HISTORY OF EUROPE. 



6\ 



Grenville, on a former night — 

 namely, that the volunteers ought 

 only to be employed as an auxiliary 

 or subsidiary force, assisting the re- 

 gular army. lie was now proud to 

 say, that there was in the united 

 kingdom an army of troops of the 

 lineandmilitiaamountingto 180,000 

 men, which was more by 40,000 

 than we had in 1801, when we had 

 many foreign colonies to garrison. 

 In addition to which, he should state, 

 distinctly, that the effective volun- 

 teer force, in Great Britain only, 

 amounted to 330,000 men, as ap- 

 peared by the returns of the in- 

 specting officers. He should allow, 

 that if the object of the enemy were 

 the final subjugation of the kingdom, 

 an armed peasantry might be the most 

 effectual means of frustrating the 

 attempt ; but, as he could never 

 suppose the enemy could expect to 

 keep a permanent footing in the 

 country, and that their plan of in- 

 vasion would have for its object, 

 the doing the greatest possible quan- 

 tity of mischief, in the shortest 

 time, he thought an invasion of such 

 a description could be better resist- 

 ed by volunteers having some dis- 

 cipline, than by an armed peasantry 

 that had none. He trusted that the 

 principle of the bill would be gene- 

 rally approved of, whatever objec- 

 tions might be found to particular 

 clauses. Many persons thought the 

 volunteer system had within itself 

 the principles of its own dissolution. 

 lie felt too much confidence in tbe 

 spirit of the country to suppose so; 

 but should it turn out to be the 

 case, it would become the duty of 

 ministers to advise his majesty to 

 recur to the provisions of the gene- 

 ral defence aft. 



Lord Caernarvon disapproved of 

 the pcinciple of this bill, as he did 



of that of the defence act ; the lat* 

 ter was hurried through the house 

 in two days, and set out with as- 

 serting that his majesty possessed a 

 prerogative of placing all his liege 

 subjects in the ranks of the army, 

 whenever the country was in a cri- 

 tical situation. By that law, th» 

 prince of Wales, if he did not hap- 

 pen to be a colonel of a regiment, 

 might be compelled to serve as a 

 private soldier, and would be liable 

 to the punishment of the halbards, 

 for any military offence. The pre- 

 rogative that was thus stated, was 

 most monstrous and unconstituti- 

 onal. He thought the present bill 

 quite as absurd, although less of- 

 fensive, he should therefore oppose 

 it. 



Lord Ellenborough insisted that 

 the crown did possess that preroga- 

 tive from the earliest times : he 

 produced a copy of the commission 

 of array passed in the reign of Henry 

 the fourth, which expressly recog- 

 nized that prerogative, and which 

 sir Edward Coke declared to be the 

 law of the land in his time ; and it 

 had certainly never been altered 

 since, either directly or by implica- 

 tion. He saw n'othing monstrous 

 in the prerogative of requiring the 

 assistance of every man in cases of 

 great emergency. This was a pre- 

 rogative which, according to Vattel, 

 was inherent in those who exercis- 

 ed the powers of the executive go- 

 vernment in every state. 



Lord King denied that the king 

 ever did or could possess the prero- 

 gative that was asserted. It was a 

 monstrous doctrine, worthy of the 

 most jacobine period of the French 

 revolution. lie disapproved of the 

 bill, and of the volunteer system. 

 The regular army and the army of 

 reserve were in oppo':ifion to each 



other. 



