The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-24 00:00:00

NATIONAL DEFENCES.

TO THE EDITOR. 01' THE DAILY NEWS.
Sts,—The admirable articles in the Daily Neste
on the importance of keeping our naval have nearer
home, lead mo to hope that a firm and determined
stand will be made by an influential party in the
House of Commons against all increase of our naval
or military establishments, until they have com-
pelled those in power to use the sums now voted for
the purpose in such a manner as will give the nation
the very best means uf• defence the amount voted can
provide; and by far the most important point indent
you dwell so strongly on, of keeping our force at
home instead of scattering it over the world. I
have before pointed out the danger we ran in
1810, and how important it is to keep our naval
force "in hand near home." I also lei to call your
attention to another point—viz., having a better
"reserved force" of trained seamen, a point of the
next importance to having our fleet near bottle; and
as it need not cost the country one farthing, it ought
to be insisted on. I urged it strongly, through
the columns of the Nand and Military
nearly ten years mince. lied it been adopted
then, we might already have had a fine body
of trained men, in addition to the coast guard, to fall
back on. If our best seamen were selected err tho
situations referred to in my letter, it would go far
towards making the service popular, and there can
be no reason why every vacancy in the rimy should
not be as eagerly sought after as artificers
in the dockyard, and dismissal be considered suffi-
dent punishment, when all corporeal punishment
could be abolished, which 1 trust we 50011 shall see
(except for theft). The number of nit untions under the
crown that seamen could well fill, are very great—.
messengers and storemen in dock and victualling
yards, crews of powder hogs, lighters, and custom-
house boats, &c., now tilled by tinkers of every
description, through the nomination of the
"fir. Edwardses" of government boroughs, more
especially Devonport and Greenwich, and in
this all governments have been alike. In
advocating this question years since, I men.
tinned a case coming under my own notice
of a vacancy as coxswain of a gun-wharf
lighter, for which several good men-of-war seamen
were candidates, being filled by *hoemaker, who, it
was proved, could not steer a boat, and being put
out of it, sonic tinker or other, who knew that
much, was put into it. These men are all better paid
than seamen and petty officers, who would gladly
take such situations, or their naval pay with an al-
lowance fur provisions. And while the expense to the
country would not exceed what it is at present, a fine
body of our picked men would be ready at a mo-
ment's notice to man our advanced ships, if war un-
fortunately threatened to break out. 'the only
reason against it is, that the different Mr. Edwarilsea
would lose a certain amount of rewards, or rather
bribes, for voters in the government boroughs.
Nothing could have been worse policy thus the
manner in which we have been running a ram with
France in keeping a large fleet in the Mediter-
ranean. Twenty-five years since we had one line-
of-battle ship there, three at Lisbon, and eight or
ten guard ships, half-manned, in reserve at
home. France had a very small force afloat, so
that she could not train any large number of
seamen, and she had few seamen elsewhen: to fall
back on ; while we could, by having a reserve
such as I have mentioned, have tilled up the
crews of our ten guard ships with picked men, and
the expenses of the last 20 years would have been
much leas; by running a race with France we
actually taught her men to compete with us, we
enabled them to train wi many, that they have now
at least six or eight thousand men in reserve that
have served from three to six years, and though
poor seamen, are trained gunners. In fact
we have played the very game that suited them,
while we threw away our chief superiority, which
was, that however small our force afloat, while
France had one as small and no reserve, we had a
vast advantage; but when we added ten thousand
men to our force and France did the same, she re-
placed these in six years, and so in twelve
years trained twenty thousand men, while our
men continued to serve. These views arc not merely
hasty speculations, but have been the subject of my
constant thoughts and study for the last fifteen
years; and, as I said before, wire published long
since. If the government would at once issue
an order that no vacancy, such as I have
referred to, should be filled by any but
petty officers or seamen (or mariners) of tell
years service and good character, without costing
the country a farthing, we should gradually be
getting a splendid body of men in reserve, and
whenever men enough to man two line-of-battle
ships were thus available, we might reduce our active
force one line-of-battle ship, and thus gradually
bring back our naval estimates to what they were a
few years since; but with no reserve, and the effects
'of the system of the last ten years to strive against,
we could not possibly do with fewer men than we
have at °resent.

I write this merely that it may be of use in fol-
lowing up the line of argument you have adopted,
which lam convinced is the right, and only ono
that ea* lead to any real benefit to the country ; and
I have often deeply regretted that we had no naval
man in the " house" who was independent enough,
or who had paid sufficient attention to the subject, to
bring these questions before the public. But tho
principle of having the must for our money, requires
most seriously to be applied to the military esti-
mates. We are not, I think, sufficiently prepared
against the chance of invasion. The Guards system,
by which a body of men that share none of the hard
work a ith the really useful and poorly paid
line regiments, must give way to a steady
opposition; unfortunately hitherto, even the
large body of liberal members have never backed
the few who, on the army estimates, (lid their duty
by objecting to these abuses. If the whole body of
financial reformers were to attend and support an
opposition to the estimates on these heads, instead of
a few members merely proposing to reduce tha
number of men 5,000 or 10,000 (which, if adopted,
would all fall on the hardly worked regiments of the
line), they must eventually carry their point. Once
prove to the country that for the money now paid
for 3,000 Guards they could have 4,000 equally good
soldiers; or 3,000 soldiers, and from the savings
could organise 8,000 or 10,000 militia (which is not
too much to expect), how could a government
stand that defended these abuses? Again, we want
a good defensive force, and the more particularly as
far as cavalry is concerned, who can suppose that
wo should ever again be mad enought to tight other
peoples' battles on the continent ; our foreign, i. e. In-
dian and colonial service (with the exception of
about four dragoon regiments) requires nothing
but infantry and a few artillery. In de-
fensive warfare on our own shores, we would not
have a large cavalry force to oppose.; we might, there-
fore, I am convinced, reduce one-third of our cavalry,
say 2,000 or 2,500 men, which amount would give
us 4,000 additional infantry (trebly valuable in a de-
fensive battle or coast defence), or 20,000 to 30,000
well-trained militia; but supposing there is no
chance of obtaining this, at least the country has a
right to insist that the officers for 600 men, and the
same throughout the cavalry, should not be con-
stantly kept in pay for only 400 men, and many of
them not mounted. Surely officers would be provided
for the additional men as quickly as those men
would be trained. What would be said if
our present half-manned guard ships had
the full complement of officers? 'Hie only possible
reason for the present cavalry system is the use it is
for enabling young men of rank and fortune to play
at soldiers for a few years. Our cavalry system
wants a radical change : and the same of ap-
ply to the artillery : a few liFlit guns, such
as no longer arc used in the french artillery,
arc kept with all the best horses and men as play-
things, and the system allows all men of interest to
escape foreign service, while the main force of artil-
lery is weakened and neglected. Yet the same
expense would make all equally efficient by
adopting the Bengal Horse Artillery system,
and we should then have a really useful
force of the highest importance in case of
attack. Our object must be to get the most
efficient defensive torte that the nione grantisl will
procure: and the hard working regiments of the line
should be the last, instead of the first reduced. All
our reductions in the other systems should go t5)-
wards organising our irregular force, by which, in
case of invasion, we have 8,000 (if not 10.000) man
for every 1,000 regular troops, that the same
would provide, and for a defensive battle the SAO
well drilled militia, with the advantage of a few