Star.
London, England, 1806-06-25 00:00:00

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year Tor the pnrpole of Training them to military
duty 1 Parliament defignecl to give na cattle of difgull
to the Volunteers, it only willed to avoid an espence
inconfilient with the wet are of •the country, and to
provide tulle .. means hot dearnetive but auxiliary
to the fyilem under which arms were pt:: into their
hands.
• Mr. PERCIVAL was lorry at Co late an hour to
troubled* Houle, but the Bill wanted ft, much ex-
planation, that he could not avoid making a few re-
marks. He differed totally in his view of it from
the Hon. Gentleman who had juft fat down ; he con-
ceived it to be contrary to every principle of com-
mon fenfe ; contrary to every maxim of enlightened
policy; contrary to the a,rtntial doctrines of the
Conliitation, and contrary so the pledge which had
always been given ttithe people of England. (if cry
et NV, hear, bar! free: the Mtbiflerial he whet.) He
did not think he had tiled any improper earn-cairn,
when he Paid the Volunteer Corps wete a Rigmati ed
afylnm for thole who would avoid this new levy of
the Right Hon. Gentleman. If an apology were
neceffAry for any filch terms, it might be found in a
fpeech of that Right Hon. Gentleman himfelf, as
recorded by a perfon (Mr; Cobbet) whom be (Mr.
WINDHAM) had laid deferved to have his Ratue let
up in marry gold. He would read the wares, that
no mifapprehenfion—
' Mr PAULL (poke to -order, and (aid it was it
regular to quote from a former debate.
Mr. SPEAKER laid, he had always underflood
that the Aril rule of the Houle was, not to admit
Inch citation of words ufed in a former Debate ; but
at the fame time, this rigid adherence was Come-
times not requited.
Mr. PAULL—"r I fay the Hon. and Learned
Gentleman is tnanifealy diforderly."
Mr. SPEAKER —" When the Speaker delivers an
opinion, in which the Houle acquiefces, there is an
end of the qoeflion."
Mr. BRAGGF. BATHURST—" I mull call the
attention of the Houle to the relpeet due to the Chair.
This Gentleman is ruing, and he may not be aware
that there is no froth appeal after the Speaker has
laid down the rule, and the Houle has acquiefced in
it."

Mr. PERCIVAL raid, his °hied was merely to
jollity the epithet he had applied, and I.e thought the
interference of the Honourable Gentleman wholly
unneceltsty. It would haw rzr recollefled, that
the Volunteers had been denominated a depolitary of
panic, of which an experienced officer would be glad
to be difercumbered, as a prudent wreliler would f
the unneoetfary raiment by which his mtifcular aCtion
was impeded. He had intimated that nu fufficient elu•
cidation had been afforded. Was this-complaint well
founded ? There were 3::0,c0u Volunteers, and
200,000 men were to be raved under this Mt. Yet '
if the former w,re to be difbanded, only 200,cmot
would remain. Was this ti,e intention ? Whatwere
the expences attending this fcheme ? What method
was to be adopted with regard to the Officers over
this armed peafantry 1 To what extent, and in what
manner, WAS this to operate on the population No.
Wine of this fort had been explained, and yet Ole
Houk was tailed upon to fan Pion loch a projetl.
to.lotparticii!.‘r clanks of the Bill he mould have
atiothee opportunity to advert : thus much had oc-
curred to him K,tit refpeft to the general prirciple,l
to which he molt "ticet, front every notioa he could
entertain of found Lido etior.
Mr Secretat y WINDHAM and Mr. BRAGGE
rivrilUßST riving at the f.,.rre ittßant, the former
gave precedence In the latter: • •
Mr. B. BATHURST arlogix-d for perfevering,
but he feared, if the Right Hon. Gentleman had pre-
ceded him, he fhould n.t have rdineti the attention
of the Houle. He sva. futp.i:cd at his Hon. and
Learned Friend, when he talked of this 13ilt as being
oppofed to our free Constitution, and liberty and jut..
lice and fo forth; and not lefs at the oppornion given
to this Bill by thcfe who fupported a former of the
fame tendency. If this Bill were an infringement
on the rights of the people, that was fo alto ; if this
were a refuge for the Volunteers, that likewife pof.
felled the fame charaaer. It was no difparagement
to fo numerous a body as the Volunteers, to foppofe
that they were not all animated by the ardour of pa-
triotifm ; every win who bad at all attended to the
philofophy of the human mind. muft be convinced
of the variety of feelings by which it was 'satiated ;
and to provide againß any dela:lion in this ufefel
ingisution, the new projee now recommended was '
defigncd. It had been intimated, that there was
no neecftity for the Bill, liteaufe the immediate ,
danger was over. Who could look to the pofture '
of Europe at this day, and fay the times were
not perilous 1 Was the calamity of the hour only
to be regarded, and were we not to look to future 1
exigencies ? admitted that the Volunteers had
been the falvati.m of the crintry, but was no di-'
verlian of the accumulatetrpower of France againft
thefe dl Inds now to be apprehended ? Were we
wholly initniihle so the vaft augmentation of the
power of the enemy ? Was Bonaparte 1u diligently
employed in making Kirgs, that he never turned his
thoughts to uninakMg Kings ? We nfed to think
the wooden walls of Old England were fuffieient for
her defence; wildom bad exploded this prejudice.
and we were now to retort to additional means
of ;notation. Wits diis view the objea of the Bill
was not to reduce the Volunteers, but to do what
fulstidistry to that refource. It was the podia
fnlcoaltruftion both of the intentions of the Right
• t n. Gentleman, mid of Parliament, to conclude that
the Vr4enteer Byftem was to be aboliated. The ACts
us whfds he had alluded, of 'Soo, faid that if perfons
would volunteer, the ftatute lbouh nut take tired in
;he diftsift where the people to far aecommod...ed
fhemfelves to the deigns of Government : they
game forward tinder their own officers, and they
were accepted by the Crown. Was IS to be then faid.
One beesnift the King had acceded to tuch prr petals,
lainiflers wets pledged not to adopt the prefent owe.
((rue on the broad ground of political neceffity. As to
Ole Volunteer bill, this hits auxiliary; fo elf() it is to
ete regulations for limited fert*e, as had been well
by an Hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. Sam.)
If the Volunteers were better difelpltned than the
corps under his Bill, the terms under which theft
rare engaged were ;note coonskin to the public
ft. vice ; but the great recommendation tithe plan
that it oopfdrimme,hatify train a large body of
R;;n, a4d by t'ie fucccßion contrived it would in time
OF* ill the ufe 40344 the *lle population of the

