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

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in the same manner, why &mild ther not be trained
sr. I constituted then alike ? I look on the military
ch seder and fire in the., same manner as I do on
the accarints of new discoveries in bks of voyages,
which, fur Any thing I know, moo
or may uot
be true. The Volunteers may fight well, and per-
haps they might not. That must depend upon
many ciecu nst snc-s. It may he asserted, that a pis
col is a b-tter weapon than a bludgeon ; but should it
tarn out that the barrel is bad, the leek spoiled, the
tint wanting, or the powder wet, why then the
bludgeon becomes the better weapon of the two.
I have heard people describe some of the Volunteer
corps as in so high a state of discipline, that no
distindion was observable between them and Re-
gular-
Regiments. Why, Sir, certainly nothing
more like a man than his pidure. We have heard
et a painting of a bunch of grapes so very like what
it represented, that even the birds wet e deceived,
and came to peck at it ; but after all it was only
a p tinting. We may say with 31acheth, that " man
to a childish mind may seem a painted devil." It
be said that eggs, plums, ,flour, and sugar, will
an excellent pudding, and so they might,
• I cannot be sure of that before I taste how the
clients are made up; but all these incongruities
defeas are so fully, so learnedly, and so philo-
sephically explained in a letter from a Gentleman in
Edinburgh, which lately appeared in an able pe-
riodical work (Cobbett's Weekly Register), that I
should recommend the perusal of it to all those
Gentlemen who wish to make themselves masters of
the sullied. The truth is, that I wish for a reform
in the military system which should exclude the
Volunteers ale,gether. I iht2ed I never • wished for
them at all, though I know that some who have a
right to be better judge* than I am, think they have
been useful, in shewing the general spirit of the
country, and that so far they certainly might have
been, if such a manifestation was now necessary ;
but even that does not, in my opinion. balance the
bad effeets of anomalies in the Ministers. A force so
em.titced, would justify the representation of those
who call us a nation of shop-keepers ; for however
' the Volunteers might love red clothes and military
parade, the fad is, and will ever be, that they love
their shops and their business much better. The Vo-
lunteers in arms give this country a fine theatrical
attitude, but one that can never be permanent. It is
indeed pettedly theatrical, but aesoon as the curtain
falls. their arms fall along with it. You may pos-
t tehly, by some artificial means, make the present
Volunteers something like a Militia, and get new
' ones to supply their place; hut, after all that
you can do, their shops and their employments
will naturally be always uppermost in their minds.
We often hear, that though the Volunteers are no-
nierous, they never muster strong at drill ; and, the
reasoagiven for it is, that those who do not attend
fume no orration for ire as they had undergone that
pruceu already ; so that it turns nut, upon the whole,
that all the training a volunteer wishes for, is merely
what will be sufficient to take him out of the auk-
ward squad. Under such discipline. are they no;
liable to lose what they have learned ? I know there
are soma things, such as the demonstration of a ma-
themat cal truth, or the art of swimming, which
is seldom lost after having been once acquired;
but, I cannot conceive how the same reasoto
ing applies to the accuracy required for com-
plete military discipline The neat sahjeet I have
to advert to, is the constitution of the Militia, which
to be in as good e state of discipline as such
troops casaba ; but still have a very bad effect on the
regular service. I know Daly of two ways in which
greet armies can be raised, which are compulsion
and regular service. In France, Russia. Austria,
Denmark. Sweden. Prussia, and most other coun-
tries wherein considerable force is kept up, the men
are usually raised by compulsion. Great Britain is
the only exception to the rote, for here we are ac-
customed to depend for even regulars altogether
upon voluntary service. The bounty given has sel-
dom been the inducement to men enlisting for life,
it depended most upon the preference they might
feel for the condition of a soldier. There may be
other motives, but that must be the leading one.
The bounty served for little more than drinking
money, to prevent the making of a dry bargain, for
the greater part of it was applied to providing ne-
cessaries for the new profession of the recruit. But
the worst part of all is, the complicated difference
in the terms of serving. fly taking the system par-
tially, you lose the benefit of any system. I
`would not have the difference of limited and
unlimited service. It does not contribute to
even the defence of the country, as it may often
happen that it would be most effeetually de-
fended abroad. Whenever England ceases to be
great, it will soon cease to be a country at all, and
thus circumstanced, it becomes legitimate for
it to raise men in the same manner as other
nations do. Tile system of ballot was the• most
mischievous and desitudive that could have been
7:sarted to. I make no doubt but those who
,first proposed it, did it from the best and the
a humane motives. Though the poison it con-
lay for a long time lurking in the blood,
ithout making its appearance, it broke nut at last.
.1 hat mode commenced in the year 1763; hut it
v.- Is not till the American war, in 1773, that the
eau of substitutes was first introduced into it.
tare that time, Government was the only re-
, :liter in the market ; bat it had then to contend
wish the Militia bounties. A person drawn in the
inititia, nut knowing where best to apply, recruited
for his substitute in his own neighbourhood. By
this second recruiting in all parts of the country,
the etre& upon the regular service soon became
s h modest, that before the American war was over,
the bounty rose from the usual standing price of a
guinea and a csown to the enormous one of fifteen
guineas a man. I have even heard of an officer
'rho. previoitsly to this innovation, was very near
losing his commission ter setting so had a pre-
cadent as to give a bounty of two guineas to
a man. What I now speak of happened within
Site last thirty years: All this was exceedingly bad ;
but as it that had not Demi enough, in the begin•
aing of the last war We dissolved the whole fabric
of our military system by suffering gentlemen to
recruit for rank, and making them Colonels before
they were capable of being Corporals. But what
did most mischief of all, was. that when any em-
barrassment arose from these rptissures, we con-
stantly looked for a remedy in c.iling for
more
Militia. When that did not do, we formed a Scotch
Militia, then a Supplementary Militia, afterwards

