Star. — London, England, 1811-06-19 00:00:00

L t i ' believed that front that system much harm an d p ro , perform with precision some pact of Ms exercise, con- of regimental courts martial. The statement of the juice arose to the, army. Why should mot rewards ' demned to the hospital : of this ph rase , acondem- desertions was exaggerated. The Hon, Baronet had - be given for chivalrous feats of bravery, as well as ned to the hospttal," it may be necessary to give apparently concluded that the whole number of 859 punishments bestowed for relaxation or departure some explanation to those who were accustomed to desertions implied so many individuals. This was a from discipline. There should be rewards to actors- amide an hospital as a pl a ce w h er e the diseased mistake, for the same individual sometimes deserted pany a notable exploit. Persons got familiarised in were / estored and the indigent assisted. The Military live or six times belbre he could be finallrprevented. witnessing of cruelty, and the good effects which Hospital in the Tower Wilt a place to which refrac- —lf the army were accustom d to make sppeaL to :night have arisen from it were lace in feeling for the individual. The Gentlemen of Britain were accus. tory or unskilful soldiers were sent, and placed upon Parliament, some trifling abuses might be corrected, a diet consisting of a twopenny loaf, a pint and a but the army would be gone. Where. vas the sub tomed to eye cruelties which the Gentlemen of, half of milk and water, and a pint and a half of stitute for the present system ? Imprisonment was other parts of Europe seldom beheld. In Regi- . a thin gruel, known by the name of digygolee, per now part of it. Capital punisl.ment might be used ; menus 'regulated in discipline, by that barbarous diem, for the procuring of which ten.pence a day but was it to be said that there was to be no mulish practice, there was scarcely a petty crime, he had - was stopped out of their pay, and against the ener- ment, except capital, for the higher offences ? been informed, but what had its punishment in %Pacing effects of which he was sure that no vigorous Mr. BROUGHAM regretted that the actual state lashes,and which created frequencyof desertion. A sop. man in the prime of life could bear up, much less an ment of that motion seemed to have totally escaped dier had been flogged and deserted that same evening; individual worn wilt age and infirmity. He had seen the Honourable Member, whose speech was much his honour was injured and he had no better means the veteran, to whom he had alluded, following the more like a prepared anticipation of a speech ex of resenting it. The returns of the Army in Ireland, corporal on whose irsas he was dependant. fruitlessly pected, than an answer to one made. The cases a Inch for 1811, evidently shewed how fatal the system of soliciting pardon or his involuntary offence; and his Honourable Friend had adduced had been ob. chastisement was ; the 37 battalions had at the rate after the drill broke up, he was present at a conversa- jetted to, but be would not trouble himself about of nine to each of them flogged and they all deserted. tion which f urt h er enhanced the pain which his feelings those cases. He was satisfied with spewing from the And by his curious mode of calculation he proved flog that there had been no lees' thkn four millions of had sustained : one old man complained of a p ain in p rinci p le of reason and law, that the s y stem of his side, another of a pain in his head, and they all ging was unwise. This was the object of the motion, lashes bestowed in Ireland for one year. Men had looked as it they were much fitter for the couch and the and nothing relating to any particular case ;he was all allowed, that none were ever amended by punish. arm-chair, than to be made the subjects of an barns - . only anxi o us t o bring the ouse to a pledge that it ment, but many spoiled by it. 