The Express.
London, England, 1849-03-23 00:00:00

had se pummel iatcrest to consult. The boa. member gen-
'hided by swig tor espies of the_ townsman. In the court
ef inquiry aid the wart-martial held at Asset in the year
1644,1 n dre ease of the alleged madmen of the 6.h Reel-
mat et Madras Light Cavalry, sod of all rososausots and
emempudenee »leave thereto, or to the punishments or
nemmematione ell the punishments, of any each mutineer' ;
end abe el the Madras pay regulations and the Native
Mutiny Ate.
Sir J. C. HOBBOUSE said that whin he saw the notion
mid* bed hem originally Rims he was in hops that the
beg. psimmea would net Krieg beware' this qoesticn. Per
the many years that he had hem in parliament he did am
Welk that he rembected a sloe* instance in which the pees
ilemilep of &swat martial ei her in England or in Indialmil
hem IM aubjem Om inquiry Were a committee. In thb
bahmee, the inquiry was Is 1843 and the court-martial in
OM; and why wee it that this transaction, if it was me
semmirous had hitherto slept ? Why had not the indigna-
tion wide: was be universal in ladia reached this country ?
He thought he could explain to the House of Commons
why it was chit, after having slumbered and slept it had '
ban brought for card on the present tension. Although
the pada who gave the hon. member htformeteet might be
mug reeptetable gentlemen, yet the hon. genilernaa must
punk him to remind him that the commencement of this
Week en the Marquis of Tweeddale bream with the prose nta-
done a petition to the House of Commons, which being re-
ferred to the comsat:tee that sits on petitions, the same
petition was found to be so Itbellnus that they refused to
Vi-e it epos the table of the bouts. It was perfectly true
that the hole gentleman had, wi h • wisdom for which
he
was to be applauded, proceeded upon the statement, aster
as the house knew, of the petition, but it was his (Sir J.
Ilebhoesee) duty to state to the house, in defence of the
Marquis of Tweeddede, what he believed to be the case—
els., that had it not been for come unfortunate trareettion
which to k plue with respect to the petitioner (Mr. Mal-
Ulm Lewis) the house would not have beard of this transac-
tion. There was acme unfortunate difference between the
Marquis of Tweeddale and Mr. Lewin; that gentleman,
having been in several places of high trust in Madras,
having been made a member of the council, being in the
erjoyeuntof consideration i i the presidency, end against
whose private character he had cot a word to say, pursued a
course of conduct which forced him (Sir J. Hobhetaee) to
perform a most painful duty, he was rtmoved from the pre-
visiesal council of Madras, end was ohLeei to quit India.
This was the plain and unvarnished statement of the facts as
to this gentleman, the petitioner against the Merqu's of
Tweeddale. If the bon. gentleman who had brought forward
this ter, chooses on any future occasion, to e ill fog paper., it
would be his (Sir J. liebhm en's) psiuful duty to present
papers signed by tte gentleman, which would be a full Juni-
dead= for the souse pursued by the Marquis of Tweeddele
end the Court of Directors and the Board of Contra,. The
hog. gentleman's statement was founded almost verbatim
on the statement made by Malcolm Lewin. He had told
the hon. member privately what he now self publicly,
that he was confident there was no case, and
that the movieg of this matter trieroated from a
great deal of private feeling. Having said this with reference
to Mr. Lewin, who first presented tee petition to the house,
which cold nut be printed on account of its libellous matter,
he would advert shortly to the statement made by the hon.
gentleman. H. held in his baled the rotund ord. r which
the Marquis of Tweeddale published on the 2nd Nov., 1844,
in which he found an hitherto uncuntradicted report of the
whole of this transaction. The room why them men could
rot be tried at the time their mutinous conduct took place
was this, that a great pori in of the whole regiment was im-
plicated in the transaction, in consequence of the disappoint-
ment arising from the b stta question ; also, because they
we re stationed, not in the Madras presidency, hut Bengal,
and it wan thought it would not be right that they rhould be
there tried and marched into the presidency to which they
belonged. At the time the tranvei ion was geiog on, it was
expected that • general .slice wail take ,place, which
did shortly after take place, • i., the celebrated battle of
Gwalior. If an immediate inquiry had tak-n place
it would hove been nece-sa-y to have had the artillery on
the ground to take tte orders of the rommeneer-in-chief,
for it was not certain it might not be necessary to fire upon
rat ne In this sta'e cf things was it not right that the regi-
ment should be removed from the scene of confu,ion ; end
th it before the inquiry took place it should be in such a quar-
ter that the result of the inquiry could do:no mischief? As
to the time that had elapsed he greets d that it was a misfor-
tune. The mutiny was one of the mod value character.
It embraced not only the tritratts but a great number of the
native officers. Secret oaths were taken, meetings were
held; there was a pciseive refusal to go upon the line of
march; they would not parade upon duty; ti ere was the
violation of all duty, without which it was impossible that
any dbeiplin• could be maintained. Was 't not rather an
awkward time to make these complaints against tee mode in
which military discipline was 'maintained in ladui ? If it
were true that toe Marquis o Tweeddale was guilty
of injustice, and tyranny, and cruelty —if that
cou'd be prom d, an I the hon. gentleman bail moved only
for the paper,, it would have been a prectudiog more con-
formahle to common usage. Was this the time that any man
*yawed with so high •eh trader as the Marquise( Tweedd to
could be guilty of that with which the non. gentleman
charged Liu, ? The rial tut of the ca e was just the con.
trsrv. The Marqitii of Two dale w. s too much of • gallant
Iseldier to lee a cruel men, and too ho- (nimble to s: ift fres
himself the mponsikility which fairly belonged to him.
