The Sun.
London, England, 1804-02-09 00:00:00

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"their motivet.Ohd principlesin -ems rushing forward
it the defence of their Courotry, but yet he could not
help thinking it was of essential importance to look
back upon this matter, and to examine into the
question of_ what we had really to trust to in this
mass of eeo,ooo men—to see what was this great
body who are now the grand mass of the Army of
England ; he believed that a great part of thii
mass was such as could not be depended upon for
effeetive strength—they had been too indiscrimi-
nately accepted by Government ; persons of all
ages and of all descriptions, without regard to in-
firmity or any unfitness, among whom there were
many who were not able to march, had been receive
eel as Volunteers. There was certainly a greaten.
thusiasm, and all descriptions rushed forward as
Volunteers ; this did honour to the zeal of the
Country undoubtedly, but it .must not be disguised
at the same time that, among those who came for.
ward there were many who were quite incompetent
to carrying arms; in some instances not above one
half of a whole Distria were aftually fit for effec-
tive service ; then came the order of Government
to reduce their number to that of six times the
amount of the Militia—This sudden measure had a
serious and alarming effeft, for it damped the ardour
of the Country very much, :ind it was a matter of
considerable difficulty to bring men back again and
to persuade them to inrol their names when they
found that their friends, with whom they had asso-
ciated, were
.not to be allowed to go with them
into the field.—Now after all this, and time
being given us by the Enemy, for he did not
appear upon our Coast, although we all ex-
peded him, an explanation came forth from the
Ministers, the spirit of the People revived,
appeared again in its, wonted lustre. Now, what
was the intention of Ministers at that time? Did
they or not then intend to exempt the Volunteers
from the Army of Reserve ? No, they did not ;
and so lie told the Volunteers then raising, and
which he had the honour to command ; and, to :heir
immortal honour, every man entered as a V -lon-
leer, although he thought he would have beeeliable
to the service of the Army of Reserve. He told
them all there was not one of them who would have
any exemptions by entering as a Volunteer, yet
every one of them entered, notwithstanding that
apprehension ; but what was the effeft of this ?
they were afterwards exempted both from the Mill.
tia and the At of Reserve; and what was
the further effeCt ? why, that neither the Mili-
tia nor Army of Reserve could ever be pro.
perly filled .up; _ it was utterly impossible that
they should, for all the best alien are serving already
in the Volunteers, as well as some of the most unfit ;
and he knew it to be a faa, that there were not
men who could be drawn to serve in the Militia to
the number intended to be raised of that body ; the
same was to be said with regard to the Army of
Reserve. How then were we to recruit our Army
at all ? he had no difficulty in saying, that in the
present state of things that was impossible. Those
who would have constituted the Army of Reserve
and Militia, were now filling up the ranks of the
Volunteers. Such was the eft-ea of the Volunteer
System ; and as it was so, the best course now to
be taken was that of making up the Volunteer Sys-
tem as beneficial, and at the same time as palatable
to the Public as we could, and to bring them to
as good a state of discipline as was applicable to a
force of that nature.—Ministers then had recourse
to the opinion of the Attorney and Solicitor Ge-
neral, in order to get over another difficulty which
they felt themselves under, and these Learned Gen.
tlemen gave it as their opinion that tee Volunteers
were exempted from the Army of Reserve ; after
which came the question whether a Volunteer could
resign or not ? Mr. WHITBREAD said, he always
thought that a Volunteer could resign whenever he
pleased, and return his arms, if he had any, (fOr
many for a long while had not) but while a man re-
mained in the' Corps there were means of rendering
him liable -to pay fines for his non-attendance, ,and
which fines were levied upon his goods if he had any;
but here again the Law stopt, for if he had no goods,
there was no way of imposing any other penalty on
the Volunteer, so that a man might walk out' of
the service when he pleased.—But the Right Hon.
