Commissaries

Accounts.

the Place of his Discharge than the Place of his original Enlistment.

XLIX. And be it enacted, That all Commissaries upon to attest their making up their Accounts, and also upon returning from any Foreign Service, shall make the Declaration described in the Schedule to this Act annexed; which Declaration, if made in any Part of the United Kingdom, shall be made before some Justice, and if made on Foreign Service, before the Officer commanding in chief, or the Second in command, or the Quarter Master or Deputy Quarter Master General, or any Assistant Quarter Master General of the Army to which he shall be attached, who shall respectively have Power to administer and receive the same.

Issue of Pay of the Army.

Penalty for Disobedience by Agents.

L. And be it enacted, That no Secretary at War, Paymaster General of the Army, Paymaster, or any other Officer whatsoever, or their under Officers, shall receive any Fees or make any Deductions whatsoever out of the Pay of any Officer or Soldier in Her Majesty's Army, or from their Agents, which shall grow due from and after the Twenty-fifth Day of April One thousand eight hundred and forty-five, other than the usual Deductions, or such other necessary Deductions as shall from Time to Time be required by Her Majesty's Regulations, or by Her Majesty's Order signified by the Secretary at War; and every Paymaster or other Officer having received any Officer's or Soldier's Pay, who shall unlawfully detain the same for the Space of One Month, or refuse to pay the same when it shall become due, according to the several Rates and agreeably to the several Regulations established by Her Majesty's Orders, shall, upon Proof thereof before a Court-martial, be discharged from his Employment, and shall forfeit One hundred Pounds, and the Informer, if a Soldier, if he demand it, shall be discharged from any further Service; provided that it shall be lawful for Her Majesty's Secretary at War to give Orders for withholding the Pay of any Officer or Soldier for any Period during which such Officer or Soldier shall be absent without Leave, or improperly absent from his Corps and from his Duty; or in case of any Doubt as to the proper Issue of Pay, to withhold it from the Parties aforesaid until Her Majesty's Orders shall have been signified by the Secretary at War.

LI. And for enforcing a prompt Observance of the Rules and Orders for the due Appropriation of the Public Funds applicable to Army Services, and in order that a true and regular Account may be kept and rendered by the Agents for the several Corps, be it enacted, That the said Agents are hereby required to observe such Orders as shall from Time to Time be given by Her Majesty under Her Sign Manual, or by the Secretary at War, or by Her Majesty's Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, or by the Lord Treasurer or Commissioners of the Treasury; and if any Person, being or having been an Agent, shall refuse or neglect to comply with such Orders in relation to his Duty as Agent, or shall unlawfully withhold or detain the Pay of any Officer or Soldier after the Space of One Month

10

after

after the Receipt thereof, he shall for the First Offence forfeit the Sum of One hundred Pounds; and if still an Agent, for the Second Offence be discharged from his Employment as an Army Agent, and be utterly disabled to have or hold such Employment thereafter; or, if he shall have ceased to be an Army Agent, shall for the Second and every succeeding Offence forfeit the Sum of Two hundred Pounds.

6

billetted.

LII. And whereas by Petition of Right in the Third Year How and where ' of King Charles the First it is enacted and declared, that the Troops may be People of the Land are not by the Laws to be burthened with the sojourning of Soldiers against their Wills; and by a Clause in an Act of the Parliament of England, made in the Thirty'first Year of the Reign of King Charles the Second, for granting a Supply to His Majesty of Two hundred and six thousand four hundred and sixty-two Pounds Seventeen Shillings and Three-pence, for paying and disbanding the Forces, it is declared and enacted, that no Officer, Civil or Military, nor other Person whosoever, should thenceforth presume to place, quarter, or billet any Soldier upon any Subject or Inhabitant of this Realm, of any Degree, Quality, or Profession ' whatsoever, without his Consent, and that it shall be lawful for any Subject or Inhabitant to refuse to quarter any Soldier, ⚫ notwithstanding any Warrant or Billetting whatsoever: And whereas by an Act passed in Ireland in the Sixth Year of the Reign of Queen Anne, intituled An Act to prevent the Disorders 6 Anne. (I.) ' that may happen by the marching of Soldiers and providing Carriages for the Baggage of Soldiers on their March, it was enacted, that no Officer, Soldier, or Trooper in the Army, nor the Servant of any Officer, nor any Attendant on the Train of Artillery, should at any Time thereafter be allowed any Quarters in any Part of Ireland, save only during such Time as he or they should be and remain in some Seaport Town in order to be transported, or during such Time as there should be any Commotion in any Part of Ireland, by reason of which Emergency the Army should be commanded to march from any Part of Ireland to another: But forasmuch as at this Time, during the Continuance of this Act, there is and may be Occasion for the marching and quartering of Regiments, Troops, and Companies in several Parts of the United King'dom of Great Britain and Ireland,' be it enacted, That it shall be lawful for all Constables of Parishes and Places and other Persons specified in this Act in England and Ireland and they are hereby required to billet the Officers and Soldiers in Her Majesty's Service and Persons receiving Pay in Her Majesty's Army, and the Horses belonging to Her Majesty's Cavalry, and also all Staff and Field Officers Horses, and all Bât and Baggage Horses belonging to any of Her Majesty's other Forces, when on actual Service, not exceeding for each Officer the Number for which Forage is or shall be allowed by Her Majesty's Regulations, in Victualling Houses and other Houses specified in this Act (taking care in Ireland not to billet less than Two Men in any One House, except only in case of billetting Cavalry as [No. 4. Price 2d.] specially

