reason into a Local Militia Act, proceeds upon an entire misconception of the 44th Geo. III. c. 54. That act never anywhere specifies twenty-four days' attendance as requisite to the exemption. It specifies eight days within the four months previous to a return. By those eight days' attendance the exemption is, so far, secured; and when the new act says that the number of days' attendance shall be eighteen, prima facie it renders heavier the obligations which it professes to lighten, by requiring (seemingly) a twelvemonth's service as volunteer to purchase exemption from the militia; although, strangely enough, even here the year is not mentioned, and the act reads as if the eighteen days were a condition to be fulfilled once for all. Still the general intent of the provision is evidently to reduce by two, every four months, the number of attendances required; and the eighteen days are distinctly named as a maximum, which the Crown may reduce, but may not increase, this limitation being made most expressly to override the whole of the 44th Geo. III. So much of the 50th Geo. III. c. 25, I may say at once, as related to the local militia was repealed by the 52nd Geo. III. c. 88, but no more; its general provisions therefore remained subsisting.

Between the 44th Geo. III. and the 50th Geo. III. the legal constitution of Volunteer Corps remained bewildering enough. But such confusion became far worse confounded by subsequent legislation. Following the. blunder of the 50th Geo. III. as to the number of days' attendance required being a yearly one, the 56th Geo. III. c. 39, reduced "the number of days' attend66 ance at muster or exercise of corps "of yeomanry or volunteer cavalry "to entitle any person serving in such 66 corps to be returned or certified as an "effective member" to "six in each 66 year," to be in like manner "divided "into two days, or three equal parts in "each four months," and for which "five days' successive attendance" were moreover made an equivalent. And

"amend the laws relating to corps in

yeomanry cavalry and volunteers of "Great Britain," referring to the provision of the 44th Geo. III. as to four-monthly certificates and returns, and reciting that "it is expedient that "such certificates and returns should be "transmitted once only in each year, "instead of three times," enacts that all "officers commanding corps of yeomanry "and volunteers shall transmit the cer"tificates and returns aforesaid . . . . on "the 1st day of August in every year, or within fourteen days after that date, "instead of at the times aforesaid."

Does the reader perceive what havoc this makes of previous legislation? The careless framer of the statute evidently overlooked the fact, that upon the fourmonthly returns depends the whole machinery of the volunteer law. The case stands simply thus:-The 44th Geo. III. says that eight days' attendance in the four months preceding a return makes an effective; the 50th Geo. III. reduces the eight days to six; the 56th Geo. III. for cavalry, to two. Then comes the 7th Geo. IV. and says that the returns themselves shall only be yearly. I express no positive opinion on this jumble; but there is at least strong ground for contending that (for infantry) one period of four months next preceding the 1st August, and six days' attendance during those four months are all that is now obligatory by law. And, lastly, the Militia Act of the 15th and 16th Vict. c. 50, s. 37, declares that notwithstanding anything in that act contained, the provisions of the 44th Geo. IV. c. 54, "shall continue in force, so far as the same applies to the "enrolment of corps of yeomanry and "volunteers, and the exemptions to "which such corps are entitled "

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thus, on the one hand, ignoring subsequent legislation on the subject, and, on the other, seeming to imply that all provisions of the act referred to, except as to enrolment and exemptions, are meant to be repealed. Surely it is disgraceful, if the Volunteer movement is a reality, to leave the law

It is true that an issue has been sought out of the confusion by means of the authority of the War-office. Section 3 of the 44th Geo. III. empowers the Crown to accept the services of any Volunteer Corps "upon such terms and "conditions, and under and according "to such rules and regulations. . . . as "to His Majesty may hereafter seem

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proper." By virtue of this provision it seems to have been assumed that all acts subsequent to the 44th Geo. III. might be quietly shelved, and that corps might be constituted "subject to "the provisions of that act, and to all "regulations which have been, or shall "be, issued under the authority of the Secretary of State for War." Accordingly, the eight drills in four months, and the four-monthly returns, have been treated as still binding provisions. The slightest consideration will show that, if the 44th Geo. III. intended really to vest practically legislatorial powers in the Crown with reference to Volunteer