Gentleman, Mr, WH !TB READ said, had, to Isis great
surprize and joy, Sieclated that if the Court of
King's Bench had not decided the. Law to be that
a Volunteer could resign as they had done, he
should have proposed to make the.law so; now he
confessed that struck him extremely, for: it was to
be remembered that the Right Honourable Gentle-
man had sent to ail the Lieutenants of the Counties,
who in their turn again sent to all the Magistrates,
as the Exposition of the Law, the opinion of the
two Law Officers of the Crown, the Attorney and
Solicitor General, and upon the strength of this
Magistrates had aeted all over the Country, which
opinion was, that a Volunteer could not resign, and
which opinion turned out not to be Law ; and with-
out intending the least disrespeCt for the two
Learned Gentlemen who gave their Opinion, this
erroneous Opinion, for so he was now bound to call it,
since a Court of Law had pronounced it to be so,
and without intending any thing clisrespeEtful
of that Opinion, he must be allowed to say, that it
was an Opinion which led the Magistrates into '
error, for they had afted upon that Opinion as if it
was a sound exposition of the Law of the Land.—
It would have grieved him to find that this Opinion
was consonant to the Law of the Land, but he was
very much surprised, though he greatly rejoiced at
what he heard from the Right Hon. Gentleman to.
night upon that subjea, and he thought he and the
Public at large had a right to complain of the Right
Hon. Gentleman, for finding this'Opinion given by
these Learned Gentlemen, which now appeared not'
to he law, to be, that a Volunteer could not resign ;
he caused it to be most industriously circulated and
published all over the Country, by which the Public
had for a while been misled, and this was the more
remarkable, since it was an Opie'a n promulgating
that as law which the Right Hon. Gentleman had this
night said, he did not wish to continue to be the
law, for he had expressly declared, that if the law
had been found to be so, he should have propoSed to
alter it, and to make it what it now is. Having
said this, he must add, that he felt extremely anxi-
ous that justice should be done to the Volunteer
Corps in every patticular—Witbregard to that part
of the Volutitetr System which was called the met,.

nomical part of ith..they:wele mistaken WhothoUght
it so to the Public---Who are. the Public ? The in_
dividuals of whom it is composed : Now it was a
gross mistake to suppose, that a system, by which
nu money was taken out of the Public Purse in form,
did not really cause a .great expence to the Public.
—The expence to the Public was the-same in what-
ever way it was defrayed, if it -cattle oat of—the
pockets—of the individuals of whom the Public
was composed ; for what difference was there be-
tween paying soh into a Subscription Chest to sup-
port a Volunteer Corps, and paying a Tax to that
amount into the Exchequer ? And in this respeft he
knew that this system was extremely expensive to
the Public, for at a very moderate computation it
was upwards of 41. per man. AnOther abjection to
- the system was, that, from their form and condi-
tion, -the Volunteer Corps were continually subjEft
to, and in daily danger of being dissolved : not
that the individuals of whom the Volunteer Corps
were composed wanted spirit, for if dissolved in
one street, he was confident they would enter again
in the next ; but they• were subject every hour to
the danger of dissolution. Suppose they were to
say that they did not like their Commander, and that
they wanted to chose another, and they were not to
be allowed that privilege, and that they should
not have the satisfaction even of recommending an-
other Officer, as the Right ilon. Gentleman told
them they should not, and they were to say they
were 'no longer Volunteers ? What was the remes
dy ? A very short one, certainly ; they must be
dismissed, but if they amounted to rOOO men--
this would be a prodigious loss, at least for a while,
and this was a matter which he wished to be at-
tended to by His Majesty's Ministers. There was
another reason why he was apprehensive that they
might be dissolved, and that was, want of Funds to
carry on the System, and this was a point to which
Government must look into with great attention, and
if they negleded ir,he was confident it would be im-
possible to carry on this system long. There was no
Corps that he had known any thing of, that was not
in some degree or other in.debt. Many .Corps had
endeavoured to excel others in their chess and
ornaments, which he did not blame, it was natural
enough when men felt the ardotir of a military spirit,
but it was attended with an expence that could not be
supported unless the funds of almost every Corps in
the Kingdom were increased—Men must he clothed
from head 'to foot, and after a great coat and the
other articles of dress were provided, it would not,
on the most moderate computation, as he had said
already, amount to less than 41. per man, which
would be a tremendous sum of money in the whole:
Now what was the remedy ?—A second subscrip-
tion, that would fall very heavy on many persons to
whom the present. Taxes arc already a'great burthen.