D

specially provided); and that they shall be received by the Occupiers of such Houses in which they are so allowed to be billetted, and be furnished by such Victuallers with proper Accommodation in such Houses, or if any Victualler shall not have sufficient Accommodation in the House upon which a Soldier is billetted, then in some good and sufficient Quarters to be provided by such Victualler in the immediate Neighbourhood, and in England with Diet and Small Beer, and with Stables, Hay, and Straw for such Horses as aforesaid, paying and allowing for the same the several Rates herein-after provided; and at no Time when Troops are on a March shall any of them, whether Infantry or Cavalry, be billetted above One Mile from the Place mentioned in the Route; and in all Places where Cavalry shall be billetted in pursuance of this Act, the Men and their Horses shall be billetted in one and the same House, except in case of Necessity; and in no other Case whatsoever shall there be less than One Man billetted where there shall be One or Two Horses, nor less than Two Men where there shall be Four Horses, and so in proportion for a greater Number; and in no Case shall a Man and his Horse be billetted at a greater Distance from each other than One hundred Yards; and the Constables are hereby required to billet all Soldiers and their Horses on their March in a just and equal Proportion upon the Keepers of all Houses within One Mile of the Place mentioned in the Route, although some of such Houses may be in the adjoining County, in like Manner in every respect as if such Houses were locally situate within such Place; provided that nothing herein contained shall be construed to extend to authorize any Constable to billet Soldiers out of the County to which such Constable belongs when the Constable of the adjoining County shall be present and undertake to billet the due Proportion of Men in such adjoining County; and no more Billets shall at any Time be ordered than there are effective Soldiers and Horses present to be billetted; all which Billets, when made out by such Constables, shall be delivered into the Hands of the Commanding Officer present; and if any Person shall find himself aggrieved by having an undue Proportion of Soldiers billetted in his House, and shall prefer his Complaint, if against a Constable or other Person not being a Justice, to One or more Justices, and if against a Justice, then to Two or more Justices, within whose Jurisdiction such Soldiers are billetted, such Justices respectively shall have Power to order such of the Soldiers to be removed, and to be billetted upon other Persons as they shall see Cause; and when any of Her Majesty's Cavalry or any Horses as aforesaid shall be billetted upon the Occupiers of Houses in which Officers or Soldiers may be quartered by virtue of this Act, who shall have no Stables, then and in such Case, upon the written Requisition of the Commanding Officer of the Regiment, Troop, or Detachment, the Constable is hereby required to billet the Men and their Horses, or Horses only, upon some other Person or Persons who have Stables by this Act liable to have Officers

and

and Soldiers billetted upon them; and upon Complaint being made by the Person or Persons to whose House or Stables the said Men and Horses shall have been so removed to Two or more Justices within whose Jurisdiction such Men or Horses shall be so billetted, it shall be lawful for such Justices to order a proper Allowance to be paid by the Person relieved to the Persons receiving such Men and Horses, or to be applied in furnishing the requisite Accommodation; and Commanding Officers may exchange any Man or Horse billetted in any Place with another Man or Horse billetted in the same Place, for the Benefit of the Service, provided the Number of Men and Horses do not exceed the Number at that Time billetted on such Houses; and the Constables are hereby required to billet such Men and Horses so exchanged accordingly; and it shall be lawful for any Justice, at the Request of any Officer or Noncommissioned Officer commanding any Soldiers requiring Billets to extend any Routes or enlarge the Districts within which Billets shall be required, in such Manner as shall appear to be most convenient to the Troops; provided that, to prevent or punish all Abuses in billetting Soldiers, it shall be lawful for any Justice within his Jurisdiction, by Warrant or Order under his Hand, to require any Constable to give him an Account in Writing of the Number of Officers and Soldiers who shall be quartered by such Constables, together with the Names of the Persons upon whom such Officers and Soldiers are billetted, stating the Street or Place where such Persons dwell, and the Sign, if any, belonging to those Houses; and it shall be lawful for Constables to billet Officers and Soldiers in Scotland according to the Provisions of the Laws in force in Scotland at the Time of its Union with England; and no Officer shall be obliged to pay for his Lodging where he shall be regularly billetted, except in the Suburbs of Edinburgh.

near Westmin

ster.

