as a body perfectly diftinct from the army, and have refifted their affimilation to the army. It is not that I confider the individuals who compofe the ranks of the militia, or the officers who command them, as in any thing individually better or different from thofe who compofe the army; they are drawn from the fame materials, and are equally respec-, table, but they are formed and arranged on a different model, both adapted to the ftations they were meant to fill. The militia is calculated for a garrifon of home defence, drawing into useful occupation thofe perfons who would not enter the military line as a profeffion, but were willing to perform a limited fervice, abfolutely neceffary to be performed by fome perfons; to furnish a protection in the time of peace against the fudden emergencies of commencing hoftilities, and a fufficient garrifon, in its original numbers of 32,000 men, for the two principal naval depôts, and capable, to the extent of their numbers, during a war, to perform moft effential service in cafe of invasion: by their land qualification, not wanting, and by their formation, cut off from all poflible military promotion, they neceffarily formed a corps not fo obviously influenced by perfonal views, nor looking up to the executive Government for advancement. Their independence, local attachment and property, fupply them with patriotifm and perfonal influence, which cannot but be of more conftitutional fecurity in the defence of the country, to a certain extent, than any army of perions profeffionally engaged. But the extenfion. of this military corps, (to numbers beyond a moderate infular garrifon) either in order to deftroy the diftinct fpirit and popular principles of the militia, by confounding them gradually with the army, or from the most impolitic and. mean pecuniary motives, preferring a cheaper levy of less ule for the general purpofes of war, to the army establishment, which has the advantage of experience, and whose profeffional views are the honourable motives which affift in exciting to great actions, useful to the country and to the individuals; the changes which have been made by their powerful enemies have fo much altered the militia, that its prefervation is fcarce an object, indeed its annihilation would become fo, if fome faint hopes of its revival did not linger in the breafts of its wellwifhers, who are still inclined to prevent further aggreffions on its principles and practice. The name of militia does not make the corps fo called in each country fimilar to each other, or objects of reciprocal interchange; if it were poffible that each could ferve with equal equal advantages in either country: but what is militia (in its true meaning) in one country, is an army in the other. Local attachments from fimilar cuftoms and manners cannot be exchanged, the conftitutional advantages, therefore, must be greatly diminished, and each corps fo removed from their intercourfe with their friends and families, will partake more of the feelings of a ftanding army than they would in their own country. It is no anfwer to this objection that it goes against the removal of the English militia from county to county; it in fome measure does, and if invasion of an ifland did not involve the whole island of neceflity in one campaign and one state of warfare, the lefs they were removed from local affections and intercourfe, and the less this fpecies of force was taught to forget that they were defending their own homes and families, the better. The principle on which a militia is formed is not, nor can, nor ought, to be adapted to the extended fervice of an army. I have no difficulty in faying that we are all individually pledged in honour, as well as intereft, to fupport, to the utmost of our power, the fafety, intereft, and conftitutional freedom of the united empire in every part; but that is not the queftion on the prefent difcuffion, which is whether we 1hould accept the generous offers of the Irith militia, for certainly they are generous as far as relates to the offers; but I do not think they are confiftent with the conftitution of either country, and it is on the ground of the fyftem being detrimental to both countries that I object to their acceptance. A noble Earl on the other fide has given us the topographical history of blunders, and deduced them from what he is willing in pleafantry to admit to be its parent foil; 1 confefs that I have not oblerved that blunders are exclufively the growth of any country, and I am fure that he will find more proofs of blunders and confufion in the acts of the prefent Minifters, than he could find clafs of men in Ireland; but he commits h.miel an c.. if not a blunder, in fuppofing that the meeting Lieutenants of counties, and Members of Parliahoot bu ing commiffions in the militia of any counts the fpirit of blunder by thofe who objected tions of armed corps. I confefs I am not a the fimilarity of the meeting of the clais Cr that of a regiment meeting to deliberate on ters as a regiment. Lord Lieutenants ac no more cers than Deputy Licutenants of each county, could not (without being within the mich of was he 1 a deliberations) affemble on the fubject of the militia, their principal duty would be undone. It is not worth any further obfervation, than that Lieutenants of counties, if they can be called military men, are not an united corps, nor can act together; Members of Parliament, with commiffions in the feveral counties, do not compofe a military corps, nor can act together as fuch, and the meeting could have no question whether they fhould as a corps act or not; but whether they, knowing the principles of the militia, hould, as Members of the Legislature, encourage or difcourage a given fyftem as advantageous or difadvantageous to the country, it has no poffible operation on the difcipline of any military body, which the deliberation of a military corps whether they thould, as fuch, adopt or reje& a piopotal to act in corps, obviously has. I will now ftate my objection to this measure as refpecting Ireland, as far as it now operates, before it produces the evil to Ireland of reciprocal interchange. As an Irifh militia belongs locally to Ireland, the land owners of that country by a pecuniary charge affecting them exclufively of others, and not affecting the public purfe, have paid the price of a home defence confined to Ireland; it