yet begun that career of
victory which created a national enthusiasm for war, and filled our
ranks with willing soldiers. And another clause of the same bill was
framed in the hope of making the service more acceptable to the
peasantry, by limiting the time for which recruits were to be enlisted,
and entering men, at first, in the infantry for seven years, or in the
cavalry (as that branch of the service required a longer apprenticeship)
for ten; then allowing them the option of renewing their engagement for
two periods--in the infantry of seven years each, in the cavalry of six
and five, with increased pay during each of the two periods, and a small
pension for life, if the soldier retired after the second period; and
"the full allowance of Chelsea," which was to be farther raised to a
shilling a day, for those who elected to serve the whole twenty-one
years. This principle the present reign has seen carried to a much
greater extent, but the change is too recent for even the most
experienced officers to be agreed on its effects. And it is only because
of this recent extension of it that this clause is mentioned here. But
the enactment of a law of compulsory service was clearly an inroad on
the great constitutional right of every man to choose his own
employment. At the same time, it is equally clear that it was only such
an inroad as under the circumstances, was fully justifiable. It is true
that all danger of French invasion had passed away with Trafalgar; but
the kingdom was still engaged in a gigantic war, and the necessity of
the case--always the supreme law--was so little denied by the
Opposition, that their objections to the bill were directed entirely
against the clause for limited enlistment, and not against that which
abridged the subject's liberty, by compelling him to learn to serve his
country in war.

The reign of George III., which had now lasted fifty years, was drawing
practically to a close. The excitement caused by the ministerial changes
in 1801 had already brought on one relapse, though fortunately a very
brief one, of the King's malady of 1788; and in the autumn of 1810 the
death of the daughter who was supposed to be his especial favorite, the
Princess Amelia, produced a recurrence of it, which, though at first the
physicians entertained more sanguine hopes of his speedy recovery than
on any former occasion, he never shook off. More than one change of
ministry had recently taken place. In 1807 Lo