old British spirit, which formerly could not bear to hear, that one Englishman could not beat three Frenchmen; and would not allow the French government to make one step towards attacking the liberty of any other nation without avenging that nation, and that glorious cause. Nor will I have to be told, that these arguments and the assertions which I am making, are those which have dispisited and still dispirit the country. Those who have made such assertions, have I am sorry to say been much too little attended to, to have been able to produce so great an effect.-ut, I assert further, that those arguments have no tendency that way. I have often heard that a coward may he kicked into courage; and I think a country by being reproached for want of spirit, may be roused to exertion; but I deny that a brave man was ever kicked into a coward; or that a country can be made spiritless by being reviled for its want of spirit.With respect to the extent and reality of the danger, never having as you know turned any part of my attention to the consideration of military matters, I can be no judge of that; but having some little observation, and a good deal of attention to the opinions of others capable of judging on these matters, I think, I can assertIst. that the difficulties of embarkation, either in the respect of procuring the means of embarkation in ships and boats, or in the actual employment of these means, are not near so considerable to the French government in possession of Holland, as people are inclined to persuade themselves.--2d. That the experience of the last war ought to convince us that no reliance can be put in a blockading fleet, as an absolute security against the sending out an expedition, and the safe passage of that expedition to the shores of this country; and -3d. That supposing a French army landed, the contest would then not be easy, nor the victory on our parts quite clear, in the present state of our army.—And this brings me to consider the plan of defence as opened by the Secretary at War the other day, or as it is called of the army of reserve.

That plan as I understood it, and as it is confirmed by the bill now laying before me, is shortly this. To raise by ballot 50,000 men; 40,000 in Great Britain, and 10,000 in Ireland; who are liable to serve, the principals or ballotted men for four years, the substitutes and volunteers for four years, or during the war; and their service to extend to Great-Britain, Ireland, Jersey and Guernsey, though not to Alderney."-These men are to be ballotted for in the same manner, and with the help of the same machinery as the Militia; they are to be formed into fifty battalions of a thousand men each," who are to be officered by officers appointed by his Majesty out of the half pay list ;the half pay list of the marines;-and the EastIndia Company's service.-How or when the noncommissioned officers and drummers are to be provided, we are not told; this I think is a most important omission, because there is nothing more requisite to the promotion of a young corps than good non-commissioned officers, and these will be wanted immediately; and, because I do not conceive whence 6c00 men of that description, per fectly understanding their business, able and wil ling to attend to it, honest, active, intelligent, are to be procured; and certainly till they are pro cured, unless that promotion will be entirely sufficient, all the rest must stand still. But supposing these non-commissioned officers procured, and supposing too that there is found no difficulty in the ballot, no diffi ulty in getting men, no reluctance on their part to submit to this call, this

feeble call; supposing all this, what have we obtained-Why we have obtained this-That we shall have fifty battalions of a thousand men each, all undisciplined, unformed, unused to the handling of arms, scarcely one of them knowing his right hand from his lett, or the muzzle of a musquet from the butt, unaccustomed to restraint and impatient of it; and these put under the command of officers selected from a list, in which, nodoubtedly, are the names of very brave, very meritorious, and very excellent men; but in which, are also the names of many, who have retired from discontent and dissatisfaction, from dislike of the service, some too placed there as punishment and disgrace, (witness the orders which were issued by the Commander in Chief, and published in every newspaper in the kingdom only a tew weeks ago, by which two officers were put on the half-pay list as a punishment, for having encouraged their men to commit highway robberies,) and many, and these the best, the most zealous, and the most brave, from wounds, or from age, and that is from incapacity to serve. But this is not all; the officers for these new corps are to be selected not from this list merely, but from other lists and other services; and I must say, that i look with no little concern at the jealousies, disputes, and heart burnings that this mixture of different services is likely to give rise to.-This being the plan, I ask military men in what space of time they can expect, or even hope, these new levies to be in such a state of discipline and preparation to be ht to meet a French army?. -These being then, I think, the principal and leading objections to this plan, I could just suggest to your mind, what I think would have been a much better one.——In the first place.-I like the ballot very much.-I should, however, have first observed, that some of the inferior parts of this scheme are likewise, objectionable. The limitation of the service is bad. and the allowance of substitution will, I fear, give the death blow to the recruiting for the army; which has been languishing extremely of late, and therefore, does not want a very heavy blow to destroy it altogether.To return then to the ballot, that is I think good, we are now too much in want of men, and in too great hurry for them, (thanks to the prudent economy of his Majesty's ministers) to trust to the more slow and less certain methods of recruiting; but I object to the limitation of the service. In point of time, i think that is not so objectionable; five years or six years I should have liked better than four; but in point of service i would have had no limitation whatever.-I would in short, have ballotted to fill up the regiments of the line. I have heard people say, that this would be unconstitutional.I deny it. It may be a strong measure, and only such as ought to be resorted to in cases of great and imminent danger; but I assert, that there must be a power and a right in the legislation to resort to them in these cases; and I maintain such a case now exists.-With respect to any dislike or opposition that (it may be supposed) would have been raised against it, I cannot believe there would have been any I really think there would have been less chance of it then than there is now. Those inclined to grumble or oppose, will grumble and oppose now; there is enough of hardship, (if hardship indeed it can be called) tor that; and many too will grumble now, who would not have grumbled then. — A great and animating call for great exertion is much more readily comphed with, than a feeble call for less exertion. And the exertion here is very very little short, of

