the enemy land on our shores, we ought doubtless to fight every inch of ground; but are we to act as if that were all, and as if the whole were lost if the first stand were not successful? We must provide, however, not only to withstand the enemy vigorously in their first progress, but to have all the means of maintaining the contest with them in the worst event. Nay, I am convinced that the English people would, on such an occasion, display an energy, perseverance, and fortitude, surpassing what any nation on the continent has shown. They are in a different situation, to be sure. They are unaccustomed to the presence of an enemy in their country, and could not bear it patiently they feel every motive of attachment to their country and their constitution. They are unshaken, in their affection to their government, by those changes of master and of companion which tend to unhinge every principle of allegiance; and they would there fore, I am convinced, give a new example of constancy, and would show that the fate of their country did not depend on the event of a single battle. Even if the first advantages were gained by the enemy, they would find hundreds of thousands, nay, perhaps millions, of Englishmen determined to maintain their liberty and independence. That the enemy would be resisted by an armed and trained peasantry, capable of harassing their progress or of serving as recruits to the regular army, I am perfectly satis fied, and I am convinced they will do it far better than any number of volunteers on the present system. Indeed the employment of volunteers as regiments and as reinforcements would be full of danger; and no friend to the vo

lunteers would advise the experi ment to be tried. It is alleged, however, that no immediate increase of the army will result from this measure, because it substitutes nothing. But, in truth, the merit of the plan is, that it proposes no complicated machinery to produce an effect which will be gained by the simple mode of recruiting. All the schemes adopted for raising men have, as far as they have been successful, only defrauded the or dinary system of recruiting, and that with a great expense, and no inconsiderable oppression. Is it nothing that the market will again be left open to the government as the only recruiter? The noble lord tells us, too, that it was the intention of the late Mr. Pitt to make an addition of 20 or 25,000 men to the army. And in fact, I have no doubt that my right hon. friend will propose, not only to leave no deficiency in the effective force already considered proper to be kept up, but will suggest any further increase that may appear necessary. It ought to be remembered that, with the exception of Russia,-a power, however, whose alliance, desirable and important as it is, must be confessed to be too remote for producing a decisive impression on the continent,we have no ally whatever of any consequence, willing to fight for us. Such is the prosperous situation the noble lord describes. When this is considered, and the state of the continent is taken into view, it must be allowed that it is time to think of increasing our army. Both for the purpose of war, and what must be the establishment of any peace likely to be obtained, it is proper that the subject of the army should be ma turely weighed. Indeed, by the circumstances

circumstances of Europe, I am ready to confess that I have been weaned from the opinions I formerly held with respect to the force that might suffice in time of peace; nor do I consider this as any inconsistency, because I see no rational prospect of any peace that would exempt us from the necessity of watchful preparation and powerful establishments. The subject of the army, therefore, must come before us in different shapes, and present itself in different views. If we cannot obtain a safe and honourable peace, of which it is impossible, in the actual state of affairs, to be sanguine; and if we do not obtain, in carrying on the war, that species of success hardly to be calculated upon; we must be reduced to that state which I, for one, cannot contemplate without apprehension, of being, with respect to Europe, the Britannos toto orbe divisos, and be left to our own resources and our own colonial connections; or be compelled to cultivate a system the most uphill, the most difficult, and the most perplexed, particularly after the ill success of our late continental measures, which it is possible to conceive. Yet, perhaps, upon the whole, I am more inclined to the latter system, difficult and unpromising as it is. But if we do resolve to engage in that arduous and difficult struggle, demanding every effort and every exertion, or indeed upon whatever other system we resolve to act, a large army is indispensable. Even

while foreign powers court our money, they feel a degradation in accepting it, and they do not view us in a favourable light under such a connection. But whether we can have an army adequate to home defence and to foreign operation, may be doubtful. Yet I will say, that while we take due precautions for home defence, by training the population to arms, the true policy of the country is to rise superior to the panic of invasion, and to show that our force and our courage are not to be confined at home. Our enemy shows us, that by disregarding the danger of particular points, and by directing his forces where the occasion demands them, he has been able to spread his dominion, and to subdue his opponents. If that system to which I have alluded were to be adopted, a great army must necessarily be maintained. In England and Scotland, I am confident the plan proposed will have the most powerful effect on the recruiting service; and, if measures could be adopt ed for completely conciliating the people of Ireland, it would present a nursery of brave and excellent soldiers, more faithful, in proportion to its population, than any prince in Europe possesses.

