The Statesman.
London, England, 1812-02-13 00:00:00

11'ERI4L PARLIdIkrENT~

.JIOUSE OF COMMONS, Psi. 12.

IRISH POPULATION. ' '
SicJOHN NEWPORT 4roaght ib a jtill for nicertaigiog
, the Amount of the kith Population. It was read a first (lino,
ordered to be printed, and Hod a second dine polSlooday Reto
I3R ) I-KW ATER, PLYMOUTH gouNp.
Mr. YORKE, after ashort conversation across the table With
I Mr. Whitbread, moved for the production of Copies 'of the
Correspondence between the Navy Board sad the Admiralty,
respecting the Breakwater of Plymouth, Sound ; and also at'
Copy of ihe Order io Council, dated Tid Jnne, respecting
the same.—Ordered, • - .
•
FOUR-AND-A-HALF PERCENTS.
Mr. CREEVEY gave notice of a litittoW respecdog the.
Four-aqd,a-Half pe Cents. on to-morrow (tins day) se'opight.
NOTTINGHAM RIOTS.
Mr. Secretary RYDER gave notice that he Would on Friday
move for leave u) bring in a Bill for the better preservation of
the Peace in thy County and the County of the Town of
tingham.
LOCAL MILITIA.
The second reading of the Local _Militia Bill was pestponea
'till to-morrow (this day) se'nnight.
-

CORN INTERCOURSE BILL..
Sir JOHN NEWPORT complained of so violation of this
Act on the part of the Custom-house Officers of Bristdl, who
had seized upona cargo of corn from Ireland, under the pre-
tepee that because this corn had been secured from the intempe-
rature of the weather by Russian matting and boards, that it
was.foreign corn, but had no doubt that the Treasury, if ap-
plied to, would enquire into and remedy this violation of the
Act.
• Mr. W. POLE said, that had the complaint been made°
him, be should have gone forthwith to the Treeing.), and pre-
ferred the complaint to that Board.
- '' • •-• , MARINE CORPS.
Mr.'HUTCHINSON rose, to call the attention of
Alio:Nouse. to the situation of the Royal Marine
Con*. His present motion should hi for papers, on
which he might perhaps move, on a future day, aft
. Address to the -Prince Regent, praying his Royal
'Highness to take the state of this Corps into his con.
sideratiott. If the Right Honourable Gentleman at
the head of the Admiralty would signify any dispo-.
sitipn in the Government, to give to this meritorious
corps the redress they conceived themselves entitled
to, he should gladly withdraw his motion. The cir-
cumstances of the Marine Corps were, as he be-
lieved, but little known either to the House or the
country, although their merits were beyond all
question. What he begged leave to suggest was,
that they ought to be put on an equal footing,
both as to emolument and rank, with the other.
bianches of the service. The Marines were one.
fourth of our naval force, and amounted to thirty-
five thousand men. The merits of this corps were
equal to those of any other description of our force,
and yet it was their peculiar misfortune to be con-
sidered inferior to the rest. The highest offices in
the corps were filled, not by Marine Officers, but
by Officers of the Navy. There was a General
of Marines, a Lieutenant-General, a Major-General, '
and Colonels, all Officers of the Navy, having other
einoluments ; whereas the highest situation an Officer
in the-Marines could arrive at, was inferior both
in rank and emolument, to those offices thus held by
officers of the navy. There were four divisions of
the marine force, stationed at Portsmouth, Plymouth,
Woolwich, and Chatham. The situation of Com-
mandant of one of those divisions was entirely be-
im" that of the offices which be had before men-
tioned, as having been held by navy officers. The
