Redington, T. N. Wellesley, Lord C. TELLERS. Lennox, Lord A. List of the NOES. Barron, Sir H. W. Bouverie, hon. E. P. armed with that musket. Arrangements were accordingly made for manufacturing 50,000 muskets every year, till there should be a sufficient supply. If this arrangement had been acted upon ever since, there would be upwards of 225,000 muskets in the hands of the Government. He should think this would be a sufficient store to meet any demand that could arise upon the breaking out of a war, both for the militia and the regular army. He should therefore like to know how many muskets had already been made, and whether there would be any necessity for a similar vote next year to the one now in the Estimates? Captain Boldero could not inform the noble Lord how many muskets there were now in store; but he could state that there were manufactured last year, and would be also this year, 40,000 stands of arms, besides swords and other weapons. Viscount Palmerston wished to ask the right hon. Baronet whether it was his intention in the course of the present Session to propose a vote on account of providing for the better defence of our dockyards, and with a view to the formation of harbours of refuge? It was perfectly well known that the dockyards were not defensible against any attack made by surprise by a force embarked in steamers. The improvements in steam navigation. and the multiplication of steam vessels, Somerville, Sir W. M. had entirely altered the nature of attacks Manners, Lord J. Rawdon, Col. Browne, hon. W. Curteis, H. B. Dickinson, F. H. Ogle, S. C. H. Somers, J. P. Ebrington, Viset. Esmonde, Sir T. Wyse, T. Gore, hon. R. against any defences that might be provided. This appeared to him to be a question of most urgent importance; and he wished to know whether the right hon. Baronet meant to allow the Session to The House resumed. Committee to sit pass by without establishing a better sysagain. SUPPLY-MUSKETS.] On the Report of the Committee of Supply being brought up, Viscount Palmerston wished to ask the right hon. Baronet, or the hon. and gallant Officer connected with the Board of Ordnance, what progress had been made in manufacturing muskets for the army upon the percussion principle? When the late Lord Vivian was Master of the Board of Ordnance, he took infinite pains to ascertain the best kind of musket for the use of the British army; and that manufactured on the percussion principle was considered the best, and it was determined that the whole army should be tem of defence for our dockyards, and also making provision for harbours of refuge? Sir Robert Peel said, that provision had already been made both in the Ordnance and in the Navy Estimates, for both those objects during the present year. He could not exactly state the details; but with respect to the dockyards at Sheerness, at Portsmouth, and at other places, there had been, both in the Ordnance Estimates and in the Navy Estimates, sums voted, founded upon the Report of the Navy Commissioners appointed to inspect the dockyards. With respect to harbours of refuge, engineers had been employed at Dover and other ports along the coast; and (we understood the right hon. Baro net to say) that those engineers had made their Reports to the Navy Commissioners, who would also make a Report to the Government upon that branch of the subject. Sir Charles Napier was desirous of asking whether it was the intention this year to organize the coast-guard and fishermen along the coast, in the same manner as had been done in former days, in order that they might be ready to act in defence of our coasts in case of any sudden emergency? He looked upon this as a matter of great importance. We understood the hon. and gallant Officer to suggest, that in addition to the returns made by all the Government steamers, there should be obtained a statement of all the merchant steamers belonging to this country. He thought an arrangement might be easily made with the various steam companies, by which such information might be obtained. Sir Robert Peel said, the matter was one which had not escaped the attention of the Government. He concurred in the opinion that the coast guard might be made an efficient force in case of necessity. Report received. way; Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, Waterford and Kilkenny Railway; Newcastle and Darlington (Branding Junction) Railway; Southampton and Dorchester Ral way; Lancaster and Carlisle Railway; Hartlepool Pier and Port. PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Landowners and others of Sheffield, against the Sheffield Waterworks Bill-By Duke of Buccleuch, from Presbytery of Selkirk, against the Universities (Scotland) Bill.-From Cork, for Amendment of Law whereby Rural Districts in Ireland attached to certain Boroughs are partially annexed to adjoining Counties. From Merchants and others of Armagh, against the Banking (Ireland) Bill. Lord RAILWAY AND OTHER BILLS.] Brougham moved the Order of the Day for taking into consideration the Resolu of which he had given notice. [These tions relating to Railway and other Bills Resolutions will be found, as amended, in the Report of July 3rd.] their Lordships ought not to pass the The Lord Chancellor suggested that Resolutions until they saw what Resolutions were agreed to by the House of Commons. He was decidedly of opinion that the House should proceed by Resolution. for the House of Commons, the House of Lord Brougham said, that if they waited Commons would say they waited for the Lords; and so the Resolutions would fall to the ground. If the Crown were advised not to prorogue Parliament, but to House adjourned at half-past one let both Houses adjourn from time to o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, Tuesday, July 1, 1845. time, there would be no difficulty, as the Bills would be in statu quo when business was resumed. It was not only perfectly competent for the Crown to take MINUTES.] BILLS. Public.