THE VOLUNTEERS IN CASE OF REBELLION. [To THE EDITOR OF
THE " SPECTATOR."] 11th December, 1865. WHILE reading Lord Eicho's very foolish and unfair speech about the Jamaica massacre a thought entered my mind which appears, from setae remarks in your last number, to have visited you also. I mean as to the possibility of our Volunteers being
'employed as an instrument of coercion in another Peterloo. But
can they be so employed ? I have been under the impression-
' : and, right or wrong, I know it is the prevailing one—that the English volunteers can only be called upon to repel an actual or threatened invasion ; and I can imagine nothing more certainly ' fatal to the popularity, if not to the very existence, of our volun- teer army than its liability to be called out for putposes of repres- ston.
But if the English volunteers cannot be called upon to act against their countrymen, how is it that those of Jamaica are allowed to do so ?
To say that Lord Elcho has made a silly speech is only to vary the form of announcing the fact that he has spoken. But he has raised a question which ought to be answered, and I will beg 'you, Sir, to reply to it. This question is, whether the volunteers of this country or the British colonies can legally be called out to repress a riot? And if not, how it happened that the volunteers began the troubles in Jamaica by firing upon the mob ?—I am, Sir, [Our correspondent is right. The Act gives power to call out the volunteers only in case of "actual or apprehended invasion of any part of the United Kingdom." We knew that this was the general understanding with the volunteers, but imagined that some latitude had been given to cover the case of a rebellion in one part of the kingdom demanding the use of the volunteers to supply the place of soldiers on garrison duty in another.—En. Spectator.]
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