there, upon nearly a similar plan to that in the city of London, and that several thousands had been already put down. He then adverted to the difference between a regular and a volunteer force, and said he thought that a man might be trained to wheel, to fire, &c. and yet not be able to snatch a grace beyond the rules of art." This drew to his mind the intrepid conduct, the collected thought, and the most arduous enterprising spirit of our gallant countryman, Sir Sidney Smith, on whom he passed the highest encomiums, declaring that by land or at sea his exploits were equally manifest and equally splendid; that he was like that justly celebrated hero of English history, the Duke of Mariborough, who made the most discordant principles of nature unite in support of the cause which he espoused. There was something, however, in the very nature of the present volunteering system, however ardent, brave, or zealous its members might be, which he thought made them liable to objection. Many from their age, their state of health, or their con nexions in life, would be found not fit to endure the hardships which many others in the same corps were ready and able to bear. He would avoid treading on military grounds as much as possible, but confessed he hoped it would be the means of eliciting the observations of gentlemen far better qualified, and whose ideas might, according to his opinion, be serviceable to the House (looking towards Col. Craufurd). All that he meant to draw the attention of the House to, was towards the classification of the different volunteer corps. If that was not attended to, he thought that we might be able to ascertain the numbers by looking at the lists, but we would never be able to ascertain the true effective force. What had been mentioned by an hon. member (Mr. Chapman) respecting the East-India force being sent to the WestIndies, he was sorry to have heard in that House, and hoped that it would never be adopted by his Majesty's government. On this point he dwelt for some time, and declared that he considered that part of the world as as a devouring gulf, which swallowed up all our force, and that it was a greater expense and less real advantage to us by many degrees, than what the French had gained on the Continent last war alone. He then paid some handsome compliments to the lawyers' corps, and said that he thought we should not trust so much to persons who had no stake in the country, as those on whom, from their wealth and respectability, we could rely in the hour of VOL. IV.

danger. But there was another point to which he expressed a hope and confidence that ministers would attend, that was, to the providing those of our countrymen who volunteered their services with proper arms, and training them accordingly; for instance, he had heard a good deal of the difficulty of procuring firelocks for this immense force, and he had inquired as to the nature of the obstacle. He found that barrels could be supplied in abundance, but that the difficulty was in getting the locks made fast enough. That had suggested to him the idea that a number of men should be disci plined in another way; our artillery might be brought into more active service. Several extraordinary exertions he thought might be made, in the manner of a gent, in that part of the country where he came from, who, being asked as to what he meant to subscribe, desired them to refrain from pressing the question he could name no particular amount, but he would est his whole estate and all his assets in the hands of any respectable commissioners, to be used as they might think proper between him and his country; and, when the danger was over. he had no doubt that such hon. men would return him the surplus. This was becoming the ancient character of Englishmen, and would be found sufficient to free the nation from the imputation of a shop-keeping spirit, which had been thrown on them by the French. He concluded with expressing his most hearty approbation of that part of Mr. Sheridan's speech which declares a reliance on the conduct of ministers, that no peace should ever be made while there remained a single Frenchman in a hostile situation on the English shore.

Mr. Archdall combated the arguments of Mr. W. in a few words as to his most striking points. He thought that it would have been much better if the right hon. gent. was a little more witty, or else that he did not attempt to be witty at all; for by the sudden ebullition of his fancy, he was frequently wrong, and might be always fairly supposed to fall short of what he himself had intended. He thought that it was a consideration of no intrinsic worth, whether a force was to be denominated masculine, feminine, or neuter. The idea of satisfying the lieute nants of the militia, and the other officers, the country gentlemen in general, the stockholders, and the monied interest, might be burlesqued, but he wished that every gent. when in office would endeavour to reconcile the minds of all descriptions of people in the ame manner as he had described. With all the novelty of invasion and rebellion, * Dd

with all the novelty of the particular circumstances of the times, he hoped that the session would not be suffered to close without every man being reconciled and united in the general idea of doing what they could for the benefit of the country. He hoped that no gent, in that House or in the country would ever experience or see troubles in any degree similar to those which he had scen and felt. For that rea-on, as well as his general reliance on the conduct of the present ministers, and for the reasons so powerfully urged by the honourable mover, he should feel himselt bound to support the motion.

Mr. Francis said, Mr. Speaker, the hon. gent. who has just sat down, concluded his speech with a comparison which does not seem to me to resemble the case: He says that if the owner of a house and the ther of a family were to inform his children that the house was on fire and in great danger of being consumed, it would be absurd and unnatural for them in return to say, that they must take four and twenty hours to consider whether or no they should help to extinguish the fire. Now, Sir, if it were evident that an address to the throne was very like a wa ter engine, and if an act of Parliament were equivalent to a great supply of water, I should agree with him in thinking that any part of the family who refused to work the engine, or to provide the water, would not only be very undutiful, but very great fools into the bargain. Until that proposition is made out, the honourable gentleman's allusion will not go far in support of his argument. On the present occasion I can assure my hon. friend near me (Mr. Sheridan) that I have no thought of abusing the right aud privilege which belong to me as a member of Parliament, to enter, if I think fit, into the discussion of any subject that comes regularly and properly under my consideration in that character; but much less am I disposed to surrender such a right and privilege to the admonition we have received from him to refrain from arguments and debates on military subjects. In a parliamentary sense, right and duty are relative ideas. The duty gives the right, and the right indí eates the duty. According to the occasion I shall at all times exercise my right to the best of my judgment, even on military ques tions coming in a parliamentary way before me. And I am perfectly sure my hon. friend will act in the same manner when the case requires it, notwithstanding his present exhortation to the contrary. I do not mean to oppose the motion, though I think it liable to many considerations which ought to have been previously weighed. The mo