empire. It had been laid, that danger was to he
apprehended fr,au calling out the population of the
refute of the capital. If any fuch danger really
exified, it was eafy to avoid it, by not requiting
the fervices of thole who were unfit to be entruff:
ed with arms in their hands. All the arguments
that were Termed to with reference to the peafantry
of the Tyrol, as far as they went, were clearly in
favour of the prefent 11,11 ; hot a fair comparifon,
in Inch a C4fr, could not cafily be drawn between
the fubjects of an athitiwy Government and thole
of a free Monarchy. It was laid, that to draft
the men raifed under thia SWIM() the Regiments,
was obnoxious. • In cafe of itivafion the King could
rde•any roan to take the field; was it then to be
laid, Oat it wit. improper. under filch a contingency,
that thrift levies thould be employed where they
Could be malt nfeful ? and was it to be fuppofed, that
on fuch an octillion the people of this country of
sight and liberty, would not be anxious to (land for-
ward in the defence of all that was valuable to them.
felves and their ponerity ? This bill has been er.
roneoufly scprefented as not recognizing the Winn-
teets, like the former : it is Paid, in the moll ditline
manner; that if a man be a Volunteer, or (hall be-
come ones hesfhall not ferve under it t it not only re-1
coguirol the Volnnteerc, but iodinated the with of
the Legitlature, that their number fhould be atm-
mented. Some allufion to wordy tiled by a Right
Honoutable Gentleman (Mr. Windham) had been
irregularly adverted to; but, whatever were theterms
employed, looking to the meafures of Minifiers, it
was clearly their intention to favour the Volunteer
fyllem ; and, with this view, if any were not pleated
with the fociety they met with under the prefent
meafure, they might feleet their own corps of Volun-
teers, and remove the objetlisie. If the Volunteers,
in the event of invahom wltt to be put on garrifna
duty, how were the rat4it to be filled up in the army,
after a deftruCtive engagement, more advantageoufly
than by fuch a refource as was provided by this hill?
He would defg any man to difcover an expedient
that could more effectually anfwer this end. The
ifland had alone been preferred by the fucceffive
meafures adopted ; this was one of the moll valuable,
and the enemy would abandon all future hope of
fubduing our territory, when they law an armed and
difciplined nation ready to prefent their bodies as a
rampart for its defence. It was upon theft grounds
that he approved of this Bill, whether he looked at
the immediate or the remro e eff:et, and he was fenfi-
ble that the laborer or the at tifan would not in filch
a purfoit regard the (Millings and lixpences lie fhould
in fuhwaCting a few day.. tiom his ordinary cc.
curitions. He was not at all apprehenlive of any
jealutaies between the Volunteers and thefe new
levies; they were admitably adapted to harmonize
ith, and Alia each other ; and, milli a proper atten-
tion to call Mrth the 'bengal and 1;344 of the court.
try, he trußed that. uoder Nov ['ostler., no human