Corps, half of its own provisions were superfluous, as well as subsequent legislation; or else, why were not the number of days' attendance, the periods of returns, &c., left to the discretion of the Crown? But the meaning of the words "terms and conditions" in this enactment seems to be fixed by a subsequent section (s. 22), which makes volunteers liable to march in case of invasion, "according to the terms and "conditions of their respective services, "whether the same shall extend to any 66 part of Great Britain, or be limited to "any district, county, city, town, or place therein." These terms and conditions are therefore not those which the Crown imposes, but those by which the respective corps limit their offer of service. And the "rules and regulations' again are those of the corps itself, as shown by s. 56, which provides that "no "future rules or regulations shall be "valid or binding on any corps of yeo

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manry or volunteers, or for any purposes of this act, or for any other purpose," unless duly transmitted and not disallowed within twenty-eight days;

to the Crown at any time to annul " any "rules or regulations which may have "been or shall be made respecting any 66 corps of volunteers." Evidently there is here no hint of any legislatorial power in the War-office. It is for the respective corps to fix upon what terms and conditions they will serve, to frame their own rules and regulations; the War-office only disallowing such as it may deem objectionable.

I have no doubt of the good intentions or of the individual good sense of the compilers of the model rules which have been sanctioned by the War-office, and which, so far as my limited experience goes, appear to have been followed with sheep-like docility on almost every point by three-fourths of the volunteer corps. But a stranger farrago of Parliamentary enactments, in force or obsolete War-office regulations-unfathered customs-and rules proper, was probably never put together by reasonable men. Of course there is nothing to prevent the rules of any corps from requiring eight drills in four months, or eighty, as a condition for the status of effective member. where the War-office insists on such a provision, it violates that enactment of the 50th Geo. III. c. 25, which fixes six days per four months as the maximum which the Crown can require. when the rules of any corps state the eight attendances as being the number constituting a claim to exemption from militia ballots, I venture to think they simply delude their members.

But

And,

Amongst other points which are attempted to be decided by rules, or assumed in them as decided, is the form of the oath to be taken by members of volunteer corps. The 44th Geo. III. only requires them to take the oath of allegiance, a very simple affair, two lines long, and which does not even bind the taker to military obedience. Accordingly, some corps have adopted the militia oath; some, I understand, the oath substituted by the 21 and 22 Vict. c. 41, for the oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration. But the former

would seem, on the wording of the act, only to apply in those cases where the three oaths are required. Possibly, as both contain the words of the oath of allegiance, all beyond might be treated. as surplusage by a court of justice. But an oath of military obedience is evidently not one which should ever be administered without the express sanction of Parliament. A form of oath adapted to the volunteer service should surely be enacted.

The extra-legal power taken to itself -perhaps at first necessarily-by the War-office, however harmless whilst wielded by such men as a Lord Herbert or a Lord De Grey, may become easily most galling and mischievous in less worthy hands. Already the War-office regulations, which are assumed to be binding on volunteer corps, have swelled to a considerable bulk; already some have been issued which commanding officers declare to be inexecutable and absurd. If it is meant to give to the War-office a power to issue rules and regulations obligatory on volunteers, let such power be specifically granted to it by Parliament, and let any rule or regulation so issued be laid before Parliament within a given time.

There is indeed another personage in the organization of the volunteer force, whose position is even more anomalous than that of the Secretary at War-I mean the Lord Lieutenant. I am far from contesting the admirable utility of the lords lieutenant to the Government in the volunteer movement, as "buffers" between them and the respective corps. North or south, east or west, I have never heard of one volunteer corps which did not complain of its lord lieutenant, except those that treated him with entire contempt; whilst the War-office, on the contrary, is generally highly popular. But I do not think a great national movement should be liable to be locally stopped or thwarted, as the volunteer movement undoubtedly has been in some cases, by any provincial functionary; and, though not disposed to accept War-office autocracy with

autocracy, in any matter of organization whatsoever, of the lord lieutenant.