is a breach of faith of the highest clafs to remove their home defence, levied at their expence, without their content; it manifefts a total want of fenfe, or a voluntary abdication of all juftice, to confider the confent of the man hired for that defence to be equiva lent to the confent of him who purchafed the defence to hired; the man hired to ferve only in Ireland certainly ought not to have his fervice extended without his confent, but furely his confent to withdraw his fervices from those who hired them, cannot jufiify this breach of contract to his employers, fanctioned by Parliament. The injuftice does not flop here, for an equal number of Irish militia are to be railed to replace them, and then the perfons who are defrauded by this bill must be at further expence to obtain the defence for which they before paid, with diminished truft in the faith of Parliament that they fhall have what they pay for. This additional injufiice muft follow, if they are to pay the levy money in the fame way that the prefent rith niitia is raifed, but if the expence of the augmentation of militia in Ireland fhould come out of the public puife, (which will be a confeffion that they ought not to pay, because they have been defrauded) then we in England pay towards the Trith militia, and they do not pay towards ours; and the ignorance of our law makers throw them them on farther injuftice; and it will add to the difcordant principles and heterogeneous compofition of militia, tend ing to confound its principles, and ultimately to establish a prerogative army by ballot, which is the great object of Government. One further objection weighs with me, that if I did not ditapprove of the reciprocity of fervice of the militia of the two countries, as unconftitutional and difadvantageous to both countries, I fhould think that at this time, when a heavier ftorm feems to obfcure the hemi. sphere of Ireland, it was not fit to remove from thence troops the most interested in its defence. And the additional militia to be railed in that country of 10,000 men, to replace the 10,000 to be brought here, is a proof (given by those who urge the bill) that Ireland cannot fpare the troops now offering their fervice. For thefe reafons I fhall give my vote against the admiffion of the offered militia, without meaning to depreciate the generofity of the offer. Lord Auckland expreffed his furprise, that the opposition to the bill fhould chiefly originate from thofe noble Peers who had repeatedly objected to his Majefty's Ministers, that they had not in readiness for the defence and safety of the country a force of a difpofable nature fufficiently large. The oppofition was therefore the more extraordinary, as, while they blamed Minifters for not having increased the difpofable force, they denied to them, in the fame breath, the power of that kind of force, by refusing their affent to a bill, profeffedly directed to the accomplishment of an object admitted on all hands to be fo wife and falutary. No man could deny the wifdom and policy of immediately augmenting the difpofable force of this country, more particularly when he looked at the wretched state of the Continent. Yet out of that wretched ftate fome hopes were naturally excited. It was not in the nature of men or of things, that the war could last for any long time, and in that opinion he was juftified by the antwers given by the reprefentatives of the different powers to the official communication made to them of the late lying correfpondence and the fabricated plot. It was impoffible that a Government which was founded in regicide, which was raised and exalted by blood and poifon, and which was fupported by midnight murders and affaffinations, fhould long continue to be guided by a hand ftained with the blood of innocent and royal victims. As to the benefits likely to refult from the bill before their Lordships, there could be but one opinion. From their reVOL. II. 1803-4fidence 3 Y fidence here the Irish militia would acquire improvements and habits of industry, which could not fail to be productive of real advantages, when they returned to their own. country; and as to any diminution of the militia in Ireland, by a transfer of ten thoufand to England, he thought that could form no ground of oppofition to the bill, fince it was well known fuch was the attachment of the people of that country to the Noblemen and Gentlemen, that the number would be replaced in a very fhort time by a new levv. Lord Harrowby thought the bill objectionable, because it went to deprive Ireland of what the most wanted for her own protection, a ftrong efficient force; while the principle of reciprocity, with regard to the fervices of both militias, went for nothing in the prefent cafe as to the difpofable force; for by fubftituting ten thousand men for the fame number taken away, there was no increase whatever. The Marquis of Sligo praised the conduct of the English militia in Ireland, and was convinced that the principle of reciprocal service would contribute in a very eminent degree to the improvement and confolidation of the union. The Duke of Montrofe, as an enemy to the deliberations of all armed bodies, profeffed himself inimical to the bill. Lord Weftmoreland entered into a variety of confiderations and comparisons to fhew the important benefits which the measure was likely to produce, in the fecurity and welfare of the empire at large. When he looked at the prefent bill, which went to enable his Majefty to accept the voluntary offers of fervice made by part of the Irith militia, he confefled he could not feparate it from the bill by which the fame militia was to be augmented. In this connected point of view it could not be denied, that a difpofable force was given to Government both in this country and in Ireland, and he fhould therefore vote for the bill. Lord Darnley opposed the bill. The Earl of Egremont, although he had not for a confiderable time had occafion to addrefs their Lordships, yet conceived the prefent meafure fo novel, and fo objectionable on many accounts, that he thought it his duty to make a public avowal of his difapprobation of it. Lord Grenville blamed Minifters for not fubmitting, in a fair and manly mode, to the confideration of Parliament, the principle of reciprocity between the militia eftablishments of both countries, if fuch was their intention, when they firit coun |