The Sun. — London, England, 1804-06-19 00:00:00

it duty to urge, The Country :Ong in a state of War, that there Je:T;!,crf, in the Howe who were not t-(:olleit all the trouble and difficulty he Country experienced to the Militia ; but those who n - u,;h 'o remember that, would hesitate be , re they would lay, as a permanent additional duty upon Parish Officers, a task so much more burden some than the old Militia was. He remembered that when, in time of Peace, two.thirds only of the Militia were to be called out for the pur poses of training, the Magistrates did not raise the other third, on account of the great difficultyin getting the men, although the ballot was then in force. He did not conceive that it was possible entirely to get rid of the ballot, and had a much higher opinion of the men now raised under it than many Gentle.. men seemed to entertain. He thought the Militia Regiments were fit for any service, and had a good deal of experience in every thing, except absolutely opposing an Enemy, but that was a disadvantage common to it with many Regiments of the Line ; for example, a Regiment might be several years in Gib. raltar, without learning, from any atlual experience, how ., to combat an Enemy in the field. He consi. dered the Force now to be raised, as an expensive substitute for the Militia, but without its consti tutional. advantages ; he approved of the Militia, and did not wish to see it destroyed; he, therefore, opposed the Bill. Mr. SOMERS COCKS said, that the grounds upon which he disapproved of the aCts of the late Admi nistration were, that he did not think there was energy and exertion in their measures suitable to the condition of the Country. When the present Bill was brought forward, under the auspices of the Right Hon. Gentleman, for whose great talents he felt so high a respeti, and to whom he was attached by old habits, he felt much inclined to support the measure, as coming from such authority. He there. fore had supported the Bill in its former stages, not baying sufficient time for attentive consideration ; but now he had thoroughly examined the Bill, he could by no means think it such a measure as the ex igency ofthe Country called for, nor as he expe6ted from- the great talents of the Right Honourable Gentleman ; he felt himself under the necessity of opposing it. As to the large number of men who he heard were to he raised by the operation of this Bill, he doubted very much that it would ever pro duce the efFea that was promised from it ; and as to the ground is hick had been so much relied upon, that this measure would destroy competition in the Reetuiting Service, he could not see how this was to be done. Every: Parish was first to raise its grata if it could, within its own limits ; but if they could not, they might offer their Bounties to persons out of their parish, which is what they cet. tainly would do to save their fines : instead of an individual competition, there would be a compe. tion of Parish against Parish, which would produce the same effea in the bounties on the general Recruit., ing Service. He did not consider that it was upon the Parish Officers that the burden would principally fall; the Farmer and the Gentleman would be call ed on for their subscriptions to raise the number in which the Parish were deficient. The grand argument then of competition being hereby prevent ed, was entirely done away. The next point that was spoken of as an important advantage was, the abolishing the ballot : he had heard much upon this subjea, and had himself witnessed many of the evils resulting from it, which no man deprecated more than himself ; but it was by no means suffieie..t to point out that the ballot is in some instances oppres. sive, it is necessary to shew that a sufficient force could be raised to provide for the security of the Cruntry ,without a ballot : he had often considered that sohjea, and never could find any remedy for the evils complained of. As to the present Bill, although it professed to do away the bal lot, yet it recognized the necessity of compul sion in another shape. The fines which were to be imposed on the Parishes that did not furnish their quota, were also a species of compulsion, which, he thought, was worse than the ballot. In the ballot there was something more of equality ; it was an equal chance whether the ballot would fall on A, or B ; but under the system that this Bill introduces, the burden must fall exclusive ly on the Parishes by a rate, which he con ceived must operate as a double Land Tax. This, in filet, appeared to him a Bill not intended for the put. pose of raising men but money, and doing that in a most indirea way, by professing a thing very diffe rent from the real objet}. There was another ob. jeCtion he felt very strongly to this measure, namely, ' that by entirely taking away the Ballot, there is to be taken away, at the same time, those exemptions which certainly have produced