country; and fuch as were not difabled by their wounds, he had not the smallest doubt, would ftill be proud to fight for their country, whenever he was attacked by her enemies. It was therefore no merit in him to profefs an opinion in their be half; it was merely the difcharge of a duty incumbent on himfelf, and upon every one of the British fubjects. Indeed fo ftrongly did he feel for that meritorious clafs of officers, that he could not venture to truft himself with all he wished to fay in their behalf. Certainly it was not his wifh that a Bill that was highly probable to be fo popular and productive, fhould be loft by rifking its fate, in confequence of any alterations their Lordships might make in it. They all knew what the practice of the other Houfe was refpecting Money Bills fent down altered by their Lordships, and fpeaking as a conftitutional man, he thought it a falutary practice. There might therefore be fome danger of lofing the Bill altogether, if any step their Lordships took refpecting it, fhould give occafion for a new Bill to be brought in, and expofe it to new difcuffion at that period of the feffion. If then minifters thought it unadviseable to adopt any clause in favour of halfpay officers, he earnestly implored them to do fomething adequately, if not more fatisfactory, in behalf of a worthy fet of men, to whom every individual in the country was under obligation, who were gentlemen from their rank and fervices, and ought to be regarded as fuch by all, as well thofe who were not more favoured in refpect to fortune, as thofe who might have more wealth, but who very rately, if ever, would be found to poffefs half their talents and

virtue.

The Bill having been read a third time,

Lord Mulgrave rofe to propofe an additional clause to exempt half-pay officers from the tax, agreeable to the notice he had given on Thursday laft. His Lordship explained the grounds on which he had been induced to bring forward the claufe which he should have the honour to submit to their Lordships. An exemption of clergymen and diffenters, whole incomes did not amount to 100 per annum, already ftood part of the Bill, and he thought it highly proper that it should do fo; but furely if fuch an exemption were deemed right in favour of the clergy, how much stronger must be the claims of the fubaltern half-pay officers, the income of many of whom was no more than 34 a year, and even thofe of fubalterns of a higher rank only about ten pounds more. fubalterns of the army, who, from the reduction of their regiments, from wounds, from lofs of limbs, were put upon half-pay, were still gentlemen, and entitled to that rank in fo

The

ciety; why, therefore, was a wound unneceffarily to be given to their feelings, and their pride cruelly mortified by the operation of a tax which it was impoflible for most of them to pay, and confequently by being compelled to change the face of their customary appearance, they would ftand degraded in the eyes of thofe among whom they had fought a retreat. Was that a mode of rewarding the merits of thofe, who had fought and bled in their country's fervice, becoming the generofity and gratitude of a British Legislature? Let their Lordfhips recollect the many and ferious inconveniencies that the fubjecting them to a tax, the principle of which, generally fpeaking, no Noble Lord approved more than he did, would put them to. The Noble Earl, who fo much to his own honour had that day pleaded their caufe fo powerfully, had mentioned one of a nature fufficiently material to fatisfy the House, that the exemption he wished to obtain in their behalf was a reasonable exemption.

The Noble Earl had told them, that in confequence of this tax, if the clause he should propofe were not received, the poor fubaltern would be debarred from the opportunity of attending the levee of a general officer to folicit an increase of his fcanty pittance, and to afk for better bread. Could halfpay officers, if the Bill paffed, any longer mingle with those genteel circles in which they had been received and confidered among their chief ornaments? What must be the feelings of a half-pay fubaltern, when he faw his equal in rank, but his junior in years and fervice, who had the good fortune to be on full fervice, appear in the fame town, village, or hamlet in which he happened to refide for the fake of economy, would he not be cut to the foul to feel it neceffary for him to retire from the obfervance of his neighbours, from the conscioufnefs that his own appearance was not fit to vie with that of the happier individual, in poffeffion of those favours of fortune to which his own merits were equally, perhaps better entitled? He appealed to every profeflional Peer prefent, whether the half-pay officers did not ftand entitled to every poffible confideration and favour at the hands of the Legislature, and whether they would not feverely feel the mortification of being thus fuddenly degraded from the rank of gentleHe would afk fuch Noble Lords alfo, whether they were fatisfied that the half-pay officers neither could afford to pay nor would pay the tax, and that confequently the revenue would not benefit or lofe a fhilling, whether they granted the exception or not. He would appeal to a Reverend Bench alfo, and he trusted he fhould meet with a ready fupport, because he was perfuaded the candour and humanity that fo eminently diftin

diftinguished that Reverend Bench, would lead them to affift in obtaining that favour for half-pay officers which had been fo readily, and in his opinion fo properly, granted to inferior clergy. Much ftrefs, his Lordship obferved, had been laid upon the affertion that hair-powder was not a neceffary of life. Strictly speaking it was not a neceflary; but as far as cuftom. eftablifhed for a long courfe of years was to be regarded, it had in fome fort become a neceflary of life; at leaft it was as much fo to the half-pay officer as to the clergy. What greater neceflity, he would alk, was there for a clergyman to wear powder, than for the half-pay officer to do fo? A clergyman could read the fervice of the church just as well in his own black hair, as he could do if it were powdered. Would powder in his hair help him in the compofition or delivery of a difcourfe? Would it add to the energy and fpirit of the one, or increase the eloquence and impreffive effect of the other? And yet he heartily rejoiced, that fo liberal an exemption had taken place refpecting clergymen of the defcription that they had ftated, as he always wifhed to fee that body of men regarded as perfons to be looked up to by their parithioners with due reverence; but the fame principle that made an exemption proper in favour of the inferior clergy, would bear out the exemption to the half-pay fubalterns. His Lordfhip warmly preffed every part of his argument, and faid, he must have forgotten all that he had witneffed in the courfe of his profeffional life, if he had not feized the occafion of standing forth the advocate of men whofe merits and whofe fervices fo well entitled them to the kindeft confideration of their Lordships. Before he concluded, he complimented minifters on their general readinefs to lend a favourable ear to the juft claims of the deferving; it had, he faid, been the labour of his life to give them every poflible fupport from a consciousness of the rectitude of their intentions; and he trusted he never fhould have the fmalleft reafon to change his opinion, or deviate from the path that he had uniformly purfued. His Lordship then read his clause, and faid, if either the Noble Secretary of State or any other Noble Lord would fuggeft a modification of it, that would render it more acceptable, he would readily adopt it, as he was by no means wedded to the form in which it was drawn; his object and his earnest wish was to obtain the exemption in favour of half-pay fubalterns.

