312 VOLUNTEERING PROJECT. [1804. 



warm friends of the plan. I should add that our 

 design was, instantly on being formed, to march into 

 quarters for six weeks, in order to complete our dis- 

 cipline during that season of the year ; and my de- 

 cided opinion is, that if our offer had been accepted, 

 there would at this moment have been in his Majes- 

 ty's service a light infantry battalion of 600 spirited 

 young men in the highest state of discipline, instead 

 of the same number of gentlemen attached to no 

 corps, and certainly not very keen " to die with the 

 levy en masse." 



It remains to mention the reception with which it 

 pleased Lord Hobart to honour the hearty and unqua- 

 lified offer of our most zealous and active services. 

 He returned no answer: he never even acknowledged 

 the receipt of our papers. We waited in Edinburgh, 

 to our utmost inconvenience, the whole summer, many 

 of us belonging to very distant parts of the island, 

 and, every post, expected to be called out. The Lord- 

 Lieutenant wrote repeatedly in our favour, and so did 

 the commanding officer. They received no answer 

 any more than we had done. In November I tried to 

 set on foot a new corps after Lord Moira's arrival ; 

 and so disgusted were those hundreds now, whom I 

 could have persuaded with a word to march to Land's 

 End three months before, that only eleven would put 

 down their names. This was the true way to encour- 

 age " the volunteering system" and " call forth the 

 energies of the country" 



I am no advocate for that system, nor for the 



