equal advantages in either country: but what is militia (in its true meaning) in one country, is an army in the other. Local attachments from fimilar cuftoms and manners cannot be exchanged, the conftitutional advantages, therefore, must be greatly diminished, and each corps fo removed from their intercourfe with their friends and families, will partake more of the feelings of a ftanding army than they would in their own country. It is no anfwer to this objection that it goes against the removal of the English militia from county to county; it in fome measure does, and if invafion of an ifland did not involve the whole island of neceffity in one campaign and one state of warfare, the lefs they were removed from local affections and intercourfe, and the lefs this fpecies of force was taught to forget that they were defending their own homes and families, the better. The principle on which a militia is formed is not, nor can, nor ought, to be adapted to the extended fervice of an army. I have no difficulty in faying that we are all individually pledged in honour, as well as intereft, to fupport, to the utmost of our power, the fafety, intereft, and conftitutional freedom of the united empire in every part; but that is not the queftion on the prefent difcuffion, which is whether we fhould accept the generous offers of the Irith militia, for certainly they are generous as far as relates to the offers; but I do not think they are confiftent with the constitution of either country, and it is on, the ground of the fyftem being detrimental to both countries that I object to their acceptance. A noble Earl on the other fide has given us the topographical hiftory of blunders, and deduced them from what he is willing in pleafantry to admit to be its parent foil; I confefs that I have not observed that blunders are exclufively the growth of any country, and I am fure that he will find more proofs of blunders and confusion in the acts of the prefent Minifters, than he could find in any clafs of men in Ireland; but he commits himself an error, if not a blunder, in fuppofing that the meeting of Lord Lieutenants of counties, and Members of Parliament holding commiffions in the militia of any county, was held in the fpirit of blunder by those who objected to the deliberations of armed corps. I confefs I am not able to find out the fimilarity of the meeting of the clafs defcribed, and that of a regiment meeting to deliberate on their conduct as a regiment. Lord Lieutenants are no more military officers than Deputy Lieutenants of each county, and if they could not (without being within the mitchief of armed delibe deliberations) affemble on the fubject of the militia, their principal duty would be undone. It is not worth any further obfervation, than that Lieutenants of counties, if they can be called military men, are not an united corps, nor can act together; Members of Parliament, with commiffions in the feveral counties, do not compofe a military corps, nor can act together as fuch, and the meeting could have no queftion whether they fhould as a cops act or not; but whether they, knowing the principles of the militia, fhou'd, as Members of the Legislature, encourage or difcourage a given fyftem as advantageous or difadvantageous to the country, it has no poffible operation on the difcipline of any military body, which the deliberation of a military corps whether they ihould, as fuch, adopt or reject a propofal to act in corps, obviously has. I will now ftate my objection to this meafure as refpecting Ireland, as far as it now operates, before it produces the evil to Ireland of reciprocal interchange. As an Irifh militia belongs locally to Ireland, the land owners of that country by a pecuniary charge affecting them exclufively of others, and not affecting the public purfe, have paid the price of a home defence confined to Ireland; it is a breach of faith of the higheft clafs to remove their home defence, levied at their expence, without their content; it manifefts a total want of fenfe, or a voluntary abdication of all juftice, to confider the confent of the man hired for that defence to be equivalent to the confent of him who purchased the defence fo hired; the man hired to ferve only in Ireland certainly ought not to have his fervice extended without his confent, but furely his confent to withdraw his fervices from thofe who hired them, cannot juftify this breach of contract to his employers, fanctioned by Parliament. The injustice does not ftop here, for an equal number of Irish militia are to be raised to replace them, and then the perfons who are defrauded by this bill must be at further expence to obtain the defence for which they before paid, with diminished truft in the faith of Parliament that they fhall have what they pay for. This additional injuftice muft follow, if they are to pay the levy money in the fame way that the prefent Irith militia is raifed, but if the expence of the augimentation of militia in Ireland should come out of the public purfe, (which will be a confeffion that they ought not to pay, because they have been defrauded) then we in England pay towards the Iith militia, and they do not pay towards ours; and the ignorance of our law makers throw them them on farther injuftice; and it will add to the discordant principles and heterogeneous compofition of militia, tending to confound its principles, and ultimately to establish a prerogative army by ballot, which is the great object of Go vernment. One further objection weighs with me, that if I did not difapprove of the reciprocity of fervice of the militia of the two countries, as unconftitutional and difadvantageous to both countries, I fhould think that at this time, when a heavier ftorm feems to obfcure the hemifphere of Ireland, it was not fit to remove from thence troops the most interested in its defence. And the additional militia to be raised in that country of 10,000 men, to replace the 10,000 to be brought here, is a proof (given by those who urge the bill) that Ireland cannot fpare the troops now offering their fervice. For thefe reafons I fhall give my vote against the admiffion of the offered