his plan to bestow the guinea on the first day of affembling, but it might be given either in parts during the time they were embodied, or the whole might be kept back until the stated period of the fervice was expired. Did this answer remove the objection of his right hon. Friend? Far from it. It was fufficient for the individual that he knew he was to receive a guinea before he returned home. If it were paid to him the first day he made his appearance on parade, he would depofit ready money for his conviviality and jollity; if his receipt of it were poftponed, he would fpend it by anticipation, and be jovial upon credit. For this reafon he thought that the right hon. Gentleman had not been fuccefsful in repelling the obfervation of his right hon. Friend, an obfervation to which there was no answer, and which feemed to have been received by the House with all the weight which it deferved. He concluded with expreffing a hope that no alteration in the clause would be allowed.

Mr. H. Lafcelles approved of the amendment, and contended that it would not prevent the commanders of corps from laying out the money in the purchase of neceffaries for the men if it was applied for. It was really impoffible that men could be expected to come out unless they had fome compensation for

their lofs of time.

Mr. Hiley Addington oppofed it. He acquainted the Houfe, that in the corps which he commanded, the whole expence of the drefs was not more than twenty-three fhillings. To induce the men cheerfully to wear this dress, the officers were dreffed fimilar in all refpects. It was not true that great coats coft twenty-three and twenty-four fhillings. In the corps he had the honour to command, the great coats, which were very ftrong, warm, and ferviccable, coft only thirteen fhillings. Great coats and other articles must be procured for corps, and he thought that in no way could the allowance of the guinea be better applied.

Mr. Canning faid, that the guinea which was to be allowed to the volunteers who offered their fervices for permanent duty, had been very improperly, in his opinion, compared with the marching guinea allowed to the regulars and to the militia. With regard to the latter, when they were ordered to march, it was not optional in them to march or not, they were bound to do it; but the cafe was very different with regard to the volunteers. You could not compel the volunteers to offer their fervices for permanent duty, and therefore the guinea was given to them as an inducement to them to go out. It then became necef

fary

fary to confider whether it would be a greater inducement to a man to tell him that the guinea muft at all events be laid out in neceffaries for him, or to give him his choice to have either the money or the neceffaries; because the commanding officer was not reftritted by this amendment from laying out the money in neceffaries, if the man wished it. But it feemed to him abfurd to contend that the money muft be laid out in neceflarics, and particularly in great coats. Suppofe a man was only out a week, in which cafe he would be only entitled to feven fhillings of the guinea; fuch a man, he fuppofed, inftead of a great coat, would only have a spencer. If be was out only a fortnight, then he would have a spencer with one fkirt; and if he staid the whole three weeks, then he was to have a whole great coat. It had been faid, that there were many articles which it was abfolutely neceffary that thefe corps fhould have; and it was afked, "Who were to pay for them?" His answer The Public." If the fervices of thefe men were effential to the public fafety, these articles fhould undoubtedly be furnished at the public expence.

was,

The Secretary at IVar defended the claufe as it originally ftood in the bill, and thought the amendment unneceffary. He faid that upon the general obfervations. which had been made upon economy, the queftion ftood thus: Whether the volunteer who went out on permanent fervice was to be allowed the great coat and other neceffaries, and alfo the marching guinea? If this was intended, then Gentlemen fhould come forward, and avow this as their intention, for their arguments went to that extent, although they had never yet avowed it. The only queftion in reality was, whether it was advifeable that a volunteer who came thus forward upon permanent duty, fhould have the bounty in money or in a number of neceffaries to be provided for him according to the difcretion of his commander; which of these two modes was likely to be the most effectual and truly beneficial to the corps who should come out? He was of opinion that providing the volunteer with thefe neceffaries, was likely to be the most effectual and beneficial for the volunteer, and for that reafon he was in favour of the original claufe and against the amendment; and he illuftrated this by obferving, that an individual volunteer when called out on the fudden, might be at a lofs to procure at once thofe neceffaries of which he might be in need, and he might be made to pay extravagantly for them; whereas the commander, by buying a great number

together,

together, might have them at a cheaper rate, and the man would in this cafe be fure to be provided with them at all events, whereas if he had the money, he might be placed in a fituation in which he might not have them at all. Nor was this any hardship at all on those who were completely equipped, for in that cafe they would have the guinea, for it was a bounty at all events to be advanced to every volunteer who thus came forward upon permanent duty.

Mr. C. W. Wynne thought it was neceffary the volunteers fhould be provided with what would render their fervices efficient; but he did not know if it was the opinion of military men that great coats were abfolutely neceffary.

General Grosvenor faid, he never was an advocate for this guinea at all: it was one out of two guineas to be allowed to the volunteer, and he should vote for its being laid out as proposed by the original claufe, and not as propofed by the amendment.