an Irish Supplementary Militia, and after all the
plan of a Provisional Cavalry. passer: over coun-
try like a blight, and in the manner of the hustling
of pick-pockets. I have heard of snme venerable
Lld country ladies, who, from the- dread of being
turned,reto provisional horse women, gave bounties
al.fifty,, sixty, and even seventy pounds, in order
to provide substitutes. While all these schemes
were rtetively prosecuted, the lii.gular Army was
totally neglercted, and. the Irregular Army ran up
to the amount of HOAX) men. If since that the
Army of Reserve had produced any favourable et-
lea, the present Ministers had no right to take
credit for what was established by their predecessors,
whom they were so eager to displace, and may claim
it, as•was done by Old Dennis, when he cried nut
at the plas -house, " By heavens ! that is my thins-
der!" Whatever effed,however, might have been de-
rived from these inventions before, the present Minis-

tershave broght that irregular system to such a stand
that it can go no farther, and not a man be raised
even by the ballot. They condemned the Army of
Reserve, but now that the recruiting would not go
on by their own expedients, perhaps they will soon
find themselves in the situation of a sick man, whose

stomach will not bear any thing that is put upon it,
and vomit this precious elixir back again upon the
country. The bubble of the new plan which was to
supersede all others, and yield us immediate-
ly a great and disposable force, is now burst,
and the House has stopped payment. When
the plans of his predecessor had been cried down,
and the present Minister appointed to replace
him, his partisans triumphantly exclaimed,
terse! All is now safe, the new projeft will set
every thing to tights. Bring his grand e into
play, and you are sure of every thing!' Bnt un-
fortunately, when the Right Honourable Gentleman
was firmly seated, had arranged all his plans, had
presented his musket, and placed himself, primed
And loaded, in the attitude of shooting, alas ! the
bullet dribbled out of the barrel, and all turned out
to be no more titan a mere flash in the pan. One
great etre& was produced : the Right Honourable
Gentleman and his friends came in, brit the efielive
plan did not come in with them. He aftri by his
predecessors, like the man who laid a wager, and
when he found he had lost, persuaded the holder of
the stakes to let the money slip into his hand That
the former rejettecl measure was had and feeble, we
have the Right Honourable Gentleman's word for
it, and for his own measure being, to the full, as de-
feffive and feeble as the former, we have now the
word of almost every man in the kingdom. All the
men -rirat have been produced, they tell us, have been
obtained from the Army of Reserve, and that we can-
not expert sexy considerable numbers of men to enlist
for general service, in the first instance. That is so
far true, because tile Regulars cannot get any re-
cruits, but through this Army of Reserve, which is
more advantageous to the recruit ; but it has this
effed, that we get them in a much more circuitous
manner than we should by regular reuniting. They
say people are, got from the At my of Reserve, who
would not at first, or beture they attained military
abits, have ever thought of entering into the regu-
lars. It may possibly be so in some instances, but to
counterbalance that, is it not probable that many
persons, who might be disposed to enlist in the Re-
gulars, would first enter into the Army of Reserve
for the greater bounty, and when they get into it
may change their minds and stay there ? There is
now no other way left of reeruitingior the 'Leg's.
Lars. A man may as well express his surprise at
