RECRUITING OFFICERS. For the purpofe of obtaining recruits, active non-commiffioned officers are employed, under the name of recruiting-ferjeants; and in many places crafty perfons are difperfed, who, by every pretence and every artifice, allure the unwary to embrace the military life, and for this a compenfation is allowed. Thefe perfons, in vulgar phrafe, are called crimps. Houfes are alfo opened in towns and cities, under the title of recruiting-offices, where the fame arts are employed, and with which the perfons, called crimps, have daily communication. INLISTING. To prevent thofe, who in an incautious moment, may have made an engagement of which they afterward repent, from being permanently fettered, against their better judgment, the law has provided, that when any perfon fhall be inlifted, he fhall, in four days, but not fooner than twentyfour hours, be carried before the next juftice, or chief magiftrate of a town corporate (not being an officer in the army), and before him shall be at liberty to declare his diffent to fuch inlifting; and on fuch declaration, and returning the inliftingmoney, and paying 20s. for the charges expended on him, he fhall be forthwith difcharged, in prefence of fuch magistrate: but if he fhall refufe or neglect, in twenty-four hours, to return, and pay fuch money as aforefaid, he fhall be confidered as inlifted. If he declares that he voluntarily inlifted himself, the justice, or chief magiftrate, reads over, or in his presence caufes to be read, a certain portion of the articles of war, and lets him take the oath of fidelity, and another, declaring his age, and place of birth, and his freedom from rupture, fits, and fome other diforders, and that he is not an apprentice, nor belongs to any other regiment, regulars, or militia. But if any perfon fhall receive the inlifting-money, knowing it to be fuch, and fhall abfcond, or fhall refufe to go before a magiftrate, he fhall be deemed inlifted, as if he had taken the oath. And when any corps beyond feas is relieved, in order to return home, fuch of the men as chufe it may be inlifted, and incorporated with thofe appointed to remain; the occafion of quitting fuch former corps to be recited in the inlifting certificate, in order to protect fuch foldier from fufpicion of defertion. MUSTER. The recruit, having been attested before a magiftrate, is to be mustered by a commiflary, or mufter-master, previous to his being received into a regiment. For the prevention of frauds in this part of the fervice, it is directed, that every commiflary or mufter-mafter, upon any muster to be made, fhall, on penalty of 50l. and the lofs of his office, give convenient notice to the mayor, or other chief officer, of the place where the foldiers are quartered; (except Westmin fter fter and Southwark, where it must be two magiftrates, neither of whom is an officer in the army;) and the mayor, or other chief officer shall be prefent, and give his utmost affistance for the difcovering of any falfe mufter; and no muster-roll fhall be allowed, unlefs figned by fuch mayor, or other officer: but, if he shall not attend, or refuse to fign, without giving fufficient reafon; then the commiffary may proceed, and fuch mufter-roll fhall be allowed, though not figned, provided that oath be made, and the mufter-roll produced before, and figned by a justice in 48 hours afterward; he certifying that there ap pears no fufficient objection to it. And if any person shall give a falfe certificate, to excufe any foldier from mufter, or fervice, on pretence that he is employed on fome other duty of the regiment, or of fickness, being in prifon, or on furlough, he fhall forfeit 50l. and be cafhiered, and difabled to hold any military office. No certificate fhall excuse the absence of any foldier, but for the reafons abovementioned, or one of them; and the commiffary fhall fet down on the roll, at the time of taking the mufter, the reafon of fuch abfence, and by whom certified and not to fet down any fuch excufe, without view of fuch certificate. Every officer that fhall make any falfe mufter of man or horfe, and every commiflary, mufter-mafter, or other officer, who fhall wittingly allow, or fign the mufter-roll wherein any fuch falfe mufter is contained, or shall take any reward for muftering, or figning mufter-rolls, fhail be cashiered, and difabled. If any perfon fhould be falfely mustered, or offer himself to be falfely mustered; he fhall on proof be committed to the houfe of correction for ten days; and if any perfon fhall wittingly furnish a horfe to be mustered, he