Mr. Rofe thought the principal object to be confidered was, that which was most likely to operate as an inducement with men to come forward upon permanent duty, and make themselves better fit to meet the enemy by fuperior difcipline to what they poffeffed at prefent. In that view of the cafe, he was inclined to think, that the guinea would have a better effect, generally fpeaking, than the cloaths, and that determined him for the amendment. He ridiculed the idea of Mr. H. Addington refpecting cheap cloathing: he could have wifhed, if these ideas had been correct, to know the direction of the right hon. Gentleman's taylor: but the truth was, the expence of cloathing had been much understated, for he knew from an infpector general of a diftrict, who was as great an enemy to foppery as any man in the fervice, that the lowest penny at which a volunteer's cloathing could be purchafed was thirty-two fhillings. He anfwered the objection to this guinea being a bad precedent in the way of pay to the volunteers, by obferving that it was not in the nature of pay, but bounty.

Mr. Jeffery reprobated the idea of great coats at fuch a low price as had been mentioned by a right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hiley Addington). The volunteers he was acquainted with would be afhamed to accept of any fuch thing. In a corps with which he was particularly connected, on their being called out on permanent duty, fome, on whofe difcretion they could depend, got the guinea at once; others, who had families, were paid five, fix, or feven fhillings at a time. He had the pleafure of declaring, at the fame time,

that

that while they were out not a fingle man had been found either drunk or diforderly in any respect (a loud cry of hear! hear!).

Mr. Kinnaird, was of opinion that the claufe as it flood in the bill entrusted too much to the difcretion of commanding officers, that difficulties might arife from the vaguenefs with which it was expreffed. What were reckoned neceffaries in one fenfe might not be reckoned so in a military point of view. In law, a volunteer, he thought, might have an action against his commanding officer, as the bill now flood, for providing him with a great coat in place of giving him the money, as a great coat in a military view might not be reckoned a neceffary. The hon. Gentleman begged leave to advert also to two other ambiguities which he wished to be explained, whether the guinea was to be allowed for the first time only of being called out on permanent duty, and whether the fum to be voted by the clause was two or three guineas?

Mr. Butler profeffed himself a friend to economy. Had Adminiftration attended more to this object during laft war, the country, he thought, would have felt the benefits of it at the prefent moment. If the guinea was laid out in neceffaries for the men, he thought it would be usefully spent ; but if not laid out in neceffaries the reverfe would be the cafe. But he objected to the amendment propofed on another ground: after the firft guinea had been given, they might not improbably be called on for another to fupply thofe very neceffaries that were at prefent reckoned unneceffary, and of which a great coat might not unlikely be the firft. He did not wish us to be more expenfive than neceffary in the prefent conteft. He did not with us by any fpecies of extravagance to fink under the weight of that arm which we had raised up for our defence.

Mr. Fonblanque did not think it at all proper that the commanding officer fhould have it in his power to dispose of the guinea at his difcretion. At all events, if the guinea was intended as an inducement, he did not think that this mode of difpofing of it had any tendency to encouragement. He did not think the great coat, which had been fo much talked of, was the only neceffary. If the principle on which that clause was founded was of any value, it was in fo far only as it operated as an incentive to the alacrity of the volunteers; but the provifo with which it was attended, he meant the difcretionary power of difpofing of it lodged in the commanding officer, we t to deftroy its primary tendency.

The question being put, a divifion was called for, when the numbers appeared,

For Mr. Pitt's amendment
Against it

Majority

39

73

34

Several other claufes were then agreed to without oppofition.

On the clause refpecting the number of days neceffary to attend drill, a converfation took place between Mr. Lafcelles, Mr. Secretary Yorke, Mr. Rofe, Mr. Nicholas Vanfittart, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Wynne, and feveral others, when it was agreed to as an amendment, on the motion of Mr. N. Vanfittart, that no abatement fhould be allowed to mafters on account of the abfence of fervants on days of drill, if the period of abfence did not exceed four hours; but that an abatement should be made in proportion to the duration of abfence above the four hours.

Upon the clause refpecting the payment of apprentices for attendance at drill, Mr. Calcraft and Mr. Kinnaird spoke against it. It was, however, agreed to, with an amendment propofed by Mr. Yorke, exempting from the operation of the claufe, the apprentices belonging to the mafters of merchant fhips, or any trading veffels.

A converfation arofe upon the clause which goes to enable the commanders of volunteer corps to arreft volunteers for mifconduct while under arms, in which Mr. Pitt, Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Bragge, and Mr. Giles, took part; and it was at length agreed that this claufe fhould ftand thus-"That volunteers fhould be fubject to arreft by their commanding officers for any misconduct committed while under arms, or while armed and accoutred on their progress to any place of exercise or affembly of the corps."

In the course of the difcuffion of this amendment

Mr. Dent role to call the attention of the Houfe to a letterwhich he held in his hand, and which he had received in confequence of the notice he had taken in the courfe of the debate of the preceding evening of the Somerfet-houfe corps. of volunteers. Upon this fubject, the hon. Member obferved that he was not then determined whether he should proceed for a breach of privilege; but perhaps he would be enabled to collect, from the opinion of others, how it would be moft proper to act, after he thould read the letter which he would

take