than 600,000. Where, he would ask, was the necessity for this most obnoxious measure? Were there not volunteers more than he meant to call out by this bill? The people of England would be ded, but they would not be driven, and this was driving them with a vengeance. The expence was not the least of his objections to the bill. The shilling a day would, for the twenty-four days training, amount to 240,000l.. Other expences also would be necessary depots must be constructed, powder and shot purchased, arms provided, officers paid. The etceteras, he was convinced would amount to as much more. This measure professed only to apply to England. What was to be done for Scotland and Ireland? Was the former in such a state of security, that the right honourable secretary did not chuse to meddle with it, and was the latter in that state that he was afraid to meddle with it? He also objected to the bill, because the men who were to be called out under it were not to be under the command of the gentlemen of landed property, their neighbours, and the persons to whom they naturally looked up. As to the popularity of the measure, he could not suppose that a bill which gave government the power to draft and send men to all parts of the kingdom, could have much pretensions in that respect. Did the right honourable secretary expect that it would be easily carried into execution--that there would be no grumbling? The bill, from the perusal he had given it, appeared to him to contain every thing which the honourable gentleman condemned when he sat at a different side of the House from where he was now placed. It contained the reprobated principles of ballot, fine, and substitution. What would be the effect of that clause which went to excuse parishes from the operation of the bill; which turned out a certain number of volunteers; but to encourage such parishes to procure volunteers at any expence? The persons, too, who volunteered, would require excessive pay; seven and six-pence, or perhaps more, every day; and thus the honourable gentleman would sanction that principle which he has so often condemned. With respect to officers, he would defy any man, from reading the bill, to determine whether it was to be the serjeant or the constable. But, perhaps, it was meant to give the command to the serjeant, and to convert the latter into something like a provost-marshal. When this plan of starving out the volunteers had been carried into execu tion, tion, what, he would ask, was to become of the volunteer, officers? Were they to be put into the ranks? Was the captain of a volunteer corps to stand in the ranks between his own groom, perhaps, and his father's chimney sweeper? The right honourable gentleman on former occasions had objected to the principle of fines, and yet he had not blushed1 to introduce them into the present bill. The parishes were to be subject to fines for not raising their quotas, and thus the bill would operate as a measure of finance, which was precisely the objection upon which the opposers of the ge neral defence act most relied. If ministers wanted more force, they knew wliere to have it; it was by encouraging and cultivating the volunteer system, and not by the introduction of such an inefficient, oppressive and unconstitutional plan as that contained in the bill. For his own part his objection to it was so great, that he would not be sorry to see it treated as a bill was once in that House. When a person who then occupied a seat on the bench on which ministers usually sat-he was one of the lords of the admiralty, he believed-brought in a bill of a very uncon-' stitutional nature, relating, as well as he recollected, to some extension of the impress service, Mr. Dunning, who was then a leading member on the opposite side of the House, made an observation to the following effect:-If the bill had been unsupported, he should have contented himself with moving, that it be simply rejected, but cir cumstanced as it was, he felt it his duty to move that it be thrown over the table. Sir William Milner could not think the bill was likely to produce so much expence as had been stated. The volunteer system had cost a great deal of money; and in the town which he had the honour to represent, no less than 18,0001. had been subscribed for the volunteers. Although similar exertions had been made all over the country, yet the volunteers had fallen off very much in numbers. He had attended most of the reviews in the neighbourhood of London; and the London volunteers, in the last review before his Majesty, had entirely disgraced the appearance that was expected, as no more than twelve or fifteen hundred attended, instead of ten thousand who had attended on a former occasion. He did not conceive that the present bill would at all diminish the number of volunteers; if he did, the measure should not have his support. Lord Castlereagh concurred with an hon. gentleman who who had spoken early in the debate (Colonel Bagwell), in his surprise, that on that night, which was generally understood to be fixed for the final discussion of this bill, the right hon. gentleman who had brought it in (Mr. Windham), had not thought proper to explain more fully the nature of his plan. This was more particularly to be lamented, as this project was not only to be made the law of the land, but as it was immediately to be put into execution. When the right honourable gentleman first made his opening speech upon his intended military plans, early in the session, there was such a contrariety of opinion respecting his intentions, that it required all the abilities in criticism of the right honourable gentleman and his colleagues, to make it at all understood. As they had hitherto been able to explain it but very imperfectly, it was not too much to have expected on that night, that the right hon. secretary would have condescended to open his new plan fully and explicitly. Whatever might be his opinion of the bill itself, it was not his intention to oppose the Speaker's leaving the chair, in order that it might be taken into consideration. He felt extremely reluctant in appearing to give any opposition to measures which his Majesty's ministers declared to be, in their judgment, necessary for the security of