rally, that recruiting in that regiment had declined one-third, nor on the other hand could you be entitled to say, that it had declined only one-third. Such variations would happen by chance, and by a law consequently wholly different from that of proportion. No conclusion, therefore, could be drawn from such instances separately considered: and if a judgment were to be formed, as it ought to be, from the whole state of facts taken together, it would be the very reverse of that meant to be established by the Honoura ble Gentlemen; who, instead of saying, 'the recruiting during the existence of these causes, (viz. the immense bounties; the great extent of the militia force; the 400,000 men locked up as volunteers, &c. &c.) has been so and so; therefore these causes have not operated to its disadvantage,' ought to say, 'the recruiting being what it is, notwithstanding the operation of these causes, which must have acted against it so powerfully, what would it not have been, had these been removed, and other new causes, which must be presumed to have arisen, have been left to produce their natural effect?' This he must con. tend was the legitimate conclusion. It was not in the nature of things, that causes such as he had enumerated, and were obvious to every one's observation, must not have some effect in checking the progress of recruiting. To take only one, could any man in his senses suppose, that with fifty guineas offered for service in the army of reserve, men would go on to enter for the line, at a bounty of five or ten, in the same manner as if no such competition existed? If : the recruiting, therefore, kept up to nearly its former amount, as was contended by the Honourable Gentlemen, it was plain, even to demonstration, that there must have been something to counteract the effect of these impediments. And this something it was not difficult to find. It was a state of war; it was the threat of invasion it was the stimulus of the compulsory service: the discharge of numbers of workmen in consequence of temporary checks to trade; the gene-ral military spirit, that filled and animated every part of the country. These circumstances were of force sufficient to uphold to a certain degree the recruiting service, even in spite of the causes which tended to depress and to annihilate it. How far might they not have carried it, had there been nothing on the other side to counteract their effects? The objection, therefore, to the volunteer system, as contributing, with other causes, to destroy the recruiting of the army, continued in full force, even admitting the statements of the Honourable Gentlemen: And he must continue to urge these objections, even though he should be asked, as he was the other night, why he would persist in decrying a system, which, whether right or wrong, was now fixed and incapable of being altered. His answer was, that it was not fixed, but must on the contrary, and infalli bly would, and that, at no distant period, come again under revision, and that it was with a view to that period, that these observations were made; that the defects of this system were such as would never suffer it to go on long as it was; and that, if other causes were wanting, the very failure of its funds must soon bring it again before Parliament. Unless Parliament greased the wheels, the machine must soon stand still. He wished, therefore, that before that time gentlemen would be prepared with their opinions on the several parts of the measure; would consider how far the objections were valid; how far the parts objected to might be corrected or got rid of; and, failing of that, whether the whole system would not require to be new cast, and in a great degree, possibly, to be. done away. A debate ensued, in which the spirit and provisions of the bill were censured by Colonel Craufurd, Sir W. Young and Dr. Laurence, and vindicated by Mr. Hiley Addington and the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In reply to some observations made by the latter, Mr. Windham, in explanation, denied that he ever meant to disparage the Volunteers; and said, that his remarks upon the reduction of the army previous to the commencement of the war, referred to the disbanding of the foreign corps in our service, which was a proceeding that he would ever condemn. The bill was read a third time, and passed. VOLUNTEER CONSOLIDATION BILL. March 22, 1804. A BILL had been brought into the House of Commons by Mr. Secretary Yorke, " to explain, amend, and consolidate the "provisions contained in the several acts relating to Yeomanry " and Volunteer Corps throughout the United Kingdom." The third reading of this Bill having been moved by Mr. Yorke, Colonel Craufurd, in a speech of considerable length, urged various objections against it. After a loud cry of “Question, Question," from the ministerial benches, MR. WINDHAM rose. He confessed that he felt no surprise at the uneasiness which Ministers betrayed by their cry for the question to get rid of the measure before the House. It had certainly given them much trouble, and was likely to give them and the country much more. They might, however, state, as a justification for the silence which they seemed willing to preserve upon this occasion, that all the arguments used by his Honourable Friend who had just sat down had been advanced before. This might be for the most part true, but he would ask, whether those arguments had ever been answered, and whether they did not remain entirely unrefuted? If so, then, they ought to be repeated, in order, if possible, to persuadé the pertinacious adherents of this dangerous system to yield to their force, and to resort to measures more consonant to wisdom, and better calculated to secure the safety of the country. But, perhaps, Ministers had exhausted their eloquence upon this subject, by the four-and-twenty new clauses which they had introduced, and being tired of amendment and re-amendment, of commitment and recommitment, of propositions and recantations, were anxious to send the measure out of the House, without any more words about it. To their wishes, however, he was not disposed to yield, and as this was perhaps the last opportunity of speaking upon this bill, he would avail himself of it to enter his solemn protest against a measure which he thought, if persisted in, would lead to little short of absolute ruin. This sentence, however harsh, he could not hesitate to pronounce, as the full conviction of his mind. The House, he observed, had never yet taken a distinct view of the question. One way of shewing what the question was, was to shew what it was not. It was not a question between volunteers and no volunteers; between a system such as was now proposed, and no system at all; between the present bill and a total absence of that force to which the present bill was meant to apply. Any Gentleman might easily satisfy himself upon that point, by only considering whether he should suppose, if the present bill had never been brought in, that all volunteer force would have ceased. The bill, therefore, was not necessary to the existence of a volunteer force; its object both was and professed to be, to improve a force of that |