was pursued? In 1791, when voluntary offers of service were introduced for the defence of the country, this mode was represented as repugnant to the constitution. And now, when men are called on to contribute their property, and personal service to the defence of their country, it is discovered to be unjust and stigmatized as requisition. He admits the necessity of precaution, and yet reprobated every preventive measure that was proposed: and, while he agreed that it is necessary to provide for the defence of the state, he is dissatisfied with the means by which security is to be

obtained.

Mr. Fox, in reply to Mr. Pitt's argument, in proof of the inconsistency between his declarations and his conduct, observed, that though he did not oppose his vote to the present resolution, he did not give his unqualified assent to the measures proposed. This was by no means the stage in which members were called on, (and this was remarked even by Mr. Pitt himself, this very night, when he proposed his resolutions) to give their sentiments fully on the question before them.

Sir William Pulteney did not expect that any difference of opinion would have arisen on the present question; a question, in his mind, that embraced so many salutary objects. He had only one objection to it, and that was, its being a half measure; it ought to be extended, to the full point; and on that ground he should meet the wishes of the minister with double pleasure. He should not apply to ministers

for any additional information on the subject. It was evident that the French had an invasion of this country in view, and it therefore became the executive government to make every proper and necessary preparation.

As this force was to be commanded by country gentlemen, it could not be called an increase of the power of the crown on the contrary, he should consider it to be an increase of the power of the country against the crown. We should not wait until an invasion was actually to take place. Must not time be given for men to be prepared and disciplined? or, were they to march against an invading enemy, without the means of defence, or ignorant of the use of those arms they might chance to have about them?

The resolutions proposed by Mr. Pitt, respecting the augmentation of our militia and naval force, were agreed to, and being thrown into the form of bills, were, after various objections and answers, and not a few alterations, amendments, and explanations, passed into laws, in the mouth of December. Early in June, a bill was brought into the house of commons, by the secretary of state, Mr. Dundas, for raising and embodying a militia in Scot land. As to the game-keepers bill, which formed at first a part of the cavalry-bill, strongobjections having been made by Mr. Sheridan, and others, to its unconstitutional principles and dangerous tendency, it was, on the second of December, withdrawn on the second reading.

CHAP.

THE

HE ancient historians of the two principal nations of antiquity, at least of those with whom we are at all tolerably acquainted, 10 charming and instructive, by their attention to whatever is fitted to engage attention, and interest the human heart, have generally left us in the dark about the annual supplies, Their heroes, indeed, performed great exploits; but of the ways and means by which they raised, em bodied and supported their armies, we do not find in their works any regular or satisfactory account: so that the leaders of ancient expeditions, have the appearance, in our imagination, of sallying forth without scrip or purse, like the adventurers in the ancient romances. Theprogressofsociety; theextended theatres, and multiplied objects of war, with new methods of preparing, combining, and applying force, have rendered military operations at sea and land so complicated and expensive, that the intelligent reader of modern times is not more curious to know the fortune, and fate of armies and navies, when raised, than to be made acquainted with the pecuniary

resources, by which they are supe ported in a delineation, therefore. of great affairs, the passions and views of sovereign princes, the movements of armies, and the revolutions of states and kingdoms, it becomes indispensibly necessary for the modern historian or annalisi, to give some account of revenue, finance, and commerce: a subject, however, into which we shall not enter more than is absolutely nocessary. We shall confine ourselves to general results, it being impossible to afuse any degree of interest into minute arithmetical details, or to render them to most men other than tedious, dry, and disgusting,

The house of commons, having on the twentieth of October, 1796, resolved itself into a committee of supply, the secretary-at-war moved that the estimates, presented on a former day, should now be taken into consideration. Though the whole of the estimates, on account of official delays, were not yet ready for inspection, that portion of them, which he held in his hand, would afford every information, in point of fact, that could come before them.

The

The estimates on the table contained details of the most material arrangements of the current year, and would be found, every way, explicit on the subject of the expenditure.

The whole force of this country, consisting of the common dis. tribution of guards and garrisons, and colonies and plantations, amounted to one hundred and ninety-five thousand six hundred and seventy-four men, the expence of which would amount to 5,190,000l. The home army contained all the troops which might be considered as serving for the defence of the country: guards, regulars of every description, and fencibles. The army, at home, amounted to sixty thousand seven hundred and sixty-five men. The army, abroad, comprehending the troops in the West Indies, Corsica, Gibraltar, Canada, Nova Scotia, and every foreign service, except those in the East Indies, which

fell under a separate description, amounted to sixty-fourthousandtwo hundred and seventy-six men. The army, abroad, was composed enurely of regulars; the army, at home, of regulars, invalids, militia, and fencibles. Mr. Wyndham concluded his statements with moving for the land-service of this year, one hundred and ninety five thousand

.men.

General Tarleton expected that the honourable secretary would have gone more into detail. The general, after animadverting on sundry expences, which he held to be unnecessary, adverted to a fact which was of the utmost importance, and well deserving the consideration of the house of commons, especially of a new parliament. Last year the

expence of the army amounted to the full revenue of this country, the year previous to the war. His majesty's speech, however, had directed their attention to the atchievements that had been performed by our troops in different parts of the world. He did not think, however, that there was much room for boasting. The armainent, which had been equipped for expeditions to the West Indies, had been attended' with enormous expence. What was the reason that the full advantage, which it might have been expected to produce, had not been obtained? Had the fleet sailed too late in the season, or did the fault lie at the door of the ministers? Whether we locked at the general state of the West Indies, or at particular islands, there was not much room for satisfaction or exultation. The Caribs, in St. Vincent's, were stil! in a state of insurrection. The troubles in Guadaloupe, and vari ous other islands, still interrupted, and destroyed. the industry of the inhabitants. Victor Hughes had not been dislodged, nor his operations disconcerted. In St. Domingo the melancholy ravages which had been made, by disease, afforded no satisfaction in the review. Was the attempt to reduce this island to be prosecuted at the expence of the lives of so many gallant and brave men? Almost every person in that house, and in the country, had to lament. the loss of their friends, brought to an untimely end by the mortality which swept every thing before it. If we considered the extent of the armament, there was something surely faulty in the plan, or why was there so little obtained for so much expence, and so many sacrifices?

Mr.

The secretary replied that he was not prepared to give any answer to the question.

Mr. Fox said he had heard it alleged that the engagement, made on the part of this country, with the Maroons, had not been faithfully adhered to. He understood this to be the declared opinion of an of ficer, of whose military talents, and private worth, though not personally acquainted with him, he ntertained the highest opinion. He alluded to colonel Walpole. Mr. Bryan Edwards, not having had the honour of a seat in that house, until the present parliament, made an apology for calling the attention of the house to any observations of his. But being perfectly acquainted with the subject to which the right honourable gentleman alluded, he begged the indulgence of the house, while he stated a brief history of the Maroon negroes; the canse of the late war between those people and the inhabitants of Jamaica; and the conduct of the colonial assembly in the termination of the business. The Maroon negroes, Mr. Edwards said, agreeably to what has already been stated, in the volume of this work for 1795, are the descendants of the Spanish negroes, who, when the island of Jamaica surrendered to the English, in 1655, betook themselves to the woods. They were left in possession of the interior country, and continued masters of the country for near a century, murdering, without mercy, all such white persons as VOL. XXXIX.

attempted to make any settlements near them, not sparing even the women and children. In the year 1760, Mr. Edwards became ac quainted with those people: when he soon observed, that they were suspicious allies, and would, some time or other, become very formidable enemies. Yet it was not true, as stated in that house, that the inhabitants of Jamaica wanted to get rid of them. The inhabitants, in general, had conceived the highest opinion of their utility, and treated them with the utmost kindness. They never asked a favour of government, or of the assembly, that was refused them. The immediate cause of the late war with the Maroons, Mr. Edwards stated to be this. "Two of the Maroons, having been found guilty of felony, in the town of Montego-Bay, by stealing from a poor man two of his pigs, were tried according to law, and according to the very letter of the treaty, and sentenced to receive. a few lashes at a cart's tail. The sentence was mild, and the punish ment not severe; but the whole body of the Trelawney town Maroons, in revenge for the indignity, offered to two of their number, im mediately took up arms, and soon afterwards actually proceeded to set fire to the plantations. Sir, I shall not take up the time of the house with a long detail of military operations. The gallant officer, whom the right honourable gentleman who spoke last named, had undoubtedly the merit, under the judicious or ders of the earl of Balcarras, of putting an end to the most unnatural and unprovoked rebellion: and if those two distinguished persons differed in opinion,concerningthe terms on which the Maroons surrendered, [K]

it

it is much to be lamented. They both deserved equally well of the communityof Jamaica and the British empire at large. Such, however, I am sorry to say, was the fact, and therefore the governor, very properly, left the whole to the determination of the assembly. Sir, the first conditions on which the Maroons were to surrender, were these; 1st. that they should, on a day appointed, give up their arms, and surrender all the fugitive enslaved negroes who had joined them. 2d. That they should ask the king's pardon on their knees. On these terms their lives were to be spared, and permission granted them to remain in the country. Now, sir, it is a fact, not to be denied, that they did not surrender on the day fixed; and that they did not, then or on any day after wards, give np the fugitive negroes. I do not believe that colonel Walpole avers that they did. Colonel Walpole, sir, who is not less distinguished for his humanity than his Bravery, thinks, I believe, that it would have been generous in the assembly to have imputed their not surrendering in time to their ignorance, rather than to any wilful delay, and politic to have let them remain in the country; but I do not conceive that he charges, either the earl of Balcarras or the assembly with treachery. The assembly,however, thought differently from colonel Walpole, and that men who had violated their allegiance, and entered into a bloody and cruel war, without provocation, were unfit to remain in the island; yet, in the disposal of these people they manifested a degree of generosity and tenderness, which is without example, Sir, after providing with fit and proper clothing for a change of cli

mate, the assembly sent them to America, and appointed three gentlemen to accompany them thither, with a sum of 25,000l. to purchase lands for their future settlement, and for their maintenance for the first year, after which it is hoped the example of the white people, with whom they are settled, and being removed from the former wild and savage way of life, they may become an useful body of yeomanry. I will add only one word more. Sir, there is now a gentleman in this town, who conversed with the Maroons the night before they sailed, and who assures me that they expressed themselves well satisfied with the conduct of the assembly towards them; and declared that having conversed with some American negroes, concerning the country to which they were going, they said they were content to go. I hope, therefore, we shall hear no more of the business.

Mr.Wilberforce observed that the Maroons had been for one hundred and forty years on the island of Jamaica, and he conceived that, if not fit subjects of lenity, they were yet fit subjects of instruction. They had been British subjects. But he was yet to learn, whether any steps had been taken to instruct them, or to bring them to a true knowledge of the blessings of Christianity. He did not stand up as the advocate of the conduct of the Maroons, but he thought the necessary means had not been taken to make them acquainted with habits of virtue.

Mr. Edwards, in reply, said, when he took the liberty of answering the charge of the right honourable member over the way, (alluding to Mr. Fox) respecting the faith of the country hav ing been broken, he did so, be.

cause