power could endanger out fetority and independence.
Mr. WINDHAM, at fo very I.tte an hour, role,
he laid, with reluctance to trefpars upr•,n the attention
of the Houk : but after the many fpteches they had
heard (torn both tides, b'tb now and heretofore, it
would be unneceffary for him to dwell for any conti-
&rabic time upon the fithjeh. One of die principal
imputations of blame to him nrged by the oppefets of
this meafme was, that he had not introduced it to the

Houle, cr comm..nced ti.e debate with a fpeech ex.
planatory I f i,is own a s of it at large ; but to do
ftis, he mill :lave repcd:ed :yet y frech he had made
upon this toi.:c in the cowl.- of the iaa three years.
Anal.er obj.elido urged againa him was, that he had
on various occatids., undervalued, and treated with
contempt, the Volunteers, and that this Bill was cal-
culated to fnperfede them altogether. The firft part
of t,-,e charge he utterly denied, and declared it was
Lis with, often repeated, that the Volunteers fhould
continue A.:4! t7tis Bill, fo far from being. calculated
or intended, to fdperfede the Volunteer Syltem, had
for its objea merely to render the Volunteers that
which they were originally intended to be, according
to the principle avowed by thole who firft propofed
their eftablilhment, namely, a body of men ferving
their country at their own entente. Another objec-
tion to this Bill was, that its principle was compul.,
Cory, and therefore repugnant to the feelings of Eng. '
liftmen. But Gentlemen who tiled this argument,
feemed to forget that there was fuch a thing exilling
in this country as a militia force, entirely muttered
and recruited upon the fame principle, namely, by
ballot, which he always underftood to be a compd.
((try principle ; and that the Army of Receive, and
the former training Bill, for which thofe very Gen-
tlemen had voted, and who were now fo much (hock-
ed at the idea of conipultinn, were carried on upon
the very fame compulfory principle of ballot ; and
without compulfinn, and expence, which was another
objeftion to the Bill, Ice fhould he glad to know how
it was potlible to have any public force in the coun-
try ? Another objetion to the Bill w it. that its prin.
ciplc was unjuft, opprefTive, and a violation of a po-
litive contran entered into by Parliament and the
Country ; namely, that if they railed, in the fever.)
dittrift,, a certain number of men, that they lhould
be exempt from the operation of a fomcwhat finailar
principle under a former Bills but, he begged to
know how Inch • contrail, entered into under cir
cumdanees elifting at that moment, was for ever
after to tie up the bands of Parliament, and prevent
them, under any change of eircamtances, from
adopting internees abfolutely needier), to lave the
country from dettrudion Bet would Gentlemen
who tiled this argument condekend tended (altho'
the numbers of our army had greatly 'swiveled finee
that period) whether tm alteration had taken place in
the armies of the enemy, who then threatened our
(bores with invallun ? Was there nothing in the eir-
cumflance of that enemy, having fine vidorioufly
marched to Vienna, and humbled the greater part
Of the European Continent to his comicial Was it
becaufe the armies, which at that time threatened
us front Boulogne, had marched from that coati,
that they might not again return and renew the
danger ? And was there nothing in the confi-
der:l:ion, that they left nothing behind thine(
in the means of Auflria, or any other power
on the Continent, to alarm their apprehenfions, me-
nace their fecority, or divert their attention from any
defign they might contemplate againfl this country
Did thole Gendenien recoiled, that this formidable
enemy bad reduced the Continent to a peen of fib.
Jugifiell I end, knowing his slsfigns agalnfl )hit
country, did they think ;here war any danger of
beipg coo wc4 gettrefed again!! them ?--When peal I