There was another point to be at tented to : At pre-
sent it was the rule to allow no pay to any Officer
Who instructed the men, however well he may have
done it, or may have had- the unqualified praise of
the Inspefting Officer, unless such person shall have
been in the Army ; that was a deieft which oughttd
be remedied, for men could not be txpeeted to give
their time and labour for nothing •but mere praise ;
men in middling circumstances could not afford it. It
wasalso worth while for Ministers to remember that
the pay of these Officers was only for 20 days, and
now they were to be out 24 days, the additional four
days ought to be paid for, or we should find many
persons remiss in their duty. He took the liberty
of pointing out these things,. and of observing, that
Ministers had gone on from one error to another,
and they had now placed the Country in -st
tuation in which it had no choice, but must trust its
main defence to the Volunteer Force, and therefore
it became Ministers to render that system as little
objeftionable as possible. He thought that the aug-
mentation of the Militia was carried on a little too
much. He thought he was confirmed in that opi-
nion by the conduft of Ministers, by the enormous
expence which was occasioned in drawing men from
the Militia afterwards by bounty into the regular ser-
vice ; and also by the expence of raising the Army of
Reserve, and at last being obliged to have recourse
to the Volunteer System, which was much more ex-
pensive than either. It was for the Ministers of the
Country to consider the best means for providing for
its general defence and safety ; it was for Members of
Parliament to speak their sentiments upon such means,
and to shew to the House • the imperfeftion of such
means, in order to bring them tis the best state they
were capable of, and that was a liberty which he
had taken to himself; it was not for him to point
out what was better, itwas his duty as -a Member
of Parliament to shew to the House what appeared
to him to be erroneous in the conduct of Ministers,
and which they now ought to rectify ; and he should
only add, that he trusted the Right Hon. Gentleman
would consider of allowing Volunteers•the• pradice
of recommending their Officers to the Crown ; would
consider also of the expence of providing Clothing
for the Volunteers, and the Pay he had alluded to—
and consider of the difficulty of procuring the at-
tendance of Officers who did not receive pay for
the additional four days now about to be proposed,
without some allowance ; and here, for the present,
he should leave the subjeft, recommending the whole
of it to the most serious consideration of His Ma-
jesty's Government.
Mr. WINDHAIII said, that notwithstanding the
rule laid down by the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr.
Secretary Yousa) had been broke through, and they
had got into a discussion with respeft to particular
Corps, he yet agreed with the Right Hon. Gentle-
man, that the discussion ought to be postponed to
other stages. Several topics had been urged that
required to be answered, but he- should agree to the
propriety of adopting the delay of discussion men.
cloned by the Right Iron. Gentleman, and•which
had been brought forward like the Laws of Philoso- •
phy. The Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Secretary
YORKE) in stating his proposed measure, had been
not a little puzzled, as he had three enemies to COM.
bat,---the opinion of His Majesty's Law Officers,
the decision of the Court of King's Bench, and
his own Aft of Parliament, which was something
like a running fight mentioned in a late dispatch
from one of our. Officers. He could not help how-
ever giving vent to his surprize, not at what the
Right Hon. Gentleman had proposed,- but at what
he had not proposed, arid he would ask' whether
what the Right Hon. Gentleman had proposed was
at all adecluate to the public exigencies ? Would

such scraps and remnants as the Right Hon, Gar.
demo had brought forward satisfy the public. ex:
pedation, which had been led to look up to some:.
thing solid and substantial ? Let them look to the
situation of the Country—was it to be amended by
a mere explanatory Atl ? Unless some system were
established nothing could be done. The Volunteer
System was an edifice in which many parts were sb
loose, and of such unsuitable materials, that nobody
could undertake to say, that in the course of a few
months it might not be annihilated. He wished
that the materials might be dispersed, capable how..
ever of being united in another form, in the course
of a short time, when a strong and proper building
might be erected. He, hoped Ministers would pro
fit by a discussion of the question, which he should•
at present leave for a future opportunity.
Colonel EY RE expressed great satisUlion at the
Speech of the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Secre-
tary YORKE), as it clearly pointed our the nature
of VOlunteer Engagements. If there had been any
apparent abatement of zeal on the part of the Vo-
lunteers, it arose from the new and unexpeded in-
terpretation given to the Ads of Parliament relating
to this subjet* The Volunteer System iorns
strength of the Government and the security of the
Country : it culled forth the vigour of the People,
and concentrated their energies in a channel the
most advantageous to themselves. He did not
think like the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. WIND_
HAM), that it was a crazy edifice, but on the con-
trary, that it was the must suitable fortress for our
defence arid protedion.

Sir JOHN \VROTTE3LEY thought that some pro.
visions ought to be made with respetft to those
Counties where in some Districts a great many Vo-
lunteers had come forward, and in others none at all.