the desire of an immense plunder, as would be the case with the French army, should they bring a force composed of regular veteran troops, small or numerous, and with its ranks incomplete, a militia most brave indeed, and most zealous, but without experience of real service; and lastly, this army of reserve, still less experienced than the militia; perhaps, discontented, probably undisciplined, and certainly quite raw to the business; however bravely that force might be headed, and however ably it might be conducted; and such disadvantage under the present plan undoubtedly will be ours.-I have been lead to this discussion of the plan for raising this army of reserve, by an endeavour to trace to its proper source that stupid idea of security, which seems to pervade all ranks of people in this country at the present eventful crisis.And though it may not appear very nearly allied to the subject of this letter, perhaps, you will excuse the digression however long it has been. And I think you ought to do so, because, not only in itself it is a most important consideration, but I think, in this measure you may observe the weakness, slowness, and inability of the present ministers; who are, (I think it is proved by this tardy and paltry measure) unequal to the difficulties of the present moment. There is one thing more which I wish to urge to you before I let you go, though my letter has already swelled to an enormous size, and that is this, that I believe truly, as I hope most sincerely, that your surmise is perfectly unfounded; viz. that people are less eager to oppose the French and to betake themselves to active measures to resist them, from the circumstance that they have not that true, genuine horror of France and of French dominion, which they ought to entertain. I certainly hope so, and I believe so too, for this reason, that I do conceive it utterly impossible after the experience of what has been passing before our eyes for twelve years, without one month's interruption, or one single exception, for every man not to perceive, that of all the dreadful visitations which it has pleased God to bring on men, the most dreadful is the dominion of France; and that it is by brave, open, and unremitting opposition to it, that it can ever be avoided; that no intreaties of mercy, no obsequiousness, no soothing and coaxing, no base submission or unmanly acquiescence has once disarmed its fury; or blunted the edge of its anger, or stopped the progress of its flight. That it makes use of the folly and baseness of others, whenever that folly and baseness serves its own purposes, and no longer; and then punishes it as it deserves.-That treason has always had its support and conjunction, but that the traitor has never escaped its vengeance; and Jastly, that friends and focs, abettors and opponents have always been involved by it in one ruin; under which there can be no consolation, and no comfort, but in a conscientious feeling that every thing has been done, whenever and wherever the opportunity has presented itself, not only to stop and check the progress of the monster, but to destroy it; not to curtail his power, but to annihilate it; not to draw his teeth, but to pierce his heart.-Pardon me, my dear friend for this long intrusion, and believe me, Yours.

