lie on the table. Lord Henry Petty moved that the Committee, which the petition of the Sierra Leona Company was referred, have leave to sit notwithstanding the adjournment; and also that the said Committee have leave to report their observations. Agreed to.-In answer to Mr. Rose, who wished to know whether there was any report from the naval officers connected with the settlement, Lord Henry Petty stated, that a naval officer, who had been a long time on the station, had been examined before the Committee.

to

[ARMY OF RESERVE.] Mr. Secretary Yorke thought it right, before gentlemen separated for the recess, to put the House in possession of an accurate return of the Army of Reserve, the number raised, the number rejected, those that had deserted, those that died, those that were effective, and those deficient. In making this statement there would be room to admire the exertions the counties had made, though of late those exertions had rather fallen off. The exertion was at first so great, that within six weeks no less a number than 26,740 men were raised. The total number raised on the 21st Nov. the latest day to which the returns were made up, was 26,607 in England and Wales. Of these 642 had been rejected, 70 were dead, 777 had deserted, 25,500 were effective, and a deficiency of 8,000 still remained to be made up by England and Wales. In Scotland the number raised was 5,500. In Ireland it was upwards of 6,000.

Still a

considerable deficiency remained; yet putting it out of the question, whether this was the best mode of raising a defensive force, it must be allowed that it had supplied in a very short time a great number of men. This return, therefore, was thought useful, in order to stimulate the counties to complete their numbers; and he should move, that by the time the House should meet again, another return should be made, by which it would be seen in what proportion the quotas of the different counties were complete or imperfect. He concluded with moving, that there be laid before the House an accunt of the number of men raised for

the royal army of reserve, distinguishing the counties, those who had been rejected, those who died, those who were effective and present, together with the numbers due, including casualties.-Ordered.

[VOLUNTEER EXEMPTION BILL.] - On the order of the day being read, that this bill be read a third time,

Mr. Windham said, he was much grieved, that by not being present in the House the night before, he had lost the opportunity of offering some suggestions, which would, he conceived, materially have improved the bill. He did not expect that theReport would have been brought up before this day, and as it was competent to offer any improvements that occurred, upon the report, he had been less anxious to attend in his place yesterday. It was true, that Reports were, in cases of urgency, immediately received: but this was not a case of urgency; and the present ministers ought to have known more than any other men the propriety of leaving every measure before the House for as long a time as possible. The very bill which they now pressed forward so unnecessarily, arose from that hasty spirit of legislation which left in every act doubts and ambiguities requiring further acts to remove them. The hon.

gentlemen seemed particularly prone to this course of proceeding. They were fond of driving to an inch, of running every thing to the last moment. The consequence was, as it necessarily must be, that being obliged to act in a hurry, whatever they did was crude, ill considered, and full of mistakes. There were two modes, Dr. Johnson had observed, of composition; one in which the several parts received from the writer, before they issued from his mind, all the perfection which he hoped to give to them; the other, in which they were committed to paper in the first instance to be improved by subsequent correction. The hon. gentlemen, by the circumstances in which they placed themselves so constantly, seemed to prefer the latter of these modes. They threw down their first loose thoughts in an act of Parliament, trusting to future consideration and experience to bring them to something of a better shape. An act of Parliament was their foul copy, in which it did not signify how many faults there were, as the Legisla ture would be able afterwards to set them right. Their preference to this mode was founded, he supposed, upon the observation of the poet, that poets

Lost half the praise they should have got, Were it but known, what they discreetly blor. The hon. gentlemen did not choose to loss

this praise. They chose to compose in public; and to have full credit both for their first conceptions, and for the successive improvements which changed them often to something utterly unlike what they had been originally. Though by this course of proceeding of the hon. gentlemen in the present instance, he had lost the opportunity of suggesting his amendment in a stage when it might have been received, he should nevertheless mention it, with a view to occasions, when the yolunteer system might be again under discussion. It was in fact, however, no more than what he had already urged on more occasions than one, viz. the patting a stop to exemptions with respect to those who should enter into volunteer corps in future. To abolish those already subsisting was, he was aware, difficult, and might perhaps be impossible. Certainly it ought not to be attempted, if it could not be put upon a footing to make it consistent with good faith. But the granting such exemptious in future, and continuing by design what had got a place in the system only by chance and against the intention of its authors, was a proceeding for which no rational motive could be assigned, and which he could not hear without great surprize as well as concern, was to make part of the present bill. What he had further to object being of a sort, which could not have been corrected by an amendment or clause was as proper (or more proper), to be urged on that day as on the day before. an objection to the whole system. While the right of exemption produced the effect on the one hand of defrauding the army, the army of reserve and the militia, by contracting the population, from which they were to be supplied, it oppressed the whole country, and particularly the lower orders, to a degree the most grievous, and by means the most intolerable that were ever admitted deliberately, into the institutions of any state. Where did any one ever hear, except as matter of complaint and reprobation, of a power such as that vested in the leaders of volunteer corps, whether one or many, of deciding arbitrarily and without appeal, who should or should not be liable to a ballot, the effects of which would be to the persons on whom it might fall, a fine of 10 or 50 guineas? These were sums which to the bulk of those who might be liable to them, would be nothing less than absolute ruin; at the same time that it might be equally ruin to them to quit their trades and their families and to engage for a service of five years, as soldiers. Such a power lodged in the hands of a commandant where the constitution of the