'When man was once sing and, so far as it regarded them, most useless duty. would proceed on the subject next Ses,ir n. The Judge degraded by such punishment, he falls from his rank An observation of the old man condemned to 144- Advocate had spoken of his amendments and theef in the scale of existence, and never recovers his particularly affecting :on its being remarked feces he expectedfrom them. But what was t he chan g e r strength and alacrity. By such modes we weakened Roles was yoneef his comrades t h at t h ey wou ld h ave go t th i The Mutiny Act had, since e Revolution, allowed and disabled our Armies. A Military Gentleman away sooner if it had not been for old Woollaton, lof a latitude of punishment for higher offences: and j had told him the effects which punishments had on he exclaimed—" Well, thirty years ago, I could i a court-martial might sentence to imprisonment oar. the East India soldiery, where mortifications and have done it as well as himself, meaningNs judge, ; flagging. Bythe Valsection of the Act. ,a court-martial' ' frequent deaths ensued from the practice, and that the yoting corporal." - He (Sir Francis had spoken could go to anyextentof punishment that did not injure : at the Cape of Good Hope they suspended punish- individuals of the battalion, who had l life or limb. There was of course no change in the ' anent from the mortality it occasioned. The mode , with man y of , stated, that they would be quite willing on gett in g I law ; or if the Hon. Member said there was an y punishment adopted was an excellent one ; they a blank discharge to renounce any other reward to change, he said what was not law. The law allowed sentenced men to labour, without any extra pay, at i which their services might have entitled them ; and latitude of corporal punishment , and imprisonment the construction of roads, and other objects of uti. ihe could not help thinking when this circumstance was such. If i t wa s still vbe insisted that there was pity. Soldiers, he proved, from the opinion of a Ge. : was considered, that the words " ingrata ' , atria" would a c ha ng e, it must reduce itself to a hint to Courts Demwere i somewhat prone to punish, not.expected to be capable for duty in three months after heavy form no inappropriate motto, if added to the inscrip . m artial, that the y mi g ht look rather more to im p ri. tion on their breast-plates, designating the number of sonment than they had done. But all this was feeble. chastisement, and that they went about most me- their battalion and the length of their service. He Flogging for mutiny, &c. would continue to the lancholy and dejected creatures ; the _ General ad. hoped he would not be $ thou ht unwarrantable in I amount of eight or ten hundred lashes, and the change . . . . WhY witted, in his usual careless manner, that they had to drop the system of the borse-whipping to save the men. It could not be too much reprobated that un feeling levity with which punishments were spoken of. He was assured, that were the soldier sent to labour at the King's works without extra pay, he would be contented. It was the opinion of General Co!born that no man ought to suffer more than one thousand lashes. But• in inflicting of these, men had to wear smock-frocks to hinder the flesh and blood from be fouling them inthe horrid execution.—(No, se Hear, bear!)-Hs was happy to find the House was affect. ed by his true. statement. He was assured from the humanity which the House indulged towards the negroes, it would incline them to feel for their own fellow subjects, who were liable to severer punish. ments. Good God ! never was such cruelty exer cised on a negro as on an English soldier.—(Hear, gear.)—lt Was once that punishment only belonged to a few, but the system had overspread the land; the son behe ldl his father, and the father his son, hastened alike to flogging He hoped that Gentlemen would, for their own sakes, assist in destroying such a punish ment. Soldiers should be nourished up to a high sense of honour ; but the British soldier, though un der the most free Government in the wOrld, _possess ed not all tbe . advantages of that freedom. When a man, tyinglainting and wounded in the time of bat. tale, tu► his unconquered mind to think that his enemies would find the marks of dishonour on his ' back, what must be the affliction of that ' brave man's heart ? Had Ministers freed the brave army from the cruelty of punishment they would have saved much obloquy from other nations. Sir R. Wilson wrote from Russia that the Russian Mi. nister of War said, in the presence of the Emperor, ' that the finest sight in the world wis a British parade, and the most frightful spectacle was the camp. The editor of The Stamford News might have been indicted for libellin' the Russians, when he said our punish. making a statement which would be supported by officers of high rank in the service, and for the purpose of getting rid of a system disgustful and irritating to the feelings of the country. He hoped he should not have marshalled against him the monstrous argument — that because our soldiers act with such heroism under the existing system, that therefore it should remain unaltered. It was true nothing could ex. ceed the conduct of our troops ; they felt that they had to support the honour of a free country, and when they came before the enemy, all other ideas but that, even the thought of the shameful punishment to which they were subjected, fled from their minds.— He would not take up the time of the House in an swering this argument, which he was ashamed to an ticipate. He conceived that the House, by the alter ation they had assented to in the Mutiny Act, :tad sanctioned the principles he had endeavoured to in culcate ; and he trusted they would now acknowledge the necessity there existed that as long as it might be expedient to continue the system, so long those who reduced it to practice should be strictly controuled, and that measures should be taken with as much promptitude as circumstances would permit for its final abolition. He would move— " That an humble Addeo, be presented to his Royal Wimp the Prince Renew, paying that be would be graciously pleased to tab into consideration the practise of dogging now prevalent in the army, and that he would be pleased to give orders to the officers commanding reghnents, directing them to adopt such measures u they Might deem most efficient for metralning and flatly abolishing that ignominious mode of punishment." Mr. MANNERS . SUTTON admitted the import ance of the subject, but must think the statements much exaggerated. The very object proposed was -already attended to, so far as was consistent with the military policy of the country, and could be made useful or manageable. It was unfair to speak of the effect of the law, until it had been tried : from the produced by the amendment would be nothing. was not the amendment introduced into the first Sec. tion, and made adequate to supersede capital punish ments, as the only thing that could be superseded by the amendment ? The Courts-martial having already had power of imprisonment for inferior offences, would find their powers neither increased nor diminished by this alteration. Taylor's case was of small interest compared with the general question, He had lately expressed himself s'aongly in abhorrence of the flog ' ging of negroes, a race less connected with us than the objects of the motion. Why not, whet: it camenearer home, and among a gallant and manly race? The spec tacle of a military flogging was one of the most horrid; and that, not on the testimony of persons of peaceful habits, buton the authority of officers ((located in the view of them. But those were the very men who talked of them in the most powerful I.lnriag.,. The representations of those officers would have been an swered, if they were capable of being answered, but they were not. They had given their names in the face of the whole army If any thing could have been said, there were vents ; pens .enough to vindicate J A . cruelty. That the punirshmene-was . irtliltilnioits was on ' t ie testimony of officers of no common tinctioft, General Stewart, Sir Robert Mum, and General CoCkburn. Fogging turned the indigna tion of the crime, against the punisher. Why a rezular was not torture a regular punishment ? Except a dictum, and a solitary passage in the Bill of Rights, there was nothing about the abolition ref torture, because it never was the lawof--England. On the trial of Fenton for the murder of the , Duke of Iruckngliam, there was an attempt to examine by torture, but the Judges declared that it could not be administered by the law of England. That law prohibited any unusual and cruel punishment. The punishment was not merely obnoxious as not reclaiming the cul prit, but as an offence to public decency. His Hon. Friend had been called on to point out a substitute r ......aoing ._ , ___ aunts were equally cruel. The perseverance in the lateness of its enactments, it had not been fairly tried. ' for flogging. The law had done it already, by system of corporal punishment remained to be ac- Even now, frequent applications had been made to pointing out imprisonment. There were other modes counted for, when considered along with the wonted him to know kow far the usual punishment might of making discipline secure, such as deprivation of generosity mil feeling of the nation. The troops of not be commuted for imprisonment. Instances of pay and restraint of food. But now we took the 'France were ooetished up in a high sense of honour, cruelty had been spokeirof. If these were brought ,• wretched victims down from the triangles, an object and rose