18
Here then is a class of men to whom it would be a positive charity to afford the means of settling in a healthy country, where they could easily obtain land or employment, and where, as in this country, they would have officers to pay, direct and superintend them, with merely the obligation in return of assembling for exercise at stated periods, so as to be available for purposes of defence. The cost of the removal and settlement of
• each man and his family, would not at the utmost exceed the pay of a soldier for a year, while in return the colony would obtain the services of one who was likely to prove efficient for purposes of defence for at least seven years on the average, besides having the male children to add to the militia of the colony, and supply the place of the father as they grew up. The mother-country too, would lose nothing as regards the services of these men, because I have already shown that they can seldom be included in the local companies; and it would gain in so far as their removal would relieve the already over- crowded agricultural population, and save much of wretchedness, crime, and disease among their numerous families.
There is another class of soldiers, however, among whom this system of location in the colonies might be introduced with still better effect, in so far as they are, for the most part, younger and more efficient men, viz., those formerly adverted to, who have completed the period which entitles them to a free discharge without pension, and having wives and families, may be anxious on that account to leave the army and settle where they can readily obtain the means of supporting them. Nearly all the men who, from this cause or a desire for liberty, accept free discharges in this country, very soon find themselves in a state of great destitution, and that their ideas of the advantages and comforts of civil life have been much overrated.
In a similar condition are the very numerous class who have been discharged for slight disabilities on a few months' pension, which soon expires, when they are left to pro- vide for themselves. Both of those classes have been long enough in the army to forget their original trades or occupations; they have acquired no knowledge which can be turned to account in the pursuits of civil life, and unless they have relations to support them, they are generally within a few months after their discharge to be found in the workhouse. Gladly would most of them rejoin the ranks they have inconsiderately quitted, but the rules of the service will not admit of their doing so. Soured by want and suffering, they become discontented and dangerous members of the community.
During the Repeal agitation in Ireland and the disturbed state of the manufacturing districts in 1842 and 1843, there were repated instances of such men exerting themselves in opposition to the authorities; and though perhaps they never had a pension, or were no longer in receipt of one, yet being known to have served in the army, they passed under the name of pensioners, much to the scandal and prejudice of that body.
Should the principle of free discharges from the army he carried to a greater extent than the present regulations authorize, as it is presumed must be the case, from the popular feeling on that subject, and in order to relieve the pension list, it will be absolutely neces sary to make arrangements for enabling such men to settle in colonies when they find the difficulty of maintaining themselves at home. A more dangerous class cannot exist in the heart of a community, than one sufficiently acquainted with the use of arms to instruct others over whom the Government has no such control, as in the case of pensioners, and who are driven by want and desperation to act as the leaders in all cases of popular
commotion.
By a careful calculation made at the War Office, the annual cost of each infantry soldier of
the line at home, including all expenses except extra pay and ultimate charge for pension, is shown to be 451. 9s. 3d.; whereas the expenses of settling a discharged soldier in Canada would at the utmost be only 401, as deduced in page 22.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
ائسنس
C.O.
Reference :-
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