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The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria cover

The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. / From the Accession of George III. to the Twenty-Third Year of the Reign of Queen Victoria

Chapter 612: WINDHAM’S MILITARY PLAN.
By Edward Farr
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About This Book

The volume traces British political, parliamentary, and military developments from the accession of George III through the early nineteenth century, chronicling changes of ministry and cabinet, debates over colonial taxation and the American conflict, parliamentary controversies involving figures such as Wilkes and Warren Hastings, questions of Catholic relief and slave-trade abolition, and responses to the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, including major naval and continental campaigns, the union with Ireland, and domestic legislation on finance, civil liberties, and parliamentary reform.

WINDHAM’S MILITARY PLAN.

On the 3rd of April Windham brought forward a plan for altering the military system, and particularly the mode of recruiting the army. His plan was that the soldier should enlist for a certain term of years; that this term should be divided for the infantry into three periods of seven years each; and for the cavalry and artillery, the first period to be ten years, the second six, and the third live years; and that at the end of each of these periods a man might have a right to claim his discharge, and that his privileges, pensions, etc., should be augmented in proportion to the length of his services. As a preliminary step to the introduction of this bill he moved for a bill to repeal Pitt’s Additional Force bill, which raised a storm of opposition from the friends and admirers of the deceased minister. His views were especially combated by Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning; but the repeal bill was finally carried, and then Windham’s plan was adopted: it was introduced and carried as a clause in the Annual Mutiny bill. A bill for the training of a certain number of persons, not exceeding 200,000, out of those that were liable to be drawn for the militia; a bill to suspend the ballot for the militia in England for two years, with a reserved power to government for recurring to it in order to supply the vacancies of any corps which should be reduced below its quota; a bill called the Chelsea Hospital bill, to give security to invalid, disabled, and discharged soldiers, for such pensions as they were entitled to; and a bill for settling the relative rank officers of yeomanry, volunteers, militia forces, and troops of the line, completed Windham’s system, and were all carried, though not without much opposition. An increase was also voted to the pay of sergeants, corporals, privates of the line, to the Chelsea pensions, and to the pensions of officers’ widows: similar benefits were also voted to the navy, and the Greenwich Hospital allowances to out-pensioners were increased.