demos talked oldie expellee of this meafure, would
they confider the enormous expense of near fix mil-)
lions which the Volunteer fyllem had c•rlt the coun-
try, eflirnated from their eflablifhment in t So:, up to
the end of the prefect year, and which the prefent
Bill was calculated to do altnoll entirely away for
the future. Upon the whole, the Right Hon. Se-
cretary contended, that the prefent Bill, fo far from
going to abolifh .he Volunteer fyftem, went hand in
harid with it, and was immediately calculated to keep
it from going to pieces :—and, in anfwer to the argn
ments of Gentlemen, deduced from his (Mr. Wind.
ham's) rpeecheauttered three yearsago, heaff;rted that
the phrafes artributedto him as in ridicule or contempt
of the Volunteer fyflem, were wholly unfounded or
mifr:prefented. He never had raid that the Vonnteer
ryflem, as filch, was a depofitary of panic I hut he
had raid, that in times of danger an irregular force
in any cnnntry would be likely to become filch, which
no military man could deny. Neither could any
military man deny that the bratefl armies had been
at times feized with panic t and to fay that a Volun-
teer 'army might he liable, in Come degree, to the
fame influence, was not (peaking in any particular'
difparagement of that force. He had alro raid that
which the experience of every military man mull
evince, that there were diflinflions in the drefs of
the military, which were the life and foul of an army,
and which no other body of men ought to pot is ;
and there, however trifling in themfelver, whether
ribbands, or feathers, or taffels, ought to belong to
the army fidely, as marks of that dittinttion of
which they were extremely zealous : but even if the
exprefflon imputed to him, had been uttered at any
time, even by a Minnie/4 was any fuel' apprehenlion
therefore founded, as that the Volunteer Force of this
country would, on that account, in a per, or a huff,
like fulky children, throw down their arms, difblnd '
themfelves, and refute to defend their c4untry ?
Thole who made loch infinucions;could not, he was,
convinced, be fiends of the Volunteers. Upon the
whole, fatisfied that the Bill, inflead of going againa
the Volunteer Syllem, was calculated more effefiu-
ally to keep it up, and that it was a meafure the bell
adapted for rendering the whole population of the
country rubfervient and iffeAnal ter its defence and
fecurity, he mull vote for the Bill.
Mr. CANNING, at fir late an hour, did not mean
to go at length into an examination of the Bill, but
refereed to himfelf the privilege of delivering his fen-
timents upon its principle, upon the Report of the
Committee • for, in his view, it was fn totally objec-
tionable, that he did not conceive any alterations it
was likely to receive in the Committee, could recon-
cile it to his mind. His leading objeSions to the Bill
"at prefent were, fiat, that it was a breach of a folemn
compaft made by Parliament with the people of the
country, that if they complied with certain conditions
in railing a certain proportion of volunteers in each
dettriit, they fhould be exempt from the compulfory
operation of any fuels Bill as the prefent. But now,
after having fulfilled their compost!, and paid the
price demanded for their exemption; this Bill was
brought forward, nevcrthelrfs, to import upcn them
the penalty. His next objection war, that this Bill
went to eflablifh the compulfory inflead of the volun-
teer fyllem of fervice.

TEe queilion being now loudly preired from 111
parts of the Houfe, was put, and carried for the com•
mittsl of the Bill, without a divifion. The Houfe
accordingly went into a Committee, and the Chair-
man reported progrcfs, and obtained leave to fit Alvin
on Thurfday.
atm LLLLL SOUS BUSINISS.

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (at
half pall one o'clock) moved that the Houle do this
day refolve into a Committee, to take into confider-
ation the Salarie'. to be paid to perfons to be appoint.
ed under the Bill, now pending, for the better Au-
diting the Public Acconnts.—Ordered.
Mr. HOBHOUsE brntght up the Report of the Committee
appointed on PridAy let. to prepare queftions to be put to General
Sir Jams, Craig, refpeeting the Charge againft the Marquis Wel.
tell y, and upon the queltion being put, that this report be now
taken into conlideraticn,
Lord OSSULSTON objeded. on amount of the Intend of the
hour and the thi..oefi ot the Hank. to take the queftion into
conlideration until to•ntrrow. In thi. idea, he wa+ fopp, rted by
Mr PAUL!.. and ',poled by Sir ARTHUR WELLESLEY and
Mr. WI LLES LEY PULP. A ennverfation of rouse kng, mimed
boween thole Members, Mr HOBMOUSE, Mr. W.ALLAL:E,
Mr. AI. EXANDI R. and Mr. SPE IKhit ; the With of which
was, that the Report was ordered to be taken into confideration
to morrow--At Two &Clock (dais morning) the tiouf, adjourned.

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