militia, without meaning to depreciate the generofity of the offer. Lord Auckland expreffed his furprife, that the oppofition to the bill fhould chiefly originate from thofe noble Peers who had repeatedly objected to his Majefty's Ministers, that they had not in readiness for the defence and safety of the country a force of a disposable nature fufficiently large. The oppofition was therefore the more extraordinary, as, while they blamed Minifters for not having increased the difpofable force, they denied to them, in the fame breath, the power of that kind of force, by refufing their affent to a bill, profeffedly directed to the accomplishment of an object admitted on all hands to be fo wife and falutary. No man could deny the wisdom and policy of immediately augmenting the difpofable force of this country, more particularly when he looked at the wretched ftate of the Continent. Yet out of that wretched ftate fome hopes were naturally excited. It was not in the nature of men or of things, that the war could laft for any long time, and in that opinion he was juftified by the answers given by the reprefentatives of the different powers to the official communication made to them of the late lying correfpondence and the fabricated plot. It was impoffible that a Government which was founded in regicide, which was raifed and exalted by blood and poiton, and which was fupported by midnight murders and affiffinations, fhould long continue to be guided by a hand tained with the blood of innocent and royal victims. As to the benefits likely to refult from the bill before their Lordships, there could be but one opinion. From their reVOL. II. 1803-4 fidence 3.Y fidence here the Irish militia would acquire improvements and habits of induftry, which could not fail to be productive of real advantages, when they returned to their own country; and as to any diminution of the militia in Ireland, by a transfer of ten thousand to England, he thought that could form no ground of oppofition to the bill, fince it was well known fuch was the attachment of the people of that country to the Noblemen and Gentlemen, that the number would be replaced in a very short time by a new levy. Lord Harrowby thought the bill objectionable, because it went to deprive Ireland of what the most wanted for her own protection, a ftrong efficient force; while the principle of reciprocity, with regard to the fervices of both militias, went for nothing in the prefent cafe as to the disposable force; for by fubftituting ten thousand men for the fame number taken away, there was no increase whatever. The Marquis of Sligo praised the conduct of the English militia in Ireland, and was convinced that the principle of reciprocal service, would contribute in a very eminent degree to the improvement and confolidation of the union. The Duke of Montrose, as an enemy to the deliberations of all armed bodies, profeffed himself inimical to the bill. Lord Weftmoreland entered into a variety of confiderations and comparisons to fhew the important benefits which the measure was likely to produce, in the fecurity and welfare of the empire at large. When he looked at the present bill, which went to enable his Majefty to accept the voluntary offers of fervice made by part of the Irish militia, he confeffed he could not separate it from the bill by which the same militia was to be augmented. In this connected point of view it could not be denied, that a difpofable force was given to Government both in this country and in Ireland, and he fhould therefore vote for the bill. Lord Darnley oppofed the bill. The Earl of Egremont, although he had not for a confiderable time had occafion to addrefs their Lordships, yet conceived the prefent measure fo novel, and fo objectionable on many accounts, that he thought it his duty to make a public avowal of his difapprobation of it. Lord Grenville blamed Minifters for not fubmitting, in a fair and manly mode, to the confideration of Parliament, the principle of reciprocity between the militia eftablishments of both countries, if fuch was their intention, when they first coun countenanced the prefent measure. But they were not, perhaps, aware that the question had been in fome measure already decided. By the articles of the union with Scotland, it was determined, after great deliberation, that the militia of England and of that country should be confined, in respect to their services, to the countries by which they were severally paid. His Lordthip defended the meeting of the militia colonels at the Thatched-houfe, and challenged any noble Lord to point out why, or where, it was unconftitutional for a number of officers, all of them, without fcarcely an exception, either Peers of Parliament, or Members of another Houfe, to affemble and exprefs their opinion on a fubject which moft materially concerned them. His Lordship expreffed his moft decided diffent to the bill. Lord Hawkesbury fupported the ineafure, and found fault with the refolutions entered into by the officers who fubscribed their names to them. He confidered it as a very great error in them, to speak as leniently as he could of their conduct, to have affembled in an official and military capacity, and to have published the result of their deliberations at that meeting. Lord Romney condemned the measure, and vindicated the conduct of the meeting at the Thatched-houfe, of which he had the honour to be one. Lords Hawkesbury and Fitzwilliam explained, the latter of whom being called to order by the Lord Chancellor, fat down. The question being put on the fecond reading, the House divided: Lord Hawkesbury said, at that late hour he would not move for the fecond reading of the other bill before their Lordships, the Irish militia augmentation bill, but confine himself to moving, that the bill, now read a fecond time, fhould be committed for the next day. Lord Grenville had infinitely greater objections to the fecond bill, than to the one juft read, and would ftate those objections at fome length the next day. He agreed with the noble Baron, that it was then too late to enter upon the dif cuffion of it. Adjourned at eleven o'clock. 3Y 2 HOUSE ་ |