what it would have been in the other case --The difference is not so much in the exertion called for, as in the call itself.-I may be willing to submit to the greatest sacrifices for a great object, but am I to be neccessarily equally willing to submit to very near as great sacrifices for the sake of obtaining an object infinitely short of the other? By this limitation of the service they will not quiet the murmurs which might have been raised in the other case, and which would have been unfounded; and they do create proper and well-founded murmurs of another sort.But granting this point if required. I do not yet see the propriety of putting these new raised men into separate corps.-Every man must perceive and feel, that new men unaccustomed to military service of any sort or kind, and having no notion of it, must acquire what it is necessary that they should acquire before they can be made soldiers much quicker and much more effectually when mixed with old soldiers, than when joined to men as raw and as ignorant as themselves. No one can doubt, that a countryman placed between two old steady soldiers, will be much :ooner steady himself, than if his neighbours on each side are as unsteady as himself.-And this perhaps, is the least important part of the duty and knowledge of a soldier, and that too in which the society of old soldiers is the least beneficial.— at is the habits of a soldier, the attention to discipline, the promptitude to obey orders, the dress, the cleanliness, the mode of doing every thing, the food, &c. that a man must acquire the knowledge of before he is really a soldier; and which he can only acquire, by a long and tedious process of study and tuition, and this very imperfectly, but by being mixed with and associating with old and experienced soldiers.- -It is clear, therefore, that it it is possible, it is very desirable indeed, to mix these new recruits with old experienced men, and not to form them into separate corps; and the moment is most apt for doing this; for it so happens, (how I will not now inquire, but which I think some member of the House of Commons would do no more than his duty if he did inquire) that while ministers are here collecting a parcel of soldiers together, who will have scarcely any really efficient officers, and no efficient non-commissioned officers at all, they have in the line, a great number of regiments complete as to commissioned and non-commissioned officers, but vely incomplete as to privates; many as I understand, are about or of their compliment short.-Now why, when this is the case, and when too the recruiting is almost at a stand still, and will be quite so by this measure in a few days; why ministers will persist in putting these men into separate corps, instead of employing them to fill up the old corps which are incomplete; is one of those mysteries which the sapient Addington can explain, I doubt not to his own satisfaction, but which 1 doubt very much whether he can explain to mine; or to that of any reasonable man. So much for the plan as it is, and what I think it ought to be with respect to the state of our forces, and their capability of maintaining with advantage a contest with a French army sup posed to be landed, I am now as you must know very incapable of forming an opinion, but I will say, that as far as observation and attention can enable me to judge, I should think it an indisputable fact, that any contest must be a very disadvantageous one to that side, which, against experienced veteran troops, headed by excellent officers, and animated with the remembrance of former victories, with the hopes of new laurels, and

LETTER II. July 2, 1803.

INQUISITOR.

MY DEAR SIR,-Your thanks for my last communication, though so long, and your kind com. pliments about it, and the wish you express that

I may continue my correspondence, are motives not to be resisted by me for again taking up my pen to send to you a few further observations on what formed the principal subject of my letter of the 26th ult.

In that letter I detailed to you a plan for the Army of Reserve as opened by the Secretary at War, in a speech which I had the good fortune to hear, and as explained by the bill he brought in in pursuance of that plan; which bill was at the time I wrote to you lying before me in the complete and perfect form to which he had brought it in the Committee. It was natural enough, I imagine, for any man to conceive when he had heard that opening, and had seen the bill go through the first and second readings, and then come out of the Committee with all the blanks filled up by the ministers, and no proposition of theirs rejected, and found that the bill so perfectly agreed altogether with the speech, it was only natural, I say, in that case to imagine, that one was then in possession of the whole plan. I certainly thought so, and in consequence made the remarks on it which I sent to you. But it seems the measures of the present ministers are not to be judged of by common rules and the usual modes of proceeding; no, they are so wise and so ealightened, that they are not content to tread the common track, but must trace out an entire new course for themselves. So in this case, other men of the ordinary sort, would have explained the whole plan in the opening, and illustrated it by the bill; but not so Mr. Yorke. The speech was all a faree, the first and second readings nothing to the purpose, the first Committee a joke; for lo! now have the House of Commons been employed a whole week in altering, amending, and correcting this perfect bill, and have done so, so effectually and so completely, that it is as different from the first as light from darkness. It is changed even to the very name: at first it was a bill for raising an Army of Restive-now it is "the Additional Army Bill;" and yet the friends of ministers do tell me with a grave face, that the plan as it now stands, was the original plan, and what it was always intended to bring it to; they may tell me so, and repeat it to me, till they are tired; but they must pardon me if 1 disbelieve them: for foolish as I believe them, mysterious as 1 understand they are (and I seldom knew a person mysterious, but for sake of concealing stupidity and folly, and it is this, I fancy, that makes the present Treasury Bench so very mysterious); I do not yet suppose, that they would be foolish and mysterious enough to do that, which such an assertion conveys the idea of their doing. What does this assertion accuse them of? Why nothing short of this: that at a moment when there is the greatest necessity according to their own statement of bringing forward the most effectual measures for the defence of the country, and the repulsion of the invading enemy, and that as speedily as possible; that at that moment though they have a plan ready, which is far from bad and ineffectual (though I contend it yet does not go far enough) they choose to bring forward a feigned plan, which falls infinitely short of this real one, and amuse the House of Commons and the country with this joke for four or five days, for the sole purpose, as it should seem, of spending another week on the correction and improvement of it.

