or to Melbourne, and pursue them to better advantage even than they did in England; but the man once settled upon the soil-the peasant, the owner, or even the tenant-owner of ten, twenty, or fifty acres-is a fixture. The state has given to him something more tangible than a name, and the hostage for his service in return lies in the land he calls his own. And this brings us to the third part of our question-the endeavour to look upon the military strength of the British empire as a thing intimately connected with the condition of our land tenure, and to show the utter impossibility of Great Britain engaging in a war of any duration or magnitude under the system of voluntary enlistment now existing.

It is

It has been the habit of those who recently turned their attention to the military strength of the empire to take two or more periods in our history, and to prove by comparison of figures the growth of our resources and the extension of our power. not our intention to call in question either the accuracy of the statistics so quoted or the relevancy of the deductions which have generally been drawn from them. But when two periods such as the Peninsular war and the Crimean war are cited as examples, it will be well for us to go back to those periods and to examine into the working of the voluntary enlistment at that time. In doing so we propose to show, first, that the drain upon our population by what is called the French war was vastly less than is usually supposed to have been the case; and, secondly, that insignificant as it was, that drain was enough to put the severest strain upon our resources of men, and to necessitate the adoption of a most extravagant rate of bounty and levy money.

It was a glorious epoch, that of the Peninsular war! Nine-tenths of the names embroidered in golden letters on our regimental colours were won in the five years intervening between

1809 and 1814. The story of that time has still power to recall to us memories full of the glory of battles won from Napoleon's greatest captains, of sieges in which the terrible valour of our soldiers was pre-eminent, of marches and feats of endurance never paralleled in our modern history, before or since. But though the battles of the Peninsular war, and still more the crowning victory of Waterloo, are household names among us, we have wholly lost sight of a fact that at the time did much to influence the national joy over our victories; that fact was our long-continued failure in any portion of Europe to oppose the legions of the Republic or of the Empire. On the coast of France, in the Low Countries, in Flanders, in Sicily, in Corsica, in Naples, at Genoa, we had utterly failed to maintain our own attacks. In Egypt alone had our land forces been successful, and in Egypt every element of success was on our side. From 1793 to 1809 we had not a single result to show on the Continent of Europe for the 300,000,000l. sterling which we had added to the national debt in that period. Our expeditions to France, Spain, Portugal, Holland, Italy, Corsica, had all ended in complete failure. It was on this account that the victories of the following years appeared so glorious. The nation's faith in its army had reached its lowest ebb, and the reaction of victory was proportionately great.

But the greatness of the success in Spain and at Waterloo did much towards hiding from view then and since the actual losses we sustained. When we here state that our entire loss in killed in Spain, Portugal, and Flanders, including all the battles, engagements, skirmishes, sieges, and sorties, did not amount to the loss in killed suffered by the Germans in the two battles of Gravelotte and Sedan, we state a fact which will doubtless astonish many readers. Yet it is nevertheless true. A statement of our actual losses during the years

But from this total must be taken 1,378, the number of foreign soldiers killed in our service, leaving 7,876 as the entire loss in killed during the whole war in Spain and Portugal, together with that of Quatre Bras and Waterloo. Six thousand men killed in the entire Peninsular war! Not half the Russian loss at Eylau, less than the Russian loss before Plevna, less than half the French dead at Waterloo. Here is a fact lost sight of, and worth repetition many times.

Bearing in mind these numbers, we will now inquire into the strain put upon our system of voluntary enlistment during the period of the Peninsular war.

In the years 1809-10 there were recruited in the ordinary method 20,815 men, and by volunteers from the militia 23,885, making a total in these two years of 44,700; in 1811, 22,925; in 1812, 24,359; in 1813, 30,530; and in 1814, 11,239, giving an average of 22,876 recruits each

parties. The difficulty of obtaining recruits was so great that commanding officers were allowed to enlist boys under sixteen years of age at the rate of 100 per regiment of 1,000 men, and, quoting the words of Dupin, an eminent authority, "the hulks were drained and the prisons emptied more than once to supply the want of soldiers."

We will now compare these figures with the increase and decrease during the six years from 1871 to 1876. The effective strength averaged 179,496. The annual increase by recruits joined was 21,176. The average decrease stood as follows:-Deaths, 2,163; discharges, 13,152; desertions, 5,158 (of these latter, however, 1,866 rejoined the ranks annually); from causes not classified, and from men given up as deserters from other corps, the loss was 1,076; and, finally, to the army reserve there went 908. Thus we find that the total yearly decrease amounted to 22,457 men.

From these figures it will be seen that we have required annually about 23,000 recruits to maintain our army at a strength of 180,000 rank and file. But that number will not suffice during the next six years, because of the increasing action of the shortservice system. If we put the annual drain of men during the next six years at 30,000, we shall be within the actual number. This, be it remembered, represents the waste of our army only in peace. In war the waste through deaths would of necessity greatly increase; instead of standing at 9 or 10 per 1,000 it would probably touch 100 per 1,000, which would give an annual decrement by deaths alone on our present effective strength, of 18,000 men.

