The Sun. — London, England, 1804-06-09 00:00:00

the only Member • who doe% not want a place— 'Deice! Order/ Chair! Chair!) from different Darts of the House. Mr . SPEAKER decided it to be disorderly, to tride e any di•gracehal or personal allusion. 111 r. ELLISijN spoke to order.—'' I appeal to you, Sir, and to the 1 -- i , use, whether I brought a eliarge against an He a y Me m b er o f t h e H ouse, (// ear ! r! Hear!) either for City or Borough, or against his Constituents for not sending Independent Aqk'inberS. I ask, and I hope lam not wr o n g i n s o doing, it I did any thing more than assume to myself it dependence ; and that I did not trouble the House "'ter', and never but from a sense duty ; if I said any thing more on that subjea, or to offend any Gentleman in the f- Ouse, I most humbly beg par k! ;if I have said any thing that tended to convey :t thought that Hon. Members were actuated by any but independent motives, lam liable to be called to order for indecorum, and I am obliged to the House for overlooking an offence which I had no intention to conitnit.—(Chair I Chair from several par sers.) Mr. DENT.•^" I Only wish to call the attention of the House to this—Whether, when a dire& attack is made on Government, and a fad. is stated that a General was sent for, for public political purposes, I have not, as I say I have, a right to remark upon that assert i on. I did understand also, that some thing like an -arplication was made to a Militia Officer, fur a s i milar purpose, which was reftved ; 1 , 25 I b e li eve ever : y Ge nt l eman comes i nto this House for e " intention to speak his mind—l•will there .' , put k mkt, ar relf under your prweCtion while I I declar e tl r whatever :he Hon. iG.entleman may think, I meant la nothing personal to t i rri ; but I contend that I have a right to remark on %%flat is. advanced, otherwise We may be ac cused without being allowed to defend ourselves against the accusation." Mr. DENT then proceed ed to support the Motion fur the second reading of the -Bill 'ofn said i t was a measure wh i ch the de ficiency the late Administration had rendered necessary. It was not the first time this had been declared in that House, and he believed it would not be the last. It had been said by an Hon Gen. tleman, wh o did not speak more bluntly than honestly (Mr. FoLLER), that we wanted an Administration on a broad basis. If we had not an Administra tion on a sufficiently broad basis, it was not the fault of the Right .1-Inn. Gentleman below him, but that was no argument against reading this Bill a se cond time, which he supported, conceiving that if there were any material faults in it, they might be 'removed, and the whole Bill ameliorated in' the Conbmittec. Sir LAWRENCE PARSONS believed there was but one opinion in the House as to the expediency of making provision for an increase to our dispos able Force ; the only differen ce was as to the man )ler in whiCh we should obtain that addition. w ould ould state fai r ly hi s H opinion, w hi c h was, that the measure proposed by the late Administration was preferable to this, and preferable to any other he ha d heard of, as applicable to the object it professed ° accomplish ; but he supported the resent, because v „ Ile was convinced that at this-crisis some teleasule z "'lls 1 be resorted to ; and he trusted this might be improved in the Committee. He hmented . that When mealures were prepoed by the l a te Adminis 4taAtiont-elarnourairat raised against them, and they gave them up. This was not the course he thought proper to he followed at the present moment. Mr. CHAPMAN made 4 aistinetion between our Home and Colonial demands, and rezommended that ...idea to the House. Spoke highly of the system of ~Militia, a Force lie considered as the guard ians of ,out Liberties and Properties; and observed, that he should Rot assent to arty encroachment upon the principles of that system. Lord DE BLAQUIERE considered this measure as necessary to render fruitful a piece of imbecility engendered by others, but he would not vote for it, if he were not convinced there w in agitation t h at would ere othe r measuresbe brought forward by the jßight Han. Gentleman flow at the head of His Ma esty's Councils, to whOse genius, as well as corn manding influence, he looked up for much energy jo behalf of his Country ; but he also.took occasion to of that such talent s and virtue as lie saw op- P°skte to that Right Hon, were not m a d e Gentleman . avadabl e to the service this C of uy at this pe ntr riial. Such ; in event he consid Order b e i ng called, the SPEA ered as a calamity.KEß ther this was not a deviation from submitted whe it ? Lord DE BLAQUIERE said he did not mean to transgress the bounds of order, and he conceived he had not done so ; and repeated his coofalence in the advantages that would result to this Empire if the Ilight Hon. Gentleman to whom he alluded, had a share in the Administration; that he had not, he regarded as a public calamity. • I:°Me. II'iNDIIAM then rose, and proceeded to take tice of the observation s of Sir LAWRENCE PAR. b ) the with whi c h h e did not agree; for it a ppeared t vi , the Ho n . B aronet seemed to think, that, tfatever was pr o p ose d to that House was worthy t . . if b a Second reading, by way of giving it a chance etng inoulded into a good measure in the COM. Inittee. The Hon. Baronet