I will now endeavour to explain to you the plan, as now at length perfected by the House of Commons as far as I am able to understand it,

and will then endeavour to trace the strange conduct of ministers to its real cause, and to point out to whom all the best parts of this plan are to be attributed. Having been through the progress of the business, a pretty constant attendant by the favour of in the gallery of the House,

till I, with others, was turned out on Thursday last; and having paid great attention to the arguments used on this business on all sides of the House, I think I shall be able to do this pretty correctly.

The plan as far as the ballot goes continues the same as it was at first, but the men when ballotted are not to be formed into separate and distinct corps as formerly, but are liable to be ordered to join any regiment his Majesty shall choose; the limitations of service as to place continues the same (except with the addition of Alderney), with respect to time it is lengthened to five years; the men are to be allowed to enlist, if they choose, into the regular service, and are intitled upon their doing so to a discharge from their present engagement. You will remark how much superior this plan is to the old one. I, however, still regret one thing, viz. the limitation of service as to place; I cannot help lamenting that it was not extended to Europe at least. However the great point has been gained, that of filling up with these new raised men the old regiments and the regiments of the line, which I am sorry to say, are, are as far as I can judge from what I hear, most horribly deficient as to numbers. The men who remain over and above after these corps are completed must of course be formed into separate ones, but these are to be attached each of them to some one other regiment, which is to be looked. upon as its parent regiment, and any vacancies in which it is to supply as these vacancies may arise. A most excellent idea this, and one, which, if we shall ever have quiet times, and times fit for new modelling and arranging the army, may lead to the very greatest possible good.

Such is the plan as it is now sent out of the House of Commons to the Lords. To whom it is to be attributed, God knows; but this I know, to whom I think it ought to be attributed, at least, to whom all its good parts, all its efficacy, and excellence are to be attributed. I think, when you have read Mr. Windham's speech, which was delivered directly after the plan was opened, you will not hesitate in agreeing with me, that it is to him that the country is indebted for every good point in the plan, and that it is not that gentleman's fault, the fault neither of his intention, nor of his activity, nor of his ability, if it is not much better than it yet is. Indeed the conduct of ministers seems to have been throughout dilatory and strange in the extreme. It appears by the papers published by them on the breaking out of hostilities, that they have perceived for above a year, that hostile mind in the councils of France of which they had been warned at the time of the treaty of Amiens; but whose existence they at that time denied. It is considerably above four months since by the Message of the 8th of March, they warned the House of the probability of war; it is six weeks since the actual commencement of hostilities; and yet it was only on Wednesday last that they brought to any thing like a well digested scheme, a plan absolutely necessary, as they themselves state, for securing the country against an invasion. On the face of this statement these ministere appear to have been tardy and dilatory in the extreme. Indeed many persons suspect and assert pruty

Toundly, that had they not been goaded on by Mr. Pitt, even this plan would never have been thought of. On the other supposition held out, as 1 said before, by the friends of ministers, viz. that this plan, as now perfected, was that which originally had been in contemplation, I think, something more than dilatoriness is to be imputed to them, something very like a wish to deceive the country. Now this attempt at deceit seems to me to have been perfectly gratuitous, except on two suppositions, and they are these.

