exercise themselves in shooting.* The Revolution which cost Charles I. his throne and life was instrumental in making England first acquainted with a strong standing army, wholly independent of the local governments. The infractions committed by this armed force on the laws rendered a standing army an object of abhorrence to Englishmen, and on the Restoration led to the disbanding of the land forces. The king was unwilling to part with the whole of the army and General Monk's regiment, called the "Coldstream," and one other of horse, were accordingly retained in his service. Another was formed out of the troops brought from Dunkirk; and thus began, under the name of "guards," the present regular army of Great Britain.† But, instead of restoring the old national militia, and making every free man liable to serve in person, the oligarchic parliament of that period remodelled the entire system; every man who possessed £500 a year derived from land was bound to provide, equip, and pay, at his own expense, one horseman; every man who had £50 a year derived from land was charged in like manner with one pikeman, or musketeer. The furnishing of infantry and cavalry being thus thrown as a burthen upon the land, personal service was abolished. From the time of the Tudors the militia had been officered by the landed aristocracy, the lord lieutenant of each county held command as "chief of the miltia," and appointed meetings for drilling and inspection. As the landed gentry were, for the most part, Tories, and on that account regarded as not being favourable to the Revolution of 1688 and Hanoverian succession, the militia was allowed gradually to fall into decay, and became eventually an object for scorn and ridicule. There still remains some remembrance of the City of London train bands in Hogarth's History of the Idle and the Industrious Apprentice. Besides the militia, we must take into account the corps of yeomanry and volunteers-a description of forces which originated in the menaces of French invasion in the reign of George III., and which are distinct from the militia. The entire militia of the kingdom is under the control of the Home Secretary; the Privy Council has to determine how many militiamen each county is to contribute; the lord lieutenant is still the commanding officer; the deputy lieutenant, together with the justices of the peace, are charged with the regulation of the militia. The justices of the peace, as in the case of the *Froude, Hist. Eng., i. 62. + Hallam, ii. 315. ‡ Macaulay, 115. regular army, draw up the enrolment list and administer the oath, both to militiamen and to regulars. They decide appeals of masters in respect to their apprentices who may have enlisted, and punish deserters; to them also are referred all orders of the central department having reference to the militia. By 18 and 19 Vict. c. 100, the qualification of officers of the militia is determined. A colonel must have £600; lieutenantcolonel, £400; major, £300; captain, £200 yearly income, arising from an estate for his own life, or for the life of another, or for any greater estate. A similar interest arising, also, from personal estate will qualify. From the captain downwards no property qualification is required for the officers. The lords-lieutenant appoint the officers, subject to the ratification of the Queen; the greater part of the officers being, at the same time, justices of the peace. Certain posts can only be held by military men who have served in the regular army. These latter constitute, together with the officers who have served, a cadre for each regiment, so long as it is not called out. In time of peace the government can enrol 80,000 men in five years. In time of war or threatened invasion, the number may be carried to 120,000. On the termination of the Crimean war there were 114,235 men fully equipped; in April, 1860, there were but 19,333 actually under arms. The militia has merely served hitherto as a depôt for the army.* When men cannot be raised by voluntary enlistment, her Majesty in council may order a ballot. Men shall not be liable to be balloted for the militia after thirty-five years of age. Peers, soldiers on active service, clergymen, members of the university, and students, sailors and apprentices are exempted from serving. The duties may be discharged by means of paid substitutes. The Government can incorporate 10,000 pensioners for the protection of the country. In Ireland there is a body of police, organized on a military footing, numbering 12,400 men. The "volunteer corps," established since 1859, and which have already attained the number of 180,000 to 200,000, have, for the time being, no legal organization; they are simply voluntary associations of armed men. According to circumstances, however, these volunteer corps may possibly lead to a revival and re-organization of the * On the 19th July, 1859, it was stated by the Home Secretary, in the House of Commons, that the militia of Gloucester and Worcestershire had never practised with ball-cartridge. — Parl. Rem., vol. ii., 133. national militia. The standing army is an agent in the State organization, which is merely endured. On the Restoration, Charles II. began to create, on a small scale, out of his revenues, a new standing army which, in 1662, amounted to above 5000 men; in 1685 there were in England 7000 foot soldiers and 1700 horse soldiers under arms. The discipline was very lax, only "military" punishments existed; the officers contravening the law, inasmuch as the common law knows nothing of courtsmartial. A soldier, by knocking down his colonel, only incurred the ordinary penalties of assault and battery. If he slept on guard, only light punishments could affect him, inasmuch as no Briton, excepting constables and watchmen were forbidden to sleep at night.