to those who had served fourteen years, the addition of a shilling a week of pay. No man, however, of those now in the army, would be entitled to his discharge till after the expiration of twenty-one year's service. After having stated the measures which he proposed to adopt for the improvement of the regular army, Mr. Windham proceeded next to enquire what should be done with that part of the population of the country, which does not exist in the shape of an army. This subject led him into a history of the origin and progress of the volunteer system, in the course of which, while he did full justice to the zeal and patriotism of the volunteers, he lamented bitterly that so much time and money had been fruitlessly expended, in attempting to give to that species of force a degree of perfection, of which from its nature it was totally unsusceptible. His own opinion was that there ought to be no corps of volunteers, except those formed of persons in the better ranks of life, who would serve at their own expence, with no other allowance from government but arms, and no other exemption but from service in other sorts of irregular force, which it might be advisable to constitute. But, as he found the volunteer sys. tem already established, he meant not rashly to put it down, but would content himself with reducing its exorbitant expences. It was a fact, that in three years and a half the volunteer system had cost the government five millions, and as much more at least had been expended in support of it by private individuals. The total amount of the reductions which he proposed in this establishment would produce to government an annual saving of more than £800,000 a year. He should reduce the number of days for training from 85 to 26. The rank given to volunteer officers he considered to be a scandalous abuse, most injurious to the regular army. He proposed, in future, that no VOlunteer officer should have a higher rank than that of captain; that is, that no officer of the line of a higher rank than that of captain, nor any captain commanding a corps, should be commanded by an officer of volunteers. The peasantry, artisans, and other persons of the same class, he wished to see, not locked up in volunteer corps and vainly employed in adopting the dress and imitating the evolutions of the troops of the line, but loosely trained under officers of the militia or of the regular army, so as to be qualified, under their direc tion, to act as an armed peasantry and harass and impede the motions of the enemy if he accomplished a landing, or be prepared at least to take their place in the regular army, and repair whatever losses it might sustain in action. This training he meant to be compulsory, but it should last only for 24 days in the year. The persons so trained should have no particular dress, nor be carried to a distance from their homes. For the days they were employed in training the same allowance should be paid to them as to the volunteers. As it would be impossible to train the whole population of the country at once, the persons liable to that duty might be limited to 200,000 men; and of these the government should select for actual training the proportion which it judged to be most expedent But the whole number of persons liable to that service should be enrolled in classes according to their age, and on any emergence discretionary power might be et with government to call out and embody whatever classes it ld think proper, and in whater parts of the country it should :1 recessary. With respect to the militia Mr. Fadham had at present no alteraDes to propose. le meant to ue the suspension of the balad he would certainly recomd. in future, recruiting for that e on the scheme projected in ad, and at a limited bounty. e was also disposed to promote are, introduced by the late ment, of permitting the Irish to enlist in the line; and tended, in conjunction with the à government, to propose some ent arrangement for that Mr. Windham concluded by g for leave to bring in a bill peal the act passed in the 44th ajesty called the additional e bill. د Lord Castlereagh after enlarging inexpediency of undertak. a fondamental revision of any Se leading establishments of a y in time of war, contended was unnecessary to enter ch a revision of our military shments at the present moIn proof of this position, shew how much the army had increased in its numbers dur. late administration, he stated, at, the gross strength of the at home and abroad, ineludtia and artillery, in effective and file, was 115,947 165,790 increase 49,843 He admitted that the annual loss of the army, independant of extraordinary occurrences, amounted to 15,000 men; and that the annual supply, by the ordinary means of recruiting, did not exceed 11,000, or at most 14.000 men. mitted also that an addition of He ad43,000 men was still wanting to raise the army to its full establish ment. But, he contended that the annual supply which might be expected from the Irish militia, and the operation of the bill now proposed to be repealed, were fully adequate to supply these deficiencies. He entered into a detail. ed account of the reasons why this bill had been so long unproductive; but he contended, that since the progress of the inspecting field officers through the counties, it had furnished 300 men a week, being at the rate of 16,000 men a year; and he endeavoured to shew that, in future, it would afford a still greater number. He argued against the plan of enlisting men for a limited term of years on various and aut very consistent grounds. He seemed to think the experiment was dangerous, and yet argued it would produce little real change in E2 the the condition of the soldiers. He was apprehensive that if the same privilege was not extended to the existing army, it would excite discontent among the troops, and yet he considered it so small a boon that none would be induced by it to enter the army, who would not have done so though it had not been granted. It would increase the annual waste of the army, and might create at certain periods a still more alarming deficiency. It was not a practice that had been followed by any of the great military powers, except by France before the revolution, and by Austria since the peace of Campo Formio. After reprobating the indirect course, which he alledged the right hon. secretary was pursuing to get rid of the volunteers, the noble lord concluded by a studied eulogium on the present greatness and prosperity of the country. "I do not hesitate to assert, said he, that on the essential points of the finances, the navy, and the army, compared with the difficulties and embarassments under which they represent themselves to have undertaken the government, the present administration may be considered as on a bed of roses." Our limits will not permit us to give at length, and we shall not attempt to abridge, the spirited and indignant reply of Mr. Fox to this extraordinary assertion, that the ministers with whom he acted had succeeded to a bed of roses. The right hon. secretary proceeded ef terwards to point out the numerous and striking inconsistencies in lord Castlereagh's arguments with respect to limited service, and in an swer to his complaint, that, in repealing the additional force bill, Mr. Windham substituted nothing in its place, he observed that it was the merit of his right hon. friend's plan, that it proposed no compli cated machinery to produce an effect, which would be gained by. the simple mode of recruiting. All the schemes adopted for raising men had, as far as they were successful. only defrauded the ordinary system of recruiting, and that with a great expence and no inconsiderable op pression. It was something that the market would