1. That ministers were afraid of stating this plan and proposing it, till some other person had thrown out the idea, and it had been well received. Acting in this way, they may conceive, that they will shift some of the responsibility of the measure from off their own shoulders; but most erroneously do they conceive this, in my opinion, if that is their idea; but at all events, if they think to get rid of the responsibility, they should also get rid of the merit, and give it where it is due. But, no: this is by no means their intention. It it is praised, they claim the merit, and say, this is our real plan, we always meant that "it should come to this," if it is blamed, they can say, this was not our scheme, it was the "House of Commons that made it what it was, "look at it as it was brought in, and so it went "through two readings and the Committee. If "the House would recommit it, we are not an

swerable for what the Committee did." Weak and paltry as these subterfuges appear, they are, I assure you, no ways unworthy of our sapient Directors. However, I really acquit them of this intention, attributing their conduct to another motive, which is,

2. That they were afraid of stating the whole of the plan, for fear of alarming the country by

an idea of danger, which made such a plan necessary Now, I assert, that this plan is still inadequate to the danger, and therefore, stating the whole of the plan could not open the eyes of the nation to the whole of the danger; yet, still were they afraid of opening their eyes to so much of the danger as this plan is capable of obviating. I am aware of wha you will say to this, and that you will argue, how foolish to be desirous of

concealing from the country the magnitude of "the danger in which it stands; how can any "man expect that the country will be prepared "to meet and able to resist any danger, of which the magnitude is quite unknown to him? "Much less one of which the magnitude is so 46 great, though the bare statement would trighten "him out of his wits." Very true, my dear friend, you are quite right-you reason very truly, and very well; but such reasoning is not suited to a "great commercial country," to a country like this, "whose strength is its riches," and who is to contend against the power of France by "capital, credit, and confidence." You reason for poor men, not for rich ones; for statesmen, not for merchants. These you must not frighten, though by failing to do so you may bring on them irretrievable ruin-they, poor fellows I have such delicate and ticklish nerves, that the very mention of the danger may set them into such a tremble, that there is no knowing what will happen. In short, we have a large National Debtand we have Funds that is the secret. A great many of the wealthiest subjects of the country have all their propers in the funds-all the wealthy have so in a great degree-the country too is interested in hing its credit great and its stocks high-anya of danger or of instability

frightens people and makes the funds sink, so that no one is to tell the country its danger lest its funds should be depressed; and no man is willing to confess his own apprehensions either by words or by deeds, or by making such preparations to resist it as shew that he does believe its existence; lest by so doing he should become poorer himself. This is the real truth, and this idea will open, I am sure, to your intelligent mind, the road to many grave and instructing reflections. Perhaps, if I have an opportunity hereafter 1 will take the liberty of troubling you with my ideas on this subject. I will at present only state the result of all my reflections, which is this, that we are now very rich, but very unsafe, and that to be safe, we must cease to be rich; that, in short, to be able to get the better of our enemy and to overcome the difficulties of our situation we must go through the process of what is called ruin. An intelligent friend of mine expressed this idea to me very forcibly the other day, talking of a certain great and opulent nobleman.-"We shall have, says he, a great struggle to "be saved, and never shall we be safe, till his "wife has worn camlet and mine linsey wool. sey."—I am, &c. INQUISITOR.

FROM THE MORNING POST OF JULY 5, 1803. THE INVASION.

If it were not for the language which is so often heard in society, it might seem perfectly absurd to labour the proof that Buonaparté will attempt invasion. Those who still profess to doubt it, must either be so stupid as to be beyond the reach of argument, or they must affect such doubts for purposes which they will not choose to avow, unless he be successful. His refusal to suffer the neutrality of Holland, is the most decided proof of his intention. That unhappy country will afford him no assistance but in a war of invasion. Her ports are convenient for the attack of the most defenceless part of this country. Her shipping are of a kind adapted to such expeditions. It is not that he can be supposed to feel any compassion for that wretched Republic, of which the war will complete the ruin. He is far above such weaknesses. But on any other system than that of invasion, Holland, increasing her wealth by commerce would afford much more substantial aid than she can do in war. He has accordingly allowed Spain to continue neutral, that he may reap the fruits of her American mines, because Spain has no coasts commodiously situated for the invasion of Great Britain. An invasion is in truth his only effectual means of hostility. On the Continent he has done his worst against this country. In India and America he can do little more than create some temporary mischief. England alone is the theatre of war, on which he can hope real harm to his enemy. He cannot engage in that final contest with Russia, for the em