again pur

which on 13th August received the Royal Assent as the 47 Same Policy Geo. III. (Sess. 2), c. 57,'-to permit men to enlist, sued in 1807. So that three-fifths of the Regiment was left to serve in the Militia. The allowed quota for the Army from the British Militia was 27,639 men. Up to the 24th February, 1808, 23,684 of that number had entered the Army, and from the Militia of the United Kingdom 30,883 men were ultimately obtained.3

again re

sorted to.

49. The Ballot was the means which Lord Castlereagh Ballot to be first resorted to for filling up the ranks of the Militia rendered vacant by these enlistments. In this and in other respects his was a reversal of Mr. Windham's policy, inasmuch as the Ballot had been suspended from July,* 1806, that the Army might be filled up by ordinary recruiting. It was, however, deemed necessary to bring the Ballot again into operation, under certain conditions laid down in the 47 Geo. III. (Sess. 2), c. 71, under which the Militia was to be completed and increased.

50. This Act named a definite period within which the men required were to be raised. If this number

Outline of
Enactment

for filling up

of men were not balloted and enrolled within the the Militia. period, each parish making default was fined 607. for each man deficient, with a return of three-fourths of the fine within a month, of one-half within two months, and onefourth within three months, if within either of those periods a man was produced by the parish. When all the men were raised, or the periods for raising them had expired, the Ballot (subject to the power in the Crown of ordering a Ballot to supply vacancies in the Militia) was to cease until the 1st January, 1810. Persons balloted and failing to attend or to find substitutes, were fined 207., and this fine, or part of it (not being less than the half average price of a substitute), might be paid to the man next balloted and serving for the previous default. If not so paid, then one-half part of it was to be paid to the parish towards the expenses of providing volun

1 Chap. 55 of the same Session related to the Irish Militia.

2 63 Com. Journ.,
p. 665.

3 65 ib., p. 600.

146 Geo. III., c. 91.

CHAP. XIV.

Return to the Ballot.

295

Effective

teers, and the other half to the Receiver-General. Volunteers and Yeomen were, but persons enrolled under the Training Act were not, exempt from the Ballot, nor were half-pay Officers, unless they had tendered their services in the Militia or Volunteers as Officers.

1'

was to in

penalty for

51. The plan was a return to the Ballot without escape, except by payment of a fine double the amount that The effect had been before levied. Nothing, therefore, could crease the justify the expedient but the extreme urgency of the not serving. case, and upon that ground Lord Castlereagh did justify it. "If," said he, "it was meant to have a bonâ fide addition to the amount of our public force, it was perfectly illusory to depend on the ordinary recruiting; in truth, therefore, the question came to this, what measures must be resorted to to raise the Army to the standard to which circumstances imposed the necessity of its being raised? Certainly by some sort of compulsion. No desirable species of compulsion had ever occurred to any Administration unconnected with the Ballot. If it were allowed that compulsion must be resorted to, and that compulsion must be founded on Ballot, our choice was narrowed to a very limited extent."

necessity

52. He then explained that there was but the simple alternative of raising men by ballot, for the Army direct or Extreme for the Militia first, and then for the men to volunteer only could justify this from the Militia into the Army. "In every point of course. view it seemed preferable to raise men for the Regular Army from the Militia, than to raise men for the Regular Army by a Ballot. It was a mere anticipation of a burthen which must be imposed; it was a cheaper method; it was one by which better Troops would be procured; and it would ultimately restore to the recruiting market that monopoly which he was desirous that it should possess."

53. Granting, therefore, that the Ballot was an evil, he desired to confine its operation to within a limited Ballot period of time, and when it was in operation to duration. raise men, "not only as a cover for the deficiency and the

9 H. D. (O. S.), p. 862.

limited in

waste, but also such a number of supernumeraries (for whom the Officers in the Militia would be sufficient), as would render any further Ballot for two or three years wholly unnecessary; so that a security would be given to the Line that a continual Ballot would not exist in competition with their ordinary recruiting."

The Act recognised

the principle that the Militia

should be

cost of the

Imperial

54. The Act also differed from the earlier ones by admitting the principle that has since been fully adopted, viz., that the Militia should be raised at the expense of the whole community, and not of a particular class, in fact raised at the out of Imperial rather than Local funds. In the earlier statutes the Militia laws had brought a contribution Revenue. into the Imperial Treasury from Local rates, as in the instances of penalties from persons balloted and not serving; from parishes or districts bound to furnish men, and not providing them; but by this Act the Treasury, without waiving these penalties, undertook to provide 127. 128. for each Volunteer raised by beat of drum, and 107. 108. to each person balloted and serving before the 1st September, 1810, hoping, as Lord Castlereagh explained to the House, that "when Country gentlemen and Militia Colonels should find that the expense was to fall on the public, and not upon the counties, their local exertions would make the measure successful."