a very powerful effea in placing the Country in its present state of secu_ rity and defence. He knew that a very great pro.. portion of the Volunteers were actuated by motives of the purest patriotism, and were induced to offer their 'services from no other motive but the Defence of the Country ; but there were certainly a great many on whom the exemptions granted to Volun. seers produced a concurrent influence. To speak the truth, this principle certainly did operate very extensively on a considerable number of the Volum. leers; and if the Ballot was at once taken away, , and all those exemptions which were now given as a privilege to Volunteers, made common to every body, it would he extremely probable that this would materially diminish the number of Volunteers, who would then have no personal motive left to in duce them to continue. Thinking then that this Bill might, in its operation, very much weaken the present Defensive FOrce of the Country, without holding out any prespea of material service, he felt himself under the necessity of expressing his disap probvion to the principle of it, and should vote • agair6: it. Mr. Serjeant BEST considered the Bill as likely to produce, in its consequences, the greatest mis chiefs, and on the other hand lie did not see any good that could be expected from it. The Hon. Gen. t i sms o sel,a Lad just sat down had, in his opinion, completely answered those arguments upon which the Biel had hitherto been supported; and left him but littie nz w to urge. He begged, however, that the House would cots der that it was for the defence of our liberties :!:at .everal Plans had been presented to them, and it ' wc. , Id, perhaps, be too much, in the first instance, to ask them to sacrifice the Constitu. tion. The Bill, in the shape which it now appeared, after the different Amendments and Clauses which the Right Hon. Gentleman had introduced, was so very different from what it was when first pre sented, that if he had not heard the Right Hon. Gentleman say, that he originally intended the Bill should run as it does at present, he could not at all have believed it. It appeared now that this great permanent Force of 74,000 men was not to he kept up in permanent service during Peace, but that there was to be a power in the Crown to call them out when it should judge proper : without meaning to state that the Right Hon. Gentleman, or any Mi nister, would make an improper use of this power, yet he thought it would be highly dangerous to the Constitution that such a power, even though in a dormant state, should exist in a time of peace con sidering this measure then as a permanent measure, he must call it most unconstitutional, and directly contrary to the Bill of Rights, and all those prin ciples which our ancestors.so highly valued. A great deal had been said about the 'check which the Mutiny Bill imposed upon this and every other description of force : the fad was, that the pass ; ing or not passing of the Annual Mutiny Bill, L I would not destroy this force when it was once I established: even the Militia System stood so far independent of the Mutiny Aa as this, that it would require the concurrence of the Three Branches of the Legislature to destroy it, whereas any of them could put an end to the Mutiny Ad, by refusing their assent. He felt another very strong objeslion to it, as it professed to diminish and reduce the Mi litia, which was the ancient and most constitutional Defence of the Country. This was a pelicy, indeed, very different from that which had been pursued by the late Administration : in the year i Boz, when they increased the Militia, the Preamble of the Bill mentioned, that as the circumstances of the times required a considerable increase of the Regular. Ar my, it was, therefore, expedient to increase the Mi litia also, which was intended by the Constitution as a balance and counterpoise to the Standing Army ; it was in the true spirit of the Coostitutio; th.ll t ins Preamble was written. The Militia were tniy intended to be a Constitution.:) balance e ing Army, but this balance at d c u ere now entirely to be d ;ne away. A. ing them with regular experienced Offi; ; was hopeless. It was even found impracre cure a sufficient nurniier of them f r Any of Reserve. We were then ileel) to ;lig , . ad ditional force, neither offi..ereil 0y h ers,,,,:, whir !ma seen service, as the Officers of n r vet pos sessed of ary landed proper , v a qtel'efication, such as the Officers of the Nlt cons.ider ed that it would he a , eeen which would have all the disadvantages of ,s , „ stems, without the advantages of either. Toe Offic e rs, without having the experience of these of tee Line, would be equally, or proliabll. us ,re absolutely dept.ne dent on the Crown they ;Atli be possessed neither of landed property, as the Officers of the Militia, nor of their connexions with ti e CLuntry, nor any of those ties which w.,uld he likely to make them