clusion, that he was sensible, in detailing a plan of such magnitude, that he took upon himself a great load of responsibility; but if he should be so fortunate as to render a great service to his country, as was his anxious wish, he was willing to risk his reputation in the attempt, with as entire a devotion as numbers of his gallant countrymen had exposed their lives, feeling that the one was as precious to him as the other could be to them. He did not wish, however, to force any plan of his upon the house or the country with unbecoming precipitation. It was his desire, that full time should be given to weigh every part of the plan he had submitted; that the gentlemen opposite should consult the ablest men and the best authorities upon the subject; and that every member should come to the decision of it with a disinterested and pure desire to serve the country. If, as he hoped, the plan he had submitted was solid and well founded, he should, in that case, think that he had performed the duties of his office, and deserved the confidence of the public. The right honourable gentleman then read the resolutions which he proposed to submit to the committee, which were nine in number, and embraced all the topics urged in his speech; and he finally said that he hoped by Monday se'nnight to be prepared to enter into the discussion of the subject.

Mr. Huskisson said, that he for one acceded to the postponement of the discussion upon the plan of his right honourable friend until a future day; and as he did not understand his plan, he should, for the present, carefully abstain from any comment upon it further than this-that it appeared to him, upon

the face of it, to be the most im portant change in the financial ar rangements of the country that had ever been proposed in the course of a long and eventful war.

Mr. Tierney and others spoke to the same purport, and the subject was adjourned. Palmerston

March 8.- Lord moved the order of the day, for the house resolving itself into a committee of supply, and the speaker accordingly left the chair. Mr. Lushington being seated at the table,

Lord Palmerston rose, for the purpose of submitting to the house the army estimates. He said that it would be unnecessary to detain the house at length, since the variation between the estimates of the present and of the last year arose only from a slight augmentation of effective numbers, and not from any change of the military system of the country. The total increase of effective numbers was 12,000 men, and the increase of charge was 390,0007. to be referred principally to the land forces and to the foreign corps. As upon former occasions, he would advert to the various heads under which the estimates were arranged seriatim, and notice the increase or diminution in money or men in each of them. Having done so, he said the number of men raised by ordinary recruiting amounted to upwards of 14,000 men, considerably more than the number of the preceding year. For three or four years back, recruiting for the army had been progressively improving; it had risen from 9000 to upwards of 14,000. The whole number added to the British army by the accounts of last year, including those who volunteered from the militia, amounted to upwards of 20,000; and for the service of

the

the army and the militia, there was raised altogether from the population of the country upwards of 24,000 men. It would seem as if the military spirit of the country had been roused, and that to this the great increase in the number of men enlisted was in a great mea sure to be attributed. The total amount of men who had entered the British army in the course of last year, including those raised by enlistment, by volunteering from the militia, by desertion from the enemy, by the enlistment of foreigners at home and in the peninsula, with the Spaniards, amounted altogether to 39,700. The casualties for the same period amounted to somewhat more than 29,000. Of this number 17,000 were contained in the statements on the table of the house-2000 had been subsequently returned from the peninsula, and upwards of 4000 from various other foreign stations. The loss in prisoners amounted to above 1800. In the course of the year, also, 900 privates were promoted to the rank of serjeant. Taking all the casualties together, as they appeared from the returns, they amounted to upwards of 26,000, leaving 2,600 men unaccounted for. This circumstance required some explanation. When a regiment was sent abroad, the commanding officer was considered responsible for all the men under his charge. In the course of service, many of the men became unfit for duty, and were sent home to be taken care of. As soon as these men left the foreign station, they were struck off the foreign establishment, and did not enter the home one, and they were not returned till their fitness or unfitness for future service could be ascertained. There was, therefore, always a certain number of men, constituting a sort of floating mass, not

included in the army at home, and not returned among the casualties. Having stated thus much, he should conclude with moving his first resolution, that a sum not exceeding 3,000,0001. be granted for the service of the land forces for the current year.

