of England steadily resisted and repelled these attempts, and carefully embodied provisions against them in various acts of Parliament. Thus we have the statute 1st Edward 3, c. 5, which declares that "The King wills, that no man shall henceforth be charged to arm himself otherwise than was wont in the times of his progenitors, Kings of England; and that no man be compelled to go out of his shire but where necessity requireth and sudden coming of strange enemies into the realm; and that it shall be done as hath been used in times past, for the defence of the realm."

In the same year of Edward the Third, the second statute of that year, chapter 15, was avowedly passed for the relief of individuals who, "at the suggestion of false and evil counsellors and by duress," had been prevailed on to come under burdensome obligations to perform military duties.

Several years later, in 1351, the fifth statute of the 25th of Edward the Third, chapter eight, enacted "that no man shall be constrained to find men of arms, hobelers, nor archers other than those who hold by such services, if it be not by common assent and grant made in Parliament."

In the 5th year of Henry the Fourth a statute, limited, by defining more clearly than before was the case, the powers assumed by the "Commissioners of Array," whom the Crown had from time to time appointed with a view of enlarging its military authority by gradual encroachments on the old militia system. This statute assumed, as a necessary preliminary, a foreign invasion, and then went on to authorize the Commissioners of Array under such circumstances, to array and train all men at arms;-to cause all able-bodied men to arm themselves according to their substance-to amerce those unable to bear arms in what might be judged a money-equivalent for armed service, and finally to require persons so armed to attend on the sea-shore, or elsewhere, in the case of danger.

The long contest between prerogative and constitutional law in these matters, came to a head in the reign of Charles the First. His father, James the First, had by statutes of the 1st and 21st years of his reign repealed the old acts, commonly called the Statutes of Armour, namely, the 27 Henry the Second and the 13 Edward the First, chapter six, modified and confirmed by the 4th and 5th Philip and Mary, chapter two, which obliged every man to keep a certain supply of the arms in use at the periods respectively of the

enactments in question. But through some inadvertence the repeal of these acts also included the repeal of the power which they declared to be in the monarch of these realms to command the military array of the country. And on some of those powers being used by Charles the First in the issue of commissions of lieutenancy and otherwise, the Long Parliament eagerly raised and maintained the argument, that those powers had ceased to exist, and that the command of the militia could only be rightfully assumed and exercised by the King, with the consent and permission of Parliament. On this among other weighty constitutional points, the bloody issue of the Civil War was joined.

Serjeant Stephen, in his New Commentaries on the Laws of England, 3d Edition, 1853, p. 570, thus epitomizes the resumption by the Crown of the position from which it was forced in the wild tempest that overwhelmed its holder in 1649, and flung the crown itself down in the dust for years, under the feet of an ambitious and successful soldier.

"Soon after the restoration of Charles the Second, when the military tenures were abolished, it was thought proper to ascertain the power of the militia, to recognize the sole right of the Crown to govern and command them, and to put the whole into a more regular method of military subordination; and the order in which the militia now stands by law is principally built upon the statutes which were then enacted. It is true the two last of them are repeated; (13 and 14 Car. 2, c. 3, and 15 Car. 2, c. 4) but many of their provisions are re-enacted with the addition of some new regulations by the present militia laws; the general scheme of which is to discipline at stated periods for the internal defence of the country, a certain number of the inhabitants of every county, chosen either by voluntary enlistment or by lot for five years, and officered by the Lord Lieutenant, the deputy lieutenants and other persons with a certain qualification in point of property, under a commission from the Crown."

The words of the statutes of Charles the Second were-"That the sole supreme government, command and disposition of the militia, and of all forces by sea and land, and of all forts and places of strength is, and by the laws of England ever was, the undoubted right of His Majesty and his Royal Predecessors."

These Acts then went on to provide for the levying of the

militia by the Lieutenants and Deputies of Counties, and the system they established, or re-established and defined, forms the main groundwork of the Militia System of the present day. In its details, however, it has been considerably modified, altered and amended by nearly fifty subsequent acts, of which about twenty date from the reign of our present gracious Sovereign.

