The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser. — London, England, 1805-06-29 00:00:00

;h- h: ft., • et Captains and Statesmen of the e le age,ran he k m in ea h n i t s ee,l•eick the Great, of Prussia, m e s ee i,•e an envi ble thing ; for the pay . of a PTIIC , I2II Calais was 9001. ; and, at the time he eas in that ci „ op cou ntry, s l ! _eapiain in the army WAS not on y e 1 the necessaries, but A S most of l',' lt i .:: ~e . :• r i s r '' 4' . life. The last of the improve ;eel'i,',.achi-eis he had this night to recommend, w as c the service open to the Roman a t" I , hwi l I„1 3 . 1 .1, which he thought might easily CPI..:' r. . h t enfOrcing the genera: claims of the bft.'l,;"l°l•l‘‘m.lt,inof.":atholics. It WAS melancholy to re ,' „c e while these gentlemen filled the other ar ,.,le -" l .' Europe with their beat o ffi cers , and when it '''',',, d tha t the celebrated battle of Torgott, l',hts;Lll,-:iirienCl,l the fate of the war in favour of the E ,.. ves , : Maria Therese, t h at was gaine d by an Au man army under the command of Irish cetera's, these chereSers should be excluded fee a ll the superior ranks in our service, „eel alone could stimulate the ardour of „hie miuds thirsting f o r militar y glory.. These, I ,', sa id, contained the substances of the improve wets he meant at present to propose, the pr opriety d which, together with the truth of a ll h is state ment,, he pledged himself to prove, should the H ow e go into a Committer; and, after reca pi tulat- I of his speech, he concluded wit h mov gg t hi he s has first resolution , to this effeet ,. R —esolved, that it is expedient that the State of the Army he kept up to the establishment proposed by Perlia meat ;" which being seconded; L id CAS fLtItEAGti said, that he should 1* to follow the Hon. Officer through all the en ine went of tis military details, and the more, as his eight li• n. Friend (the Secretary at War) was bet ff ,' talifi.id to do so than he could be supposed to t he - The lion. Officer seemed confident that the HOOK would concur in his motion for a Committee, but he rendered this impossible himself, when he ac.- kneeled:Ted that he meant to call upon Parliament te undo ill that had hitherto been done, and that it iteuhi do nothing effeetual in substitution for it dur ing the present session. He seemed to suppose thr.t the Ministers should be ready to go into a Commit tee as soon as it was called for ; but he seemed to forget that when a Rieht Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Windham) had, eat ly in the session, made a similar retina, and declared himself prepared to offer a substitite for what was befrfre adopted, his pro posal was rejeCted. He should put out of his stew all the first part of the Honourable Officer's speech, which related to the policy or impolicy of the Spanish war, and the effe& it had upon our military sittretion. Every thing cenneeted with that had already been discussed and decided on, and it was sufficient to say, that we were now at war with Spain, and had to combat all the adui tienal force that she mild bring into the scale seenst us. But when he 'went into the genera rehjeet, he must shortly advert to that system which fe country was now looking to, and relying on as the permanent source of military recruitment. As far as may be judged from the temporary experience we had hitherto had of it, we found that it was peo renively improsieg, while the regular recruiting not oats kept pace e ith, but exceeded the progress it was making its the highest year of the last war. -It was, therefore, no small se,isfeetion to think, that, whether or not it had done all that was so sanguinely expelled from it in the full extent, it at least went on without prejudice to the recruiting service. Though the Hon. Officer may dispute sonic of the details of the phut. yet he could not deny that it gave to the gross force of the country from 9 to 10,000 men annually, supposing its future effects to be judged of only from what hail been done tinder the most unfavourable circumstances, and the disadvantage of incoming upon the counties so soon after their former quotas had been furnished. It was a very gloomy and unfair view of it, to state that it fir-nil:red no more than 4000 ; when, in feat it furnished, on the whole, no less than 24.000 to the general iorceinangland, and in the last four months 7000. So that, deducing the casualties, which were great, and the transmits front the Militia, what it contributed to the effeelive force of the country, since its adoption, was no less than from 19 to 20,000 men. The Hon. Officer gave a preference, and he was not singular in doing so, to a service for a term of years, over that of service for life, and he nutted the House that there never was any sabje.2 which hal i,een more serionsly and deliberately canvassed than :his had been. The Military authorities, however, were against it, and he . relieved that in the number of persons disposed for a military life, the description of those who would prefer a rcrm of years, at a smaller bounty, to a term for