independent. It mu.' he supposed, they will be absolutely under the influence of the Crown, and in this respeel he thought the new system now pro. prr.ed, was much worse than the old Constitutional System i , f the Militia, which it went to supersede. The Army of Reserve, which was raised on the spur of the occasion, an=t did not pr-tess to be intended as a permanent mciistiv., produced precisely the same good effects which the Supporters of the Bill expeded nom it. lie thought, however, that the .t, under which the Army of Reserve was raised, was a principle much mere efficacious than the System under which the Men were now to be raised, as the Mall upon whom the Ballot had fallen, had a very stro n g stimulus to find out a Substitute in his place, and consequently the Country had the benefit of his exertions for that purpose. Sir ROBERT PEEL thought, that the mea sure was likely to produce great good, and could not possibly do any harm. He thought to Mini. sters, so new in Office, some degree of tenderness was due ; (a loud cry of "hear ! hear!" from the Opposition Benches); when it was recollected who the Right Hon. Gentleman was, who presided over .His Majesty's Councils, the greatness of his . t a . lents, and the extent of his political knowledge, he thought some credit was due to the Plan he had brought forward, and Gentlemen ought not to be too hasty to condemn it, without, at least, the most serious consideration : he thought, too, that Gentlemen were somewhat inconsistent. When the Right Hon. Gentleman first proposed this Plan, he was not in Administration, and it was praised ; but after he became a Minister, the same Plan, even after every thing objectionable had been re moved from it, was violently condemned. He ap. proved of it for the very reason, that the Hon. Gen tleman who spoke before him disapproved of it, namely, that the new Force was not altogether a Standing Army, nor yet a Militia, but held a mid dle course between both. Lord TEMPLE recollected the plan being first proposed - by the Right Hon. Gentleman, before he was a' Minister, but he did not recollea that it had been praised by any body ; he rose with reluc tance to oppose any measure brought for ;yard by that Right Hon: Gentleman, whose talents he so highly respcEed; but he could not help observing, that he appeared to have brought forward this Plan without any counsel or co-operation from those Right Flon. Gentlemen who sat near him. The Noble Lord who sat next to him (Lord CASTLERRAGII), and the Right Honourable and Learned Gentleman (the ATTORNEY GENERAL) who sat near him, could not have given him any advice on the subjeCt ; for it must be in the recollection of this House, that both of them had lately, when supporting a former Ad ministration, contended most strenuously that the measure of our Defence was full, and that we had nothing more to do : it was also in the recolleetion of the House, that the Right Hon. Gent. (Mr. PITT) himself was then most earnest to rescue the Country from the Counsels of those men with whom, it seems, he is now content to govern. In comparing a former Administration with the present, it was probable that the Right Han. and Learned Gentleman would be inclined to prefer the prese nt ; he had, perhaps, adopted a more consoling species of morality, that is, " Whatever is, is right." He could, however, hardly - conceive how that Right Hon. and Learned Gentleman could now support a doarine so con. trary to what he had some time ago strenuously gipported. He dispproved highly of a large Stand ing Army, kept up on the principles which the present system proposed. He thought the Mili. tia, which was Officered by Gentlemen of landed property, and independent of the Crown, was a much more Constitutional Force for the Defence of the Country. He preferred the system of ballot to that of an additional Land.Tax,as he conceived this would turn out to be ; and so far from supposing that competition would be at all done away by this measure, he thought there would he a double com. petition created, not only of Parish against Parish, but also of the Parishes against the Officers recruit. ing for General Service. In every point of view that he considered the Bill, it appeared to him so objectionable that he felt it his duty to oppose it. The Question was now called for, when Mr. CANNING rose.—Perceiving, he said, that 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 had not yet spoken re speCting the present measure, he wished to deliver his sentiments upon the subjed. If he had been willing to use any argument of deprecation,. it would have been that this measure had never been fairly considered with resped to the objects which it had in view, but had been referred to some imaginary standard of excellence which no Gentleman had de scribed, but respecting which so many various opi. nions had been given, that the opponents of the Bill differed more amongst themselves than with its supporters. It had been said that his Right Honourable Friend had brought forward a mea sure unss orthy of his great' name and charaeter, 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. Gentleman had expressed his opinion that all our present military establishments ought to he done away, with a view to have a clear stage, and to creel something upon the ruins of what they had overturned : others were of opinion that the Regular Force ought not to be increased. He ad mitted that these two classes must necessarily divide together against the Bill, bu: he should wonder much if they did nut quarrel in the Lobby. His Right Hon. Friend, when he came into office, found that the ballot had done as much as it could ; he found die 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 aptly applied to the Recruiting for the Regular Army ; this became the objea of his Right Hon. Friend, and these his means. If his Right Hon. Friend had only , made the greater force appli cable 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, :hat if Gentlemen had conceived a great, and per haps imprafticable 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, ap pearedto every advantage. He admitted, at the same time, that those who voted for the former, upon first hearing it, were not . hound to vote for the subaequent alteration. The ballot was done away, and now, for the first time, poor deceased Ballot had found its panegyrists; with tespeti to a competition against the Recruiting for the Regular Army, what remedy was proposed on the other side ? Only one, by the Right Hon. Gentlenarn (Mr. W NpH Am), 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. Gentleman ( Mr.W soax mo); his Right Hun. 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 exattly to the Plan of the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. WtstostAsa), who wished for such a fund to be placed at the disposal of Government, and for the Recruiting to • be carried on by Officers ap pointed by the Crown, which would then be the case, wick a bounty to be given both fur li mited and unlimited service. The next point, re lating to 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, ex tolled the exploded system of Crimps, and recur_ red 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 enlist them first for limited service, with a view of afterwards inducing them to enter for general service. He could nor, however, see any distinction in this respect between limited time and limited space. If a man was enlisted for service in Great Britain and Ire land, Guernsey and Jersey, and was afterwards induced to enter into the Regular Service for un limited space, where. was the distinction between him and one enlisted for a limited time, but for un. limited space ; and who, perhaps, in the West In dies, might be persuaded to extend that period of service to an unlimited extent ? He did not say that both modes might not be wrung, 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 . Th e 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 burde n f rom w hi c h t h e P ar i s h es were relieved. When he saw, in many instances, an accumulated fine of Sol: incurred to Government from some Parishes, he c o uld not conceive that to substitute 201. fa' chat 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 enn7 ceived be adverse to the abolition of chat system . The most extraordinary argument, however , which he had heard stared against die measure was, that by at r i e ni eldiyetvhwi;,notg,o would e d, }:a a r i g s h r e o s s froms injusticethe b u t r o d e t n h e o f the ballot, they Volunteers, s r : by doing away the ballot they would t' ke from the V lunteers the principal motive for their a ti t n io u n e patriotic services, which necessarily supposed that the principal inducemeent for the Volunteers CO COne together and experienced t he y might t theirwitness i That such an argument was ef no avail, was e video from the consideration that the •vonpt ions were nnt attached to the Volunteers until long after the volune tary -spirit of the Country had risen to its uttn° 9 ! height ; .that those exemptions were never intended to be given, nor were they ever expeded, or looked last given by mistake, and ( n an ot w , forrfupaemosor such were number ti a r l laoerfyv Volunteers.kthey dgu complete o gthe vex nd it would be a most ex say, that tl,e taking away would tend to lessen the to the burdens Volunteers, The next objet} i"n µ'as HC should nT ea ge e ggy f ac a as q slei tt e e o s c i fo i question imagined, l events , i ndy a te t c.: t he re burden; avei,beu.rpti upon the Country. lrre.:..:tifof sent circumstances of Europe, the question %va s mem, and a greater Military Force under Iw o; • whether they would bear the burden, but render it least onerous ? He would ask his It"l 4c e u e ll' • Friend (Mr. WIND/4AM) how he would prov it ' c the increase of our Military E,tablishment, ,in formity with that Right Hoo.Gentiemai,'s -pini °lls4 so often declared ? •He would, no doubt, vote f-" creasing the Regular Standing Army ; it so, he refer him - to the Learned Serjeant (I.3EsT) O n di e . Opposision Side of the House, who had quo bted u l a l c a k t i - o let t e l i r br a a u r t y hor of it w and o to . r p o r u o g v h e t s fo t r h w a . t it!d a cis such ar measureg was highly Unconstitutional.; but perfuip s they might settle the point in the lobby; and agre e to-morrow. Did he mean that a large Standing . Army de should b e k e p t u p during PeeiCe'? If he - diso an d it there wa s an en d o f i t , w hilst in th e former case It would be highly unconstitutional. It was eviden t something must be done • to provil-! a P erm anent Force against a period of Peace, and the p resen. measure, he cont en d e d, was .praCtically the best ca; enlaced for that purpose.' . He should now advert t: another subjed. highly .interesting at the 'pre sc r ie moment, but upon which he . should not detoln le I- House long. He saw no ohjedion to afstrugg' , thc Parliament to discover whether the Servants ° 2 , Crown were entitled to its confidence ; be t e rn, very extraordinary that a number . Of G7.-P".. wa s should unite against a G.)verninent whic h idly scarcely yet in existence. He fairly and .ca r t e a.. avowed that be gave the Right Honourabi-stt. tleman ( Mr. ADDINGTON . ) credit for Il lc ma tic opposition which he had commenced had His Majesty's Government the motnent left His Majesty's Councils ;he was 'glad by an inefficient Administration atoned ft)f, ar f a vigorous Opposition—(A loud laugh, `` ne Hear!") Here he wished , to take notice of an 0., pression made use of by a Wile Lord ( fEM as if his Right Hon. Friend (Mr. PITT) 1,a3. bee_nd mere accession to the former Ministry , with change having taken place. He should contente load I self with vindicating his own consisiency: objeded to the Administration of Foreign At the and that had been changed ; he had o:ajected t° e a Naval Administration, and that had b e en citi ed n g 0 (a loud csy of " Hear ! Hear!") he had ohj e ono the Civil Department of the MiliaarvAdminis.traf tho and that had been changed; he had also objrete d w h i ai general superintendance of the whole, and that,. hc . Ch a o, been changed. In objeling to the inefficien c Yo „ 1 1 10 late Ministers, he had been joined by a lmost 3 " L od who were now in Opposition. The N'' b i ic i n • the had said, that the Public were disappoin te on ong sc formation of the present Administration ; n voi9 that Public, he candidly confessed that • 00 ri 'Cted more disappointed than himself. He onlY e ,, ) td, • equal candour on the other side ; and t e that when they talked of exclusion, and °P r " rut to tion, they would objed to the principle ar.'ct"ew isef nein the application. He wished it had been Jed but as it was, he would do his duty. He re Ytinci by again expressing a n earnest wish that its not plc of exclusion might be objected to, an ; ... application. • Mr. SomxiS Cool :3 explained. he little Mr. BR AGGE B ATIIURST said; frorn th thoght that any thing could have fal_let l e in d u ced Right Hon. Gentleman which could .hy. CO One him ‘to rise, but found himself conW ebe — NGT oN) r AnDr i dicate his Right Hon. Friend (' H u nottrit° against the remarks of the Riga the Dlen(4 o G r en t t h le e m c a h n a . ra6 l- t l e e r d o i f d hinsotgigtlillitukHotnll.ltFrieiria e w d o : 0 1 : y 4 be- affected b any thing that could .be urg Honour" o ttl ask why the charader of his Right tha t 0 the Right Hun. Gentleman, otherwise he w ' Friend's condud should be considered to b e r.et loti a decided system of opposition. If the Pre forward been an entirely new measure, • brought be eo for the first time, such a charge must h , av` view considered in a totally different Voint oc irwa rti but when this measure ha d been brought. ttwas•cu professedly with a comp arative view t o what 00' e have been effeeted by the former measur i n i o v duced by his Right Hon. Friend, wha t an .QP/400, must the House h a ve entertained of his Rig Friend, if he had at o nce turned his back _._tiP'7 .4 by o w n measure, and upon the majori t y of the Now , sh , tedth e serving, that the present measure adop _ ll to o whom it had - been supported. •He concluded bivverf principle, the abolition of the ballot, wot‘: rk" ten' i • the c been brought forward by Lord HENRY PETTY, in noticing .some that _ANNING, ott9Cfr e the arguments urged by Mr. C • that , his Right,Hon. that Right Hon. Gentleman had stated, ginary excellence to which they wished coder._ctsherc thou , roc , the contrary, opponents of the Bill had set up a stanclar uj -- the present Bill. He, on h ti ls means by w ly, the end proposed, and the me mom' conceived was to be attained. The present. OP; rtly Par ° was another standard, of a much better naturhe,c°. conceived to be of a mixed nature, pa