had acquiesced in the ) 'econd reading of thi s Bill, although it was inferior 10 another measure which had been already rejeaed. !I 't his course was . novel ; he preferred the old course; n tl, therefore, instead of sendin g tor e to a C a proposed mea ommitee to give it the chance of becom i"g Pal ata b le by amendments, he would investigate t bef ore i t was read a second time. He then pro t=eeded to examine the arguments in support of this l ill, as well as its provisions, and said, that much t)f the arguments in i ts support arose out of a corn- Patison with other measures whi c h were re j e al e d . And here he de-:ended himself for die part he had itaken upon tire discussion of oth ermeasures ; but t'ae did no t allow that the tickets of any of the torrner measures could he taker) as evidence of the !:merits of the present Plan, unless our situation was : n uc h that we had to choose Got of the two evils, which 1 1 case, to ch ew the defeats of the one would ) .e a conclusive mode of reasonin g in favour of the I)ther--that was not Our case, we were nor driven :c ) _ that alternative. This Bill contained a provision ta,l;ich Was of a compulsory nature, and yet the mpulsiokaawas of no use for thero p e r object of th e B ill, tha t of raising inert, for riot one man was to be r4iscd by the compulsory part of the Bill. The • whole of the Bill, as far els-it went to r rise men, was a system of voluntary service, and as such it was no better than that .which he recommended ; for his was a system of voluntary service. The Army of Reserve itself, of which this was a kind of substitute, was not a system of compulsion in any instance, for no man was compelled to serve under it, as he might commute the service by t h e pa y ment o f a fi ne, i As to the Militia, t appeared that the ballot was so far from ailing compulsorily on thoSe who were drawn, that not one in 99 of them had served in person. We had at ieest 200,000 men in the service who were not serving by compulsion in the Army, but serving for bounty—why then the men were to be had, and the question was, what were the best means of obtaining them ? He agreed that the bounty should be reduced, and that we should have recourse to recruiting ; but then he maintained it should be by the ordinary mode, not that of Parish Officers, which lie condemned : he maintained that the Public Money thus to he employed should be under the care of Officers, Sojeants, Corporals, and those who had some knowledge of the Recruiting business. He objetted to the system of our having a double Force, an Army of unlimited service for life, and an Army of limited service for a term of years—lf they were all upon one footing, that of being unlimited as to service, but limited as to time, it would be much better, because there would then be only one service to go to, and men of military habits would enlist them as readily as they do now ; but while there were two, the unlimited service for life could never be recruited. This system was therefore a bad one. He objeaed to this system, from the ef fed it must have on military feelings ; he desired that military honours, military distinaions, and all military advantages, should be confined to one body, and that to the regular body ; he was averse to any system by which we could possibly have the form of the Soldier without the substance ; where the honour could he separated from the danger. This was the case by our having a hams army, as it were in oppesition to that of an army of unlimited service. By this the fervour of military spirit was damped, when rank, honours, distinctiou and applause, were not confined to that species of military force which had a chance to encounter danger. It was thus we lost the " Chief defence of Nations," so beautifully stated in a celebrated publication. It was thus we should destroy our own strength. He did not approve of the system of two battalions in this Plan, by which it was expeCted that a man ac customeri for a while to m ili tary h a bi ts w i l l e n ter from a limited into an u n li m i te d serv i ce. M en m i g h t acquire militar) habits, an d yet t h ey m i g h t never go from a limited into an unlimited service; they might renew their engagement in that service which was limited, but never enter into that which was unlimite ed. The two• services were not like the two sto machs of cattle who chewed the.cud, who masticated their provender in the false stomach, from whence it passed into another stomach, and thence into the general system of the animal economy, but they would remain in the ruminating false stomach for ever. ! He did not say there were no advantages attending this Plan; what he said was, that if the advantages were weighed against the disadvn tages, the balance would be found to be against this measure. He then took notice of the manner in which the Army was proposed to be recruited under this Bill, and he condemned it with much severity. The only possible advantage to be derived from it, must arise front what was called the aaivity and zeal of the Parish Officers, who were to be quicken ed by the apprehension of a fine ; and on the other hand there was to be a Bounty if they were success ful : this was a curious system of re , eards and punish ! merits : this was placing the Parish Officers in the situation of Recruiting Officers, in Which it was very disadvantageous