Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/367

 Hay: An Epitoviized History of the Militia 357 tion for the boroughs, as then proposed and as ultimately embodied in the act, still excluded thousands of occupiers of small houses from the Parliamentary franchise; and when the militia ballot for 1831 was taken, a number of North London Radicals, at the instigation of William Lovett, wrote across their schedules for the militia " No vote, no musket." When these men were balloted, they refused either to serve with the militia or to pay the £15 for a substitute. Lovett's household furniture was seized by the sheriff's officers. There was much popular commotion over the seizure. A petition to the House of Commons followed ; it was presented by Hume and Cobbett. In general the ballot for the Middlesex Militia in 1831 caused so much disturbance that the Whig government allowed the balloting to come to an end; although there are still on the statute-books laws that would admit of a return to the old system, there has been no balloting since 1831, and, as the South African War made plain, volunteer recruits for the militia as for the regular army are never lacking at a time of national crisis. Earlier stages in the history of the militia, especially in the eight- eenth century, could have been much more illuminated than they are in Colonel Hay's pages had he given as much care to the Parliamentary debates as he has given to the chronicles, the older standard histories, the papers at the Record Office, and the regimental histories. The archives of the English counties and boroughs also contain material of value concerning the militia, most of which is now available in the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission; and English biog- raphy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is not without matter which would have added to the human interest of some of Colonel Hay's chapters. Still, for students of constitutional history there is nothing in print which can be compared with this history of what Colonel Hay styles the " Constitutional Force ". The summary of the militia ordinances and laws from the reign of Henry I. to that of Edward 'VII., which covers just one hundred pages, in itself enables a student to trace all the changes which the militia has undergone ; to realize its local organiza- tion, how it was recruited, how officered, how disciplined, the varying length and nature of the service, how the force was paid, and the parts which king. Parliament, and lord lieutenants of counties have had in its economy. Much of the material which Colonel Hay has collected and arranged so well in these chapters, including as it does royal warrants, army orders, government orders, and War Office circulars, will appeal to students of social and economic conditions in England. So also will the chapters on the discipline, equipment, and clothing of the militia; while Colonel Hay's chapters on the arms of the militia, and his statistics of the aggregate strength of the forces at frequent periods