There were no less teen 13 men condemned to be executed,
end of these 13 the 111 irquis of Tweed !ale re quired the exe-
cution only of two, and they were the two who had ad-
ministered theme Memel oaths, or who had endeavoured by
combination to destroy all discipline in the army, and to
march back this regiment to a quieter where it was
to be headed by a seneadar or subah.lar of its owe,
He thought it Emit bu char to any disputionate judgment,
teenier*, that under the ere-guests, ens of the ease, no
unnecessary severity of punishment hid beta visited epos
these men. (Hear, hoar.) He deemed it a fortunate thing
that this case was one of no recent occurrence. It was
almost untiteeesi.ry for him to remind the house that the
first repriseutatious upon the subject were %dile seed to the
home government, at a period when it was proddi d over by
the right hon. b 'rout opposite, the member f.r Tamworth.
Now, although he (Sir J. Holthoute) had not at that time,
of course, any official coonezion with the ministry of the day,
yet from torend r aseccietions mid old tonne:lens with the
government of India he naturally felt a pr -at interest in
the affair, end took ewe, at that time, to inesiode inquiries
into the particulars in querten which he thought the most
likely to furnish him with the desired info-rotten. The re-
cite of those iemuirb a bad satisfied him tbat the v ewe which
be had ever mime ente liaised upon the state of those trate-
actions were cornet, He bellied he was not mistaken in
affirming that the home government Of that period referred
the case for Lis opinion to the Dake of Wellington. He held
in his hand a copy of the minute which his grace the Com•
mander-ie-Corof thereupon had drawn up ; and without occu•
eying the ti me of the house by reading extracts fr sot it,he would
only remark that teat distinguished personage had handled
the question with all that clearness, precision, and sound
judgment which he was so well known to bring always to
bear upon any military topic. There were many others in
the regiment who were moved to have been guilts of acts
of decided intubordination ; but the 13 whose offences bad
been aljw'grd to amount to mutiny en re condemned by the
court-martial to death. The minute adverted to the fact
that mane of these parties had been sent down to take their
' turns, in the rs g meat, of certain duty after the inquiry bad
taken place ; and it seemed to be assumed thet they must
have tad :amen, * r flee, to supped' that no sentence would
be enforced against them. But it seemed very doubtful whi-
ther they had at any time done anything more than mount
guard about the tent of their commanding dile -re There
was no pretence to assert—and he b -leered no evidence of
the feet—that, in all the interval which elapsed before the
execution of the capital sentence on the two mutineers con-
demned to death, they were brought under fire. Had
they been brought under Sr', the Duke of Wellington ad-
nti ted that, in the event at the question having been re-
ferred to him, it would have been the inc Minion of his mind
to recommend them as objects of mercy. But this state
of things could not be pleaded as their ease. (Hear.) He
did not think it necessary to go much further into this
distrissing subject. (Hear, hear) Well, it was a
distressing subject, though not to him in par-
ticular, except in so far as he regretted that the hon.
gentleman from whom that cheer had just now
proceeded should have thought fit, at a period like the
present, to bring forward a motion of so untenable and so
mischievous a chsraeter. For his own part, he must certainly
object to the production of the panes moved for. (Hear,
' hear.) He believed it was not very often indeed that the
minutes and proceedings of courts martial were ever called
fortis that house, and they were certainly never laid before it
except on grounds of far more weight and expediency than
any which the hon. gentleman had been able to assign in
telling for those now in question. It most be assumed—and
he thought it only (fair to amume—that military courts
generally administered military law with fairness and impar-
tiality; nor could he be brought to believe, except upon
the most clear and positive evidence, that British officers,
in high military stations, had any such political tendencies to
exercise the authority with which the law invested them,
in dealing with offence. of this nature, with such unnecessary
harshness or tyranny as should induce the house to support
an application like that before them, which went to revive,
before parliament, the proceedings of a case so long by-gone,
without any adequate reason stated to justify such an appeal.
The pardons granted to the other parties who had been
proved guilty of mutinous practices were extended to them
at a subsequent period, simply on account of the good con-
duct afterwards manifested by them. It wee thought neces-
sary after justice bad been done upon the two criminals, who,
in addition to specifie acts of personal mutiny, had been
detected in administering oaths to their comrades, binding
them to refuse discharging their duties or rendering obe-
dience to their officers in future, and thus attempting to
debauch the fidelity of whole regiments, that the pending
sentence* against the other parties should be tempered by
mercy and unsideration manifested for those who by their
ennfwelens had not been drawn into the sadb malpractices.
Upon these grousds, then, he could not consent to the pro-
elution of the papers.
Mr. J. O'CONNELL thought that no clearer evidence
could be adduced of the weeknem of the case which the go-
vernment hod undertaken to vindicate than that the right
hon. "mamas (Stir J. C. Hobbouse), with all his Im
talent, mold make out no better one this he
to establish in excuse of these proceedings. It
woe Vle press upon the house the length of time whisk
me
ia
hod dapapilviore this grave complaint had pressed It.
te the eser of parliameat. That delay was quite
sommated for by the general inattention or Mdilltemme
'Mit was paid in England to Indian affaino mid Vero
meummy lapse of time that would always interemi
sashislets—from so distant quartere—muldmeelt their
dsedmmliil.. But there was one ispetest pad In the
elm gawkish the right hon. member's sposibledseltinshei
at a& Thew hole ethos* contempt ame=aillegat
beams they had bees puled by eel net
coanitutad according to the articles of sir. Asti& ex-
pressly required that no comet-martial should be competent