be again lef open to the government as the only recruiter. The noble lord migh call this theory, and say that nc more men would be obtained "Now I should think," said Mr Fox, that the theory which tell me that you have the best chanc of being cheaply provided, wher you are the only bidder, is prefer able to the noble lord's practica argument, that the more competitor: you let into the market, the more recruits you are likely to obtain and at a smaller bounty." Mr. Fox concluded with expres sing his opinion, that we should fine it necessary to maintain a large army, even in time of peace, for he saw no prospect of any peace, tha would exempt us from the necessity of watchful preparation and power. ful establishments. Mr. Yorke was averse to the plan of limited service, which he considered as a dangerous innova. tion; and he argued that the sol. diers of our army could not be said to be enlisted for life, when the existence of the army itself depended on the annual votes of parliament. He added that it was an invariable practice in our army to give a soldier his discharge after 24 years service. Sir James Pulteney and general Tarleton objected in the strongest terms to the plan of the right hon. secretary. The former was of opinion, that the character of British soldiers would be materially injured by the introduction of limited service." and among other objections to that form of engagement, he suggested, that the prospect of retarning to their friends and families might have a mischievous effect on the minds of those, whose term of service was nearly expired, and lessen materially their promptness and alacrity to encounter danger. The latter boasted that "he had in his pocket the clearest proofs of the efficacy of the additional force bill," and from its success in Lancashire, be inferred, that where it had falled, the fault lay with those who had been charged with the execution Whereupon sir W. W. Wynne rose and observed, that Denbighshire had procured the men it was bound to furnish by the act, from Manchester and other manu. facturing towns in Lancashire, by means of crimps, and he had no doubt that Lancashire had raised its wn quota from the same places, and by the same instruments. Colonel Crawford, colonel Graham, and Mr. Huddlestone spoke in favour of limited service; and lord Temple, Mr. Charles Dundas, and sir William Young vindicated those entrusted with the execution of the additional force bill from the impatation cast upon them of having neglected to do their duty. The subject of limited service was again brought before the house (April 17th) by Mr. Yorke, who moved for the production of copies of "all sach military opinions in writing as may have been given, in consequence of a requisition of his ma jesty's government, on the subject of recruiting the army in future, by enlisting for a term of years." This motion was objected to by ministers on the ground, that the opinions called for were private and confidential communications from certain general officers to the commander in chief, and that to lay them before the public would be unfair to those officers, and would tend to prevent such unreserved communications from being made in future. It appeared in the course of the debate, which was desultory and uninteresting, that there was great diversity of opinion among the officers consulted with regard to limited service. Of 14 opinions given to the commander in chief, 7 were in favour of limited service, 6 against it, and one doubtful. During this debate the house was reminded by general Walpole, that the experiment of recruiting for a limited term of years had been tried in the American war with the best effects to the recruiting service. On the same day the additional force repeal bill was read a first time. It was opposed by Mr. Percival on the ground, that the addi, tional force bill had been gradually and progressively becoming more productive since the question was debated last year, and that it was now actually furnishing from 300 to 400 recruits a week. It was maintained on the other side that not a single man had been obtained for the army by the operation of this bill, who would not have been procured without its operation. Before The repcal bill was read a second time on the 30th of April. it was read, Mr. Canning moved as an amendment, that the second reading of the bill should be post poned till that day three weeks, in £3 ordo order, as he said, that the new military plan might first be taken into consideration. The house divided on the question that the bill be now read; ayes 235; noes 119; majority 116. This debate was distinguished on the side of opposition, by a very brilliant and able speech of Mr. Canning, which was, however, rather a general review and examination of Mr. Windham's military plans, than a defence of the additional force bill. In this speech Mr Canning argued at great length for the practice and policy of compulsory service in certain parts of our military establishment, and expressed his fears, that if that principle were abandoned in the militia, as seemed to be in the contemplation of the right hon. secretary, that species of force would cease to be, what was intended by it, a constitutional check on the standing army. If Himited service was a boon to the army, the right hon. gentleman contended, that the proposal of it should have come from the crown and not have originated with the commons. He had no dislike to the trial of limited service on a small scale, but he objected to the whole of our army being put upon that footing. He was no enemy to variety in our military establishments. He then enlarged on the danger of soldiers being entitled to have their discharge in time of war, on the inconvenience that must result from limited service in our foreign and colonial possessions, on the discontents that were to be apprehended in the existing army, when they saw the new levies placed in a situation so infinitely preferable to their own. He ridiculed the additional six-pence a week that was to be given as an equivalent for the present high bounties, and he reprobated strongly the language held on the other side of the house, against the employment of crimps, and the other artifices used in recruiting. He repeatedly called upon the house to maintain consistency in its proceedings, and not to abandon a measure to which it had formerly given its sanction, at the very moment when that measure was about to realize all the expectations that had been formed of it. He insinuated strongly, that the repeal of the present bill was urged less from a conviction of its defects, than from the desire of throwing a slur on the memory of his late right honourable friend, whose measure it had been, and upon that ground he endeavoured to interest the feelings of the house in support of his amendment. After a long and able speech, he concluded by a comparison of the volunteer system with the right honourable secretary's plan of training the peasantry, and gave of course a decided preference to the former. It was contended on the other side, that the bill the repeal of which was the only question then before the house, had failed to accomplish any of the objects for which it had been enacted. Instead of raising 41,415 men, in the whole United Kingdom, as by the several acts for raising the additional force it ought to have done.before the 1st of October, 1805, it had furnished only 12.925 men, on the 14th of March, 1806; that is, it had raised less than one third of the number which ought to have been procured by it six months before Of the men obtained by its operation, only 8,975 had been raised really or nominally by the parishes, and the rest had been procured by regimental recruiting; so that |