tempt at it has only tended to accelerate the consummation of his glory: and the nations of Europe seem to vie with each other for the precedence in bowing down before him. In short, so great does he appear, so power. ful do we feel him to be when compared with us, that the comfort of many really seems to arise from the hope, that we shall remain unconquered, because he will regard us as being beneath his notice! Base as this hope is, however, it is not more bise than fallacious; for, though he should esteem us a degraded people, he knows that we inhabit a rich and fertile country; and he also knows, that the more degraded men are, the more likely they are to make excellent slaves. To rescue us from this state of intolerable disgrace would require great and wise measures in all the departments of government; but more particularly in that, to which is committed the care of providing an efficient military force, of which force we are, at this moment, most shamefully and alarmingly destitute. Many and loud have been the complaints and remonstrances, which, on different occasions, have, through the pages of the Register, been made upon this subject. But, repetition, though very irksome to the writer, and still more so to the reader, is, unfortunately, necessary, in order to obtain even a chance of producing the desired effect. All exertion may be useless, but one must be quite certain of the inutility before it can be pleaded in justification of failing to persevere. The present moment is, too, rather favourable than otherwise: Parliament is about to adjourn after having passed several laws upon the subject of our military defence: every scheme that ministers have thought proper to adopt has now been tried, or is under trial: this, therefore, seems to be precisely the time to take a review of the measures relating to the army, and to exhibit to the public that train of errors, which have deprived us of an efficient military force, and which, until they are corrected, will continue that deprivation.This exposition must begin with a statement of the troops discharged or disbanded at the conclusion of the peace of Amiens; that peace, which, as Mr. Pitt observed, the ministers who made ade it regarded as "the notice of a new war;" that peace whoever believed in the duration of which was set down as "the fool of nature;" that peace which, in the words of his Majesty's declaration, had been, on the part of the enemy "6 one continued series of hostility." At the conclusion of such a peace, one would think that ministers ought to have been slow in disbanding the force of the country: as it was "a peace of "experiment," one would think they should have tried the experiment before they threw aside the implements of war; especially when it is well known, that, even between the definitive and the preliminary treaty, the enemy with whom we were negotiating was making conquests more rapidly than he had made them in war, and that, while Lord Cornwallis was at Amiens higgling for the cession of Ceylon and Trinidad, Buonaparte was at Lyons receiving the oaths of alle giance from the greater and the better part of Italy, having already added the important is and of Elba to the territory of France. Under such circumstances it might reasonably have been expected to see ministers proceed with great caution in disbanding the army; yet, according to their own acknowledgments, made by the mouth of Mr. Secretary Yorke, they instantly reduced the army, including militia and fencibles, from 250,000 to 126,000 men, of which 126,000, it would, probably, be difficult for them to prove the existence at this day. Mr. Yorke's speech has been quoted before; but, on this occasion, it is necessary again to refer to it. He stated, that 71,000 militia had been disembodied, because it was the custom to disembody the militia at the conclusion of peace. To have rendered this reason valid, it should have been shown, that it was also customary to make a peace of experiment, a peace being merely the notice of a new war. Upon the same principle 20,679 men of the fencible regiments were immediately disbanded. Invalids to the amount of, 5,172 men were reduced, in order, he told the House, to form them into a more effective corps ; but they were not so formed; no step was taken towards such formation; the men were scattered all over the kingdom, and were not, till the signal of war was given, called together again, to their very great inconvenience and injury, which must also have made a considerable reduction in their numbers. There were 7,025 men discharged, of whom no description was given; but allowing them to have been entitled to their discharge, we still find 19.438 men belonging to the cavalry and to foreign corps, who neither were entitled to their discharge nor wished to have it. The militia and fenci bles might, and should, have been kept embodied for several months, at least, after the conclusion of a peace which was nothing but the notice of a new war; but, upon this description of force one is not inclined to lay much stress; it is the disbanding of the cavalry and the foreign corps that we have to regiet, and that we have to pay for too. Mr. Yorke's statement