Another point of volunteer law which remains in a state of great uncertainty relates to armouries. The 42nd section of the 44th Geo. III. provides distinctly that commanding officers may appoint places "for the depositing and "safe keeping of the arms and accoutre"ments," and also "proper persons to "repair and keep such arms in good state "and condition ;" and that "all reason"able expenses which shall or may be "incurred in placing and keeping such

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arms and accoutrements, and in main"taining them clean and in proper "repair, order, and condition," if ap proved of as therein mentioned, "shall" be paid by the Receiver General of the county in which the arms are deposited, "out of any public monies in his hands;" subject to a proviso, "that no expense "to be incurred as aforesaid shall ex"ceed in amount such sum as His Ma"jesty shall be pleased to order and "direct." The Receiver-general is by the same act made the hand to issue pay to volunteers in case of actual service. By the 7th Geo. IV. c. 58, (s. 4), this latter duty is transferred to the Secretary at War, but nothing is said as to the former; so that the expense of providing and maintaining armouries seems still chargeable on the county funds. But the obligation is apparently evaded, by virtue of the closing proviso of s. 42 of the 44th Geo. III. through the War-office omitting to "order and direct" any sum. This is surely a mere playing fast and loose with the act of Parliament. I cannot conceive of any charge which is more fitting to be borne by the public than this. Those who give their time to qualify themselves for defending their neighbours, may at least ask that the latter should share the charge of maintaining in good condition the weapons by which this is to be done. Nor is it wise for the Government, when it has gone so far as to give the volunteers their rifles, not also to see that they have the means of safely keeping them. If, indeed, the

men felt dying in the boat. One old boatman thus describes his feelings :"Well, sir, perhaps my friends were right when they said, 'I hadn't ought to have gone out-that I was too old for that sort of work (he was then about sixty years of age); but, you see, when there is life to be saved, it makes one feel young again; and I've always felt I had a call to save life when I could, and wasn't going to hold back then; and I stood it better than some of them after all. I did my work on board the brig, and, when she was so near falling over us, and when the Dreadnought life-boat seemed knocking our bottom out, as well as any of them; but, when we got to beating and grubbing over the sands, swinging round and round, and grounding every few yards with a jerk that bruised us sadly, and almost tore our arms out of the sockets-no sooner washed off one ridge, and beginning to hope the boat was clear, than she thumped upon another harder than ever, and all the time the wash of the surf nearly tearing us out of the boat-it was almost too much for man to stand. There was a young fellow holding on next to me; his head soon dropt, and I saw he was giving over; and, when the boat filled with water, and the waves went over his head, he scarcely seemed to care to struggle free. I tried to cheer him, and keep his spirits up. He just clung to a thwart like a drowning man. Poor fellow, he never did a day's work after that night, and died in a few months. Well, I couldn't do anything with him; and I thought it didn't matter much, for I felt pretty sure it must soon be all over,that the boat would be knocked to pieces. So I took my life-belt off, that I might have it over all the quicker; for I did not want to be beating about the sands, alive or dead, longer than I could help; the sooner I went to the bottom the better, I thought. When once all chance of life was over-and that time seemed close upon us every minute-some of us kept shouting, just cheering one another up as long as we could; but I had to give that up; and I remember hearing the

gate again yet, my men, if we keep clear of old wrecks.' And then I heard the Portuguese lad crying, and I remember that I began to think it was all a terrible ¦ dream, and pinched myself to try if I were really awake, and began to feel very strange, and to get insensible. I didn't