Mr. Yorke, general Norton, sir J. M. Pulteney, and general Tarleton opposed Mr. Windham's plan. Several other gentlemen held a desultory conversation on the subject, when leave was given to bring in a bill to repeal the act of the 44th Geo. III.

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LTHOUGH we have not, as it will be seen, entered much at large into the discussion of bills that have been ultimately rejected by parliament, yet we have thought it right to deviate from the general rule with respect to Mr. Tierney's motion for explaining and regulating the "Treating Act," because we apprehend, that though it has been now rejected, yet the evils attending contested elections are still so great as must finally lead to some regulations on the subject: we have therefore given the arguments on both sides of the question. The discussion on the woollen manufacturers' suspension bill will interest many of our readers; the subject must, however, be resumed in a future volume. In the plan and debates on the budget all are concern. ed; it is right, therefore, that an ample view of its several parts should be found in our pages nor have we been less anxious to collect the arguments of the various speak ers on the bill for legalizing the intercourse between America and the West India islands, which met with considerable opposition from the commercial interests of the house.

March 10.-Mr. Tierney, pursuant to the notice he had formerly given, rose to bring forward his motion for leave to bring in a bill to explain and render more effectual an act passed in the reign of William III., for lessening the excessive ex

penses to candidates at elections for members to serve in parliament. Every gentleman with whom he had conversed on the subject agreed with him on the necessity of some measure for giving effect to an act of parliament, which had been found, by uniform experience, to fall in most cases greatly short of the object it avowed; but many were of opinion the attempt would be attended with difficulties scarcely surmountable. The object of the act in question, was to exempt candidates from the enormous demands to which they were liable, under the head of charges for the conveyance and travelling expenses of voters not resident at the place of election; and to prevent the system of bribery and corruption, which, under the pretence of such charges, might be and actually was carried on. The evils in those cases could not arise in places where the voters were all residents of the town or vicinage, but where persons claiming a right to vote at such elections resided at a distance, often at the extremity of a county, which constantly gave rise to scenes of confusion and enormous expense; for, in coming to give their votes at such elections, they uniformly claimed the expenses of their conveyance and travelling charges, and those upon the most extravagant scale, from the candi dates for whom they chose to vote. Perhaps there might be no very

great

could pretend to stand the contest for a county against a wealthy rival. The strong point therefore to which he particularly objected, was the extreme hardship imposed upon the candidate, in being left open to the claims of the voter for his conveyance and travelling charges from one extremity of a county to the other, to exercise his own privilege, and for his own advantage. It was for this he wished a remedy; and so it was an effectual one, he should not be very fastidious as to the form. A plan had been heretofore proposed, for preventing the confusion and expense attendant on county elections, by enabling the electors to give their votes within their respective districts. He should have no objection even to such arrangement; but, from the principle avowed in the very preamble of the act to which he alluded, he held it to be the clear and obvious construction of that act, that the candidate in all events should not be charged with the expenses of conveying electors to gratify their own wishes, and, for their own advantage, to exercise their privileges. And whether the expense was to be defrayed by a county rate (though he was not quite agreed as to that), or what other mode should seem more eligible, the candidate should certainly be exempt. It might be objected, that such a construction would go to disfranchise the fortyshillings frecholders. But though that was by no means his wish, nor should he be inclined to vote for such a proposition if it were brought forward; yet he begged it might be recollected, that if the original institution of forty-shillings freeholders were considered, and the circumstances under which it took place, the original spirit of

that measure would be found in no degree infringed by increasing the qualification to a much higher sum, and thereby removing, in a very great degree, the evil of which he now complained; for, if the comparative values of money in the reign of Henry VI. and at this day were duly considered, it would be found the depreciation was as fifteen to one, and conse quently that a qualification of 30%. a year, at this day, was no more than adequate to one of 40s. in the former. Where then would be the hardship, if a man possessed of a freehold property of 301. per annum were called on once in seven years to go at his own charge to give his vote at his county election? The effect of the present system, under which the number of 40s. freeholders had been so very greatly increased, was very considerably to decrease the number of candidates for elections, by the dread of the enormous expenses to be incur red by election contests; whereas the increase of qualification, by confining the elective franchise to that description of men by whom it was originally designed to be exercised, would open a wide door for admitting to that house an order of men he very much wished to see there an order of men in which England more than any country of Europe. abounded namely, men of moderate fortune, independent principles, liberal education, and sound understanding; who well understood the constitution and the true interests of their country-and were firmly attached to the maintenance of the one and the promotion of the other. He quoted several instances in which the thanks of that house had been expressly voted at different times, after general elections, to counties

and