Military miscellany : comprehending a history of the recruiting of the army, military punishments, &c., &c / by Henry Marshall.

Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Military miscellany : comprehending a history of the recruiting of the army, military punishments, &c., &c / by Henry Marshall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    An Act, recently passed, recites that great frauds have been practised upon pensioners who have made assignments of their pensions to other persons than the overseers of the poor, and enacts, that if any person shall assign his pension to any persons, except the guardians for parochial relief granted by them, it shall be lawful for the Lords Commissioners to take away or suspend such pension. And if any person shall procure a pensioner to make an assignment, except as aforesaid, or shall receive ]>ayment for money or goods advanced to such pensioner upon any such pension so assigned, such person shall be guilty of misdemeanour, and be liable to fine or imprisonment. The act also empowers the guardians to attach pensions in support of the wife, children, or parents of a pensioner, if he desert them, and they become chargeable to the parish. Previously to 1754 the jxmsioners received their pensions annu- ally in arrear, but after that date they were paid every six months in advance, subject to a deduction of five per cent, to cover the interest and loss by death. Since 1315, they have been paid quarterly, subject to the same deduction. a.d. 1702.—Anne came to the throne, and war was declared against France and Spain. a.d. 1704.—During this year a Bill was brought into Parlia- ment, for the purpose of recruiting the army by forced conscription of men from each parish, hut was unanimously rejected, in conse- quence, as alleged, of being “ a ,copy of what was practised in France and other despotic countries,” and unconstitutional.— (Boyer’s Reign of Queen Anne, p. 123.) The Commons passed an Act in the same session, viz. 1704, which was frequently renewed, and which seems to have l>een still more despotic than the plan for recruiting in France, empowering Justices of the Peace to impress, for the land service, such men as were not entitled to vote for Members of Parliament; that is, the Justices of the Peace, or any three of them, might take up such able-bodied men as they were pleased to decide had no lawful calling or means of subsistence, and deliver them to the officers of the army. Pressed men were to receive 1/. each, volunteers, 4/. ; constables, or parish officers, were to receive a reward of 1/. for every man they pressed. By the Bill it was enacted, that “all soldiers that shall desert, cither in the field, upon a march, in quarters or in garrison, shall die for it.” “ Soldiers to be deemed deserters, who shall be found a mile from their garrison or camp without leave.” Persons enrolled might by this Act claim their
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