henfible. How far the prefent objectionable claufes might be removed or amended he would not now pretend to decide, though he certainly had no very fanguine hope that even, after every effort to improve it, the bill could be rendered adequate to any great permanent object. Confidered as a feparate meafure, it was altogether inefficient. Viewed as a part of a whole, it was utterly incompatible with every other part of the fyftem applicable to the critis in which the country was placed. He was hardly required to repeat what he had faid at the outfet of his obfervations, that he had the moft perfect reliance on the zeal and spirit of the volunteers in every part of the empire: at the fame time he could not help faying, that the fpecies of force moft applicable to the national dangers was that which Minifters were in duty bound to bring forward with the least poffible delay. Of the courage of the volunteers it was impoffible to entertain a doubt; and after the previous experience which had been obtained of the fervice of the militia, no man would pretend that they were not to be confidered as a most important part of our national defence. Ministers, however, ought to have properly balanced the means of uniting and harmonizing the application of these different eftablishments, fo as in the leaft probable degree to interfere with the military force of the country. So far, however, from having purfued this fyftem, Minifters had facrificed the regular army to establishments undoubtedly highly useful in themselves, but not applicable to circumstances of extraordinary danger. Inftead of any encouragement being held out to the regular army, it had been thwarted, opposed and embarraffed. He allowed all due praife to the spirit of the volunteers and the militia, but he was defirous that they fhould be viewed on their proper footing. As to the army of referve, he faw them in no other light generally than as a depôt of recruits for the regular army. Some degree of triumph appeared to be entertained as to the prefent state of our military establishment. He could not imagine that the noble Lord oppofite would perfift in holding fuch language. As the best answer to any ftatement of that nature, he should wish to be informed what augmentation had been gained for the regular army fince the commencement of the laft feffion. He did not at all mean to deny that the militia, as applicable to local fervice, might be viewed as to a confiderable degree efficient. He was fo far from withing to hold them up in any inferior light, that one of his great ob

jections

jections to the bill was, that the filling up of the quotas for the militia had, by the provifions of the bill, been materially retarded. What he objected to was, that service in a volunteer corps protected not against one ballot for the militia,' but against all ballots, even before the militia were completed. He begged leave to fay, that the fyftem pursued by Minifters on this fubject was effentially different from that pursued during the late war. He did not deny that the volunteer establishment, during the late war, was one which admitted of exemptions from the militia ballots, but the exemption was given under quite different circumftances. During the late war the exemptions given to the volunteers fucceeded the embodying of the militia, whereas, as the exemptions now ftood, they accompanied and materially interfered with the filling up of the mili tia. But he begged leave to ftate that this was not only the cafe during the late war, when the volunteers were first established, but after it was judged neceffary to extend their numbers. Previous to this augmentation, the fupplementary militia had been called for, and it was not till this additional force was filled up that further offers of voluntary service were accepted. The exemptions given to the volunteers were really far beyond any idea which was entertained on the fubject. Hardly two days elapfed after the general training act had been paffed, before, by the fingle claufe of a commutation for voluntary fervice, the whole act was virtually refcinded. He believed that the public at large knew nothing of this moft extraordinary alteration. He could on his own behalf state, that though only at a diftance of twenty-fix miles from the metropolis, he knew nothing of the matter, and that he firft was apprised of this new bill while he was bufy in explaining the provifions of the general training act, and pointing out the fuperiority of voluntary offers of fervice. No fooner was it feen that a deficiency of volunteers was likely to be experienced than Minifiers made known their views of thefe extended exemptions. The volunteer fyftem unexpectedly increased much beyond what they thought neceffary; and here again they ftepped in to check and embarrals the exertions and enthufiafm of the people. The people were to be perpetually trifled with, and when volunteers did not appear in fufficient numbers, they were to be brought forward by threats of the general training bill. It was not at all his object to difpute, under particular circumstances, the right of the Sovereign to call out the population

population of the country. He muft, however, ftrongly object to the claufe in the bill, by which that power was defined. As the claufe now ftood, the power profeffed to be vested in the Crown was monftrous and unconftitutional beyond all previous example. He could not pretend to be fo well verfed as a noble and learned Lod who had preceded him, in what had been very properly ftyled the antiquity of law. Some of the cafes' cited by the learned Lord, did however appear to him quite inapplicable to the prefent age, and the prefent circumftances of this country. Much ftrefs had been laid on the authority of Vattel, whofe Treatife on the Law of Nations he had heard repeatedly ftyled a repofitory of the lumber of antiquity. He would not enter the lifts with the noble Lord as to the conftitutional opinions entertained in the time of Henry III. and Edward 1. with respect to the power of the Sovereign to call out the population of the country. He did not controvert the doctrine of the Sovereign's right generally flated. In the prefent age, however, it was not to be received without a certain degree of limitation. It was the act not of the Sovereign perfonally, but of the Sovereign acting under the fanction and authority of Parliament. This was the only intelligible ufe of the right in a country profeffing to be governed by a fyftem of laws fairly and juftly administered. When the power was exercifed at all, it was to be generally and juftly applied. It was not to be made the inftrument of injuftice, of partiality, or revenge. To fuppose that it could be exercifed in this way, would be to fubvert the whole fyftem of a free government. To pretend that the prerogative of the Crown extended fo far as that any individuals could at pleasure be transferred, either to a regiment of the line, or to a milita regiment, was a pofition altogether monstrous and abominable. It was objected, and justly, to the odious and tyrannical Government of France, that the people were liable to be driven to every fpecies of military fervice. With what propriety then could Minifters call on the people of this country to ftand forth in defence of our conflitution, if the monftrous power to which he had now alluded was fanctioned? His Lordship contended, that a clause in the bill did fanétion fuch a power, and that this was the firft inflance of fuch an arbitrary arrangement in the whole annals of the country. He wished to know from what fource fuch an odious doctrine was derived. It could not derive its origin from the feudal times, for there the terms of fervice were exprefsly limited. Was it from