tion being once made, they come too late. The purpose for which I have risen is to express to my hon. friend the very great pleasure with which I heard the conclusion of his speech, not for the value, the wisdom, or the necessity of the advice contained in it, though I do not mean to affirm that such advice may not be valuable, wise, or necessary, or that, coming from him, its has not the advantage of novelty; but for another reason. He says, "On this day, at least,

let us be united on this occasion let cordiality prevail among us; and when we quit the House let us agree to leave all party spirit behind us, all animosities, all factious opposition to government, &c. as we do our hats on the benches; and the rather, as we may be sure that these articles will be kept very safe, and delivered to us undiminished whenever we meet again within these walls;" with many other sentiments of the same sort, to which I am not able to do justice. I must tell my hon. friend, however, that with respect to me at least, bis good advice is superfluous. I have no animosity to his Majesty's ministers collectively, or personally to any of them; and with respect to some of them, very much the contrary. Consequently I have no feeling of that kind to deposit here, or to carry with me into the country. I shall go out of this House with my hat on my head, and no animosity to any man in my heart. When I heard my hon. friend, in the conclusion of his speech, engage himself and exhort others with so much warmth to support the present government by all possible exertions in the country, the inference that immediately occurred to me, and which gave me very great pleasure was, that since the last debate on military subjects, my hon. friend must have receivid some satisfaction from bis Majesty's ministers on two points of very great importance and interest in his judgment and feeling, as well as mine, on which at that time, certainly all setisfaction was with-held. For otherwise I cannot bring myself to think it possible that ministers would have had all that cordial support and approbation which he has given them this night, and promised them hereafter. The first of the objects I allude to is the appointment of a military council, in favour of which be divided and spoke with great force. Undoubtedly he would not have done so, if he had not thought it what I do, a measure of considerable importance to the country. The other related to a subject of personal attachment and affection to the illustrious person concerned, as well as of judgment and opinica for the public service. I shall not now enter into the merits of a question on which it is

iarpossible we should differ. He did not take part in it that night, but I have no doubt of his sentiments. If on these two • points I had the same assurance, which I conclude my hon. friend has had, that a satisfactory course would be taken, he would find me ready, not perhaps to go all the lengths that he does, but as far as I can in conscience and with honour, and without the smallest mixture of any opposite disposition, to give credit and support to ministers wherever I have an opportunity as well as in this House.

Colon 1 Craufurd was of opinion that the House was about to bestow that reward on the volunteers, by a vote of thanks, to which they would be entitled if they had saved the state. The volunteers had undoubtedly come forward with zeal and promptitude; but in that they had only discharged a necessary duty to the state, and a duty which they owed to their wives and families, for whose protection they were enrolling themselves against the greatest misery and oppression that could befall a people. He therefore should say, that the thanks of the House should be reserved until they should have some opportunity of meriting them, though no man, either in or out of the House, thought more highly of the spirit and courage of the people than he did. While Parliament was deliberating on the question of voting its thanks to a body of men, who performed but their duty in coming forward on the present occasion, and on the discharge of which their interest, their honour, and their security depended, an action of extraordinary gallantry had taken place, which perhaps was not of sufficient magnitude to merit the thanks of Parliament. He alluded to the capture of St. Lucia by General Grinfield, and he thought it would have a bad effect to accede to the present motion, if the gallant troops engaged in that expedition were to be passed unnoticed. He thought also that it would have a very bad effect on the volunteers who had bravely rescued Dublin from the horrors of a brutal and ferocious banditti, to vote the thanks of the House to men who had come forward in their own defence against the greatest calamity that could befall a nation (its subjuga tion by a French force), as from a sense of public duty, while such gallant behaviour. was suffered to remain unrequited. Having said this, he repeated again, that he thought as highly as any man of the spirit and valour of the volunteers. As an hon. friend had alluded to. German tactics on a former occasion, and another allusion had been made that night to the german eye, he