Captain Bennett objected to the mode of recruiting which now prevailed. The last quarter during which the plan of Mr. Windham was allowed a fair trial, produced no fewer than 7000. The present system, during the years 1808, 9, 10, 11, had been much less productive; and though during the last year the recruiting was said to have improved, it was, even including the volunteering from the militia, by no means equal to what it ought to be. The great objection to that system was, that it crippled one service for the sake of another, and had a decided tendency to destroy the character of the militia. The noble lord had stated the increase of the army at 39,000, and the casualties at 29,000. He was, however, prepared to maintain that the army, instead of being improved, was worse by 700 than it was the former year. The house had been congratulated on the flourishing state of the army, and the increase which had taken place during the last year; but of 10,000 at which that increase was stated, 8,000 were nót Englishmen. In every action the loss of Englishmen was much more considerable than that of foreigners; and if to this loss four foreigners were to be added to the army for every Englishman, that army would soon come to be almost entirely composed of foreigners. Already they constituted more than onefifth of the army. The noble lord had stated the loss in prisoners at 1800, but in the Gazette not, more men than 1500 had appeared.

Why were the lists not published fairly and openly? Did they imagine that this was a country which could not bear to be told the naked truth? He should have liked to hear of some plan for the reduction of the expense of our army, which at present was so enormously great.

Mr. Huskisson said, he had been in the habit of calling the attention of the house to the general state of the expenditure of the country, on occasions similar to the present; but as the chancellor of the exchequer had given the outline of a plan which he was soon to submit to them for their consideration, he should defer his observations on that subject till that plan came under discussion. He would only state at present, that if any person thought that he was less called on to retrench in consequence of that plan, he would be paying a very bad compliment to his right honourable friend. No person could look at his plan without feeling that it could be justified by necessity alone; and that, if the war should continue for any length of time, the country would, in consequence of it, be involved in very serious difficulties. He wished at present merely to state some objections to certain parts of the proposed estimates. Having enumerated several items, he came to the subject of the local militia. He said, looking to our armies in the peninsula, he hoped he might flatter himself with the expectation, that they were about to resume offensive operations with better effect than they had hitherto lately done; and if this should be found to be the case, he thought it extremely probable that we might be able to avoid calling out the local militia for the present year. Let no gentleman suppose that he undervalued this

class of our national force; but stil he thought there could be no ne cessity for calling it out at present. Why call it out this year for fourteen days, when there was no appearance of there being any occa sion for it for years to come? Would it not be better not at all to call out the local militia this year, and to call it out for twenty-one days during the next year, when in all probability our foreign expenditure would be reduced in amount? Look at the character of the force itself-it was not a force calculated to keep up the regular army. Call ing it out into actual service could be of little avail where there was no dread of invasion; and when to this was added the inconvenience of taking away from the agricultural districts one-third of the farmers' servants for fourteen days, when they could not be required; he hoped ministers would be induced to relinquish that idea for this year, and rather to call them out for twenty-one days in the following year, when their services might be more effective. In these different ways, the expense would be greatly reduced without the effective force being at all broken in in upon.

Mr. Addington observed, that few or no officers belonging to the militia had now any objection to the volunteering into the line, Much to their credit, they had (he should not call it conquered their prejudices, but had) overcome their objections on that head, feeling how important it was to do so in the war in which we were engaged. As to the local militia, it was to be remarked, that three-fourths of them were newly raised men, and then it would be seen how dan gerous it must be to allow them to go forth without knowing their officers, or their officers knowing them. How far it might be pru

dent

dent to adopt the suggestion of his right honourable friend in a subsequent year, he was not prepared to say; but he did not see any decided objection to it. The system, it was to be recollected, was now in its infancy, and ought to be cherished in time of repose and absence from external danger.