rapidly in military fame and their o ffi cers in forward distinctly, they would meet investigation, for the dissecting room or for the hospitals, to be preferment, for they had no Acts of Parliament to hire- and receive punishment. It was to be observed, hung up again, and receive another such punish der their advancement. We have talked from viewing that the object of the whole motion, the Local , ment. TI .Duke of Gloucester thanked his Lieu things in quite opposite lights. When we spoke of the Militiaman, was omitted. From th e mode in whic h tenant-Colonel for not having had a single flogging victories and triumphs of our soldiers, we proudly the statement of that case was originally made,' in his regiment in two years and a half.—(Hear.) voted the thanks of the House to their valour, we some enquiry had been necessary, and the result —W as t h ere an y d eca y o f discipline on that account? gave it as the reward of honourable men, but when was the following statement :—The recruits had been 1 The practice was ruinous to the soldier. He lost his they were punished we lost sight of their honour and assembled some days before the main body of the I spirit, feeling, and character. The motion should treated them as slave[. Were we to treat a beast as regiment, and there was a natural tendency to die- have his support. we do a soldier we would have our brains beat out Is / order. There were some reports that the mens' bread i Lord PALMERSTON spoke at length against the bye.standers. While Frederick the Greet of Pros. ; was bad, and the Colonel sent for the contractor to' the motion. sia considered man-as a machine only to be moved direct him to give better. The contractor asserted . Mr. WHITBREAD reprobated the system of by a stick, he experienced in his very first campaign ^ that the bread was good, and it was sent to the mess- punishment which had been adopted in our army, and 95,000 desertions. The King than inculcated more table to be tried. The officers were all of opinion that highly panegyrised the Dukes of Gloucester and humane sentiments, and his soldiers proved in vic. 6 it was of the propel , quality ; but the Colonel not Grafton, for their discountenancing it in their Teepee tory how much they valued his kindness. The Ger. leaving it even to this, sent some to the Inspecting r i ve regiments. Save this one black spot, he knew of man soldiers were not near se severely handled, and General, who pronounced it good. The regiment no taint upon the honour of our army. the German troops in Britain wondered to find them. arrived in small parties, and some of those at night 1 Mr. YORKE opposed the motwu, and was in selves Germanised. Various were the modes which rather intoxicated. The clamour against the bread clined to think, chat during the Honourable Baronet's his Majesty's Officers had tried to correct the trifling was kept up by these people; and loaves were found stay in the Tower, he had been picking up stories failings of the army, which created the derision of fo- kicked about the streets, a proof that there was no from the old soldiers, and they really had played the reigners, who not unfrequently drew laughable pic.; attempt to try the bread. After this, the words" sour old soldier on hon. tures of the curious systems of punishment which were bread, and other insulting expressions, were chalked Mr. W. SMITH spoke in favour of the motion. to be found in Britain. By the articles of war, a man upon the walls—placards were hung up—the officers 1 The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER could be confined but for 8 days, yet two instances were hissed down the parade—and still the ringleader thought the House ought not to put any faith in the had come within his own knowledge, while confined could not be found. The officers, however, were i statement of the Honourable Baronet, who had gone in the Tower, of this assigned period being overstaid. anxious that something should be done ; the spirit ! about collecting old stories, which, the moment they One individual was confined for sixteen, and another was ton dangerous to be passed over, and it was im- were stated, were falsified. for 31 days ; and he could further state, that of the ,witant to find out who was the exciter of the t u t.' M r . ADAMS an d Si r H. MONTGOMERY veteran battalion which did duty in that f ortress, in- Tayl or wrote the son g of which so much had , spoke against the motion. dividuals had received to the amount of 55,000 lashes sa id, and exhibited himself as a p rominent person.