to them to be placed, for they must either turn Crimps themselves, or apply to Crimps to do the business for them. Parish Offi cers would make very bad crimpsthey would go to real crimps—they could not, under such a Bill as this, do without them ; they were the middle men, and would be as necessary as warehousemen, as intermediate agents between the buyer and the seller of the commodity ; when each of them was ignorant of the other's wants, they must thus be brought together by the person who knew the course of the market better than both together, and who, therefore, for their mutual interest, they employ between them : besides this, he apprehended much rersecution to the inferior classes of society by. this parochial Recruiting—men who were called vagrants, or those resembling them, would be forced to go. The Churchwarden of the Parish was to be an aaive Officer in this case. He had heard of an union between Church and State, but this was an union between the Church and the Army ; it was an improvement upon the (Joanne of the Church Militant. There was also in this system a fruitful source of litigation, in which the Lawyer might " beknave the Divine." Certainly . it was easy to foresee that much litigation must arise by Parishes being sued, either for penalties for not furnishing the number of men, or furnishing such as were improper; and that there would be many such, he saw no chance of avoiding. The Pa. fish Officers would naturally take the most despe rate and worthless man, as they were interest ed in taking the first that would offer ; and they would naturally be such ; that they would be the refuse of the parish—from houses of industry and correaion, and from the work-houses ; and he would submit to the House, whether it was to our interest to have our Army so supplied, and then to hold the Army up as an honourable body. In a word, this was the very worst species of Quota . Bill ; and whatever some Gentlemen may say, or think to the contrary, he had no doubt but the men furnished by the Parish Quota Bill were the cause of the Mutiny in the Navy, which et one time created so much well-founded alarm. He was well informed, that out of a thousand of them, not three hundred did duty on board s hi p . B ut he could not help observing on the most glaring injus tice in the mode in which the fine was to be imposed in case the men were not raised. The bounty wars to be l i m i te d , an d the place wherein the recruiting was to take place was to be limited, and if it be came impossible to raise the merounder this compli. cared difficulty, what was to be th e consequence -? Why, that a fine was to be levied on people for not doing that which they could trot do ; and the Bill statel, i 1 they should trot raise tlle tr i er, or if ;11,7 slion;d he una!ale to raise them, then they are to be fined. He maintained th!t this ,wits gros:, ai palpable injustice upon the face of for it wns fining men for what they Might be unable to do. Ile maintained that if this Bill was carried into effea, at best it would only furnish the Army with a worth less rabble, whereas he wished it to be filled with ;Tien of very different charAtfier;, and he wished better provisions to be nude f,r the Army, and that they should have solid advantages in addition to faint and glory, for their toils in the field. Braving recapitulated his objedions, he concluded with giv ing his decided negative to the Bill. Mr. FULLER explained.—He said, by the com mon law of this Country, persons called night_ walkers (not of the female kind) who had not done a day's work in a given time, and could not give a good account of themselves, might be committed, and such were vagrants : this he mentioned in con. sequence of what the Right Hon. Gentleman who spoke last, had said on the probable abuse of the power of Parish Officers on this Bill. General NORTON expressed (as we understood), his approbation of the Bill. Mr: WARD defended the Bill, which he con. tended was pettedly consonant to the ancient usages of the Country. . The question was then loudly called for, and the Gallery was about to be cleared, when Mr. PITT rose.—He had expetted, he said, that he should have heard those who were most in the habits of delivering their sentiments in that House, and therefore should not have spoken, had not the Debate appeared to be drawing to a close. Before, however, entering into the consideration of the question immediately before the -louse, he wished to take notice of some observations which had been personally direCted towards himself, some flattering him with praise, and others, on the contrary, in a tone of accusation. He had been accused, as if he had forfeited sonie pledge, but had he nut now forward the measure which he recommend brought fo before to the House ?