Mr. Freemantle and several other members spoke, after which lord Palmerston replied: on which

Mr. Whitbread said, he regarded the day on which the army estimates were voted as an important day in every session, and he was a little disappointed on the present occasion, that none of those gentlemen who had maintained that our operations on the peninsula should be conducted upon a more extensive scale, had come forward with some plan to show how greater force, and how more money to sup port that force, could be obtained. The object of the committee, how. ever, now was to see that so large a sum as 17,000,000%, was so expended, as to make it go as far as it could. The noble lord, he thought, had talked with too much levity about saving 10,0007. here, or 20,0007. there; if 10 or 20,0001, could be saved any where, it ought to be saved; nay, if 1 or 20001. could be saved, it was certainly the bounden duty of the committee to do it. It was said there were great difficulties in supplying the deficiencies in the army. He did not mean to go back to Mr. Windham's plan; but he would say, he was firmly convinced, that if that most wise, salutary, and comprehensive mode had been adopted in all its parts and principles, no such difficulties would now be felt. It was, however, too late to think of that plan now; and all we could do was to go from hand to mouth, and sup

ply our wants with foreigners as well as we could. With respect to the dress of the soldiers, he regretted to see such mummery-every Englishman laughed at them as they passed along the streets. He could wish also that the national colour had not been departed from. All the continental troops were nearly clothed in blue uniforms; why had we adopted that colour? Many fatal accidents had happened in consequence of it. Our men, mis taking the enemy, had fallen into their hands: sometimes they had fallen by the hands of their own comrades, who mistook them for the enemy. He saw no occasion for any change. Red was the established English colour, and the soldier was proud of it. With regard to the estimates themselves, he thought they ought to be de ferred. The noble lord had not satisfactorily accounted for the 10,000l. for repairing the Horse Guards. He had talked of build, ings at Kew and barracks at Knightsbridge; but there was no distinct specification of expenses. As to the barracks in Ireland, he felt much inclined to divide the committee upon that point, if it were only to punish the negligence of the noble lord, in coming to that house unprepared with proper information on the subject. He knew nothing about them; neither where they were to be built, nor of what they were to be built: but he would inquire, and tell the house another time. The noble lord ought to wait till another time then before he had the money voted. He hoped that his honourable friend's resolution about the pay. master to the forces would be pressed to a division; for that it was a sinecure, appeared from the mouth of the noble lord himself.

- Lord Castlereagh allowed, that this was the time for entering into a detailed examination of the expenditure of the army, but thought that the arguments which had been brought forward respecting insufficiency of detail, were only some of those parliamentary shifts to put off a decision on a question, which were so well known to the honourable gentleman (Mr. Whitbread). Much had been said during the discussion concerning the dress and equipage of the soldiery, but this was one which he thought the house was peculiarly unfit to judge of. In support of this assertion, the noble lord observed, that though the foreign saddle was so much decried, it did not subject the horses to sore backs, as was the case with the English saddle; and though he, in common with other gentlemen, preferred the old japanned cavalry helmet to the modern brass one, yet on consulting a cavalry officer, he found that the former, in hot countries, cracked, and consequent ly, in the event of rain, was immediately destroyed. After remarking that the 10.0007. proposed for the horse guards included also the repairs of other barracks, the noble lord said that he consoled himself with the thought, that the honourable gentleman (Mr. Whitbread), who was so acute at picking holes in a statement in any line,

had raised such trifling objections to that of his noble friend (lord Palmerston). The objections to the state of the office of paymaster could not bear to the expense; and as to the constitutional point, if any objection were raised on the score of influence, it should be brought on as a separate motion.

Mr. W. Smith disapproved of the mode of enlisting men for life, in the moment of intoxication, or under circumstances equally improper; and thought that the way to ascertain the superior eligibility of the two methods of enlisting for life, or for seven years, was not to ask a man who was enlisted the other day, whether he repented of his resolution, but to ask him seven years hence. With regard to the manner in which the army was clothed, he did not see why gentle men in that house might not form an opinion on it, when their opinion was the same as that of every man they met in the streets, as well as of the persons who were condemned to wear these trappings, only fit for a mountebank. The honourable member agreed that permanent barracks might be less expensive than temporary ones, in time of war, but contended that they would be more expensive in the intervals of peace, which he hoped would be longer than they had lately been. He considered the argument of his honourable friend near him, with respect to the joint paymastership, as being perfectly conclusive.

Several other members objected to many of the items; but the whole of the resolutions were at length carried.

March 11.-Mr. Giddy rose to make the motion of which he had given notice, on the subject of copyrights of books, by entering the

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