life, with a greater, was in deed very contraaed. As an instance of this, he mentioned, that, within his own knowledge in Ire land, out of 90'J0 recruits, who at one time present td themselves, there were only 250 who-preferred a term for years, with a smaller bounty. He con tended, that the propriety of the two battalions was evinced in the case of the regiments lately going to India; when, upon the first upplication, the re giments were immediately raised from the 2d batta lion, to one thousand men each. Tne Honour able Gentleman was wrong, if he supposed that the Ministers altogether dismissed from their minds the danger of invesein ; for though the enemy might think proper to detach 'a considerable fence to forei g n pans, it would not be sale in this country to imitate them so far as to leave us much more un covered than we were before, and therefore it WAS thought highly expedient to have these second bat talions at home to throw into the regular army as eon ' as there shoals' be any necvssity for doing so. The Hon. Officer talked of a general deficiency of 49,000 men, and he confessed that he was borne out in doing so upon the face of the papers before them. But when it was considered that nn tome was tettuned, than the numbers of the respetive re giments, without any allowance for the supernume raries, who were not attached ; this error in the re turns would be easily account, d for. He could not, however, see how the Honoureble Officer was at all borne out in asserting that the present Litman. on of the army was not equal to tire wants of the court. _try. So far was that Cr em being the case, that Ire 'was prepared to maintain and prove that this corm ft y now retested a gross disposable force superior to any which it before had, particularly infantry, welch the Hon. Gentleman represented as the most desirable. To these should be added the number ot, 200,000 Volunteers. He admitted that the prejire dices of military men were natural enough against ic4 her 3 7,9 .en• , no her :g Nit Of this kind of force, and no man was mere entitled to the allowance of such prejudices than the Hon. Colonel. But whatever ridicule they may think prover to throw on the Volunteers going upon per maitent ditty, he was confident that it made a deep impression upon the enemy to observe such bodies of men, who at home might remain in the enjoyment of every comfort and luxury,volunterily relinquish them, and placing themselves for weeks together, under mi litary discipline, with an honourable disregard to their nmal occupations Such a force, so constituted, so well disciplined, and actuated by such ardent and pa triotic principles, could not be held cheap by the Hon. Colonel himself, or any of those military , characters to whom he had alluded. Coming to the compara tive estimate, he stated, that in the year 1802, when oar military force was at its pitch, the returns were, of regulars, 274,000; in the present year, they were 299,000 ; in regular disposable force, in 1804, the number was 150,990, it was now 160,000. Of regular infantry, disposable, the number in 1784, was 90,500; at present it was 121,70 U ; mak ing an encrease in that ,material branch, of 31,300 men, in the last year. The foreign troops were nearly the same in both periods. As to the foreign establishments, it was true the Ceyloo Corps were not equal to British troops ; but, notwithstanding the slur attempted to be thrown upon them. we know that the Sepoys in our Indian armies were able and formidable opponents to any troops in the world. But supposing an inferiority on the part of the Cey lonese, could the sam r be said of those German troops who had served in so distinguished a manner under General Stuart in the East Indies ? What he rested most on, however, was the increase in the last year of 31,300 men in disposable infantry, which amounted to nearly one third of its number at any former time. The Hon. Officer would not consent that he should discuss with him the expediency of sending expeditions to the Medi terranean, or any other quarter, as the Hon. Gen tleman must, for the present, remain in total igno rance of the motives or reasons which Government had for doing so. But as to our force abroad, it was to be observed, that in the last returns for 1805. the foreign Artillery Corps were not included, which WAS not the case in the former returns, and the reasons for which he could not at this time ex plain. The force now employed abroad was 69,300 men, and, in the former year, it only amounted to 49,000, of which 20,300 were artillery. The Hon. Officer was also under an error in stating, that when the enemy detached to foreign stations 13,000 men, we sent only 14 or 16,000 to oppose them ; fur the fact was, that we detached for that purpose no less than 20,000. So large a detachment would sufficiently account for any deficiency that might be pointed out, and as to our own home defence, it , WAS not the more neglated, when we considered the quantity of the men who now remained behind. Upon the whole, therefore, taking the state of our military and naval force at home