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of our allies might be repaired, and the bulwarks of Europe restored. At present, if we are not strong enough at home for a war, much less so for a peace, with Buonaparte. If our interior force gives no adequate protection against him during the present depression of the French marine, where will be our security on its restitution? and if we are now not sufficiently prepared to repel invasion, after three years notice of the danger, how much less should we be so on a sudden recommencement of war, of which the appearance of French fleet on our shores, would, perhaps, give the first intimation.

Were there no other argument against making peace at this juncture, a decisive one might be found in the present inadequate and declining state of our domestic defence. To improve it when the dangers of war shall be supposed to have subsided, will neither be so easy in respect of the feelings of the people, nor so concilia, tory in regard to those of a just reconciled enemy, as to be a work fitter for that period, than the present.

If, after all, any reader be sanguine enough to think that we have already enough of military force for our protection, let him compare the fatal consequences of a mistake on that side, with the inconve niencies of superfluous preparations. Where the evil to be risked is infinite, no preventive means can be excessive, which may con, tribute to lessen the danger. But I am persuaded, that a great majority of the public will require no arguments to convince them that our interior defensive force ought to be improved. They will feel more difficulty perhaps on the subject to which I next proceed, the means of improving it.

To advance the discipline, meliorate the physical character, and enlarge the number, of our volunteer corps, are beyond doubt, the best defensive expedients we can possibly resort to, if such improvements can be made. That they are in a financial, commercial, and constitutional view, more desirable than a large increase of our regular army, can, I presume, be doubted by nobody; and in a military estimate, they are, I am confident, liable to no sound objections, but such as may be removed.

To suppose that these patriotic bands are not capable of being made fit for the secure defence of their country, because they can have no actual employment in war till the event of an invasion, is to adhere to old theories, in contempt of the most decisive experience. The French officers, are said to express astonishment at our having a diffidence in our volunteers on this exploded principle; and so they reasonably may; for by whom have the most brilliant exploits

of their own campaigns been performed, but troops that had neverseen service? We ourselves, however, might have learnt to correct the old prejudice earlier, by our experience in America; and what a glorious refutation was lately given of it by the 78th regìment at Maida?

The brave young Scotchmen who composed that corps, were raised in 1805, and sent to the Mediterranean in September of that year. Till they landed in the bay of St. Euphemia from Sicily, on the first of July last, they had never seen a musket-shot fired in actual service; and yet they confounded by their steadiness, as well as by their intrepidity and ardour, the bravest battalions of France.*

*The following is an extract of a letter, from one of the gallant young officers by whom this corps was raised, to his father, a respectable gentleman in this country.

"The light infantry battalion, commanded by lieutenant-colonel Kempt, the 78th, Highlanders, and the 81st regiment led the attack. We formed line, at about a mile in front of the enemy, and advanced in ordinary time, keeping an excellent line. When arrived within a quarter of a mile of the enemy, we perceived them in three large solid columns, with about 300 cavalry on their right. They advanced, halted and deployed into line with much seeming regularity and steadiness. After a halt of about five minutes, they advanced with drums beating and loud shouting, (the latter is an expedient by which the French attempt to intimidate their enemies, at the critical moment of an attack, and often with great success) and at 200 yards distance, the firing commenced on our right, by the light infantry battalion. The 78th at the same time advanced, but without firing, until within 100 yards of them; when we commenced and received a heavy fire for a quarter of an hour. The enemy then retired: and we charged them four times, but they never would look us in the face-they fled about half a mile, and we halted to breathe a little.

"By this time, the 78th had advanced considerably beyond the corps on their right and left. The enemy perceiving our situation, brought forward their cavalry to charge us, but they could not make them advance. We were soon supported by the light infantry battalion, and 81st regiment. At eight o'clock, a large column of the enemy was perceived on the left flank of the first line, they having out flanked us by marching along a hollow way to our left; but the second line had perceived this manœuvre, and were prepared for them. Our regiments individually charged; and after three hours very hard fighting, the enemy gave way in all quarters. The 78th and light infantry continued the pursuit, until near two o'clock. The French had about 8000 men in the field, and the British army did not exceed 4795 rank and file, as you will perceive by the annexed accurate statement."

"The commander in chief, and the whole army, have bestowed on the 78th the greatest praise, for their brave conduct; for indeed, nothing on earth, could possibly resist the determined bravery of our dear lads; who repeatedly charged, driving every thing before them. The French troops were mostly light infantry-two

But the troops who have thus immortalised their first attempts in arms, have not been men who at the middle period of life, or when they began to feel the infirmities of declining years, have been transformed at once from citizens into soldiers; nor have they been taught by halves, those essential, though soon acquired arts, of using their arms, and performing military movements. Their want of experience in war, and of long habit in the exercises of the camp, have been their only defects; but then these also are the only defects inherent in the constitution of the British volunteers; and while such defenders of their country can be found with the natural requisites of the soldier, I see not why they should not be enabled to rival, if they found an opportunity in England, the heroes of Jemappe, and of Maida.

But how, it may be asked, are we to improve the physical character and discipline of our volunteers, and at the same time increase their numbers? In order to answer that question, I must look back to the original constitution of these corps; and point out the sources of those defects which are at present to be found in them.

If the youth of any country are the fittest to defend it in war, they are also the most likely to become its voluntary champions. The same feelings which qualify them for soldiers, impel them to be the most forward in the pursuits of fame; and especially of military glory. But our volunteer corps are of two classes; the one formed prior to the training act of 1803, the other subsequent to that period; and both were composed of a pretty large mixture of

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regiments of them were favourite corps of Buonaparte. These regiments be haved extremely well, and did not retire till nearly the one half were bayoneted." Of 950 young men, of whom the 78th consisted, more than the half were under twenty years of age; and further extracts of the same letter, might serve to shew the importance of that quality on which I have before remarked, the youth of soldiers, especially in services of hardship and fatigue. During five days preceding an attack in which these youths displayed such extraordinary ardour, they were without cover, without any change of clothes, and without any better lodging than the bare ground, "we make however," adds the writer, snug little places, with bushes and weeds, and I assure you sleep most comfortably." During two days also they had very little food. Let the volunteer of 40 or 50 consult his own experience of the bodily effects of such hardships as he has ever known, and then suppose himself to have been in the 78th regiment, first sharing the hardships here mentioned for five days, then marching and fighting, from one in the morning, till two o'clock in the afternoon; and say what would have been his probable share of strength and animation in the battle. If this case proves that the country may be safely intrusted to young soldiers, it proves no less clearly that they should be young men..

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middle aged and elderly men, as well as men of delicate habits, from artificial causes. The former, were chiefly enrolled in troublesome times, with a view to assisting the civil power in the suppression of popular insurrections; a purpose in which men above the lower class, and who had passed the prime of life, were led to engage, chiefly for the sake of promoting the public object by their influence and example; considering that as there was no danger of their being called into any service far beyond the limits of the town in which they resided, they should be exposed to no very inconvenient or laborious duties. Yet when the country began to be thought in danger from without, such men felt an honorary objection to retiring from the corps in which they were enrolled, and to the formation of which they had contributed.

The same was a frequent case, in several corps raised during the last war, under an alarm of invasion, but whose offers of service were then restricted to particular districts.

The great æra, however, of volunteer institutions was in the year 1803, when the act for the defence of the country, usually called the levy in mass act, held forth to every male between the ages of 17 and 55, the alternative of either serving in a volunteer corps of his own choice, or being trained with men of all ranks, in a compulsory way, in the parish to which he belonged.

Regard to personal credit, ease, and convenience, now conspired with a sense of honour and patriotism, to induce gentlemen, and. men above the labouring classes, to form volunteer associations, or to enter into those which were already formed, in the neighbourhood of their respective abodes. With many, the very circumstances which made them unfit for soldiers, were inducements to such conduct; for if their constitutions were delicate, or incapable of bearing fatigue, they naturally expected more consideration and indulgence when commanded by, and associated with, their equals and friends, than in the ranks of a párochial mass. As volunteers too, they had a certainty of the choice of good weather, and convenient hours, for the business of the drill. They knew indeed, that by volunteering, they might place themselves in a liability to be called out into the field in the event of invasion, when perhaps the latter classes, to which they would have belonged in the mass, might not have been put in requisition; but the nearer and more certain inconveniences of the drill, were more formidable, than the distant and precarious hardships of service against invaders; a service too, under which men of right feelings, expected that their bodies would be powerfully sustained by their minds. The expectation was in some :

degree just; though knowledge of military duties, and experience of bodily hardships in general, had not taught them its proper limits. Besides, the levy in mass act, placed men under fifty, who were unmarried and had no children less than ten years old, in the second class or requisition. These therefore, very little increased their chance of actual service, by enrolling themselves as volunteers.

Fashion, and delicacy, soon inclined gentlemen the same way, who might have made a different choice; for it was perceived, that those who waited for the operation of the act, would find few of their own rank in life to keep them in countenance, and would have scarcely any other associates in the parish trained bands, than menial servants and labourers. Other gentlemen, very unfit by years and constitution, for military duties, but who had long before enrolled themselves in volunteer corps formed at much earlier periods, and when their constitutions, perhaps, were equal to those very limited services for which they engaged, felt an honorary repugnance to withdrawing, when their corps, at a period of public danger extended its offer of service, as required under the mass act, to any part of the realm.

The consequences of these concurring causes was, that a number of volunteers, more than sufficient to satisfy the wishes of government at that period, was speedily enrolled; but that the propor tion of towns.men, in comparison with the more hardy inhabitants of the country, of middle aged or elderly men, in proportion to the young, of tender or valetudinary persons in proportion to the robust and healthful, and of gentry, or men above the lowest class, in comparison with the peasantry and workmen, was unnaturally and unfortunately great. Almost the only volunteer corps composed wholly, or chiefly of men who were corporeally fit to make good soldiers, were those which were put upon pay by private subscriptions. The common people, having no apprehension of being worse situated than others by the operation of the act, had scarcely any other motive for volunteering. They were, nevertheless, by the persua sion of their superiors, and by the prevailing argument, that they soon must be drilled, either by compulsion or choice, beginning to come forward in many places, when it was unfortunately announced, that volunteers enough had been found for the defence of the country, and that the mass act would not be enforced.

I have ever regarded it as a great and most unfortunate error on this occasion, that no attention was paid to age, rank, or situation in life; but to numerical sufficiency alone. It was an error, however, which took its rise in the defence act itself, which, in its estimate of

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