It was

corps was monarchical, or in a committee or sub-committee, where its form was republican or democratical, would rank hereafter for oppression or abuse, with any of those most famous in history-with the dispensing power or powers of granting indulgences. It was not that this power was applied abusively or oppressively, in many or perhaps in any instances, at present; but it could hardly fail to be so in the end, and in the mean-while must be considered as one wholly out of the course of all ordinary proceedings, and for which it was hardly possible to find a fit depositary. Such a power must however somewhere exist, supposing the privilege of exemption to continue: for it was impossible to imagine, that every one could be allowed to enter into a volunteer corps that pleased: and he or they, who had the power of admission or rejection, must possess the power here spoken of, improper and unsafe as that power might be. The only remedy was, either to abolish exemptions, or to abolish volunteer corps. It seemed hardly possible to correct the evil by regulation. Nor was it to be conceived, that such evil had now become small, because the greater part of the militia and army of reserve were raised, and ballots of consequence to the same extent were no longer wanted. To the same extent they certainly would not be wanted; but it must be considered at the same time, that they would have to operate upon diminished numbers: so that to supply and maintain the present force, that is to say, to make good what was then wanting, and afterwards to maintain the whole (for which latter purpose too, as was obvious, more would be re quired the larger was the force already rais ed), would render these ballots perhaps not much less burthensome than they had been at any preceding period.-So much as to the oppression of this system, armed as it was with a power such as he had described, which the present bill both confirmed and extended, and which it seemed extremely difficult to take away. Its injurious effect on all the other species of force he must still maintain, notwithstanding the specious statements made on the other side. First, as to the fact. Whatever the numbers might be, produced by recruiting during the last seven months, as compared with the produce of an equal number of months during an antecedent period, and however small the propor tional dimininution which appeared to have taken place in the latter instance, be must still insist upon some strong and hard facts, namely, that in many regi ments the return per month was not more

than two, and sometimes not so much and that in one of the largest recruiting districts, comprising many extensive and not unfa vourable counties, the rate of recruiting per month was not more than seven or eight. Now, when this was so, let the gross numbers be what they would, he must contend that recruiting was nearly at a stand, taking the question upon the footing on which it ought to be taken, as a comparison between the supply and consumption, between what was gained to the army in recruits, and what was lost by desertion, death, invaliding, and discharges. But, next, as to the reasoning. Proportion, which the hon. gen tlemen dwelt so much upon, that is to say, the proportionate abatement in the numbers at that time recruited, compared with those recruited in equal periods formerly, was not that on which the question properly turned. Proportion in abstract quantities had place among the smallest as perfectly as among the greatest. If the hon. gentlemen had at mind to be very deeply learned, they might tell us of the proportion of one nothing to another nothing; and such a consideration would be very far from inapplicable to much of their recruiting. But in common concerns they must apply to proportion, what is said of law, de minimis non curat lex. If a regiment, which formerly recruited three a month, now recruited two, you were not obliged to say, that recruiting in that regiment had declined one-third, nor on the other hand could you be entitled to say, that it had declined only one-third. Such variations would happen by chance, and by a law consequently wholly different from that of proportion. No conclusion, therefore, could be drawn from such instances separately considered: and if a judgment were to be formed, as it ought to be, from the whole state of facts taken together, it would be the very reverse of that meant to be established by the hon. gentlemen; who, instead of saying the recruiting during the existence of these causes, (viz. the immense bounties; the great extent of the militia force; the 400,000 men locked up as volunteers, &c. &c.) has been so and so; therefore these causes have not operated to its disadvantage,' ought to say, the recruiting being what it is, notwithstanding the operation of these causes, which must have acted so powerfully against it, what would it not have been, had these been removed, and other new causes, which must be presumed to have arisen, have been left to produce their natural effect? This he must contend was the legitimate conclusion. It was not in the nature of things, that causes VOL. IV.

6

such as he had enumerated, and were obvious to every one's observation, must not have some effect in checking the progress of recruiting. To take only one; could any man in his senses suppose, that with fifty guineas offered for service in the army of reserve, men would go on to enter for the line, at a bounty of five or ten, in the same manner as if no such competition existed? If the recruiting, therefore, kept up to nearly its former amount, as was contended by the hon. gentlemen, there must have been something to counteract the effect of these impediments; and this something it was not difficult to find. It was a state of war; it was the threat of invasion; it was the stimulus of the compulsory service; the discharge of numbers of workmen in consequence of temporary checks to trade; the general military spirit, that filled and animated every part of the country. These circumstances were of force sufficient to up-' hold, to a certain degree, the recruiting service, even in spite of the causes which tended to depress and to annihilate it. How far might they not have carried it, had there been nothing on the other side to counteract their effects?-The objection, therefore, to the volunteer system as contributing with other causes, to destroy the recruiting of the army, continued in full force, even admitting the statements of the hon. gentlemen; and he must continue to urge these objections, even though he should be asked, as he was the other night, why he would persist in decrying a system, which, whether right or wrong, was now fixed and incapable of being altered. His answer was, that it was not fixed, but must, on the contrary, and infallibly would, and that, at no distanţ period, come again under revision; and that it was with a view to that period, that these observations were made; that the defects of this system were such as would never suffer it to go on long as it was; and that, if other causes were wanting, the very failure of its funds must soon bring it again before Parliament. Unless Parliament greased the wheels the machine must soon stand still. He wished, therefore, that before that time, gentlemen would be prepared with their opinions on the several parts of the measure; would consider how far the objections were valid; how far the parts objected to might be corrected or got rid of; and, failing of that, whether the whole system would not require to be new cast, and in a great degree, possibly, to be done away.

Mr. Hiley Addington.-Sir, the right hon. gent who just sat down seems very desirous of having the last word on the subject now * lii