combined, he consi deied the country to be in so much a more proud and formidable situation than before. that the (fairer of invasion certainly was not so great nor so pres-ing as before it might appear tohave been. It may,hosever, be contended, that though we secured ourselves from all imminent danger, either abroad or at home, that should there occur any favourable opening for that purpose on the Continent, we could not avail ourselves of it, for want of a sufficient slls posable force fur that purpose. In answer to that argument, he would say, that were there any op portunity ofemploying a considerable force to strike a blow on anyvulnerebliPoint of the enemy.after effat ing which, the troops were to return again, it may he done to-morrow; but if there, on the other hand, ap peared any effort on the part of the great powers on the Continent, capable of contending with the mili tary power of France, it was evident that, while die enemy was ctherwise occupied, it would he in the power of this country speedily to detach a consider able force, capable of affording the most formidable and effeCtual co-operation. and be at the same time in complete security, proteEted, as it were, by the remaining Regulars, the Militia. and the numerous Volunteer Establishments. After all, he said, he must admit, that though the militat y forts of the country was in a mach higher state than it was be fore, yet it had not hitherto arrived at that pitch which might be most adsiseble. But greet expec tations were to be formed from a plan, which added from 9 to 10,000 men annually to the Regulars ; while the ordinary recruiting was going forward in such a state that, without confining it to the standard of the last year, it may he concluded, that in future it would produce at least 15,000 men annually. With these prospells, he must deprecate any thing like tampering with systems, or inconsistently throwing any thing open from time to time. If the plan had not hitherto succeeded to the utmost, it was no fault in government, which had done its duty ; ior which reason, thinking that there was no charge made out against the present system in the speech of the Hon. Gentleman, nor any ground for going into a committee to undo what had been done, at a time when it was ton late in the session for any other system to be substituted, he should con-lude with moving the previous question (the Order of is day). Mr. FULLER wished to ask Honourable Gen tlemen whet they were afraid of, with 600,000 armed men at their back ? He could not conceive how Gentlemen could talk in such a manner. He had seen the Right lino. Gentleman's corps, the Cinque Pont, and he bore testimony of their spirit and discipline; and assured General Johnston, he would take an opportunity of mentioning it to Par liament ; these were, most of them, laborious men, an 1 went through manoeuvres, for a whole day, as well as any troops, and walked upwards of eigh teen miles home at night. lie would ask then, what men could do more ? Ile was a Colonel of Volunteers himself; he bad been once in the Ca valry, and one thing or other;; he was, to be sure, but a bad orator f but he knew Gentlemen who were teed orators and no soldiers. What was Mo reau himself ? He was once a lawyer. and after watds a great General. Speaking of a great writer, he remembered he had said, " that no man ever in listed in the army as a philosopher." Upon the whole. he considered the matter only a sort of po pular cry against the question ; and if we have not succeeded better their our ancestors, we are not worse. Sir JAMES PULTENEY ohs/teed, that it had la •en said, that this enlistment of men by the parish officers was as cape:meat : he did not conceue it •:~ • was a new one,for he remembered a similar one in the American war, hut never knew any success derived from it. The Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Pitt). who was the framer of the B:11, had said, that it had completely answered all its purposes, and the Noble Lord (Castlereagh) could not conceive hew the I louse could go into a Committee upon it. He was sure no man could say it has had any good cfred. It was said to have created a facility in pass ing men from limited service to general service; but he contended there was no disposition in the people to prefer this limited service to the old mode of recruiting; and, most certainly, the inconveniencies arising from it were excessive. There was another point in which he differed from the Noble Lord in the system of enlisting men. He considered no mode so good for recruiting the army, as the Army of Reserve; but, above all, he agreed with his Honourable Friend in the opinion, that when a soldier was enlisted for life, he was a better and braver soldier in the field, and was more attached to his officers. He then adverted to the mode of re creiting the army in other countries ; and, in con clusion, asked, if the fifth part of the army was to be discharged every five years, how would it be pos sible to keep up a regular arms , ? General NORTON said a few words against the motion. Sir WILLIAM ERSKINE was sorry