the

He

the example of the iffuing of commiffions of array? conceived that it would be wafting time to fhew that thefe commiffions afforded no argument for the unconsti tutional power granted by the bill. At the commence ment of the civil wars fuch a power was contended for by the Crown lawyers; but all the ableft legal authorities of that day refifted it. So convinced was the King of the illegality of the power, that it was not acted upon in any inftance. After the Restoration it was not attempted to be carried into practice, and militia laws were foon after substituted in its room. His Lordship, after forcibly infifting on this conftitutional point, concluded by declaring, that the bill was very far from meeting his approbation. He however declined entering on minor points till a future stage.

The Lord Chancellor, in answer to the noble Lord who had juft fat down, infifted that many objections of the noble Lord were irrelevant to the prefent ftage of the bill. The queftion was not in regard to the propriety of the volunteer fyftem as it generally stood, but whether the bill now before the Houfe ought to be read a fecond time as a bill defigned to regulate and amend that fyftem. The propriety of the general principle had been recognised by former bills, and did not therefore admit of much animadverfion. It was impoffible for him to confine himfelf, his Lordfhip faid, to the narrow limits he could have wished, from the turn the debate had taken. All the talents of the noble Lord, and all the talents connected with that noble Lord, or that were engaged with the former Administration, could not, his Lordship was perfuaded, have effected a more perfect or more complete fyftem than that now introduced by the bill. To thew that fuch a force was neceffary, as could not have been immediately raised, or fo expeditioufly raifed by the regular way, his Lordship only requested the House to turn their attention to the circumstances that attended the refoJution of this country to enter again into the war. All circumstances confidered, it could not have been in the power of the noble Lord, or in the power of those who conducted the last war, to have raifed a more efficient or a more numerous force in the fame time. It was not fair, his Lordfhip contended, to criticize the meafures of any Administra tion with that feverity with which the noble Lord had át-. tacked the prefent Administration. On the fame principle, what might he not fay of the former Administration to which that noble Lord had belonged, and to which he himself was in

clined to attach the greatest refpect? It was impoffible that in fuch circumstances as exifted, any measures could have been adopted to produce more beneficial or more extensive effects than the prefent volunteer fyftem was calculated to produce. No man, it was true, could deny, that a strong and numerous regular force was desirable and better in many refpects than volunteers; but it must be allowed alfo at the fame time that fuch a regular force could not fo cafily, nor in fo fhort a time be raised to an amount equal to the effici ency of the volunteers. Had not the prefent Administration, in this instance, acted upon the fame principle as had been acknowledged laft war? Should ever the volunteers be called into, action, he had no doubt that their exertions would do honour to their country, and be a fource of glory to themfelves. Not a man among them, he believed, would survive a defeat. But the proper time, his Lordship argued, to take the different topics under confideration, was in the Coinmittee of the Houfe, and not in the prefent ftage of the bill, as none of the objections went fo far as to deny the general principle. The noble Lord then noticed what had been advanced by Lord Grenville on the royal prerogative, to call out the people in cafe of actual danger. Against the restrictions which the noble Lord had impofed on that prerogative, he entered his moft folemn proteft, and argued the propriety of this prerogative, from the neceffity of the cafe in which it was fuppofed to be exercifed. This prerogative was claimed only in cafe of invafion, and the good of the country and the fafety of the people would then require fuch a facrifice, even independent of the law of the cafe. His Lordship here put a cafe, that should an invasion be made and a landing effected when Parliament was not fitting, and at a time perhaps, when Parliament could not conftitu tionally fit, what would be the refult fhould this prerogative of the Crown be fufpended, or even fo limited as to render it ineffective? If not a principle of law, let it now be made fo, It would be difficult, however, to make it otherwife while it must be recognised in certain inftances, as a principle of neceffity or expedience.

Lord Grenville faid, he had never contended that the Sovereign had not a right, in cafes of invafion, to require the fervices of his liege fubjects, because that the King had a right, reprefenting the community, to call, in fuch a cafe of extreme neceffity, upon the fervices of all his fubjects for the public defence, was not only a conftitutional principle, but

formed