of the reasons for this measure is curious and interesting in the extreme. "The cavalry," said he, " amount❝ed to 25,000 men; a force not thought necessary, and, for that reason, as well as "because it was the most expensive sort of force, the reduction commenced with it; and, 10,493 men of that description were "reduced." Observe that this force was not thought necessary by the ministers who regarded the peace merely as the notice of a new war; and then observe, that, when the new war took place, in about eight or nine I months after the reduction of the cavalry was made, one of the first of the military measures of these same ministers, was, to augment the cavalry in nearly the same proportion, as far as their ability to raise men would go, that this very cavalry had been reduced! Either the ministers are now guilty of great insincerity in preten ling that they did not expect the peace to last, or it becomes them to show that they were innocent of a much more serious offence in making so large a reduction of the cavalry. The expense!" This was the most expensive sort of force. True; but, allowing that the peace was expected to last, this sort of force might have been kept up, at least, till the experiment of peace had been tried, at an expense very little greater than that attending the support of an equal number of infantry. The horses might have been sold, and the dismounted men quartered in barracks, or elsewhere, in the same manner as if they had been infantry. The wisdom of keeping them dismounted for years may admit of dispute; but for a year or eighteen months, with an intimation that they should either be discharged, or mounted again, at the expiration of that time, they might very conveniently have been retained. And who does not lament; "who that reflects upon the expense and trouble which we have had to get men into the regular army through the army of reserve; who that has observed the torment and miseries of the ballot and of all the various means and measures which have occupied the nation for this year past; what man that looks at the state of our military force at this moment, does not sorely lament that we have not how these 10,493 regular disciplined soldiers, especially when he is informed, that this number is nearly equal to all the effective recruits that have been raised for the regular army since the commencement of the war, notwithstanding measures so extraordinary have been resorted to for that purpose? The foreign corps," says Mr. Yorke, to the number of 8.945 << men, were reduced, because this was a "force which we were glad to spare, and 183C "which, when a reduction was necessary, "we thought it most polític to reduce; for, "when British troops were disbanded, who "would think of retaining foreigners ?" Nobody: but, because it is allowed, that, when British troops are disbanded, it would not be advisable to retain foreign troops; and because it is also allowed, that, when a reduction is necessary, it should begin with foreigners next after the men whose term of service has expired; because this is allowed it does not for that reason follow, that the disbanding of the foreign corps, in the present instance, was either politic or justifiable; for the necessity of the reduction of the British troops is denied; it was denied at the time; the ministers were exhorted not to disband any of the regular army, but rather to augment it; and, if we yet wanted any thing to convince us of the folly of their measures in this respect, the act of parliament which has just been past for raising foreign corps might, one would think, be quite sufficient for the purpose. The expense of raising a number of foreigners equal to the number disbanded, including contingencies, cannot fali much short of thirty pounds a man, making, in the whole, 268,350). This is a decent little sum which the nation has to pay by way of smartmoney for having fallen in love with a ministry of well-meaning men, taken, according to the advice of Mr. Wilberforce, from amongst the middling classes of society," and of whom, by the bye, more than one half of the present cabinet, or, of the "noses,” at least, of the present cabinet, consists. But, the pecuniary loss, considerable as it is in itself, sinks out of sight when compared with the national injury which has arisen from the want of an efficient army; of which army the corps here spoken of would, in a war like the present, have formed a most valuable part. How long it will require to raise foreign troops in number equal to those disbanded there is at hand no means of ascertaining; nor, indeed, would it be easy to gness at the number likely to be raised in the whole; but, it must be evident to every one, that if we had already collected another 8,945 foreigners together in regiments, it would take a long while to render them equal in point of discipline to those whom our ministers disbanded. And, as to the effect of these new foreign corps upon the mind of the enemy, very different indeed will it be from that which was, and which must have continued to be, produced by the existence of the old foreign corps, which chiefly consisted of exactly that description of men of whose exertions the