the House should look on the dark side of the subject. There Was no country in Europe which had not been in a similar situation, and all were obliged to resort to the made lately adopted. The French were obliged to compel their subjects by force in time of war; and, when there was such a competition in this country, when so many hands were employed for the purposes of agriculture and manufadories, was it not reasonable to review in reference to other countries, and convince that we do what we can to keep up the military force. With resped to the Volunteer System, ho declared he could not sup pose there could be any jealousy between the Office; of the Army and those of the Volunteers ; on the contrary, he had ever known them to errert tin a re. sped for that body, and he considered the Volunteer System the sheet-anther of the country. Mr. WINDHAM, after some observations upon enlisting for the army for life, or a term of years, considered the argument to rest upon the danger of the country at the end of two years war, aod he doubted whether the Noble Lord's statement went to counterbalance the fa!ts, and he did not know how far he had deceived himself and others. But there was such a jumble of statements, that he could not catch hold of more than three or four of the main fans. In former times there was but one mode of recruiting, but now there were four or five. There was also an immense establishment of staff, and, among other expedients, that of raising men for rank ; but, above all, a'aotit le months azo, came the great street-anchor, the inttar OFRAIUM of all other modes—the Defence Aft ; and, Irk? a river which swells in the time of flood and is again reduc ed to a narrow stream, the Noble Lord got at last to , s Well, it will do ; there's no harm in it." Then the Noble Lord said it was necessary to go on for sake of trial. Such fallacy was whimsical enough. And after the many experiments it came to this terminating—o No. it has not failed ; nos rensburt. "try it again." !iris put him in mind of an apothecary who i'ad a favourite medicine he used to recommend to his patients for every disease; some got the gripes, others were affefted in various ways, and the whole country felt the effeds of it, without relief; but the Dottor's constant cry was, " pray try it again," as a sort of accelerating, mo tion to what had gone before. Toe trial of this Bill was continued from time to time by the author, and that which was to have done wonders, instead of bring a growing concern, turned out to be a losing concern. The parish officers, like Setjeant Kite, resorted to all wakes, fairs, bull-baits, &c. ; and there were no less than 20,000 recruiters over the country, who were so many bidders against each other. This Bill was brought forward when other measures failed, which were propped up by these temporary expedients. It was, he said, in vain for him to think of making any impression upon the House ; and, he concluded in supporting the proposition of his Noble Friend (Col. Craufurd). Sir JAMES PULTENEY, in explanation, said that he supported the Army of Reserve; conceiving, that if a great number of men could be brought to gether in any sort of military way, many of them would enlist in the Regular Army. The SECRETARY at WAR complained, that the Right Hon. Member (Mr. Windham) had said our Army was such a medley and jumble, that it was impossible to ascertain from the accounts, what our British force really is. He accepted the chal lenge. It appeared, he said, from the papers upon the table, that the actual British disposeable force, exclusi4e of Fencibles, Blacks, Mulattoes, ltc. was, on the lit of January, 1805:-- Cavalry larAistry . 11,200 . 104,800 Total 124,000 From wl:ich, if you decla& tu,ooo serving abroad, there will remain an aCtual disposable British force at home of 104,000 on the Ist of January 1805. It appears from toe same papers that, on the Ist of June 11105, our attual British disposable force is as follows: Cavalry • , Infantry . . . 21,300 . 115,700 Total 137,PU0 From which, if you dedult 18,000 ser ving abroad, there remains a disposeable force of 119,000, ma. ing a difference in favour of the present time, com pared with the Ist of January last, of 3.000. Our disposeable force has consequently improved in six months to that extent. It had been objeCted to the additional Force Bill, that it was only calculated to raise money and not men. It appeared, however, that in the last four months it had produced 3,439. or at the rate of 11,000 in the whole year. So much I,r this stigmatised Bill, which produced at nearly the rate of 1,000 men per month, and that without interfering with the regular recruiting for the army. The comparison drawn between this and foreign countries was unjust. There was no ana logy between them. Foreign countries had no co lonies to defend. England had seventy-four batta bons in foreign countries. Were the measure pro posed so be adopted, we would have to bring home 9,000 men every year, and to send out the same stunsber...4 system difficult and dangerous to carry rw- into execution, considering