—He then recommended it on the same grounds on which he now brought it for ward--the measure was then distinctly approved, and was preferred to that brought forward by the Right Hun. Gentleman (Mr. ADDINGTON), by se veral Gentlemen who now opposed it. He confess. ed he was ; id some measure, mortified and disap_ pointed, that many of those who had supported this measure, when he before recommended it, and which was now brought forward with no other alteration than they themselves suggested, should now turn round upon him, and in an unqualified manner op pose the whole. He was surprized, that an Ho nourable Gentleman opposite to him (Mr. Fox) had not delivered his sentiments upon the subject ; he did not' mean, at 'the same time, to represent, that that Honourable Gentleman had given any pledge, but it did appear a little singular, that now the measure was brought forward; after receiving the concurrence of that Hon. Gentleman, with the exception of One objectionable part, which was now omitted, that it should not have the support of that Hon. Gentleman, the only difference being the Omission of what respected the ballot. The Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. WINDHAM) had, however, chosen to suppose that ballot had formerly been his (Mr. PITT's) favourite Order of the Day, and that he had now, unaccountably, and, on a sudden, de serted it. The House, would, however, recol led, that he had before objected to the Ballot being brought home to the poorer orders of the Peo. pie, compelling them either to serve or to' pay a heavy fine, and that his proposition was to take off 1 the pressure of individual compulsion. What was now the charge? simply, that having had, in the mean time, the means of ascertaining how little the ballot corolla ' buted to personal service ; he was tempted to try a moderate fine, and a small Bounty; but upon farther investigation, finding that a heavy fine, and a large Bounty, in many Counties, produced only one-thir teenth of the whole number for personal service, and in others only one-sixteenth, he was induced to give up the Ballot altogether, retaining only a fide as an inducement to bodies best able to pay. On this ground he had a right to ask in what particular he had failed in meeting the just expectations of the House ? It had been said that if this measure was all they were to exped, then the .danger of the Country was not so great as he(Mr. PITT) had repre sented it ; he had but proposed it before as a more efficient measure than that proposed by the then Ministers, and better calculated to meet the danger of the Country, and - he had the con. currence then of those who now opposed it, and op posed it without even hinting at any other mea sure instead. But it was not merely this speci fic measure, of which he had given notice ; he had already stated, that an inquiry was on foot as to the propriety of rendering the services of those soldiers limited in point of time, which were unlimited in point of space; the result of that inquiry must, in a great degree, guide him in other measures. Besides he had never, as had been alledged, contended that the amount of our Force was insufficient for our de fence ; he had only expressed an opinion that the allotment of the different parts was not originally wisely distributed; he also said, that all was not done that ought to be done fpr improving the qua lity of our Force. The House would recoiled, at the same time, that he had suggested several prin- ciples .with resped to the i rovement of our Vo lunteer Force, m a ny of w i n n , vere incorporated in (sa , the Volunteer Bill a and the one on which he most '. relied, that of encouraging the Volunteers to go on permanent duty, was acted upon, even before the Bill passed into a Law, to so great an extent, that every one must be satisfied that the Volunteers in general were now in a far different and more improved state of discipline. The House would also recollect the ' statements he made with respett to our Naval De fence, and the propriety of erecting fortifications in various exposed spots ; these objects could make no part of the present Bill, but he begged that the House .would not imagioe, that they were forgotten by His s Majesty's Ministers, and he trusted that the Executive Government was aCtiog upon them al this moment. When be came more ' immediately to the general quesrion of the pro priety of the present Bill, he could not help remark. ing what a sort of cold, verbal approbation had been given to it by some Gentlemen who had not chosen to oppose it, It was not long since they hod heard froro a Right ITon. ( Canelfelar: j yle. WIND .I%;} danger of the Co re t t tenpeted lonic ii the Imo's est tones; they Ito! .heatl, it recommended in the strongest tnanner, ti n t they were not tO toer=ure the situation of. the Country by the Maxims of (F ah. times, but that they ought to raise their minds a d their exertions to a level with !he danger. Ile fe:t at the time the manliness and die part iotism of ibis advice ; but were they now, instead of all this, to hear a discussion about the burthen of the Poor's Rates, and the expellee of a supposed litigation he. tween a Deputy Lieutenant and an Overseer, which would be more than the parish could bear ! must own he did not expeti to hear the tone of the Right Honourable Gentleman stink so low (Hear ! Hetni ). He hoped they would not forget the sacred and necessary duty imposed upon them. He admitted that every burden was an objeaion, but let them argue in a fair way, let them not appeal to inferior interests, or co deavour to get rid of a measure by words. They were told the Bill would convert Parish Officers into Recruiting Serjeants ; and suppose it did, if an ad dition was thereby tn ide to the military feelings c if the Country, he desired to know whether they would not be amply overpaid ? It Was said that this noel. sure was novel iu its nature; on the contrary, he had availed himselt of the to .chinery which