rendered immediately efficient in fencible corps attached as fecond battalions to regiments of the line. The hon. Officer then adverted to the tatements of the public force of the country, made to the Houfe by the right hon. Secretary at War, previously to the recefs, which he fcrutinized at some length; adding, that though, in fuch a ftate of the country, he fhould be amongst the laft to move for fpecific returns of its military ftrength, yet when Minifters volunteered thofe statements of their own accord, they could not blame him for taking advantage of the opportunity afforded him of canvaffing the correctnefs of them. He concluded by saying, he fhould, in the progress of those measures through the House, move for fome other returns for the further elucidation of this fubject, and to prove that the troops of the line, fwhich it was most desirable to increase, are not even so numerous as they have been ftated.

Mr. Secretary Yorke did not feel it neceffary to follow the hon. Officer minutely through the whole detail of his argument, but merely to apply himself to a few points that he thought fhould not pafs unnoticed. And firft, with respect to the fubject of the union, which the hon. Officer seemed to think fo barren of the good confequences it was expected to produce. He believed it never could have been rationally expected, or feafibly promifed by any man, that all the good effects to be hoped from that measure, were to be realized in the fhort period that has elapfed fince it was effected. Those benefits muft, in the ordinary courfe of things, be of gradual growth. What portion of them had hitherto obtained, he would leave it for thofe hon. Gentlemen, reprefentatives of that country, whom he faw around him, to declare, which they were competent to do, from their local knowJedge and obfervation. With refpect to the bill now before the Houfe, he begged to obferve, that it was not in fact for any extraordinary augmentation of the militia of Ireland, to which branch of the fervice the hon. Officer fo much objected, but to fill up the vacancy which would be created in that militia, if it should be thought expedient by his Majesty to transfer 10,000 of them to this country; and even if they should not be fo transferred, the prefent bill would do no more than raife the militia force of Ireland to the numbers at which they stood during the laft war. With respect to the nature of the militia force, he only felt it neceffary to fay, that as a matter of opinion he differed from the hon. Officer; and he thought he was well warranted in fo differVOL. II. 1803-4.

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ing from that opinion, by the gallant conduct of that militia in the time of the rebellion, and the efficient bravery they had fhewn not only in repelling a domeftic, but a foreign enemy, aided, certainly, by another body of their brave and loyal countrymen, of whom he never could speak without the highest and most honourable commendationthe yeomanry of Ireland. With refpect to the general ftrength of the united kingdom, upon which fo many invidious comments were fo frequently made, he confidered it really fo formidable as to have very little apprehenfions of any inconvenience that could refult from the fcrutinies of the hon. Officer, even upon the minuteft details of the public force. For looking around him to the gallantry, the heroifm, and the prowefs, perpetually difplayed by Britifl troops in every quarter of the globe; contemplating the atchievements recently effected by a mere handful of British troops in India over the most formidable and numerous armies of the native powers; viewing a few detachments of British cavalry and infantry, annihilating whole armies of forty or fifty thoufand men, ftorming their fortreffes, and capturing their artillery; he had no apprehenfions for alarm when he looked at home, and viewed fuch a bulwark for our defence, as an army of 180,000 fuch troops presented to the foe. When he faw more than 10,000 fuch cavalry as the handful that cut to pieces the 20,000 chofen men of Scindia's army; when he viewed a field train of 700 pieces of cannon, manned by more than 8,000 well trained British artillery-men to give them effect, he felt none of that alarm which feemed to affect the hon. Gentleman.

Lord Archibald Hamilton oppofed the prefent bill, not merely as a diftin&t and detached meafure, but as coupled with the bill of the preceding night, to which he alfo strongly objected, as part of a fyftem towards Ireland of which he totally difapproved, and which was defigned and calculated to undermine the conftitutional principle of a national militia, evinced fitft by encouraging the militia to volunteer into the army of the line; next, by admitting as officers of militia, perfons who were rather ftrangers, and poffeffed no qualification in the refpe&tive counties into whole regiments they were admitted; and now, by recruiting men for the mi itia by bounties, and not by ballot. The noble Lord made fome allufion to the letters lately written by a noble Law Lord in Ireland, in which it was afferted that the lower claffes of the people of Ireland were incapable of being rendered loyal fubjects to a proteftant go

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vernment-a declaration not only falfified by the whole tenor of hiftorical facts, but, coming from fuch authority, admirably calculated to infult national feeling, and to excite difaffection even where it never existed before.

