The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1805-02-22 00:00:00

niences, would be infinitely below them in the ad-
vantages of a general knowledge of service and irf
discipline ? The next point of alteratinn in the ser-
vice to which the Right Hon. Gent. adverted, and
which, he sad, he would not scruple to recommend.
was a finmal, solid, and absolute renunciation -of
drafts ; a system which, he contended, destroyed the
natural, patriaric, and social connexion. that ought
always to subsist between our several regiments. .
and tends very greatly to weaken their force. He
would, therefore, propose an immediate abolition
of drafts, and at the same time to improve, by every •
possible means, the condition of the subaltern of-
ficers, on whose care, vigilance, and condie.ft, the
discipline of the great m tss of the army so mach
depends. By these means you would look effeau-
ally to the situation of the general service. which has
been much injured by this mi chievous and onwhole-
some prAftice. For when called on to go on foreign
service. particularly to the West Indies, they set off
as if they were going to " that bourne from whence
no traveller returns " He condemned the mode in
which they had hitherto, fur so long a time, been
taken its a manner so totally unprepared to bear the
mislanchnly and pernicious effc is which distant cli-
mates, and those of the West Indies in partk ajar,
seldom fail to produce on tie constitutions of F...llio-
peens in geniertl. There were, he said, variOs
modes :Ind methods by which these woefulmight be very greatly alleviated, if not entirely
done a,cay. Th iy might `.:y degree be iltro-
dusei to them. They might. in tric first instance
he sent to the Island of Mirror :J t ; there were rhea
• the Bahama Islands, between which and Nova
Scotia they might be so vasit •dy inured to the
nature and heat of our Wc.: India settlements, us
I greatly to lessen the dangers to which they had so
'long been exposed, by to.. premature and sudden an
introduttion to them ; and thus, by a continued and
severe attention in putting them on gradual and ro-
tational duties, remove those baneful effefts which
have so long and so often drained the population of
the country,* and. by so doing, add more to the
strength and power of our forces in those climates,
than by transmitting thousands upon thousands of
TAW new raised recruits, who It sooner filled up the
ranks, than they fell a prey in greater numbers to
the ravages of disease. than to the bloody. and de-
strudive havoc of the sword. This called to .cis mind
another very pressing reason for an immediate re-
form in the system of drafting, which was the in-
stant and never cemaig uneasiness and melancholy
which usually seize on the minds of such soldi irs as
are doomed to that denge-ous and iinwh •iewmait
service in the West India Islands, ssh chi o • .ften
brings on an actual fever, or if net so. predispii•es
their habits to it, that if it comes on they elJ,omn
escape falling victims to it. the next point on
:which the Right Hon. Gentleman touched was that
of punishments. He referred, on this need, to as
author whom tie h rd lately ITAJ on T:11111 subject.
with great pleasute, and from whom he ham .Is.
nved use most importaat information. 'tills Ger-
dem:4n, be said, treated the slinks... with gnat per-
spicuity and depth of knowledge, 170.1(111=c:1 inizAly
and plrlosophicsiliy. He compared tie- Army to a
machine, which, however numer ,us a....i eat iaus its
uses, yet, if it was well consuls:tell in all its pests,
would go on to great perfecu tn.l an wins;d
lit-
cikline. Mr. IVultiliam anti' see House, sts bt he
had never for a moment supposed die army could
be disciplined, or carried on without punishment,
nertrartride wWd dritit'efilrein"Fo altea Any of the
material or capital punishmen•s; but was V 4,4
cidedly csf oteniort with the author he AlreisAy
Might he effected in time disiiasles
alhided to, that"
yery great and generni►retorts'
And in the nal-
pines and moral concerns of the alArre-4 "I"er
moditicatioit of pitaishrnent. arid by ini e: posiMg
certain mediums between the asfferent points or
parts, which would each pray, a cheek up; a the
other. and the tendency of Wiich wonld oe a gew-
ral amelioration ..t the whole. Neither was acre,
he said, the smallest need to abolish any ,e 'ere pu-
nishment. for these mete not whir so materially af.
tented the oak of the soldiers in an army He
Iwould instance, he said, the penal code of . coon-
, try, which had dear' in every line of it, a, t yer the
great mass of the people have no pane nr erred
of it, because they say to themselve., we :aow its
severities, but as we never intend to Offen t against
or to incur any of its capital penalties, we live under
no aperehensions. So with regard to use army, the
great bulk of soldiers do not dread the capital pu-
nishment.: but it would certainly be a considerable
alleviation to a soldier's mind to be always Able to
say, if I go to parade with a button off ms coat. or
happen to be ss minute or two too late, I shall nix be
in dames of being tried by a court martial, or of suf-
fering anyimmediate punishment that is degrading to
the feelings and spirit of a soldier: It was its these
small intermediate points of Juty, thar acre of but
little consequiewe in themselves comparatively
.peaking, that he thought punishments might be
modified and alleviated, with the greatest and hap-
piest effect. He then adverted to certain incentives,
which ne thought might be applied with considera-
ble propriety and effect in stimulati . so: lieu T 1
keener and more active sense of their they. The
[profession of a soldier was such as et xised him to
the most imminent danger, and he who had any
.Iwpm:tension of that. was not sit sl'r the fession,
nor sh itildeeer tlinis of ....tering into it. It. ~:iowed, '
that. circumstance t CAS COU Its ynse;. ,t is im-
possible to increase 'he pay of the or a" , th at re-
spect, we had units tenntely arrived a •le n; 'Ass
Shea But was there nothing else, be ask- I. senid be
found worthy to be substituted assn alert to an
additional 54. or 6J. a day ? was there no such
, thing as contriving to put by part o. the bounty, to
be paid on the expitation of the service, instead of
the beginning, as a stimulus to the valuable ant tree
soldier, and to operettas a reward to his family, in
CAW any accideiit should happen to him. Tae
bounty, he said, geninilly afted both ways, and he
feared there was not above one man in eight, or
at most, in seven, that really deserved it. Bat there
were other things, which operated as incentives, as
powerfully, or perhaps more so, than money. bap-
pose we should give him a right to vote in par-
. ticular places, or even suppose we should go
trill further and higher than the ele.tivc fran-
chise, a' d allow him to kill game, for instance.
as a stimilus to be a tr
ue
ese soldinr.
ant and thereby
allowed to kill game t This would be no uoprece-
deserve preferment;
dented method of holding forth inducement. e-
suppo a serye shoe !
pendent of pay. In France the solutes was alwaT,.