We now come to consider what would be the requirements of our army raised to a war footing, and how far we might expect voluntary enlistment to meet these wants. Let us assume as a fact that the present strength is necessary for the security of our Home, Colonial, and

Indian necessities, we should in the event of a European war require an addition of 100,000 men. The readiest way of obtaining that number would be the embodiment of the militia and the calling up of the first-class army and militia reserves. This would set free nearly the required number, 100,000 men-100,000 men in the field would need about 20,000 men annually to replace losses; so that we may estimate our yearly requirement of recruits in time of war at about 55,000 for the regular forces alone. That this number could be maintained for one year we do not doubt; but that it could be depended upon for a longer period we hesitate to believe.

The reasons for holding this opinion can be briefly stated. First, voluntary recruiting has always failed to supply our wants in time of war. During the war with France in 1743, despite a high bounty, "pressing pressing" upon a most unjust system had to be resorted to; the jails of London and Westminster alone held 1,000 men thus pressed, and we are told among the instances of its cruel injustice that a certain gentleman, the Vicar of Burstal, also a Justice of the Peace, took the opportunity of pressing as a soldier one Nelson, a Methodist preacher. The following conversation between the unfortunate preacher and the magistrates is worthy of record. Brought before the justices at Halifax, their worships refused to hear his plea, "because we have already heard enough of you from the vicar," who, it may be mentioned, occupied a seat upon the bench in his dual capacity. "Gentlemen," said Nelson, "I see there is neither law nor justice for a man that is called a Methodist." Then, addressing the vicar, he continued, "What evil do you know of me? Whom have I defrauded? or where have I contracted a debt I cannot pay?" To which the vicar replied: "You have no visible means of getting your living." So the preacher was marched off; but whether his efforts contributed to the victory at Dettingen, or the

defeat at Fontenoy, history does not tell.

At the breaking out of the Seven Years' War, the same stringent measures had to be resorted to, but without effect. In England men could not be induced to enlist. Up to this period in our history, Scotland had been represented in our army only by the 42nd Regiment, and that as a police, more than as a military force. It is needless to say that Ireland was at a still greater discount. It was the genius of Chatham which first discovered the mine of courage and devotion to duty that lay unworked amid the Highland glens. His own glowing words best tell the story, "I sought for merit," said he, "where it was to be found. It is my boast that I was the first minister who looked for it and found it in the mountains of the North. I called it forth, and drew into your service a hardy and intrepid race of men, who, when left by your jealousy, became a prey to the artifices of your enemies, and in the war before the last had gone nigh to overturn the State. These men in the last war I brought to combat at your side. They served with fidelity, as they fought with valour, and conquered for you in every part of the

world."

It has been computed that in the first four years of this war 33,000 Scotchmen were raised for the services. Twelve years after the cessation of the Seven Years' War was the American War of Independence. When it began the effective strength of the army stood very low; but again it was found impossible to keep it up. possible to keep it up. The Minister of War declared in the Commons that all his exertions had failed in recruiting the army to its requisite strength. He asserted that no means had been left untried, that the bounty had been raised, and the standard lowered, and that attempts had been made even to enlist Roman Catholics into British regiments. Scotland again came to the rescue. Out of eleven corps proposed to be raised in Great Britain in 1777-8, for service in the colonies,

nine came from the north of the Tweed. During 1779, 80, the system of pressing men for the army was fully resorted to. "All the thieves," says Grose, "pickpockets and vagabonds in the environs of London, too lame to run away, or too poor to bribe the parish officer, were apprehended and delivered over as soldiers to the regiments quartered in the towns and villages where these banditti lived." Still the army could not be kept up. Foreigners of every description had to be engaged, and traditions of Hessian brutality still live in the villages of the United States, just as fifteen years later their deeds left imperishable memories in the minds of Irish peasants.

We now approach the Great War. We have already seen at what a trifling cost of men, about 22,000 annually in the six years of its greatest tension, it was maintained; yet to fill the vacancies caused by casualties in the field, which only amounted to a yearly average of about 1,000 killed, the bounty for recruits reached the enormous figure of 397. 16s. per head, or sixteen guineas to the recruit, and 231. to the various persons connected with bringing him. Even boys under sixteen years of age, and less than five feet two inches high received 12l. 1s. 6d. bounty, and their bringers 167. 148., making the cost of each boy amount to 287. 15s. 6d.