fhall, if the property of the perfon furnifling, he forfeited to the informer; otherwife, the offender fhall forfeit to the informer 20/. or, for want of fufficient diftrefs, be committed to the common jail for three months, or be publickly whipped; and the informer, if a foldier, fhall be difcharged, if he demands it. But fictitious names, allowed by his majefty's order upon the mufter-rolls for the maintenance of widows of officers who loft their lives in the late war, or during the late rebellion, shall not be conftrued a false muster. RECRUITING STAFF. The army depot for recruits was formerly at Chatham: it is now in the Ifle of Wight, and a staff for this branch of fervice is established, confifting of an infpector-general, with an affiftant, and aid-de-camp; a brigademajor, adjutant, quarter-mafter and paymafter, a phyfician, and inspector of hospitals, with a deputy, and a furgeon, with affiftants and mates. BILLETTING. It has already been mentioned as one of the op oppreffions practifed while the government of England was unfettled, that foldiers were fent to live at free quarters on thofe whofe conduct or principles gave offence to government. Against this abuse, it was enacted, by ftatute 31 Ch. II. c. 1, that no officer, military or civil, nor any other person whatsoever, fhall presume to place, quarter, or billet any foldier on any fubject or inhabitant of this realm, of any degree, quality, or profeffion whatfoever, without his confent; and every fuch fubject or inhabitant may refuse to sojourn or quarter any foldier, notwithstanding any command, order, warrant, or billeting whatever. But by the mutiny act, which is renewed annually, and generally with little or no alteration, the conftables, and other chief officers and magiftrates of cities, towns, and villages, and other places, and in their default or abfence, any one justice inhabiting in, or near fuch place, and no other, fhall and may quarter and billet the officers and foldiers in inns, liveryftables, ale-houses, victualling-houses, and the houses of fellers of wine by retail to be drunk in their own houses, or places thereunto belonging (other than perfons who keep taverns only, being free of the Vintners' company in London), and all houses of perfons felling brandy, strong waters, cyder, or metheglin, by retail, to be drunk in their houfes, and no other, and in no private houses whatsoever; nor fhall any more billets be ordered than there are effective foldiers; and if any conftable, or fuch like officer, or magiftrate, fhall prefume to quarter or billet any officer or foldier in any private house, without confent, the owner or occupier fhall have his remedy at law against fuch officer or magiftrate for damages; and if any military officer fhall take upon him to quarter foldiers otherwife than by this act, or hall offer any menace or compulfion to any mayor, conftable, or other civil officer, tending to deter and difcourage any of them from doing their duty, he fhall, on conviction before any two of the next juftices, by the oath of two witneffes, be ipfo facto cafhiered and difabled to hold any mili fary employment; provided the conviction be affirmed at the next quarter feffions, and a certificate tranfmitted to the judge advocate, who fhall certify it to the next court-martial. And if any perfon fhall be aggrieved by having more foldiers billeted than in proportion to his neighbours, and complain to one juftice, or if the perfon fo billeting them be a justice, then if he complain to two juftices, they may relieve him. The king's regiments of foot guards are to be in like manner billeted in Weftminster, or other parts of Middlefex, except the city of London, and Surry, including the borough of Southwark, and places adjacent to Westminster; but this claufe is conftrued as not confining the foot-guards to thefe places, but only directing that if quartered there, the fame rules must be obferved as in VOL. IL other U other parts of the kingdom. of the kingdom. If any conftable, or other officer, neglect his duty in billeting for the space of two hours, provided fufficient notice has been given before of the arrival of the forces; or if he takes any reward to excufe any one; or if any perfon liable refuses to receive any foldiers, or to furnish them, as required by this act, they incur a penalty, not exceed-, ing 51. nor less than forty fhillings. And if any military officer takes money of any perfon for excufing the quartering of foldiers, he fhall be cafhiered, and incapacitated. Officers and foldiers, duly billeted, are to be received, and