the country. If he could at all separate the abstract principle of the bill from the consideration of the time in which it was brought forward, he did not see much to condemn in it. He had himself formerly given his support to a bill nearly similar to the present, which was brought forward by a right honourable friend of his (Mr. Yorke) but under circumstances very different from what now exist. He was however ready to allow, that there was one incidental advantage which might be expected to result from the present bill, and that was, that a considerable number of men would, by the operation of it, be kept in that situation, that the more regular part of our army could easily take advantage of in case of an invasion. He allowed that such a principle was good, if confined to certain limits, but for this object the plan of the right honourable secretary was too comprehensive. The number which was. called for in the first instance, 200,000 men, was undoubtedly more than would be wanting to fill up the losses which might be expected in the regulars and the militia ; and as the number was greater than was necessary, so the discipline which was to be given to those men, was much less less than what would be necessary, in order to make them efficient. Twenty-four days were quite too little to give that degree of discipline which would be necessary, if there were any idea of employing them with the regular troops. He was convinced that a much smaller number than what was proposed by the right honourable secretary would, with a much greater degree of discipline, be ren dered more efficient for the purpose of supporting the regular army in case of invasion. The discipline which was to be obtained in 24 days, was so imperfect, that many general officers would hesitate much to employ such men, and would rather go on with their regular battalions, however they might be reduced. If it were true that the exigencies of the country required a considerable addition to our force, he should prefer in many instances the levy-enmasse bill to that which was now proposed. The principle of that bill rested on the undoubted prerogative of the Crown, to call upon the services of all liege subjects in the case of invasion; and the only power that was added by that bill, was the power of organizing and training those men who were subjects to this exercise of prerogative; so that, in the case of invasion, the prerogative might be effectually exerted for the defence of the country. But when that bill was passed, the circumstances of the country were very different from what they are at present. At the beginning of the war, in the year 1803, when that bill was passed, the force of the country amounted to 157,000 men, whereas now its effective force, exclusive of volunteers and of artillery, amounts to 249,000. When it was therefore considered, that at the time the levy-en-masse act passed, there were few volunteers, and that at present, besides the considerable increase of our more regular military force, there is a very considerable number of volunteers who have arrived to a respectable state of discipline, the House might hesitate in adopting a system which was brought forward avowedly in opposition to the volunteer corps, which were at that time considered of so much importance, that the advantages of the training bill were to be given up, if such a number of volunteers could be procured as were now on foot well disciplined. At the time that the former bill was passed, two great measures were laid before the House, the army of reserve act, and the bill for calling out the supplementary militia; and yet, at that time, although the dan gers of the country were much greater than they were at VOL. III. 1805-6. present, Tt present, when it was put to the deliberative judgment of the House, whether they would prefer a compulsory levy, similar to what was now proposed, or whether they would chuse the service of volunteers, the House almost unanimously concurred with those who were then his Majesty's ministers, that if a number of volunteers could be procured, equal to six times the number of the existing militia, the training bill should not be put into execution. Nothing then could be more clear, than that at a time of the greatest danger the volunteer system was decidedly preferred to the system of a general training, similar to that which was the object of the present bill. Not only was the volunteer system preferred, but there was a distinct assurance from his Majesty, through the secretaries of state, which was most distinctly understood by the different districts throughout the kingdom, that the training bill would not be carried into execution in any country or district, that produced a number of volunteers equal to the propor tion laid down of six times the existing militia. As in the comparative statement our security appeared to be much greater now than when those assurances were originally given, it appeared to him that they were a bar in good faith to the present measure. Even if the policy were undoubted, he must make some observations as to the necessity of the measure at the present time. He considered the present mode as less efficient than that which had formerly been proposed by his right honourable friend. If an additional force were wanted, it appeared to him much better that they should be trained according to the provisions of the levy-en-masse act, than according to the system which was to be introduced by the present bill. Those who were to have been trained by the former act were still to be liable to the exercise of the prerogative, and, in case of invasion, that prerogative would attach to them; whereas, by the present system, the men who had been trained for a year would be disbanded at the end of the year, and could not be called upon to repel an invasion. There was another advantage in the former bill: the men were not only to be trained, but oflicered, whereas in the present bill, there appeared no provision or regulation for officering them. The training under the former bill was not to be limited to a certain number of days, but to continue until the persons could obtain a proper certificate of being fit to serve. The great objection, however, which oc curred |