the circumstances of the war in which ere are engaged ; and even thous that argument did not stand in the way, he thought we should pane heroic we alt red so materiaily the fundamental principles of our army. Col. CRAUFURD made a short, but pert'nent reply, in which he contended that a Cavornitt.e was necessary, if it were only for tie purpose of ascer taining whether he, or the Gentler:len on the oppo site side, who differed from him so much, were right in 'their calculations. In relatosn to the enemy, he said, we had only sent 11,000 additional force for the defence on foreign settlements, while the enemy had sent 14,000 for their annoyance; and while France had required the co-operation of Soain. our force was reduced to 4,000 less than befure. Ile did not mean to speak lightly of f !reign troops, as had been obje*ed to him. He spoke merely of them as they appeared on the face of the re turns; a mixture of Ceylonese Mina:foci. with out a specification of the proportion of etch To speak of some foreign troops as o.s a level with the Ceylonese, if he had any means of discri minating them, was out of the question. lie hal been also represented as having sp , keu with ens., tempt of the Volisnteers. " I ri-rpea the in dividuals, but I think the system the mist riJ co lout that could be devised." He wai not singular. Other officers had felt thrum! disgiht at the idea of a rigular Colonel being placed under the command of a vol steer offi:er. A pastry-took volunteer of ficer (Mr. Birch) had been allude) tn. lle might be a very good man, an/ was, he uaderstood, s'iPe• odor in tin:a:ion to most people in his way of We. It was also probaMe that he did nut m Ice his soups himself, but emirl iyed persons fur the: piirpose. Still, however, he (Col. Crawfor I) would not like to be under the command of a pa.try-couk. (Lea Laugh). The question was now loudly called for, and the gallery was cleared for a divisiun, the motion being negatived without a clorisi.m. Adjourned at ONE O'CLOCK. THE BRITISH PRESS. SATURDAY. Jose 29. Private letters from lia:lansi were yesterd sr ceived in the City, of a late date, wilier gave mac% satidadion to the mercantile world, p.rtienlirly t the merchants connected with that count,. That the Pensionary, Seam act.een pits efFeazd, that the French Commissioners who. tia now, resiled in every Dutch Pori, should be with. drawn; of course the trade with this 6ountry under certain forms and regaleions, be carried on with lass severity.—The packet beats (tinier newral colours) are again permi:ted to sail, as before, and passengers cars. gia to, and come from, Holland, very safely." • We ham received New urk Papers to the Ear May. The Neal r., k .11c. Chronicle. of this gart4 May, contains the following Intelligence s Capt. UGH/ informs, that three ti.ly before he left the Havannah, an American yew' arrivel there, the Captain of which deposed 4efore :he Governor, that fi. • days before. he passed through a French fleet of nineteen sail of the hoe, and some small vessels, off Cape liichola Mule. but see cwuld not learn their destination. TROIA THE SAME PATER OT THE 21ST Slay. Captain Fairchild, arrived yesterday from the liavannah, informs, that the Combined l'rench and Spanish Fleets were off Jamaica, and had sum moned the Island to surrender, allowing twenty four hours to consider the proposition. This was brought by an express from Jigo de Cuba. Ca?t. Bennet, of the sthooner li,tei:ez, from Mar tinique, informs, that it was reported there, salt he sailed. that the French fleet, under AtlaliTAl GAHTHEAVAIZ, consisting of 21 sail of the line had sailed from Brest, for Jamaica ; a frigate had arrived there from Brest, ar.d landed 300 artillay men. t. p f JAMAU:A SAID TO IL TAM' DV THE 7:.EVCit. Captain Harraden, arrived yesterday, in tr.-rive days from the Haeannah, informs, that two or e.rte days previous to his leavintz there, it was repeated, and the report credited by the first mets.hints in the place, that a French fi.,et of eicevn s.lll of the line and eight frigates, had landed troops at the north side of the !slava of Jamaica; that they had taken two or three of the ports (or posts), and were on their march to Kingston. On t' e this instant, Capt. Harraden spoke an English sloop of war, one day out, from Nese Providence, the C om mander of which intarmed him, that .1 imaica had been Liken by the French. [We give to the public the report as we received • it from Captain flArraden, whole vanwity ri.3 owe who knows him will doubt.;—(Salem ) Colonel CR aieruvo's Motion on the State of the Army, was negatived last night without a division. I ..!, S ~! The Report from the Ski Committee upon the Eleventh Naval Report, was yesterday laid befol• the House of Commons. It contains, wish the Ap• pendix, 103 folio pages, including t: e evidence of It. A. Nst.sorr, Esq. Secreary ' Board • Jona Maas M, Esq. Commis ling Office t Sir Acne. Comptroller of the Navy A sc GoLositta, cret.try to the 1k1...vy Boar d ' ,amissioner of the Vtaual. , 1 DalW SN•PI If* is Nose. I t Gto*Ol Gt.seadv. Esq. Esq. the Right 'Joao KM