Mr. Whitfied Keene faid, he was one of thofe who had voted for that measure of union which had been. lluded to, and who was convinced it was the fentiment of the enlightened people of Ireland, that it was a meafure fraught with the happiest consequences to that country; and though it was not to be expected that in fo fhort a time the meafure could have produced any thing like its full effects, yet it had certainly produced one thing that laid the foundation for those good effects which he doubled not would rapidly follow it removed that molt objectionable of all political principles, the existence of two co-ordinate and independent legislatures in the fame ftate, which conftantly expofed the tranquillity of the empire to dangers arifing from difcord and mutual ftrife, which ambitious or defigning men might promote by the agitation of irritating questions. Though he was a native of Ireland, he had fpent 40 years of his life in this country, 37 of which he had had the honour of being a member of that Houfe, and therefore he muft be fuppofed free from national prejudice He would declare his own conviction, founded upon the fentiments of other Gentlemen moft converfant in the local state of that country, that of the whole mafs of the lower orders of the community there, more efpecially in the fouthern provinces, one-third, at leaft, were of a defcription that, in every war which involved the empire, were rather to be confidered dangerous than friendly to the ftate; men of diffolute and riotous difpofitions, eafily moulded to the mifchievous defigns of feditious demagogues. Of this defcription of men it was defirable to get as many as poffible out of the country; because thus they would be removed out of the way of temptation, and have their minds improved by feeing the manners of other countries, and acquire new habits of induftry. Removed from home, and forming part of thofe armies that carried the glory of British aims to the farthest parts of the globe, there were no men on earth more diftinguished for their bravery and loyalty; in the various walks of induitry, none more diftinguithed for their perfeverance. But if there ever was a measure more eminently calculated than all others to promote the true ends of the union, it was that of the bill for bringing into this country ten thousand of the Irith militia, because it would

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transfer men from their home when heated by whiskey, and prejudiced by local ignorance and bad connexions: they would have an opportunity of witneffing in this country the happy effects of fobriety, industry, and fubordination to the laws; and they would carry back with them to their own country new ideas and new habits, tending more than any thing elfe to promote the intercourfe and the attachment fo defirable between the countries, and ultimately to render the inhabitants of both as one people.

Sir John Wrottefiey oppofed the bill, principally on the fame ground with Col. Craufurd, whofe obfervations upon the ftate of the public force he fully adopted; and from which he argued, that the prefent force of the country, in infantry of the line, did not exceed 20,000 men; and notwithstanding the boaftful exultation of the right hon. Gentleman, of the formidable state of our public force, he charged his Majefty's Minifters with the groffeft inattention and laffitude towards our foreign poffeffions. For, loudly as the right hon. Gentleman had exulted in the fucceffes of our arms in India, he feemed to forget that the almost defencelcfs ftate of our Weft India poffeffions, rendered our fecurity in that important quarter extremely problematical; while, by the groffeft inattention to our concerns in Africa, and notwithstanding the boafted poffeffion of 1800 fhips for our general defence, the enemy had been fuffered to wreft from us our most important poffeffion in that quarter of the gobe. Towards our poffeffions in Ceylon, their negligence had been equally reprehenfible, nor was it at all certain that the island remained at this hour in our poffeffion; and with reference to our recent fucceffes in India, which had been fo much the fubject of exultation, it was yet to be confidered whether thofe fucceffes were really grounds for triumph At all events, they were purchased at an expence of blood and of brave men, which increafed the neceffity of recruiting our forces in that country by new drains upon the population of this; and the more our territories were extended, the greater would be that neceffity at a time when our situation at home rendered it the more embarraffing; while the more extensive our new acquifitions, the more difficult their defence, and confequently the more uncertain must be the permanence of our tenure. The hon. Baronet then adverting to the fituation of our home affairs, obferved, that through the incompetence of his Majefty's Minifters we were reduced to a dilemma unparalleled in the hiftory of any nation. We were

driven by his Majefty's Minifters out of a peace which they made, and did not know how to keep, but which they acknowledged to be untenable, into a war which they knew not how to conduct, in which we were left without an ally in the world. We were carrying on that war by the most ruinous and inefficacious fyftem on earth-that of a blockade; in which we were wearing out our navy, and exhausting the fpirits, the patience, the vigour of our men, and the treasure of our country; and now, finding the raifing of even the militia by ballot no longer practicable, it was propofed to refort to bounties upon a reduced scale, which, even at double the rate, had been found ineffectual. Such a fyftem he confidered as inevitably ruinous to all means of defence, and thought it abfolutely neceifary to proceed immediately to fome active operation, and to ftrike fome blow which might at once give activity to the native gallantry of our troops and feamen, inftead of exhaufting their hopes and finking their fpirits in a tardy and inactive vigilance upon the preparatory operations of the enemy. He would call upon Miniflers in the language of a brave and experienced statesman of former times-" Si ftas, ingredere; fi ingred ris, curri ; fi curris, advsla.”

Sir W. Erfkine obferved, that while Gentlemen maintained that nothing had been done for the defence and fecurity of the country, he should be glad to hear from those who entertained that opinion, what wifer and more effectual plan they themselves had in view for the fame defirable end. As to the force which was at that monent in activity, he was convinced it was as large and efficient as any that could have been provided; and he had every juft ground to believe that not a fingle man more could have been raised to render the difpofable force more mumerous. When Gentlemen conceived themfelves fo very strongly founded in their opinions, was he not, he should ask, as ftrongly juftified in calling for proofs in fupport of their affertions?

Sir J. Newport declared that in voting for the bill which occupied the attention of the Houfe the preceding evening, he did give that vote on the exprefs underflanding that the exchange of the fervices of the two militias thould be reciprocal. He was forry to obferve from the refolutions of a number of Gentlemen of the highest refpectability, which had appeared in the public papers of that day, that fuch a reciprocity of fervice was not only altogether contrary to their withes, but that they were determined ftrenuously to refift any fuch measure. It gave him the greater concern to find fuch a refolution