had been iu use for fifty years past, for raising a certain descrip tion of military force in the Country, a machinery which had been extended to the Army of Reserve ; and by mean; of which a greater number ()linen had been raised than ever had been before in the same period of time. He did not understand, tinted re, the nature of these imputations—He would ask, first, whether a greater number of . persons could not be got for limited service than for general sr r_ vice ? Secondly, whether a greater number of Recruits were not likely to be got from.hmited ser vice to general service, that; from the plou g h or loom ? And, thirdly, whether they were not likely to be better soldiers than raw recui:s ? Did they not know that a greater number H of men had been raised by local Recruiting, then could hive been recruited by 'the Regular Army in the same space of time? Did any man believe that to,ooo men raised for the Militia and At my of Reserve, since the spring of last year, could have been recruited in that space of time, by any possible means, by the Reguhir Army ? With respeCt to the aecond question, he would recur to the test of experience ; the Militia had furnished little less than 30,003 men to the Re. gular Army. The Army of Reserve was only began upon in August last ; it of eaurse took seine length of time before the men could he raised ; before they could be got to their quarters, or assume military ha. bits ; yet, let it be recotleaed, that out o f 30‘003 men, 13,000 had entered into the Regular Army. —Then if at any future period, at the breaking out of a war, they might be enabled to call out 70,000 men, of the description which lie now wish ed to raise, would they not have a better Regular Army procured than had ever been known in this Country ? And need he detain the House by proving the superiority of such men over rae Recruits ? His Right Hon. Friend (Mr. WINDHAM), had de scanted in praise of Regular Troops, but the ques tion was, how far the regular means of Reeruitiez would go? He believed die Right lion. Gent. would find it difficult to send Recruiting Parties into every Parish in the Kingdom ; and was it not better, that the Parish Officers should carry the King's Bounty to each man at his door ? The Plan, besides, gave persons of Landed Property a dired interest in pro curing Recruits ; and were not the Parish. Officers likely to get more men than general Recruiting Parties ? They had keen told, that the Bill gave a power to Parish Officers to kidnap.and entrap men ; but did they forget that there were Laws, aed Ma gistrates to execute them ? and, as to force, there was not one word in the Att about it. Another ob_ jeaion was, that these poor persons who refused to become Recruits, would feel the effes'ls of anger of Churchwardens and Overseers when they came to solicit relief ; but what description of persons were. those who in general applied to Parishes for relief ? the lame, the infirm, and those with large families. Was it likely that the Churchwardens and Overseers would look for Recruits amongst the lame or the blind, or think of taking a man who was the father of ten children, all of whom must necessarily in consequence become a burden upon the Parish ? and even supposing a Perish Officer was inclined to op. press a poor person in this respecl, were there not Magistrates to appeal to, who would see justice done ? Another objection was, that the charac ter of the Soldier would be depreciated in the general estimation, by die assumption of it by those who were dissociated front danger; but if those who were,associated together for rile Defence of the Country, were to be degraded in point of military spirit,because they had not an opportunity of fighting the battles of the Country abroad, then was our dan. ger greater than ever, for where were we to look tor defence when those who started forward in! our be half were to be considered in a state of ? The regulation with respeft to Officers, would ensure the Army proposed to be raised under this Bill ex. perienced Officers, and with them the Troops might be rendered as near Regulars as .possible, in point of discipline, and a large portion of the Regular Army thus rendered disposable. It was, he said, to be observed, that at the present moe ment a new Military System was required, adapted to the disastrous state of Europe, and therefore some departure from established principle could not but take place. To meet this exigency the present Phu was calculated ; and he fruited would he esteemed, in the judgment of the House, sufficient. One of the principal objects of the Plan was to provide every year for an accession of i7.,00n men to the Regular Army, the vacancies occasioned by which would lie filled up in the way pointed out by the Bill, without at all interfering with the usual mode of Recruiting. Under such a provision, was it possible that any one could assert that the prospect of keeping the Balta_ lions of the Regular Army full, wai not infinitely greater than that arising from any posfible ope. ration of the present mode of Recruiting ? At pre sent, the Regular Forces of the Country, 'io_ eluding the different brancheS in England, Ire land, and the Colonies, was 140,000 men ; and the addition of effective Force, the operation of this measure would at least produce, was 1.1.00n00 more, This augmentation and permanent source of