HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



19 



Jiigly deficient : when stated by the 

 secretary at %var to amount to one 

 hundred and t\venty thousand, it 

 must be recollefted, that seventy 

 thousand were to be deducted from 

 that number lor the militia, %vhich 

 •would leave fifty thousand only, Mho 

 deserved the name of regulars ; and 

 a great proportion of which was iu 

 the army of reserve. He, by no 

 means, thought the volunteers likely 

 to become, of themselves, such a 

 Ibrce as the country could rely up- 

 on for its defence ; and he thought 

 government had been to blame, in 

 applying themselves entirely to the 

 increase of the volunteer force, in- 

 stead of placing the regular army 

 upon an effective footing. 



Lord Castlereagh, at considerable 

 length, defended the conduct of go- 

 vernment in the measures that they 

 had taken for securing the national 

 defence. He said, that the right 

 honourable gentleman (Mr. Wind- 

 ham) unjustly disparaged and de- 

 preciated all the efforts the country 

 had lately made. In condemning 

 the high bounties that were given 

 for the army, he had recurred to a 

 favourite opinion of his, the not al- 

 lowing the balloted man to serve by 

 .substitute. This would certainly 

 be a measure of most extreme ri- 

 gour. Thu faft, however, was that 

 of the 35,000 men raised for the 

 army of reserve, 7,500 had already 

 entered for general service, within 

 the short space of two months, and 

 he therefore could not understand 

 how it had injured the recruiting 

 service. The next material objec- 

 tion made by that right honourable 

 gentleman, (Mr. Windham,) was 

 to the volunteer system, which he 

 thought not only bad in itself, but 

 highly injurious to other more ef- 

 fective descriptions oif force, lie 



must deny that objection. It never 

 had been found, that it rendered 

 persons less disposed to enlist for 

 general service, they having been 

 originally in another description of 

 force ; on the contrary, their mili- 

 tary spirit was thus more ripened. 

 There was nothing to prevent a vo- 

 lunteer from entering into the regu- 

 lar army, and it appeared to him 

 that the military spirit of the nation 

 would be much increased by the vo- 

 lunteer system. The state of thu 

 army of the unitetl kingdom was 

 this: there were 130,000 men in 

 Great Britain, and 50,000 in Ire- 

 land on permanent pay ; of this to- 

 tal of 180,000 men the militia a- 

 mounted to 84,000, and the regu- 

 lars to 96,000; of which 27,000 are 

 for limited service, and 69,000 dis- 

 poseable for general service. Tb« 

 volunteer force consisted of 340;000 

 in Great Britain, and 70.000 in 

 Ireland, making a total of 410,000. 

 The sea-fcncibles were 25,000. — 

 The gross force of the united king- 

 dom might then be considered as 

 700,000 men in arms : of which all 

 that were reckoned the more regu- 

 lar part of the army, might bo 

 brought into the field against an 

 enemy. The total force in Ireland 

 consisted of 120,000 men all armed, 

 and the numlior could be consider- 

 ably increased. In Great Britain 

 there were about 120,000 of the 

 volunteers yet remained to be armed 

 with muskets, the arms ttiat could 

 be spared having been first given to 

 the volunteers of the metropolis, 

 and of the counties on the sea coast. 

 As to the navy, the number of ships 

 of war amounted to 4f>9, and an 

 armed flotilla of small craft, to the 

 amount of SOO, could be speedily 

 added. The ordnance and every 

 other branch of the public service 

 C 2 had 