—1a Dog Stealing; Statute the course he had suggested, but it had Labour (Scotland). ex Courts of Common Law Process; Court of Session (Scotland) Process; Courts of Common Law Process (Ireland); Real Property (Lord Chancellor's). Reported.-West India Islands Relief. 3 and passed:--Outstanding Terms; Public Museums; Sir Henry Pottinger's Annuity; Church Building Acts Amendment. Private.-1 Runcorn and Preston Brook Railway. been done more than once. PUBLIC MUSEUMS, &c., BILL.] Lord Wharncliffe moved the Third Reading of be Museums, &c., Bill. Lord Brougham expressed his dissatisfaction with the Bill in its amended state. Lord Campbell approved of the Bill. way (Ashton Branch); Lynn and Dereham Railway; It was intended to remedy a defect in the 2. Marquess of Donegal's Estate; Keyingham Drainage; Belfast Improvement; Manchester and Birmingham Rail London and Brighton Railway (Horsham Branch); Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway; North Wales Mineral Railway; Chester and Birkenhead Railway Extension; existing law. The Lord Chancellor said, as he read Cornwall Railway; Ashton, Stalybridge, and Liverpool the Bill, a person laying his finger upon Junction (Ardwick and Guide Bridge Branches) Railway; and Altrincham Railway; Bristol and Exeter Railway Branches; Dublin and Drogheda Railway; Eastern Reported.-Manchester, Bury, and Rossendale Railway Union Railway Amendment. (Heywood Branch); Whitehaven and Furness Railway; Eastern Union (Bury St. Edmund's) Railway; Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway; North Woolwich Railway; Guildford Junction Railway; Winwick Rectory; Glas gow, Paisley, Kilmarnock, and Ayr Railway (Cumnock Branch). 3 and passed :-Gildart's (or Sherwen's) Estate; Manchester Improvement; Bridgewater Navigation and Rail a plaster-cast in a shop window would come within the provisions of the Bill, and might be liable to two years' imprisonment, hard labour, and private whipping. Lord Brougham: The punishment was the same as inflicted for felonies of the highest character. He was perfectly astonished at such a Bill coming from the Commons. Lord Campbell said, if the Bill were worded as the noble and learned Lord · stated, it had been incautiously worded by the Government in the other House of Parliament, where it had been introduced by the Solicitor General. The Lord Chancellor: I see very little trace of the Bill as it left the House of Commons in the Bill now upon the Table; it has been altogether new modelled under the superintendence of my noble and learned Friend. Let it be imprisonment for three months, and say nothing of hard labour; surely that is imprisonment enough. Lord Brougham: Without hard la bour. The penalty finally agreed upon was imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, with hard labour or private whipping. The Bill read 3a time. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Tuesday, July 1, 1845. MINUTES.] NEW WRIT. For Exeter, v. Sir William Webb Follett, deceased. i "That the Resolution-- That no private Bill for the construction of Railways, or other Public Works, to which the consent of the Admiralty is required, will be committed, until the decision of the Admiralty shall be communicated to the House,' be made a Standing Order." Lord G. Somerset thought the House ought not to agree to this proposition, because it was, in fact, asking the House to suspend its proceedings until a Government Board gave its opinion on the railway schemes brought before it. This was the most extraordinary proposition he had ever heard. Certainly the Committees. had the means of arriving at a more correct estimate of the value of the Bills before them than the Board of Admiralty could possibly have. He was quite opposed to the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member. Mr. Warburton did not see why the House should be precluded from going into the evidence on any railway project until they had received the consent of the Board of Admiralty. Captain Berkeley replied: His argument was, that the Admiralty should have NEW MEMBER SWORN. Sir John Hope, Bart., for Edin- the power of protecting the public, and burghshire. BILLS. Public.-1 Charitable Trusts; Ecclesiastical Courts. Private.-10. Ellison's Estate. Heaviside's Divorce. Reported.-Coventry, Bedworth, and Nuneaton Railway; Duddeston and Nechell's Improvement (No. 2). 5o. and passed ;—Runcorn and Preston Brook Railway; Newport and Pontypool Railway. PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Viscount Adare, and Sir E. Hayes, from several places, for Encouragement to Schools in connexion with Church Education Society (Ireland). By Mr. Ellice, from several places, for Better Observance of the Lord's Day.-By Viscount Adare, from Archdeacon and Clergy of Llandaff, against Union of St. Asaph and Bangor.-By Mr. Ewart, from Dumfries, in favour of Universities (Scotland) Bill.-By Sir T. Esmonde, from individuals also; and he would give the House an illustration. Supposing an individual had a right to a ferry over a navigable river, and that a projected bridge would destroy his interests, as well as the navigation of that river. He was too poor to prosecute an opposition before that House, but he memorialised the Board of Admiralty, and they took measures for that purpose. He should take the sense of the House on the subject. The House divided: Ayes 22; Noes Gorey, against the Colleges (Ireland) Bill.-By Mr. 70: Majority 48. Bright, and Mr. Wortley, from several places, in favour of the Ten Hours System in Factories.