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 Lord Grenville had been compelled, as Pitt had been in 1801, to choose between yielding his opinions on the Catholic question or resigning his office, and had chosen the latter alternative.  He had been succeeded for two years by the Duke of Portland; but in 1809 that nobleman had also retired, and had been succeeded by his Attorney-general, Mr. Perceval, the only practising barrister who had ever been so promoted.  And he now being Prime-minister, and, as such, forced to make arrangements for carrying on the government during the illness of his sovereign, naturally regarded the course pursued in 1789 as the