promotion also went on so slew in the marines, that
it was I4years before a subaltern arrived to the rank
of' Captain, and 30 years before he came to be a field
officer. It must be a mortifying thing to marine offi-
cers to see Admirals made Generals who entered the
service long after them. If their situation was corn- I
pared with that of the navy, it was much inferior, as
they never could rise so high as naval officers. It i
was the same if compared with the line and the artil-
lery ; and upon garrison duty) an old marine officer
might see himself commanded by a junior officer of
militia. They never
,were placed tpo: the Staffs
neither had the Serjeant of marines the same allow.;
ance It Greenwich, that the Serjeant of the line had
at Cheletr.; As to the private's .in the army,, they
were allowed, in computing their pensions, thee
years' service for every two years spent in the East
or West Indies. Thi4 was not the case with the ma-
tines. His great object wasf.that a corps equal in
merit to any other should be equally treated, both as'
to rank and emolument. He concluded by moving'
for a copy of the memorial presented to" the Admi-
ralty, in 1810, by the Field Officers of the Marines,
as well as the copy of a letter from Col. Trench" to
the First Lord of the Admiralty, upon this subje4t."
Mr. YORKE said, that as to the latter Motion, he
was convinced that the House would not require a
private letter to be produced. As the object of mov-
ing for the other paper was declared to be in order to
ground an Address to the Prince Regent upon, ho;!
thought it necessary to make a few observations upon I
the me which the Hon. Gentleman had submitted to.I
them. He perfectly agreed with every thing that had I
'peep pal about the merits of the corps ; but as their I
well known to the house, and to the empire I
' Ihe did tot Alio*, it. necesagry t 0 say much
.upon that point. The House were always slow It!
7roir
interfering with matters of pure military regulation'
and detail; and unless they wet, convinced that the
Executive had neglected, its duty, they seldom Or
ever interfered .iu those joints. Islow he would
ask, what could 'be i matter irf'.purely military
,detail, more than the rank which' marine offieets
should have upon garrison duty? It must be I
recollected by ' the House, that there waft - ale
L.comple,,i4t of any. of the pldi regulation§ fOr aid
marine corps having. been departed from, bat. that
.it was merely a wish Of the Hon. ' Gentleman to
jubstitate some othert in their place: ' The- rea-
son 0/ they had not the some rank in garrisons,
was, that they were seldom or near called to (lc
garrison duty. Jf,they were Called upon to do gar-
rison duty with other corps, there was no doubt but
that their officers would take rank according to. the
date of their commissions i but the fact was, that
while they were on shUre, all that 'was regeired' of
them was to remain orderly in their barrecki,iiiwC
therefore no question of rank arose. • Out of the
thole number of 4,000 marine, U. 5,0() Tie* kre/
nerally on bout/Aim: where, frecn the very Were
pf the pervico, they must necessarily be under the
command of thoCaptein of -the ship. 'lt Jr** be
recollected, however, that no 'offiiiiti hfghee thott .a
Captain of marines could pe called upon to serve on
board a 'ship; and therefore when they arrived of
the rank of Field Officers, they had little er-no du-
ties to do, amid- they lived in a sort of retirenient
tiom the Service. ' From!" th e dile Fence: of ike user-