-From Fishermen of Cellardyke, and several other places, for Better Regulation of Fisheries (Scotland).-By Mr. T. Duncombe, from J. T. Perceval, against Lunatics Bill.-By Sir H. Douglas, from Mayor and others of Liverpool, against Lunatic Asylums and Pauper Lunatics Bill.-By Sir T. Esmonde, from Wexford, for Alteration of Physic and R MY ENLISTMENT.] Captain Layard rose to move "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graSurgery Bill.-By Mr. Villiers, from Members of the ciously pleased to direct inquiry to be made Royal College of Surgeons residing in Stafford, for Postponement of Physic and Surgery Bill.-By Mr. Corry, from Fintona, in favour of Physic and Surgery Bill.— By Mr. E. Ellice, from several places, for Alteration of Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Bill.-By Sir E. Hayes, from Board of Guardians of Stranorlar Union, for Relief from Payment of Loan (Poor Relief (Ireland) Act).—By Mr. Ewart, from Old Meldrum, for Diminishing the Number of Public Houses. how far the reduction of the period of service in the Army, from the present unlimited term to ten years, would tend to procure a better class of recruits, diminish desertion, and thus add to the efficiency of the Service." The hon. and gallant Member said that in bringing under the consideration of the House so important a Motion as the present, he trusted he might venture to claim its kind indulgence and patient attention; fancies a thousand occasions of acquiring honour and distinction which never occurred. These romantic hopes make the whole price of their blood. Their pay was less than that of common labourers; and on actual service their fatigues were far greater. Hurried away by the impetuosity of youth, he was not aware of the consequence of his engagement, and it appeared an anomaly in the law of the country that while a young man was incapacitated for making a will, so as to dispose of real or even personal property before he had reached twenty-one years of age, he was, nevertheless, permitted to surrender his liberty for life. He trusted the House would permit him to read one or two extracts from that excellent work on the enlistment, discharging, and pensioning of soldiers, by Henry Marshall, deputy-inspector of military hospitals, a work strongly advocating limited enlistment, and dedicated to Sir Henry Hardinge, by whom it had been suggested in March, 1828. The first he would read was the following: an indulgence which he felt would be re-impaired constitution. Young lads rarely quired for the weakness of the advocate; enlisted from a decided predilection for a an attention which was demanded for the military life; this irretrievable and imimportance of the cause. It was no hastily portant step was commonly taken in conformed opinion that he had come to in sequence of some sudden thought, or fit believing that a limited service of ten of passion, occasioned by a domestic years, instead of the present enlistment broil, chagrin, disappointment, inebriety, for life, would not only materially benefit or want of work, or indigence; and perthe service, but the country, as by that haps a few were excited to take the shilmeans, he felt assured, a much superior ling, the symbol of enlistment, by the class of men would be found to enlist, finesse of a recruiting sergeant. They and, consequently, less crime of every de-figured to themselves in their youthful scription would be committed, but particularly desertion, the greatest military crime of which a soldier could be guilty. He thought the best way of bringing this subject more fully under consideration was to divide it into different classes; first, the impolicy of the present system, and the dislike evinced towards it, not only by the soldier, but by the country at large, and the crime and punishment to which it led; and, secondly, the arguments which might be brought against limited enlistment, which arguments he trusted he should be enabled successfully to combat. When we took under consideration the great extent of territory, and the millions who acknowledged the sway of the British Crown, and then remembered the smallness of the force by which the peace and integrity of that vast Empire is to be maintained, it struck him that some alteration ought to be made in the formation of that army, from which, by returns he held in his hand, he found the desertions in the last three years in Canada, Great Britain, and Ireland, where certainly not one half of our military force was employed, to be 7,537. 4,638 of these deserters had been either retaken or had given themselves up, still that left 2,899 unaccounted for; and when he referred to a Return which had been moved for by the hon Member for Montrose, he found, that from the 1st January, 1839 to the 31st December, 1843, 3,355 men had undergone corporal punishment, and that 28,190 had undergone imprisonment. There could be little doubt that a great portion of the men composing that army had bitterly repented of unlimited enlistment. No one could doubt that the people of this country had the strongest objection to their sons entering the army; and well they might have, for when a man once enlisted, under the present system, he was lost to his family, and never could return, except, indeed, with a broken and "E. Pigott was enlisted in the East India Company's service; he was transferred to Cork, where self-made ulcers appeared on his legs, and when this scheme failed in procuring In September he arrived in Chatham, when he his discharge, he seemed to become an idiot. had the aspect of a genuine idiot. He was placed under observation for five weeks, during which period he never uttered a word dis tinctly. His looks were wild, his manners almost savage. He