furnished with diet and fmall beer, paying for the fame, at a certain fixed, but very inadequate price. But if any perfon fhall chufe rather to furnish them with candles, vinegar, and falt, and with either fmall beer, or cyder, not exceeding five pints a day, gratis, and allow them the use of fire, and the neceffary utenfils for the dreffing and eating their meat, and fhall give notice thereof to the commanding officer, and thall furnish the fame accordingly; in fuch cafe, they fhall provide their own victuals, and the officers fhall pay the fums out of the fubfiftence-money for diet and fmall beer to fuch foldiers, and not to the perfons on whom they are quartered; except on a march, or recruit ing. In all places, where horfe or dragoons fhall be quartered, the men and their horfes fhall be billeted in one and the fame houfe (except in cafe of necellity); and in no case there shall be less than one man billeted, where there fhall be one or two horfes, nor less than two men where there fhall be four horses, and fo in proportion; and each man fhall be billeted as near his horfe as poffible. Officers may remove, or exchange men or horfes with others quartered in the fame town; provided the numbers fo exchanged are equal: and the conftables, or other officers, fhall billet them accordingly. BARRACKS. Such are the principal features of the regulation for billeting or quartering of foldiers, which has ever been deemed a grievous hardship on innkeepers, and no inconfiderable caufe of diforder and infubordination among the troops. Yet, as an ancient custom, it had many advocates, especially among those who looked with extreme jealoufy at any fyftem which appeared to feparate the foldiery from the people. In late years, however, the plan of building barracks for the refidence of soldiers, has very much prevailed. Of this system, the oppofition to it, and the advantages derived from it, the following account was given by Mr. Rofe: "Another department, that of providing barracks for the troops, created a few years ago, has been the fubject of repeated difcuffion in parliament, and of frequent obfervation without doors: every effort was used that ingenuity could devife to render the measure unpopular, and to imprefs on the public mind a perfuafion, that immenfe fums of money money were lavished, without any apparent ufe or neceffity. In a measure intimately connected with the fafety and defence of the country, economy alone is not to be attended to: we are perfuaded, however, the arrangement is to be juftified, even on this ground, and that on an attentive confideration of the fubject, it will be found there is a faving to the public during war of about 400,000l. a year by the fyftem (after deducting the expences attending it), without taking into the calculation the great faving by the preservation of horses. In this, as in other inftances, we must not lofe fight of the nature of the war in which we are engaged; whatever reliance we may justly have on our navy, the glorious achievements of which have been above all praife, as well as beyond all example, and on the powerful aid of our yeomanry, incited by an unparalleled enthusiasm in the cause of their country, we should not neglect the attention due to our brave army and militia, at the fame time we employ their fervices in the stations beft calculated for our defence. In many parts of the country the troops could not have been kept on the coaft in the winter, if barracks had not been provided; but what is most interefting to our feelings, and important to the state, is, the faving of the lives of the foldiers, by their being comfortably lodged in barracks instead of being expofed to the confequences of encamp→ ments, particularly, late in the year. The advantages accruing to the difcipline and good conduct of the army, are obvious, even to common obfervers." To prove the benefits already derived from the plan, he subjoined to his work (edition 1799) the following table: Statement of the comparative Expence of keeping Troops in Camp, in Quarters, and in Barracks. Confidering the prefent establishment of the army, the regiments of cavalry may be stated at 675,officers and men, each; and the infantry at 726; at which numbers it may be proper to take them : for, although there are many regiments on much higher establishments, yet, on the whole, the above appears to be a juft average. A regiment of cavalry of 675 men and 11,200 s. d. 4,123 0 A regiment of infantry of 726 men, for 160 days, will coft in camp for} 3,516 0 The fame in barracks for the fame period 1,000 |