enemy had 105] most reason to be afraid.The cavalry and the foreign troops together amounted to 19,438 men, to replace whom, at the rate of 301. a man, which is a very low calculation, if we consider the price which has been paid for substitutes in the army of reserve, will stand the nation in 583,1401. more than half a million of money, as a little beginning of the expenses of the peace of Amiens; that peace which, according to Mr. Addington, was to produce a saving of 25,000,000). a year! Those who objected to the peace stated, as the foundation of their objection, that such a peace would not permit the nation to disarm with safety; and, that, therefore, either the safety of the nation must be hazarded, or we must continue to support all the expenses, unaccompanied with any one of the advantages of war. There were others who approved of the peace, because they thought, from the then declarations of ministers, that we might safely reduce our establihments, and, of course, our expenses. This was, on both sides, matter of opinion. The former description of persons were consistent in exhorting the ministers not to disband the army and dismantle the fleet; the latter were equally consistent in calling upon them to disarm, and thereby to reduce the amount of our expenses. But, what shail be said for Mr. Addington and his colleagues, the greater part of whom are now the colleagues of Mr. Pitt? They who were in possession of all the proofs of the enemy's hostility; they who disbanded the army and dismantled the fleet while they regarded the peace as merely the notice of a new war, and who have since advised their Sovereign to make a solemn declaration to the world, that the whole interval of peace was occupied, on the part of the enemy, by a series of aggressions and insults? It would be curious to see, by and bye, an accurate enumeration of all the expenses, instead of the savings of the peace of Amiens: such a calculation might furnish the money-loving people of this country with a pretty satisfactory proof of the truth which Mr. Windham endeavoured to impress upon their minds: that true œconomy consisted in judiciously applying the resources of the nation to the means of preserving its honour, its power, and its consequence in the world. He endeavoured in vain: the cry of, "capital, "credit and confidence," within doors, and that of." peace and plenty," without, stifled the sound of his voice. Had not the country been stripped of its army and its fleet; had they been kept in tolerable trim for a year, not only the expenses of recruiting to fill the place of men discharged, and most of the other extraordinary expenses that have arisen out of this war, might have been avoided : but who shall say that we might not have avoided the war itself, at least for another year or two? There is, indeed, little reason to suppose, that we could have rested long in peace without effecting some alteration in the then state of things; but, if any thing could have afforded us a chance of a duration of peace and of living in safety at the same time, it would have been the keeping our army, our regular army, up to its full establishment, making thereto a little augmentation, which augmentation might, at a trifling expense, have been made out of the flower of the militia. And, if, thus prepared, we had failed in our efforts to preserve peace and our honour, will any one say, that the war would have commenced under such disadvantages as it did commence? The knowledge that you have an army always has its weight with your ene my. If Buonaparté had seen us capable of sending twenty or thirty thousand men up the Elbe, he would have hesitated before he dispatched his army to take possession of Hanover; and, if he had finally resolved on the enterprize, that army mgiht have been met by the Hanoverian army, aided by ten or fifteen thousand men from Great Britain, who might have been reinforced as occasion, required. Instead of this, Great Britain, destitute of an army, could think of nothing but providing for her own defence; and so unwise and completely inefficient have the measures of ministers been, that her capability to ensure even that object yet appears doubtful.Having reduced the regular army at home to one half of the amount of its strength during the late war, when the new war came upon us there was no time to raise any thing but militia and other troops for home service only:. at least, want of time was pleaded for this defensive military system. But, previous to the war, great pains had been taken to augment the establishmeat of the Scotch militia, or at least to provide for its augmentation in case of war. When the bill for this purpose was before the House of Commons, the evil tendency of it was pointed out the ministers were told, that the establishment was too large, that it would destroy the recruiting service for the regular army in that most ferule field for recruits; and, Mr. Elliot particularly dwelt upon the mischiefs which would, in this re spect, be experienced from the measure at The ministhe breaking out of a new war. ters persevered: the establishment was extended: the consequences have been just such as were foretold: scotland, which used success of their own plan thus amended, they set up a system of volunteering, which so widely extended the exemptions from the ballot of the army of reserve, that more than about two thirds of the numbers to be raised have not been raised, and the law kas, in that degree, been as useless as one of the chapters of Sir Francis D'Ivernois's books. It could not be enforced farther. There were no more materials for it to work upon; and it would absolutely have died for want of food, if Mr. Pitt, its father and its guardian, had not come to its assistance. Mr. Addington and his colleagues had, at last, discovered, that there were not, even with the aid of the army of reserve, any men left to go into the regular army; and, as all the other bodies were full, as we had raised 91,000 militia men, 25,000 sea fencibles, and 400,000 volunteers; as we had locked up more than half a million of men fit to bear arms, it was high time to look about us for the rest to make real soldiers of them; for, amidst all our vaunting about "the irre"sistible phalanxes of citizens armed in de"fence of their property, their families, and "all that is dear to man," we still felt a little monitor in our bosom, who taught us to pray to God that our liberties and lives might, in the hour of danger, not be left entirely to the prowess and discipline of those phalanxes. In short, we all of us, ministers and all, began to see the necessity of providing a force sufficient to defend ourselves and our phalanxes into the bargain. Thus impressed the ministers proposed to suspend the operation of the army of reserve law, and once more to have recourse to the raising of men for rank, for which purpose several agreements were entered into, which agree to afford recruits by thousands, has, during this war, sent forth only her hundreds. The numbers of the English militia were fixed equally high in proportion. A new code, Occupying a hundred pages of the Statute Book, was enacted with a view of correcting all the errors and incongruities which had crept into the system during the war. At the head of these stood the officering of the militia by persons unqualified in point of property; but, the moment the war began; nay, before it actually began, a bill was introduced, by the very same person who had drawn up and brought forward the new code, for officering the militia by persons not qualified agreeably to that code. Having thus obtained laws for shutting up 73,000 men in the home service of Great Britain, it was time to think about Ireland, where the bounty for the regular army being 5 guineas, it was thought necessary, lest men should run too fast into that service and thereby rob the precious militia, to offer, and to give too, 4 guineas as a bounty for militiamen! Thus was the regular army in Ireland put upon a fair footing with that in Great Britain; that is to say, cut off from the possibility of obtaining a recruit. For the Irish must be even greater brutes than some persons appear to think them, if they did not perceive, that there was more than a guinea difference between service for five years or during the war and service for life, especially when, in the former, they could not be compelled to quit Ireland, while, in the latter, they might be sent to any part of the world. Ireland could afford, and did immediately afford 18,000 men. So that we had, by the month of May, 1803, past laws the great purpose of which appeared to be to prevent 91,000 of the ablest bodied men in the king-ments will probably never be fulfilled for dom from being liable to quit it, on any account whatever. This being happily accomplished, the ministers seemed disposed to look about them, as it were to see if the enemy was coming; but, by this time Mr. Pitt had determined to come forth from his retirement, and that he came with a project will be remembered in this country till the Army of Reserve shall be forgotten, which will not be very soon. When that measure, of which he was the real author, was proposed to the Parliament, he, of course stood forth its champion; but of this there will be an occasion to speak hereafter. The army of reserve was decreed; but, as if its inventors had been afraid that the amendments which had been introduced into the plan at the instance of Mr. Windham, and without which it would have proved almost entirely abortive; as if they had been jealous of the want of the men sufficient to establish the claim to the proposed rank. Mr. Pitt, seeing his army of reserve project, which, though a good deal disfigured, he still recognized as his own, about to be annihilated, rushed forward to protect and preserve it, with all the courage and anxiety of a father who sees a darling child upon the point of perishing under the hands of an ignorant or merciless operator. Numerous as is the progeny of projects that call this gentleman father, some persons are astonished at his ardour for the army of reserve, upon which his whole undivided affection seems to have been fixed. But those persons have not observed, that this affection is rather of an instinctive nature than otherwise; that it abandons its objects one after another as the lioness leaves her whelps, retaining