so many Members coming into this House to-
night, and every one of them coe:ing from the
lobby, The Army of Reserve is no more than the
lobby of the Regular Service, because there is no
other way of !cuing into it. It is as neutral for a
recruit to wish for a double bounty, as it would he
for a traveller not to pass throtigh a gate where he
mug pay a turnpike, in preference to another,
where none world be demanded of him. This
Army of Reserve is a sort of digester to the service
a kind f boiler or stomach of a piece of machinery,
having capillary tubes running into every p:•iish in
the kingdom. It is an intermediate path, which all
must take to the Regulars. The inefficacy of the
measures atiopted is attributed to the neglea, or
u ant of exertion, in the parish officers ; but the Bill
itself did not make it obligatory on them to provide
the men; they we-e not tined, no penalty attached
to their omission ; but, you may fine the parishes for
the neglea or the faults of souther, who has no in-
terest in the performance of the duty imposed upon
him. This was afting upon the model of " Boy,
beat stick; stick, beat dog, &c." It is a vicarious
punishment to whip the parishes for a negleet
which they could not avoid, as, acceordiag to a
trite saying. " Yoe may take a horse to the
water, but you cannot make him drink.' I never
heard any person speak a word in favour of the
measure of the present Minister. Throughout
the whole nation, I can hear of nothing but
one universal sentiment of condemnation of it.
Therefore, though tie measure of :he displaced Mi-
nister WA: laid aside, and drawn by the new plan,
we are far from being sure that the present humane
s2riety are yet quite den. with it. They tell its,
that the measure has not as yet had a fair trial, and,
that though from circumstances it has failed, it was
no fault ha its projedor, who may say, in the words
of the Poet :
'T.• mortals to cl.otogri mecca,
But to 1.t07r., ticmproniu., lii detetVe it.

It is, however, but a had charader of this or any
other measure, to say that it lay for six weeks torpid
in the country, before any one could understand it
sufficiently to at upon it. Now, however, that it
has got into some sort of operation, I suppose we
shall be told that it will go 'off like a spinning-
jenny, and make a noise through the kingdom, like
the swarms of insects in Italy. whose approach is
always announced by their loud clamour. Hither-
to it appeared, that the whole regular force raised
by it in the count!., Las been no more than 665
men, and they are in the situation of Str Err:arts
Wrong/grad in the play, who declared himself
contented to get a little till something better
should offer. In the mean time the country has
arrived at that state that nothing better can well
he hoped tor. We have got an additional
staff at the expense of 519,0001. ; and all that has
bee's produced by it is a levy of 630 men. By
this fatal .measure. all our future means are, in
all proisability, destroyed tor ever. Ministers here
aled atter the manner of those savages,
_who are
ilfrowlsfklags doom for the purpose of ruing

at the fruit. We are only trying to shift for the
present moment, and leaving posterity to shift for
itself, without her having any resources to proceed
with. It seems as if the Government of the coun-
try had been transferred to the late Minister, only
for the purpose of coiscluding the hopeful Treaty of
Amiens ; and taken up again by his successor, just
in time to let the military system drop as it were
between the cup and the lip. It has already
cut down all that he himself ascribed to the
system of the ballot. He treats the helplesi pa-
rishes as some officers are said to have done those