— • ( Mr. C. HUTCHINSON supported the motion, during the period of six years, while i t had been under H e was p unished ; not for the son g , as was absurdly and vindicated the discipline of the French and Rus. the command of Colonel Cooke. He could not help said, but for the pat t which he had taken. His pu- sian armies. adverting to the very different mode of treatment to nishment was partially inflicted, and he acknowledged , Sir FRANCIS BIJRDETT. in reply to the Chan. %illicit we thought proper to subject our veteran sol- its leniency in the presence of the surgeon. Some of cellor of the Etchequer, said, that kir lack of aril, u - diets, and the very different uses to which we applied Taylor's comrades had come into the room, and were ment he had recourse so the vulgar expedient of itu them, from shat was the practice of the Romani- reproaching him with faint heartednese. Taylor told pstiiig motives. —We learned from Cesar, and other ancient wri- them, and repeated it to the surgeon, that he now . The House then divided,Ayes, 13. Noes, 94. tees conversant in military matters, that the veteran was satisfied that without discipline, subordination I • Lovlllllol l a DIMICIE SILL. soldiers were considered by that people as the most could not exist, that the sentence was Merciful and ! The Howe went Into *Oesonatttee ea Loveden's Divorce Eill accordingly, valuable part of the army, and treated and his punishment lenient. That was enough as to the ea which a very protraerbd discussion took piece, and it Iv.. &lag always assigned the post of honour, ex- b e otherstatements o f th e H onour ,. finally weed that the woman should hose asi mouity of EsO • cruelty. As to t s _ _ .....—_. Report was brought up, sad the BM read . exaggerated. Some N t ; b r ity t * in : kr enipted from all that might be . termed the dru d gery a ble Baronet, he hoped they w ere . ta _ arts . . le passed. of military service. Ho arose from w different the lot of of those casesg leo I Adjourned at Three o'clock till this day. ourPt Met! ._ . . detail of veierans was might be ascertained from the . which of tours! could not come within his ( M r. .. what he had had the opportunity of witnessing. He S utton • cor ssione the y might be' '• d slims us STOCKS THIS DAY A I ONE O'CLOCK. °e) $ but eareasose had seen an old man, worn out in the service, for k no . A fro days ago. the Duke of York ellimcmci c , spi ter,rt:me. Keened 113-4 per Ct. Ten some trifling omission, or -rather for his 'mobility to that a sepias Teta= should be made of si,-,..e11i . .._flr Irian, IH4-oenstiure if dia. NM lii. es. pee —llasills 14a. per. 8.5.111.1.11 r. . . , . . . • • • • THE EVENING STAR. • - *:: LONDON. WEDNESDAY. JUNE 19. The report at Windsor yesterday. was, That the KING was a little better. The Catholic Question was negatived last night, in the Howe cif_Lords, by a majority of 121 to 62. A great deal of firing has been heard again on the coast of France, occasioned, as is suppmed, by the b.iptism of the King if Route, on Wednesday last. French Papers to the 12th instant, which were re-' ceived last night, state the arrival of MassaNa and !Amman at. Paris. They also contain the following military report : s TO MU IMGDNESS TS MIMICS Or DIAGRAM AND NRII/CDATRI. " Ealamixea, May 14. " Monseigneur—l had the honour to give an l'e count to your Highness, in my last dispatches, of the success which the army obtained on the sth of May, over die right wing of the English army. The eneniy bad employed the night between the sth and the 6th, as well as the Last of these days, to entrench the centre of his line, which the army threatened in flank by its position after the attack. From that mmrtent he has i laboured incessantly at his trenches. The attack of these works was difficult. Considering also that the garrison o f Almeida had pmvisions for only ten days, mend that I could give them a supply fur_ only a few days more, I thought it my duty, under these cir cumstances, to give orders for exploding the mines which had been prepared two months ago, according to the instructions of your Highness ; and to direct General Brenier, who commanded the fortress, to conic and join me. Several days were necessary for charging the mines. " On the morning of the 7th I caused my troops to make some movements, in order to keep the enemy in that state of alarm which he discovered by the assiduity of his labours, and I made a chew of recon noitring all the approaches to his line. " On thellth, I improved my position, continuing to occupy the village of