"It has already been explained that the battalions of the line, which are stationed from time to time in the United Kingdom, are, generally speaking, amongst the least effective of any of Her Majesty's service. The evil is unavoidable, owing to the inefficient state in which regiments usually return home from colonial or other service abroad. Such, then, would be the description of troops to which the London duties would be assigned in the event of the household corps being disbanded. Moreover, it is the general rule of the service, that regiments shall change their quarters every year; but suppose an exception were made in favour of the regiments performing the London duties, and that such regiments were retained in London two years, instead of one, still what would be the consequence?--That just as they were beginning to be inured to the duties of the metropolis, they would be marched off, and be succeeded by other regiments, whose apprenticeship would then have to commence. Woe to this vast and opulent metropolis upon the day of riot or of actual disturbance, when the public peace and the protection of property shall be committed to raw and inexperienced troops; and all troops must be accounted raw and inexperienced (however high their qualifications in other respects) which shall have been nowise initiated in the peculiar duties which they are called upon to perform. Had the celebrated light division of the lamented Moore--had the famous fighting division of the gallant Picton, landed at Portsmouth at the termination of the late war, fresh from the fields of all their glory, flushed with the pride of all their victories, and thence been ordered to take the London duties--had they been accompanied with the cavalry brigade which La Marchant led in the onset at Salamanca, or by the cavalry brigade which Ponsonby headed in their charge against the column of 12,000 at Waterloo, I would have accounted the whole of those distinguished corps, from the moment they had crossed Westminster-bridge, as raw and inexperienced troops in respect to the duties upon which they were about to enter, so utterly different are the military duties required by the garrison of London from the military duties performed by the British army in any other part of the world. You are aware that no portion of my military service has been passed in the household regiments. I entertain no favour or affection towards those corps above that which I bear towards the whole army. I set no higher value, as soldiers, upon a battalion of Guards than upon a battalion of the line. It is solely on account of the apprenticeship they have served--it is because, in addition to their general duties as soldiers, they have been trained from their enlistment to the peculiar duties which belong to a London garrison--because they have been instructed in the delicate and the critical position in which they are often placed whilst on