Not to weary the reader with details, technical or otherwise, it is sufficent, as regards the existing position of the law, to state what follows.

By the Act 15th and 16th Victoria, chapter 50, section 8, Her Majesty is empowered, by advice of her Privy Council, to raise and keep up in England and Wales a force of eighty thousand privates of militia; which in the event of invasion, or imminent danger thereof, she may increase to the number of 120,000-the enrolment to be voluntary: but reserving the power of resorting to the Ballot

By the 17th Victoria, chap. 13, she has been empowered to call out and embody the militia of the three countries, whenever a state of war exists, without reference to the old conditions of the danger of foreign invasion or domestic rebellion.

By the 17th Victoria, chapter 16, she received powers to cause to be raised and embodied 10,000 privates in Scotland, to serve as the militia of that kingdom.

By the 17th Victoria, chapter 107, a similar power is given to raise 30,000 privates to serve as a similar force for Ireland. And the four Acts we have mentioned provide for the enrolment of these forces by voluntary enlistment, leaving untouched, however, the power of resorting to the old plan of the ballot, in case of necessity.

In the short Session of December last, another Act was passed, enabling Her Majesty to accept the services of Militia Regiments volunteering to serve out of the country, in any of her Majesty's Colonial Possessions and Dependencies abroad.

Under these Acts the following Regiments are on the Militia List, according to the latest returns that are accessible to us.

1st Regiment of Militia, designated the 3rd
West York (Light Infantry).
2nd. Huntingdonshire Rifles.

3rd. The 1st and 2nd Durham Infantry, and
the Durham Artillery.

4th. Rutlandshire Rifles (not embodied).

5th. The Regiment designated as the 1st
West York Regiment.

6th. The 1st and 2nd Royal Cheshire.
7th. The Royal Berkshire.

8th. The Royal North Lincoln Regiment.
9th. The Royal Cumberland.

The strength or numerical total of each of the Regiments on the foregoing list, we have not at present the means of stating, save with regard to so few of them, that it would be useless to observe upon the subject.

Any person who looks over the army list will see that many Regiments of the line bear the same, what we may call County, designations as many of the Militia Regiments, and in some few cases, the numbers on the Roll are the same. Thus the Northamptonshire Militia are numbered as the 48th, on the Militia Roll, and the 48th Regiment of the line is entitled, "the 48th, or Northamptonshire Regiment of Foot." In the majority of cases, however, the numbering is different, while the names are similar; the fact is, that the line Regiments with local designations, were originally raised in the localities whose titles they bear, and the difference or coincidence of numbers between them and certain Militia Regiments is, in a great measure, accidental.

From a work entitled The Royal Militia and Yeomanry Cavalry Army List. By Arthur Lleigh, Esq., late Lieutenant in Her Majesty's seventy-seventh Regiment of the line, now Cornet in the Uxbridge Regiment of Yeomanry Cavalry, we take the following record of events, affecting and connected with the militia during the French war, as also, on one occasion, some 13 years previous to the commencement of the same. As that force, from the tremendous dimensions the present war is beginning to assume, and the precariousness that always attends alliances, amid the casualties and changes of a European struggle, is likely to become of very considerable importance ere long, in the minds of the most superficial observer of current events; what follows may, if not at the moment, yet before many months, prove of immediate interest and relevancy, and is, at any rate, very pertinent to our subject :SUMMARY of the general orders issued from the Horse Guards, from 1793 to 1816, with reference to the Militia-Services of the Regiments of Militia, and volunteering to the Line during the war— Votes of thanks from the Houses of Lords and Commons, 1802 and 1814-War office circular, 1st December, 1845— ditto, Home office-Militias of Scotland and Ireland.

The general orders issued from the Horse Guards from time to time, have contained various provisions for the equipment and discipline of the Militia. In 1793, the officers of Militia were ordered