very little apparent remembrance of any but the last. It is the present object: the object of "existing "circumstances :" le projet du jour : this it is that you ever find occupying the mind and soul of Mr. Pitt. When, therefore, he perceived the design of the late ministry to put an end to the army of reserve project, he resolved to assault them. He was told that it could live no longer; that it must die for want of food; that the ballot would produce no more men in spite of the most active exertions of the parish officers and thieftakers from one end of the kingdom to the other. This was sad intelligence; and, as there seemed to be no doubt of the fact, any man but him of whom we are speaking would have resigned himself to what was evidently the will of fate. Not so Mr. Pitt, who, as his favouri'e project was perishing for want of sustenance determined to procure that sustenance, cost what it would. There were no more men. Seventy or eighty thousand had, in Great Britain alone, been swallowed up by the militia. He resolved at once to make the militia disgorge; or, at least, cut off its rations for the future; not to put it on a diminished allowance, but to pass on it a sentence of starvation. Here we have a striking instance of his instinctive attachment. The militia had been a favourite; he had swelled it to three times the numbers that it contained when it first came into his hands; but, in comparison with the projet du jour, the militia itself, the caressed, the flattered, the eulogized militia, becomes a mere worthless outcast. When the army of reserve project was first broached, the supplementary militia was not raised. It was decreed. It had a nominal existence; but, as yet it was not raised, nor, indeed, hardly begun to be raised, when the army of reserve bill made its appearance. Mr. Elliot and Mr. Windham earnestly endeavoured to prevail upon the ministers either to abandon this new project, or to put a stop to the raising of the supplementary militia; for, that to raise both was utterly impossible, without precluding all hope of obtaining for the regular army even recruits enough to fill up the vacancies made by deaths, discharges, and desertions. "In addition," said Mr. Windham," to 73,000 men, raising by bal"lot upon the population of Great Britain, "and of 18 000 so raised in Ireland, we are now to have 10,000 more for Ireland and 40,000 for Great Britain, making in the "whole the number of 141,000, of which " 18,000 (the original militia in Ireland), are to be raised by bounty in the first 'in"stance, and the rest to be raised by ballot, "with the privilege of exemption from per"sonal service, on the condition of finding "a substitute. Does any man dream after "this that it is possible for Great Britain to "have an army? The hope is utterly child"ish. The recruiting of the army has, every "body knows, long stood still. An army "not recruited must, by degrees, waste away. In spite of all the hopes, which some persons may indulge, of transferring men hereafter by new bounties, the army must unavoidably stand still for the pre"sent, and, one may venture to say, that, "under the influence of such a system, it is not likely to be again put in motion." Has not this opinion been fully verified? And would it not have been well for the country if Mr. Windham's advice had been listened to? Mr. Elliot objected to the measure for reasons similar to those stated by Mr. Windham. He noticed a former declaration of Mr. Pitt, that 66 even 100,000 men might be raised in "Great Britain by ballot, without in the "least degree injuring the recruiting ser"vice;" upon which he observed, that, if the men who were balloted were also compelled to serve in person, he did not know but they might be raised without materially affecting the regular army; "but," said he, "I aver that even one-fourth part of the "number, procured by the exhorbitant "bounty to which a system of substitution gives rise, would for a time totally extin"guish the recruiting service." Mr. Elliot took great pains to press upon the ministers the necessity of suspending the Supplementary Militia, at any rate, it being impossible to raise that force and the army of reserve too. He insisted, that, not only would the regular recruiting for the army be totally extinguished, but that, if the raising of the Supplementary Militia was persevered in, the army of reserve according to the proposed numbers could not be raised in any reasonable time, and, of course, that the regular army would be very late in receiving aid through that channel. The army of reserve has not been raised. It could not be raised. And now, in order to afford a chance of obtaining men under the new bill of Mr. Pitt, the supplementary militia has been obliged to be abandoned. Mr. Addington and Mr. Yorke are consistent. They contended, that the establishment of militia was not too large, and that it did not operate injuriously to the recruiting of the army; but, the Lord Chancellor, Lord Castlereagh, Lord Hawkesbury; the whole of the six famous "Noses" contended for the same point, and how can they, unless they plead their transformation, justify the advice they have now given to his Majesty to |