felt it necessary, while on his legs, to make some observations on the subject. He had never said, that German were superior to English troops; and though, from his having passed the early part of his life, where he had an opportunity of learning the Ger man tactics, he may have been partial to it, he was, from additional experience, conviced that it was erroneous. He should much rather see the infantry of the English army in the state in which it had been atter the American war, than trained after the German system, which he thought was car ried to too great an extent. The great King of Prussia, who had invented that system, had accommodated it to the extensive plains of Silesia and Saxony, and from that single circumstarce it must appear manifestly inapplicable to the local situation of the country. Having said thus much, he hoped he should never again hear himself stiled the advocate of German tactics. Many gentlemen who heard him, had been, witnesses of brilliant actions and military operations in Flanders, and were perhaps as much disposed to be partial to Flemish as he was to German tactics. He had on a former occasion stated, that a great regular force was necessary, and all that he had since heard on the subject had not induced him to alter his opinion. But he could not help adverting to an observation of the hon. gent, who opened the debate, that a regular ariny was more likely to be corrupted than any other. He begged the House to recollect what the country owed to the army. When the navy was in a state of mutiny, when the jacobins had employed every effort to seduce the army, and had on the same day sent circular letters to all the regiments, informing them that the others had risen against the government; when these letters had been given by the guards to their officers, the army had proved itself incorruptible, and to it is the country indebted for its preservation and security. He did not justify the army from any personal feelings, but from a sense of that obligation which every impartial member would admit the country owed to the army. Yet he was convinced that a large irregular force would be of the highest consequence to the defence of the kingdom. The House had been several times cleared while he was on former occasions speaking, but no expression had ever fallen from him of so delicate a nature, or so likely to be injurious to the country by its publication to the enemy, as a paper, which he had seen from high authority, in the papers of that day, a letter from the Secretary of State to the Lord Lieutenant of the county of Sussex. * D d 2

may be made. He was one of those who thought the danger of invasion in 1797 comparatively as great or greater than at present, though he agreed with the hon. officer, that as long as the French armies had been occupied on the Continent, there existed no great danger of invasion on a large scale. The hon. gent. had stated, that after the Treaty of Campo Formio, which was but a kind of armed truce, the French forces had been kept up in the neighbourhood, with reference to the possibility of a resumption of offensive operations; and that had, in some degree, been the case; but that observation applied equally to the present case. In the broken and degraded state of the Continent, a war was not to be maintained with such a power as Great Britain without the possibility at least of bringing on a continental war, and they must necessarily guard against it as an event likely to grow out of such a contest. The Treaty of Campo Formio was concluded in 1797, after which the French kept a large force in the north of Italy. In 1798 they invaded Swisserland with a large army to act as a check on the Austrians, and, in the Spring of 1799, hostilities were recommenced. During the period between the treaty and the renewal of the war, the French forces were stationed chiefly on the left bank of the Rhine, in Swisserland, and in the north of Italy. But at present they have an army not only in the north of Italy and in Swisserland, but a large army in the south of Italy, and an increasing army in the north of Germany; and, therefore, he contended, that so far as related to the occupation of other countries, the danger was not 30 great as at a former period. There was another circumstance, however, to which the hon. gent. had not adverted, and which had considerable influence on the question of invasion, the comparative state of the French navy. In 1797, there was a formidable fleet in the harbour of Toulon, as we afterwards found at Alexandria; and another at Brest, which rendered the danger of invasion considerably greater then than at present. He could not discover any circumstance in either period, though both called for the vigorous exertions of the country, which would not apply to the past as the present. Thus much he had tho 1ght it necessary to say, as the comparison had been alluded to, and the observations had grown out of the discussion, in order that the House should not be influenced by any improper impression. It was the duty of ministers to make every possible exertion for the security of the country, without reference to any former

a few words on the object of the motion. He was ready to admit that the thanks of the House should not be given lightly, nor without great and adequate services being performed; but it was a fallacious reasoning to urge, that because the thanks of the House had never been voted to the army till after some brilliant service, the House should not agree to the motion that was then before it. The country was now placed in a situation in which no ordinary means would be sufficient for its security; in which neither the army nor the militia would be adequate for its defence. It was placed in a situation in which great and extraordi nary exertions were necessary; exertions, which never before had been employed, except to a certain extent, during last war; exertions which perhaps should never be resorted to in ordinary wars, and we had witnessed the spirit, unanimity, and zeal, with which all ranks had come forward; we had witnessed the patriotism with which every thing the exigencies of the country required, had been accomplished. Under such circumstances, he thought it the duty of Parliament to record this vote as a monument of its feelings for the virtues and public spirit of the people. He should ask whether, in some future contest, if the peo ple should not be inclined to come forward with the same zeal and enthusiasm, a glo rious appeal may not be made to this record of Parliament, whether future legislators may not say to such a people, this was not the conduct of your ancestors, will you degenerate from their example, and shew less spirit than they did? He thought the mo tion was founded in sound policy, and that the House ought to thank the hon. gent. for having brought it forward. It was not for any partial success of military operations, it was not for the success of an expedition, but it was for an unparalleled display of patriotism and public spirit, arising out of the peculiar circumstances of the times, and would confirm the generous feelings already excited, as well as encourage future exertions.

Mr. W. Smith said, though it was not his intention to give a direct opposition to the motion of his hon. friend, yet there were several reasons why he did not altogether approve of it.-In the first place, though he thought very highly of the volunteer corps, yet he was not satisfied that they were sufficient at the present moment. He would have preferred the Levy en Masse, under the bill which had been passed, which would have given a greater force, and