60 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1804. 



and 400,000 volunteers. Thcsc^ 

 combinod, made one of the most 

 powerful armies that had ever been 

 raised for the defence of this, or 

 any other country. 



IMr. Fox said, that the right her. 

 gcntlcman(Mr. Addington) had com- 

 pletely misunderstood the argument 

 of Mr. Windhaiy. That gentleman 

 had never asserted that the volunteers 

 were raised merely by the induce- 

 ment of exemptions : he had con- 

 tended, on the contrary, that we 

 would have a sufficient number of 

 Tohmteers without the exemptions, 

 and that they were therefore unne- 

 cessary. As for the raw troops, 

 which took the field in the begin- 

 ning of the war, between France 

 and Austria, they did not figlit well : 

 20,000 of thein ran away from 1500 

 Austrians, and" then murdered their 

 own general (Dillon). Their next ex- 

 ploit was to make another of their 

 gencrals^Biron) a prisoner. 'J'he 

 same troops, however, after they 

 had seen some service, fouiiht very 

 well. lie did not recollect a single 

 instance in history, where raw troops 

 had been, in the first instance, sur- 

 ccssfully opposed to regulars. The 

 great reason which induced him to 

 prefer an armed peasantry to the 

 Tolunteers, was, that instead of 

 400,000, it would forma force con- 

 sisting of two millions. 



Sir James PuKeney said, that when 

 the defence aCt was introduced, he 

 was the first who strongly urged the 

 advantages of an armed peasantry. 

 He regretted that his advice was 

 not followed at that time, but still 

 it was necessary to make the most 

 of the system we had got. Not- 

 withstanding the maxim, 



" A little learning is a dangerous 



lliing," 



might do very well in poetry, yet, 

 in tiie common occurrences of life,' 

 every one would prefer a person 

 ■who knew soniethii.g of his trade, 

 to one who was ignorant of its first 

 principles. He thought the volun- 

 teers might be extremely useful in a 

 desultory warfare, but did not con- 

 sider tliem as proper troops to be 

 opposed to an enemy immediately 

 upon his landing. 



General Loitus approved of the 

 idea of blending the volunteers into 

 the regular army, and placing them 

 under the commatid of general otl'- 

 cers. He was glad to find that go- 

 vernment had resolved, in case of 

 invasion, to drive the cattle from the 

 sea coasts. He remembered, when 

 he served under lord Howe, in Ame- 

 rica, this was a policy which was 

 uniformly followed by the Ameri- 

 cans, and it prevented his majesty's 

 army from penetrating to any dis- 

 tance into that country. 



ISFr. C. Wyn;;c took notice of the 

 small proportion of the volunteers 

 who knew any thing of ball firing. 



The bill was then past through 

 the coniinons, and ordered to the 

 lords ; and was discussed in that 

 house, for th? first time, on the 27th 

 of March : upon the question for the 

 second reading. 



Lord Ha^^ke3bnry, in introduc- 

 ing the bill, stated the principle 

 njion which the volunteer system 

 was founded, and the ancient and 

 undoubted prerogative of the crown 

 to call out all the liege subjects of 

 the realm, in case of invasion, or 

 any strong appearance thereof. — ' 

 It was from that prerogative of the 

 crown whence the defence act 

 sprung, and it was from the defence 

 act that the present volunteer system 

 originated. He agreed perfectly ^ 

 with what had fallen from lord 



Gren- 