sailors whom they supposed to be dropsical, from
repletion and laziness, that is, by lashing them up in
the shrouds, and punishing them till the symptoms
removed• So far trom encouraging the parish
o+liters to deligence, the money he receives k mine'
of what he is obliged to give to the crimp for a re-
cruit. As the plan itself has met with a complete
failure, I caiipot lent think that is qpite as far as any
experiment Olhald well he carried. The increase of
the army these last six months, as appears from the
returns, has been no more than 11,000 men, and its
loss, stirring the same period, has amounted to 16,000
men. Instead, therefore, of gaining ‘27,000 men, as
they promised us from this measure, they cannot
tell in what manner to supply the increasing con-
sumption. No more than 5,000 men have been
raised for the regular army exclusively ; and of
these 500 have been obtained by the exertions of
the additional and expensive staff. The increase of
cavalry has been only 4003, and of the stated num-
ber of 53,000 infantry, these are no snore than
402,000 British ; the remainder is composed of the
foreign corps, consisting of Brunwickers, and prin-
cipally of other Germans. I am aware that they
arc represented as a force that might be considered
as permanent, and may he sent to fight the battles
of their employers in any distant quarter. But I
greatly fear that they would be found no very ef-
feEtive substitutes for British troops in the defence of
the country. Having thus proved, I believe, be-
yond contradietion, that the measures hitherto
adopted have been, in ev respect, completely in-
effeetive, I mean to obviate the reproach so fre-
quently made against those who point out (Ideas,
without themselves pointing out any remedy for
them, and with that 'view, shall submit to the
House what ate my ideas on this subjea. When I
find the military force of the country expiring under
this system of accumulated ballots, I shall propose to
return again to the old and natural means which
have 'been so long negleeted. I hold it to be a
general rule, that when things are going on badly,
it must be attributed to something of misconduct on
the part of government, and, in endeavouring to
provide a remedy, it .is right to distinguish betwe
. what we can, and what we cannot do. Whatever
may be the dispesity of resources and popula-
tion in different states, it is certainly in the
power of any country to have a goad army in times
of necessity, and yet leave mew enough applicable
to all the purposes of trade and industry. In the
prosecution of trade, where men are wasted, the
usual method taken by the employer is to increase
the inducement to theta by increasing their price of
wages. The profession of a soldier as not a pleasant
one, nor a very wholesome one, but neither are
those of the persons who work the mines in dif-
ferent parts of the country. In the raising of an
army, Government should he the only trader in the
market, and, having no competitor whatever, has
shoe an-de- camaly whatit

chooses. The very first thing I should de, is to re.
move at once every sort of opposition or obstru:-
lion, by entirely doing away the baitets.—
To talk of the sacredness of the Old Militia sees
easy to do in very fiee words, but he begged the
House to recollea how much that constitutional
establishment bad of late.years been broken in. upon,
in the most extraordinary and most oncererrionions
manner that ever was heard of ; and for them to be
now so tender of that which they had dealt so freely
by, was much the same, in his mind, as when a
dinner was wanted, to place the lamb under the
hands of the butcher, and the inference was pretty
equally deducible." Mr. Windham then again ad-
verted to the subjea of the Volunteer fore. by way
of chewing that it could nor fail, if continued to be
kept up, to be highly injurious and detrimental to
the service of the regular army. It had, he said,
been mentioned, that a difficulty had arisen in the
minds ut some, that if our whole. armies were to be,
as be wished to see them, composed of only one
species of force, which he would denominate a re-
gular army, there would be scarcely any such thing
as being Able to officer it properly ; bat thiswas to
him a futile objeftien, and might easily be dame
away by a proper and attentive regard to a due
distribution of honours. The distinaion of an officer
had ever been, and should always continue to be,
considered as a distinction. of a surcina and dis-
tinguished value, to which every Officer would pay
the highest deference, and endeavour to preserve it
with the same ardent mind iced Hie:Able perseve-
rance, as he would his honour or his life. The
mere possession of a red coat and a cockade did
not constitute the character of an OtE:er in the
regular service—he has something tar more digni-
fied and more distinguished attached to his name ;
and if you take that from him by any means what•
ever, yon waste your best m ist important
means—dissipate " the cheap ii :nee of natiAns,"
and weaken yourselves more than it was possible
for words to describe. *Chi; fair tree, he said, must
have the full, fair, and free benefit of light and air,
and not be smothered by this incumbrance which so
fatally obscures and gloom' it. Nobody could say that
much ought not to be done on this head,—without do-
ing which nothing of importance towards the service
and security of the country was done, and which
once well done, he was sure, would be the means
of effeainei, every thing that could be wished :
that done, various other services might be gra-
dually promoted and effected; and us o der to
do this, in as speedy and efficacious a way as pos-
sible, it woLld be necessary to consider the condi-
tion of the private resources of those brave and
honourable men thus called on at all timed, as the
thrfen&rs of their country. It would be impossible
that either the Officers or the army of the ,ountry
coati ever retain ii high estimation, while they
were left to struggle with distresses and shifts ; be-
sides, what might not the House suppose would be
tile general ill effeas of their remaining liable to it;
and, at the same time, to the still greater disad-
vantage of beink surrounded by holiday soldiers,
whose Officers, without having the same inconw.

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