Lord Romney defired to give his reafons, why he should vote for the Bill, and against the claufe propofed. It was not, he affured the two Noble Lords who had argued in fupport of the claufe, from any difrefpect to them, but because in times of great public diftrefs he thought it the duty of all their Lordships to look the difficulty in the face like men, to meet it with neceffary fortiVOL. III.

tude,

tude, and adopt fuch meafures as the exigency of the cafe required. He therefore was for fupporting the revenue, and he had obferved, that there was fcarcely any tax that had been much oppofed when firft brought in that had not turned out a very productive tax in the end. He profcffed his refpect and gratitude to the half-pay officers as a body, but he could not agree that in this cafe they ought to be exempted from the tax. His Lordship faid, he highly approved of the principle of the Bill, and he did not with it to be loft; it had paffed the other House with general approbation, and nothing had been proposed there refpecting an exemption in favour of half-pay officers, and that would have been the proper place for fuch a claufe to have been difcuffed. Their Lordships all knew what the prac tice of the other Houfe was refpecting money Bills, when al tered by them, and he would own for one he highly approved that practice. He certainly faw no abfolute neceffity for any particular defcription of men to wear powder; and he fhould conceive that a ftudent might apply himself to acquiring a knowledge of a learned profeffion as well without powder in his hair as with. He hoped the tax would be productive, but he was inclined to think it would in fome confiderable degree prevent and reftrain the ufe of powder. He begged before he fat down, to fay, that he should be ready to concur with their Lordships in any measure that might be thought proper in favour of half-pay officers; and he hoped next feffion that they would be relieved; but under the prefent circumstances, he owned he wished the Bill might pafs as it was.

The Earl of Guildford faid, he faw no reason why the claufe propofed by his Noble Friend fhould not be adopted. With regard to the objection of the Noble Secretary of State, his chief objection he understood to be the fame with that of his Noble Friend who had just fat down, viz. the practice of the other House in refpect to money Bills, which were fent down with alterations in them made by their Lordships. He declared he thought that practice a very proper one, and useful to the fupport of the conftitution; it did not however, in his mind, amount to a fufficient reason why the claufe fhould be rejected. He had always confidered, that when their Lordfhips made an alteration in a money Bill, they rejected that Bill, affigning their reasons for it. But that would only occafion a delay of a few days, as the other Houfe, with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in it, would doubtlefs think it proper to bring in a new Bill, adopting their Lordships alteration and amendment, and that Bill might pass both Houses almost directly. The Bishop of Rochester faid, he felt himself appealed to by the Noble Lord who had moved the claufe, and therefore he muit trouble their Lordships with a few obfervations. He

could

could not admit the principle that they ought never to object to a revenue Bill, because the other House might throw it out. The Noble Lord had emphatically appealed to the bench on which he had the honour to fit, and had called upon him to fay, whether he thought a clergyman had any actual neceffity to wear powder in his hair. He did not fcruple to fay that he did not think he had. For one he felt himself bound to meet the claim of the Noble Lord, and fupport the claufe, as the fame principle that justified an exemption in favour of fubaltern clergy, would undoubtedly juftify an exemption in favour of half-pay fubalterns. So obvious was this, that he wondered much that the House of Commons fhould have fent up the Bill with fuch an iniquity on its head. A Noble Earl (Lord Moira) had complained of laying down distinctions in dress as a matter perfectly inconfonant with Britifh liberty. Was the Noble Earl aware that the practice of diftinguishing rank by drefs. under the authority of law, had prevailed in the freeft democracies that ever exifted? It was in his opinion a wife practice, it reftrained the lower ranks from aping their fuperiors, preferved due fubordination, and tended effentially to the purpofes of general prudence and economy. With regard to the claufe before them, he confidered it to be founded in equity and reafon, and he should certainly vote for it, if the Noble Lord perfifted in taking the fenfe of the Houfe upon it. Half-pay officers wanted no encomium of his to blazon their fame; they were gentlemen, and entitled to rank as gentlemen; and it was ridiculous to expect a guinea a year out of their pockets for the tax, when the guinea could not be found there. He therefore hoped if that meritorious defcription of men could not be affifted in this Bill, without danger to the Bill itself, a new one exempting them from the tax would immediately be brought in.

Lord Romney faid, he believed a new Bill affecting a tax of the year could not, according to the practice of Parliament, be brought in the fame feffion. What he rofe principally for, however, was to correct a mistake that he had accidentally fallen into —he had said, no clause in favour of half-pay officers had been propofed in the other Houfe. Since he fat down he had been informed, that such a clause had been introduced and debated in that Houfe. He begged pardon for his mistake.

Lord Grenville complimented Lord Mulgrave on the honourable zeal and feeling, that he had evinced in behalf of all those gentlemen of his own profeflion, who were on half-pay, and declared himself perfectly ready to confefs their merits, though he could not admit that there was any real occafion for the claufe in question. He faid, he could not agree with the prin

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