MILITIA BILL.

The next bill that engaged the attention of the commons, was a measure of the utmost national importance, though secretly disliked by many individuals of the legislature, who, nevertheless, did not venture to avow their disapprobation. The establishment of a militia was a very popular and desirable object, but attended with numberless difficulties, and a competition of interests which it was impossible to reconcile. It had formerly been an inexhaustible source of contention between the crown and the commons; but now both apparently concurred in rendering it serviceable to the commonwealth, though some acquiesced in the scheme, who were not at all hearty in its favour. On the fourth day of December, a motion was made for the bill, by colonel George Townshend, eldest son of lord viscount Townshend, a gentleman of courage, sense, and probity; endued with penetration to discern, and honesty to pursue, the real interest of his country, in defiance of power, in contempt of private advantages. Leave being given to bring in a bill for the better ordering of the militia forces in the several counties of England, the task of preparing it was allotted to Mr. Townshend, and a considerable number of the most able members in the house, comprehending his own brother, Mr. Charles Townshend, whose genius shone with distinguished lustre: he was keen, discerning, eloquent, and accurate; possessed a remarkable vivacity of parts, with a surprising solidity of understanding; was a wit without arrogance, a patriot without prejudice, and a courtier without dependance.

While the militia bill remained under consideration in the house, a petition for a constitutional and well-regulated militia was presented by the mayor, jurats, and commonalty of the king’s town and parish of Maidstone, in Kent, in common-council assembled. At the same time remonstrances were offered by the protestant dissenting ministers of the three denominations in and about the cities of London and Westminster; by the protestant dissenters of Shrewsbury; the dissenting ministers of Devonshire; the protestant dissenters, being freeholders and burgesses of the town and county of the town of Nottingham, joined with other inhabitants of the church of England, expressing their apprehension, that, in the bill then depending, it might be proposed to enact, that the said militia should be exercised on the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday, and praying that no clause for such purpose might pass into a law. Though nothing could be more ridiculously fanatic and impertinent than a declaration of such a scruple against a practice so laudable and necesssary, in a country where that day of the week is generally spent in merry-making, riot, and debauchery, the house paid so much regard to the squeamish consciences of those puritanical petitioners, that Monday was pitched upon for the day of exercise to the militia, though on such working days they might be much more profitably employed, both for themselves and their country; and that no religious pretence should be left for opposing the progress and execution of the bill, proper clauses were inserted for the relief of the quakers. Another petition and counter-petition were delivered by the magistrates, freeholders, and burgesses of the town of Nottingham, in relation to their particular franchises, which were accordingly considered in framing the bill.

After mature deliberation, and divers alterations, it passed the lower house, and was sent to the lords for their concurrence: here it underwent several amendments, one of which was the reduction of the number of militia-men to one half of what the commons had proposed; namely, to thirty-two thousand three hundred and forty men for the whole kingdom of England and Wales. The amendments being canvassed in the lower house, met with some opposition, and divers conferences with their lordships ensued; at length, however, the two houses agreed to every article, and the bill soon received the royal sanction. No provision, however, was made for clothes, arms, accoutrements, and pay: had regulations been made for these purposes, the act would have become a money-bill, in which the lords could have made no amendment: in order, therefore, to prevent any difference between the two houses, on a dispute of privileges not yet determined, and that the house of peers might make what amendments they should think expedient, the commons left the expense of the militia to be regulated in a subsequent bill, during the following session, when they could, with more certainty, compute what sum would be necessary for these purposes. After all, the bill seemed to be crude, imperfect, and ineffectual, and the promoters of it were well aware of its defects; but they were apprehensive that it would have been dropped altogether, had they insisted upon the scheme being executed in its full extent. They were eager to seize this opportunity of trying an experiment, which might afterwards be improved to a greater national advantage; and, therefore, they acquiesced in many restrictions and alterations, which otherwise would not have been adopted.