* Deserting his colours in time of war, constituted by statute-law, on the contrary, the offence of felony without benefit of the clergy; deserting in time of peace, however, was merely a breach of contract. James II. endeavoured to carry out, by means of the army, his absolutist plans, but the instrument was not pliant to his hand. After the Revolution it was provided by the "Bill of Rights" that no standing army should be maintained by the king without consent of the parliament. Yet, one year after the Revolution (1689), these powers were suspended by parliament. In consequence of a military outbreak at Ipswich the first Mutiny Bill was passed, which provided that every desertion and every act of resistance against officers should be punishable with death or other heavy penalties, on sentence of a court-martial. The bill was only to remain in force for six months (1 Will. and Mary, s. 1, c. 5). Since then, however, the Mutiny Act has been renewed annually, and generally bears the following title" Bill for preventing Mutiny and Desertion, and for the better payment of the Army and their Quarters ;" and thus the continuance of a standing army is made dependent on the will of parliament. The Mutiny Bill allows the sovereign to exhibit articles of war, giving unlimited power to mark out new military offences and prescribe for the same, corresponding punishments. It also provides that no person shall, by such articles of war, be subjected to any punishment of transportation, or any punishment extending to life or limb, for any crime which is not expressed to be so punishable by the act itself. It is further enacted that, where a soldier * Macaulay, vol. i. is accused of any offence against a subject of the realm, punishable by the known laws of the time, he shall be delivered over to the civil magistrate. Corporal punishment is only permissible on sentence of a court-martial. The wish expressed by Blackstone* that the parliament would establish standing articles of war as in the case of the navy, has, up to the present, not been carried out. The right to lay down discretionary articles of war is annually conceded by parliament to the crown. Should the mutiny bill, however, not pass through parliament, officers and soldiers, in case of deserting their colours in time of war, would be brought before a jury for felony; desertion in time of peace, and insubordination, would again become a breach of contract; and illtreatment of officers would only rank as a mere assault. The Mutiny Act draws no distinction between time of peace or war; any soldier sleeping on guard in time of peace may, by reason of the penalties annually set forth by the bill, be sentenced to death.† Civilians inducing soldiers to desert or mutiny, are very severely punished by the existing laws. Attempts were not wanting in the last century to abolish the standing army. On 24th February, 1717, thirty lords protested against the Mutiny Act: "1st. Because a standing army is especially dangerous to liberty; and all the more dangerous because submitted to a military law unknown to the common law: 2nd. Because officers and soldiers are thereby deprived of the rights of free Englishmen, and because we believe that none are such apt and willing instruments, to deprive others of their rights, as when they are themselves deprived: 3rd. Because the King, by the right of prescribing articles of war, acquires a discretionary power of legislation." A like protest was renewed in 1721, and in 1732 Pulteney spoke with great warmth against standing armies. The officers and soldiers of the English army have no especial immunity in view of the law with regard to crimes not punishable by the Mutiny Act. For felony or misdemeanour they are brought before the judges of the common law courts. The powers of the earlier mutiny acts, exempting them from the jurisdiction of the common law courts in cases of lighter offences committed against * Bl. i., 416. + Bowyer, 497. Fielding recounts that even on the march against the rebels in 1745, an officer was brought before the justices of the peace for disorderly conduct and committing an assault. civilians, have not been renewed by the later acts. A bill before parliament last session, the "Jurisdiction in Homicides Bill,” proposed that soldiers committing murder or manslaughter on one of their comrades, should be tried at the central criminal court, even when not within its ordinary jurisdiction.* Soldiers have the privilege of not being arrested for debt under £30. An officer who should resist the execution of the civil jurisdiction may be dismissed at once from the service. The wills of soldiers are invested with certain privileges; when in actual service they may make nuncupative wills, and dispose of their goods, wages, and other personal chattels without the usual solemnities prescribed by the law. While on home service the army can only be called upon actively to intervene on requisition of the civil authorities, for which requisition the latter are personally responsible; the soldier himself is likewise responsible, and if he do not act within the limits of the law, is subject to punishment. "For a man by enlistment is not freed from any law, he only has a new one imposed upon him; he is still the servant of the civil law, in addition to which he is the servant of the military. In regard to the action of troops within the realm, these landmarks are respected; any soldier receiving an order which is unlawful, as, for instance, to fire on a mob, he himself not being attacked, and the Riot Act not being read, knows full well that he will be hanged if he obeys, therefore no such order is ever given."+ When, upon one occasion, an officer affirmed "that he would rather be shot for disobedience to his colonel than be hanged for exceeding the law and violating liberty," the Duke of York replied, "An officer who should act otherwise would deserve to be both shot and hanged. For my part, I believe that British officers would just as little obey an unlawful order, as that every commanding officer would be incapable of giving one."‡ English history furnishes many instances of soldiers having been delivered up for criminal trial on the ground of illegal interference; Sir Walter Scott's narrative of the Porteous mob recurs at once to the memory. In 1768, in connection with the riots on account of Wilkes, a certain Allan was shot; the coroner's jury returned a verdict of "murder" against private Donald M'Clean Sir W. Scott's Memoir of the Duke *Parl. Rem. v. 113. of York. |