appeared to have lost all regard to decency, and became perfectly helplike a child. He refused to take food when less; for he required to be washed and dressed offered him; but, if it was set by him, he devoured it clandestinely, and occasionally would neglect it for a whole day. He was at first treated with great kindness; but, after some time, he became ferocious, and endeavoured to bite the orderlies, and used missiles, so that strait waistcoat. On the 3rd November he it was deemed necessary to confine him in a was examined by a board of medical officers, who stated that in their opinion Pigott was a most determined malingerer, and affects insanity, and from his worthless character recommended his discharge. When his discharge reached Chatham, he seemed incapable of comprehending what it meant; it was repeatedly read to him with care and attention, he was told he might return to Ireland, but he seemed to pay no attention nor to understand what was said to him. On the 29th November, Dr. Davies applied to have him sent to the Military Lunatic Asylum at Fort Clarence, and Dr. Davies gave it as his opinion that he was not a decided malingerer, on the contrary, he says, I am inclined to believe that there has been throughout, and there certainly is now, a reality in the affliction. Weeks elapsed without any improvement, he was troublesome and outrageous. On the 12th of January, 1829, he was transferred to Fort Clarence; when he arrived he would neither stand nor speak; he lay with his legs doubled up, and his knees approaching his chest. When questioned, he sometimes emitted a hollow groan, He was rapidly and forcibly conveyed by a long subterraneous passage to the extremity of the establishment, where he was exposed to a shower-bath, well washed, and dressed in the hospital uniform. Owing to the gloomy appearance of the asylum, and the unceremonious manner in which he was treated, Pigott, no doubt, became greatly alarmed; he was placed in the whirling chair, which ultimately determined him to give in; he stated his disability was feigned, and detailed a course of the most persevering and determined fraud ever practised. On the 4th of March, one year from the time he enlisted, he was marched from Fort Clarence to the dépôt of the East India Company, perfectly sound in mind and body. The same night he joined the dépôt he deserted; but was secured next day, after a stout resistance, and finally sailed for Madras on the 7th of March." This was one of hundreds of instances of what men would endure to escape from a service which they detested, on account of its duration. To prove the horror which many parents felt at their sons enlisting, he could not forbear quoting one instance of which many were on record. It was from the United Service Gazette of the 12th of November, 1837. An account was given there of a widow, at Long Ashford, whose son having enlisted, had afterwards, with great difficulty, obtained his release. He frequently threatened to take the same step again. The mother, assisted by her daughter, to prevent the execution of this threat, took the following fearful step! When he was drunk and asleep, the daughter placed the forefinger of his right hand on a block, and the mother chopped it off. Suicide was much more frequent among soldiers than among men of the same age and rank in civil life; the ratio of cases of self-murder among the cavalry branch of the service has been found to amount for a series of years to one suicide out of twenty deaths, or nearly one annually per 1,000 of the strength. This statement does not give the number who attempted suicide, but only where the result was fatal. Sir Henry Hardinge stated before the Commissioners on Military Punishments, that soldiers commonly maimed themselves to obtain their discharge, and even to become convicts. At one time three hundred men of two regiments attempted to destroy their eyesight, in order to procure their discharge. For his part, he could imagine nothing more trying to any man, when he life he had bound himself to the exactionce began to reflect, than to find that for tude of military discipline. He knew it might be argued a very considerable expense would be entailed by any number of men abroad requiring to be sent home at the end of their service; but when it was taken into consideration that men after ten years' service were to have no pensions, he believed that so far from adding to the expense of the country, a very material saving would be effected; and he believed the saving would be so great, that it would enable the Government to grant a suitable pension to those who should re-enlist and faithfully perform twenty-one years' service. It likewise might be argued, that a large number of men abroad, at the same time claiming their discharge, might make the army inefficient; but that would be obviated by taking care that the 10 per cent., which was allowed for India, and the three per cent. for the other regiments abroad, above the effective strength, would enable the dépôts to keep those men at home who were near the period of their discharge. He would be told how little advantage was taken by men of limited service before, and which ceased by order of Lord Hill in 1829. His answer to this was, that the bounty for unlimited service was 17s. more than it was for limited, and that men in that situation seldom or ever calculated on the future; that it was the duty of a paternal Government not to make a hard or cruel bargain with any class of men, however inconsiderate they might be. Soldiers might obtain their discharge under the following regulations, but could not claim it. But, in his opinion, these regulations in many instances were highly objectionable, from the high rate which a |