Results of

the Act.

reigh's

55. Lord Castlereagh spoke of these measures in Parliament at a later period as eminently successful Lord Castle- "No measure had ever turned out so completely speech. beneficial as that introduced in the year 1807, by Volunteering which it proposed to increase the Army by enMilitia. couraging transfers from the Militia, to the extent of 28,000 men. The addition which this measure actually produced was upwards of 27,000 men within twelve months.

Bill for

from the

See 47 Geo. III., c. 71, sec. 19. Up to the 24th June, 1808, the sum of 14,9581. had been paid for Fines under the Militia Act (63 Com. Journ., p. 628), and 70,6117. 68. 8d. for Fines under the Local Militia Act, to the Receiver-General for the Treasury (65 Com. Journ., p. 610).

2 49 Geo. III., c. 53, secs. 5-14, 15, 18.

3 12 H. D. (O. S.), p. 161.

4 12 H. D.,

pp.

159-60.

CHAP. XIV.

Act of 49 Geo. III., c. 4.

297

The levy of Militia, in order to supply the place of 28,000by the Bill of 1807 permitted to volunteer into the Line

pressed heavily on the country, but it showed what the country was capable of doing when called on for exertion. Parliament had demanded 45,000 Militiamen from Great Britain and Ireland; and (thanks to the zeal and activity of the different counties) within six months after that demand 41,500 joined their respective Regiments." The returns' laid before Parliament show that up to the 24th February, 1808, of the 47,462 men required for the Militia, 31,344 had already joined the force since the commencement of the Ballot, and that 6087 men had been raised in England, and some men in Ireland, who would join in due course.

A.D. 1809.

Measures to

56. After the interval of two years, measures of the same character were again resorted to, with some slight modifications. The 49 Geo. III., c. 4,2 which received the Royal Assent on the 13th March, 1809, provided, recruit the firstly, for raising men for the Militia by beat of Militia. drum, as Volunteers, and, on that failing, by the Ballot.

Army and

Outline of

c. 4.

57. Thus it enacted that before the 1st October, 1810, a number of Militiamen equal to one-half of the original quota should be raised in Great Britain, and that 49 Geo. III., until the 1st June, 1810, they were to be raised by beat of drum. The Bounty to a Volunteer was 12 guineas, but no man having more than one child born in wedlock was to be accepted as such. For the men shewn to be deficient on the 1st April 1810 the Ballot might be put in operation, and every parish, for each man deficient on the 1st October, 1810, was to be fined 407., with a proportionate return (under 51 Geo. III., c. 20, sec. 21) for men raised afterwards within a certain period. The Ballot was to be suspended after the men were raised, until the 1st January, 1812, and then by 51 Geo. III., c. 20, sec. 22, until the 1st July, 1813.3

163 Com. Journ., p. 665.

213 H. D. (O. S.), pp. 538, 803, 817.

3 1809, June 24, W. O. Instructions; vol. i. A. R., p. 154; ib. p. 167; vol. ii. ib., pp. xii., 702-9. The Act was amended (1) by the 50 Geo. III., c. 24, princi

Results of the Act.

1

58. These Acts-for one was passed for Ireland-up to the close of the year 1809, brought 18,430 men into the Army, and 6671 as Volunteer recruits into the British Militia, leaving on the 24th January, 1810, a deficit of 18,512 men to be provided on the 15th February. Having regard to a fact recorded in the Annual Register,3 as to the price of substitutes in February, the strictures of Lord Rosslyn on the Bill were not altogether erroneous.

the Provisions of the Act.

59. "The Bill," he said, "provided the men might be raised by enlistment, at a Bounty of 12 guineas, any time before June, 1810; and if the quota should not be so raised, then it provided that the ancient method of Ballot should be resorted to, so that all deficiencies should be supplied before the October following. Of course it was well known there was 207. fine on the man balloted, and 107. more was permitted by way of Bounty; and if it should happen that the substitute was not procured before October, there was an additional fine of 407. on the county, so that it must be evident the Bounty after June would be from 30l. to 707. a man. The consequence, from the nature of human reasoning, must be that every man will decline accepting the Bounty for enlistment knowing it would be much better for his interest to wait till this period should elapse.”4

Measure of 1811.

60. Hitherto the action of Parliament had been spasmodic, taking suddenly large numbers of men from the Defensive to the Offensive forces of the Kingdom; but in 1811 the measures of the Government were directed to different objects. They proposed to make the Militia yield a

pally in applying the provisions of the Militia Act to the raising of Volunteers for the Militia, and (2) by 51 Geo. III., c. 17, rendering certain doubtful Acts valid, and indemnifying the persons concerned therein. Chapter 51 of the same Session contained similar provision applicable to the Irish Militia, and by c. 120 the laws relating to the Irish Militia were amended and consolidated.

165 Com. Journ., p. 600.

2 Ib.,

p. 602.

3 1810, Feb. 15. “601. was last week paid at Plymouth for a substitute for the Militia-one man went on condition of receiving 48. per day during the War, and another sold himself for 78. 3d. per lb." 52 Ann. Reg., p. 282.

14 H. D., p. 438.