Mr. Secretary YORKE said, that with reopen._
to what had been urged by the Hon. Baronet, the
observation applied to those detail's which must ne-
cessarily have been left to the Lords Lieutenants,,
as to them the distribution of the Volunteer Force
in their respeCtive Counties was entrusted. As to
the offer mentioned by the Hon. Gent. (Mr. WHIT.
BREAD) he was not aware that any such offer had
been accepted. It might have happened that the
Lord Lieutenant did not transmit the pffer as he re.
ceived it, but merely an offer of service. Since he
had had the honour of holding the Office in which he
was then placed, no offer of Voluntary service had
been accepted containing a proposal for the continued
Eleaion of Officers, it teeing the constant intention
of Government not to admit of such continued Elm.
tions. It had been asked, where was the difference
between an Association of Individuals offering to
form a Volunteer Corps, and a Corps already formed ?
the distinction appeared ta him to be obvious. In the
one case they were previously not known as a Military
Body, but afterwards it was utterly impossible to
allow of the EleCtion of Officers. Suppose a Voluna
teer Corps was called out into anual service, • to at
with Regulars or Militia, and suppose an Officer
was killed, was such a Corps to assemble after the
action was over, for the purpose of elening another?
—it was utterly impossible to allow it. It was
said that the Eledioe of Officers by a Volunteer
Corps amounted merely to a recommendation ; but
the Lord Lieutenant:. might recommend wh:,:n he
pleaSed„. he could not, of 4:curse, leo° e;
until notified to him by the Commanding Officer ;
and it had been the practice for the Coomhindeta to
recommend some one•to fill up the vacancy; in which
case it was presumed a person would be recommend-
ed who was most agreeable to the Corps. • He re_
peated, however, that if any Corps persisted in
claiming the right
,of electing Officers, he shwalti
feel it to be his duty to advise His Majesty to'dis_
continue the services of such Carps. . With respect
to the kind of aisteneiehree, it .was to be observed,
that twenty-four days attendance was not cacaeled,
but it was merely made a condition for the purpose
of errtitling the Party to an exemption from serving
in the Militia and Army of Reserve.
Mr. WHITBREAD in explanation, said, that
the power of eleding Officers hereafter was contain,
ed in the precise words of the offer of Service of the
Corps to which he had alluded. He hoiaed the
Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Secretary Yoaxs)
would not hastily pass a harsh sentence upon a part
of the Volunteers of the Country. The, laondon
Light Horse Volunteers had been alluded to ; be
wished to know whether that Corps had a right to
elect their Officers, and whether, if so, all whet
Corps had not the same right ?
Mr. Secretary YORKE said, he was not exactly
certain with respeft to the Light Horse Volunteers,
but he believed that Corps had been originally estaa
blished upon . the principle of such eledion. It
was an old Corps and was established upon: princi.
pies peculiar to itself. It was absolutely necessary.
however to destroy the claim to such an eledion of
Officers set up by Corps of a more recent date..

Mr: STCIRG- ES said, that it was not merely
the Light Horse Volunteers who had exercis.
ed the right 'of eleaing their Officers, but also
several other Corps, amongst which was that re-
spedable Corps the Bloomsbury and Inns of Court
Association, to which he had formerly the honour to
belong. He could not help expressing his astonish
ment, in common with the Right Honourable
Gentleman (Mr. WIN OnAm), not at what had fallen:
from the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr, Secretary
Yolutr), but at what .had not. The attention of
the House and the Country had been, in a marked and
peculiar manner, called to the procee'dings of the
House that day, - and the only measure proposed had
been,that there should be twebty-fourdays attendance
instead of five, and that there shOuld, be a notifica..
don of resignation. • wished that a Rill for the-
purpose of remedying the -defeds of 'the Volunteer
System had originated in a Coihrnittee Of the whole
House, as in that case an efficient Plan might have:
been proposed in the first instance,_ instead of being
subsequently brought forward in detached parts....
The House had held out a sort of bounty to the
Volunteers, by enaCting that five days attendance
should be sufficient to entitle them to exemption,
and now four-and-tVventy days were to be substi.
thted. 'He wished the system' to be pro'bed to the
bottom, in order that the House might not commit
another breach of faith', and tell the Volunteers to
go to the right abour', after-they-,had most patrioti.
tally exerted, theniselves for the defence of their.
Country.
• The ATTORNEY GENERAL said he could no: