The Parliamentary Register (Volume 3); Or an Impartial Report of the Debates That Have Occured in the Two Houses of Parliament - Tapa blanda

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1806. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... of military service shorter in this country than it was in any other state in Europe, without, as he conceived, promising any adequate advantage. On the contrary, great inconvenience must necessarily arise from such a system in drafting regiments, and with respect to our colonial service. His lordship, after recapitulating some of the former arguments against the bill, concluded by moving to insert in die oatk the period of twenty years, instead of seven. The Earl of Lauderdale expressed his astonishment that such a motion should come from the other side of the House. On a former evening noble lords on the other side had arraigned his Majesty's ministers for trenching, as they alledgcd, on the King's prerogative, by the enactment relative to limited service contained in this bill, and now they themselves came forward to propose another limited period of service, which was as much an invasion of the King's prerogative^ according to their own arguments, as the proposition made by his Majesty's ministers. He thought it wholly unnecessary to argue as to the superior inducement. which there must be to every man to enlist for seven years jrather than for life, as such a disposition was clearly (reducible from the slightest experience of human nature. The tame argument was equally applicable to an enlistment for seven, instead of twenty years. If noble lords on the other side were told that they must remain in a state of sorrowing and suffering, as it had been termed the other night, for twenty years instead of seven, they would doubtless declaim loudly against it, and endeavour to make the period of seven years still shorter. The opposition made to this · measure appeared to him very singular, as the principle of enlisting for a limited period had been applied by no...