' 11.

THE ifrAtE§MAN.

sues they were called upon to perform, there was
little analogy between the situation of Officers
marines, and 0111:Jrs either in the line
Wee artillery. Keeping these general points
'in •lew, he would also observe, that the aye.
tells pow acted upon in the Merleg service, was
that which had always subsisted. The active ser-
Arices ,ef - the marines as a body, were always
performp4 under the orders and superintendence of
the ten Captain, or Admiral of the Fleet.- Even when
the marines were occasionally lauded in boats, for the
purpose of attacking any place, they where under the
command of an officer of the navy, This of course
preheated them from having the same qumber or field
officers as were possessed by other corps ; but if any
occasion occurred when they were landed, and acted
in battalion, then they acted under their own field
Gators. There was at present a battalion of marines
-in actual service in Portugal, which was commanded
by its own officers, and had proved extremely useful
and effective. The Honourable Gentleman had
founded his complaint chiefly on the small num-
ber of staff officers which belonged to the marine
corps, and the inferior amount of their emo,
luments, when compared with those of other branches
of the naval and military service. • Now, as to these
points, he would beg leave to observe, that the
whole subject was taken into the consideration of
Government only three years ago, and a very mate-
rial addition was then made to the emoluments en-
joyed
by the superior Officers of the Marines. lie
was quite persuaded that the greater part of these
Officers were at present extremely satisfied, with their
situation, as eompared with,, that of other branches
of the service; and es this improvement of their ge-
nera( situation and prospects had taken place so late-
ly as 1809, he was convinced that there was no ne-
cessity for again recommending that subject to the I
attention of the Prince Regent., or of the House.—
The Right Hen. Gentleman here entered into a com-
parison between the pay and emoluments of the Co-
lonels, Commandants, and Majors of Marines, and
those of Officers of similar rank in the army; from
which, upon the whole, he inferced that the inequa-
lity of emoluments were trifling, if any, and not
greater than what was occasioned by the diversity of
, service. The Hon. Gentleman had complained of
the slowness of promotion in the marine service, and
that so very few Officers reached the rank of Com-
mandants. But similar Complaints were equally
applicable to promotions in the army ; for how
few Colonels in the army were there, compara-
tively speaking, who could be promoted to the I
command of regiments ? Besides, during war,
the proportion of marines on shore was extremely
small, when compared with those who were on ship- ,
board, and these entitled to all the advantages which
belonged to the naval service, such as the chance of
prize money, &c. ; advantages which inferior officers
,ht the army were not possessed of. Were there
even, therefore, some inequality in the pay of these
respective branches of service, he saw no reason for
chattering, as the Hon. Gentleman had done, about
a few shillings or pounds, more or less. [Hear, I
hear I.] But the divisions of marines which were on
shore, and ' which never amounted to more than
10,000 men out of their whple number, were un-
doubtedly snacieatly supplied with Staff Officers:—
Every division, consisting of 1000 men, had generally
a Col,-Commandant and finer Majors;' se that in this
respect he really 1111"Ef heard a matter of complaint
hich w less entitled to the consideration of the
House. The service of the artillery, with which that
of the marines had been compared, without meaning
at all to depreciate the latter, was one of more re-
sponsibility, and of a more arduous nature, and which
necessarily required a greater number of officers of
rink; the great body of marines being, as he had so
often stated, under the orders and directions of naval
Captains. As to the slowness of promotion on the
part of marine officers, he believed that if the lion.
Gentleman compared it with what necessarily took
place in the promotion of inferior officers in the army
and navy, there would appear little or no ground of
complaint. With regard to Greenwich Hospital, the
marines contributed the same as the seamen to that
establishment, and enjoyed from it the same advan-1
tages, with this single exception, that the superior
officers of that national establishment were generally
chosen from the navy • but this in itself was such a
trifle (there being only four or five situations of the
description alluded toll as hardly to deserve the at-
tention of the House. The Honourable Gentleman
had also complained, that marines, serving in the
East and West Indies, were net entitled to the ad-
vantage possessed by soldiers ser'sing in those parts,
of having every two years counted for three, in the
computation of their pensions.
~But surely the Hon.
Gentleman must he aware, that 66-marines remain-
ing generally on hoard their ships, where they were
much less exposed to the dangers of the climate, and
which was always, in those latitudes, the most heal-
thy situation in which they could be placed. On board'
ship their Officers were besides" etititted to the sutrae,
allowances as Naval Officers, and came in for their
due proportion ef prize-money. Upon the whole,
he believed that the marine service was one of
the most eligible of the various branches of our
military establishments; and he thought the House
would agree with him in thinking, that no sufficient
ground had been laid for the Address which was now
Proposed..
Mr. EDWARD BULLER, shortly stated his con-
friction, that the marine corps, as compared with
other branches of the naval and military service, had
not the smallest ground of complaint.

Mr. GRENFELL expressed his regret, that an'
impression might not go abroad, from the speech of
the Right-Rom Gentleman, that the . door was shut
agailist any enquiry into the situation of officers of
he marine corps.
Mr. YORKE oksersej, in explanation, that all
:beird asawried was, that the Ron. Gentleman had
no. sufficient grounds of enquiry.
After a few words from Mr. Robinson, and a short
repky.from Mr. "Hatebintloo, the Wtotipo was [lega-
lised Wititinit a division.
HINSON Mr. lIUTC then mood for the produc.:
top of a copy of- a letter from Colonels Trench and.
Pesbrowi, of the spar* oerps tq the Right 14cm.
C. Yorke.
Oa Mr. YORKE obiervirig Oat. this papas was
rather Of be nature of Is prisatp listtosi the main
• !!at I.o,l*nr!",