Fuente d'Onolo. The object of these dispositions was to make the enemy fear a movement en the centre of his line, or on one of his flanks. He therefore kept himself the whole day in a mass, under arms, and in continual manizuvres. " On the 9th the army remained in the same posi tions;and my reconnoitring parties felt the whole of the enemy's line. The English never shewed them selves beyond their rocks and entrenchments; they shewed by all sorts of defensive arrangements, how nitich they had been intimidated by the vigorous at. tsitk of the sth. " On the 10th, at m id night, the mines of A Ipteida were sprung; 5 bastions and four half-moons were entirely thrown down and the fortificationsd.±stroyed. General Brenier displayed as much talent as intrepidity in the conduct of this affair. He retired with his garrison upon Barba del Pnerco, where he joined the lid corps, overthrowing all that opposed him.' " The operation which had put the army in motion being thus terminated, it has recited wits tamonments. --"- I beg yotif Highness to lay before kis Majesty the good conduct of the officers and soldiers on this occasion, and to solicit the bestowal of the different rewards which I demand in my ulterior reports. " I am, &c. . (Signed) " MASSENA, Prince of Essling." TORBAY, JUNE 17. flailed his Majesty's ship ANTELOPE, with the trade for Newioundland.Wind East. l'. PLYMOUTH, JUNE IT. The ROTA frigate sailed last evening to blockade Brest.—Came in the Ranger cartel, 'from the Isle of France, last from Mor'Aix. The wind still continues fair for arrivals from the Peninsula. Two transports have arrived from Co. runna, with a few foreign deserters from the French army ; but they bring no news from that quarter.— Three sail of the line have been in the offing to th! eastward ever since yesterday evening, but not ne enough to give their numbers ' • they are supposed to be the Caledonia, Fame, and Revenge, from Ports. mouth, bound is the Mediterranean.—Several tram.- ports, with horses, arumunition, and stores, are wait ing for a shift of wind to sail tor the Tagus.—Several light transports have returned from the Tagus; two of them left the Tagus the 6th instant, but they bring' no account of any new military movement, nor any other news worth notice. POW FSMOUTH, JUNE IL Arrived his Majesty's ships NATADEN from the Downs, and DERWENT from Guernsey.—Sailed his Majesty's ships Cyane, Portmahon, Thracian, Gan nette, and Woolwich, with the trade for Spain, Por. tugal, and the Mediterranean ; the Atcsanz, with a convoy for Guernsey, &c. ; and the Costar, with ditto .for Newfoundland.—Wind Southerly. DEAL, JUNE ix. Arrived - the BEAGLE sloop of war, from a crnize off the French coast. Wind E. SHEERNESS, JUNE 18. Arrived the Lauristina, from the River Thames ; Ind the Cheerful cutter from the Northward, and caste into harbour. YARMOUTH, JUNE is. Yesterday, P.M. arrived from a cruise the ACUTE and HAVOC gun-brigs, and Dwaar cutter; and the Danish privateer Oden, (stoop-rigged), with two carriage-guns and small arms, Captain Lars Nelsen Dal, taken by the Algerine cutter ; the privateer had not made any careers; and this morning arrived the Frederick ; Christian Kass; Dawes; Princess Louisa; Pegetta Christina; • and the Forseyta' aden, leaden with corn and dry reeds, sent in by his Majesty's ships CaIAR and ALOCR rms.-1 1 / 4 110i god Johan& Maria, ivith corn, sent in by his Majesty's ship DAPONer and the Victoria, with corn, sent in by his Majesty's ship Ilea cuares, being part of about thirty sail detained vessels by the' Noitk Sea cruizers. The fire in Bury-street, St. Mary-Axe, was not got under till between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, but we are happy to hear that no lives were lost. The fire burnt &fun the houses of Mr. Le Batts, Dr. Shannon, Dr. Van Novan, Mr. Abra ham M:lleda, Mr. Daniels, Mr. Smonda, and Mx. anJ considerably daniaged several others. I :Chose who know Bury -street, will be able to form an Lica of the extent of this destructive fire, when we state that a full third of it, on both sides, is nearly levelled with the ground. Coast MARCIT, lows 19.—This day we hike several fresh arrivals or Wheat ;.not much in request—fine 4sniples hard.y it last prices, interior rather give way. Barley in plenty. 4.1.6 4.hcaper, and almost unsaleable. Mak rather lower. Very few White Peas, again higher, and a rising article. Beans of each sort -t little variation. There are considerable quantities of Oats, 1.14 _ales thereof nearly support lea prices. Rout as before. EP 1111