It was yet early in the war against Napoleon that the pressure for recruits began to be most severely felt. In 1800, Irishmen had been for the first time admitted into the army, without forfeiture of their creed or nationality. It was not much of a boon to yield to these poor peasants, yet eagerly they flocked to accept it. Not only did they wholly fill the regiments which bore titles associated with their native land, but the English and Scotch regiments held them in great numbers. Between 1807 and 1811, more than 400 Irish were in the ranks of the 71st Highlanders. In 1810, 443 men of the 74th Highlanders, out of a total of 956, were Irish. The 94th Highlanders No. 223.-VOL. XXXVIII.

held in 1809, 666 Irish, out of a total of 1,300 strong. In a record of 1,087 names in the Royal Scots, during the Peninsular War, 464 are registered as Irish.

It is customary in writing statistics of this kind to say these facts speak for themselves. In this case, however, they do not tell their own story altogether. Beneath the bare record of these numbers lies one of the saddest comments upon our Government of Ireland to be found even in that long catalogue of woe. Let us ask ourselves who were these soldiers who so freely came to fill the ranks of our army in the hour of peril? Were they men on whom the nation had lavished the benefits of civil law, the blessings of good government, the privilege of a free faith? Alas! the answer must be, No. be, No. They were only Irish peasants; ten years earlier they had been rebels; but five years before they had been wild animals hunted from hill top to hill top, and now, from a stage scarcely less servile, they passed out from their hovel homes to win for England her loftiest pinnacle of military glory.

Steadily through the anxious years the numbers rise as we proceed. Talavera, Albuera, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vittoria this poor Celt found voice and strength and space, at last, upon these Spanish battlefields. Room for the hunted peasant! The room left for him was in the front line of fight, and eagerly he stepped up into the vacant space, for it was his rightful place. Here at last he was at home!

Through years of bitter want; through centuries of suffering, through generations of misfortune, the soldier instinct still lived in his bruised and broken heart. And from the terrible breach of Badajoz, and along the hillside of Fuentes d'Onor, his wild cheer rang out above the roar of cannon in joyous token of his Celtic birthright found even in death.

That birthright of place in battle had in truth become doubly his from the moment when Wellington began

D

at the Tagus that advance which was destined to end only at Toulouse. That other Celtic race, that soldier breed, whose home was in the rugged mountains north of the Spey, was expiring beneath the remorseless tyranny of a monstrous law-the Highlands of Scotland were being cleared of men. If any stranger, unacquainted with our civilisation, had witnessed the cruel scenes enacted in all the Highland glens in the latter half of the last century, and the first years of the present one, he would doubtless have asked in his simplicity, "What have these people done against the State? What law have they outraged? What class have they wronged, that they should thus suffer a penalty so dreadful?" And the answer could only have been, "They have done no wrong. Yearly they have sent forth their thousands from these glens to follow the battle-flag of Britain wherever it flew."

It was a Highland rear-lorn hope that covered the broken wreck of Cumberland's army after the disastrous day of Fontenoy, when more British soldiers lay dead upon the field than fell at Waterloo itself. It was another Highland regiment that scaled the rock face over the St. Lawrence, and first formed a line in the September dawn on the level sward of Abraham. It was a Highland line that broke the power of the Maharatta hordes, and gave Wellington his maiden victory at Assaye. Thirty-four battalions marched from these glens to fight in America, Germany, and India, ere the eighteenth century had run its course. And yet, while abroad over the earth Highlanders were thus first in assault and last in retreat, their lowly homes in far-away glens were being dragged down, and the wail of women, and the cry of children, went out upon the same breeze that bore too upon its wings the scent of heather, the freshness of gorse blossom, and the myriad sweets that made the lowly life of Scotland's peasantry blest with health and happiness.

There are crimes done in the dark hours of strife, and amid the blaze of man's passions, that sometimes make the blood run cold as we read of them ; but they are not so terrible in their red-handed vengeance as the cold malignity of a civilised law, which permits a brave and noble race to disappear by the operation of its legalized injustice.

To convert the Highland glens into vast wastes, untenanted by human beings; to drive forth to distant and inhospitable shores, men whose forefathers had held their own among these hills despite Roman legion, Saxon archer, or Norman chivalry, men whose sons died freely for England's honour, through those wide dominions their bravery had won for her—such was the work of laws framed in a cruel mockery of name by the Commons of England.

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It might have been imagined that at a time when every recruit was worth to the state a sum of 401., some means might have been found to stay the hand of the cottage clearers, to protect from motives of state policy, if not of patriotism, the men who were literally the life-blood of the nation. But it was not so. Had these men been slaves or serfs, they would, as chattel property, have been the objects of solicitude, both on the part of their owners and of their government; but they were free men, and therefore could be more freely destroyed. Nay, the very war which so many of their sons were bearing part, was indirectly the cause of the expulsion of the Highlanders from their homes. Sheep and oxen became of unprecedented value, through the increased demand for food supplies, and the cottage neath whose roof-tree half a dozen soldier's sons had sprung to life, had to give place to a waste wherein a Highland ox could browse in freedom. Those who imagine that such destruction of men could not be repeated in our own day are but little acquainted with the real working of the law of landlord and