feel afraid of death; for you see I hadn't left it to such times as that to prepare to meet my God. And, if I ever spent hours in prayer, be sure I spent them in prayer that night. And I just seemed going off in a swoon, when I should have been soon washed out of the boat, for I felt very dream-like, when I looked up, and the surf seemed curling up both sides of me. I was going to dip my head to let the seas beat over my back, and I should never have lifted it again, when I saw a bright star. The clouds had broken a little, and there was that blessed star shining out. It was indeed a blessed, beautiful star to me; it seemed to call me back to life again; and I began to have a little thought about home, and that I wasn't going to be called away just yet; and I kept my eye upon that star whenever I could; and I don't know how it was, but that seemed just to keep me up, so that, when we got ashore, I was not much worse than the best of them. But, for seven whole days after that, I lost my speech, and lay like a log upon my bed; and I was ill a long time-indeed, have never been quite right since; and I suppose I never shall get over it. But, what is more, I believe that the same may be said of every man that was in the boat. One poor young fellow is dead; another has been subject to fits ever since; and not any of us quite the men we were before; and no wonder, when you think what we passed through. I cannot describe it, and you cannot, neither can any one else; but, when you say you've beat and grubbed over those sands almost yard by yard in a fearful storm, on a winter's night, and live to tell the tale, why, it is the next thing to saying you've been dead, and brought to life again."

The captain of the life-boat was chosen

daring; and well he sustained his character that night-never for one moment losing his presence of mind, and doing his utmost to cheer the men up. The crew consisted of hardy, daring fellows, ready to face any danger, to go out in any storm, and to do battle with the wildest seas; but that night was almost too much for the most iron nerves. The fierce, freezing wind, the darkness, the terrible surf and beating waves, and the men unable to do anything for their safety; the boat almost hurled by the force of the waves from sandridge to sand-ridge, and apparently breaking up beneath them each time she lifted on the surf, and crushed down again upon the sand, besides the danger of her getting foul of any old wrecks, when she would have gone to pieces at once-how all this was lived through seems miraculous. Time after time there was a cry-"Now she breaks-she can't stand this-all over at last-another such a thump and she's done for!"; and all this lasted for more than two hours, as, almost yard by yard, for about two miles, they beat over the sands.

Suddenly the swinging and beating of the boat cease; she is in a very heavy sea, but she answers her helm, and keeps her head straight. At last they have got over the sands, and into deep water; the danger is past, and they are saved. With new hope comes new life. Some can scarcely realize it, and still keep their firm hold on the boat, expecting each second another terrible lurch and jerk upon the sands, and the wash of sea. No; that is all over, and the boat, in spite of her tremendous knocking about, is sound, and sails buoyantly and well. The crew quickly get further sail upon her, and she makes away before the gale to the westward. The Portuguese sailors lift their heads. They have been clinging together, and to the boat, crouching down under the lee of the foresail during the time of beating over the sands; they notice the stir among the boatmen, and that the deadly jerks and rushes of the sea over the boat have ceased; and they, too, learn that the worst is past, and the danger at an end.

Long since did they despair of life; and their surprise and joy now know no bounds. Bravely on goes the life-boat, making good way to the westward. The Portuguese are very busy in earnest consultation; the poor fellows had lost all their kit, and only possessed the things they had on, and a few pounds that they have with them. Soon it becomes eviIdent what their consultation has been about. "Captain," one of the boatmen

sings out, "they want to give us all their money!" "Yes, yes," said their interpreter, in broken English, "you have saved our lives! thank you, thank you! but all we have is yours; it is not much, but you take it between you;" and held out the money. It was about 177. "I, for one, won't touch any of it," said the captain of the boat. "Nor I, nor I," others added; come, put your money up." The brave fellows will not take a farthing from brother sailors, and poor fellows much like themselves; and in a few words they make them understand this, and how glad they are to have saved them.

The life-boat has made good progress, and now runs through the Trinity Swatch Way; and, without further adventure, she reaches the harbour, about five o'clock in the morning. The crew of the brig were placed under the care of the Consul; and the boatmen went to their homes, to feel for many a long day the effects of the fatigues and perils of that terrible night.

All this time the steamer has been cruising up and down the edge of the sands, vainly searching for the boat; and, soon after daylight, she made, as we have already described, for the harbour. Her captain and crew are half broken-hearted, and scarce know how they shall be able to tell the tale of the sad calamity that seems so certainly to have happened. Suddenly, as the mouth of the harbour opens to them, they see the life-boat. They stare with amazement, and can scarcely believe their eyes. "Astonished, sir? That I was; never so much so in my life as when I stood looking at that boat. I could have shouted and cried for very wonder and