LIII. And be it enacted, That the Officers and Soldiers of Billetting the Her Majesty's Foot Guards shall be billetted within the City Guards in and and Liberties of Westminster and Places adjacent, lying in the County of Middlesex (except the City of London), and in the County of Surrey, and in the Borough of Southwark, in the same Manner and under the same Regulations as in other Parts of England, in all Cases for which particular Provision is not made by this Act; and the High Constable shall, on Receipt of the Order for billetting Soldiers, deliver Precepts to the several Constables within their respective Divisions, in pursuance of which the said Constables shall billet such Officers and Soldiers equally and proportionally on the Houses subjected thereto by this Act; and the said Constables shall at every General Sessions of the Peace to be holden for the said City and Liberties, Counties, and Borough respectively, make and deliver to the Justices then in open Session assembled, upon Oath, which Oath the said Justices are hereby required to administer, Lists, signed by them respectively, of the Houses subject by this Act to receive Officers and Soldiers, together with the Names and Rank of all Officers and Soldiers billetted on each respectively,

in billetting,

8 VICT. which Lists shall remain with the respective Clerks of the Peace for the Inspection of all Persons, without Fee or Reward; and such Clerk shall forthwith from Time to Time deliver to any Persons who shall require the same true Copies of any such Lists, upon being paid Two-pence per Sheet for the same, each Sheet to contain at the least One hundred and fifty Words.

Military Of LIV. And be it enacted, That no Justice having or executficers not to act as Justices ing any Military Office or Commission in any Part of the United Kingdom shall, directly or indirectly, be concerned in the billetting or appointing Quarters for any Soldier in the Regiment, Troop, or Company under the immediate Command of such Justice, but that all Warrants, Acts, or Things so appointed by such Justice for or concerning the same shall be void.

Allowance

to Innkeepers.

LV. And be it enacted, That the Innholder or other Person on whom any Soldier is billetted in England shall, if required by such Soldier, furnish him for every Day on the March, and for a Period not exceeding Two Days when halted at the intermediate Place upon the March, and for the Day of the Arrival at the Place of final Destination, with One hot Meal in each Day, the Meal to consist of such Quantities of Diet and Small Beer as may be fixed by Her Majesty's Regulations, not exceeding One Pound and a Quarter of Meat previous to being dressed, One Pound of Bread, One Pound of Potatoes or other Vegetables, and Two Pints of Small Beer, and Vinegar, Salt, and Pepper, and for such Meal the Innholder or other Person furnishing the same shall be paid the Sum of Ten-pence; and all Innholders and other Persons on whom Soldiers may be billetted in England, except when on the March and entitled to be furnished with the hot Meal as aforesaid, shall furnish such Soldier with Candles, Vinegar, and Salt, and shall allow them the Use of Fire, and the necessary Utensils for dressing and eating their Meat, and shall be paid in consideration thereof the Sum of One Halfpenny per Diem for each Soldier; and the Sum to be paid to the Innholder or other Person on whom any of the Horses belonging to Her Majesty's Forces shall be billetted in England, for Hay and Straw, shall be Nine-pence per Diem for each Horse, and in Ireland the Sum to be paid for Forage to the Innholder or other Person for Horses billetted by virtue of this Act shall be the Rate established by the Lord Lieutenant or other sufficient Authority from Time to Time, the same to be regulated by the Average Rate of Contracts for Forage in Ireland; and for the Use of Stables in Ireland, when such Horses are provided with Hay and Straw by Contract, and not by the Occupiers of the Houses on which they are billetted, the Sum of Four-pence per Week for each Horse shall be paid; and every Officer to whom it belongs to receive or who does actually receive the Pay for any Officers or Soldiers shall every Four Days, or before they shall quit their Quarters if they shall not remain so long as Four Days, settle the just Demands of all Victuallers or other Persons upon whom such Officers and Soldiers are billetted, out of their Pay and Subsistence, before

any