The Express.
London, England, 1857-08-22 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, SATURDAY EVENING, AUGUST 22, 1857.

fortunes of the day, even with our present most in-
adequate force, might be at once turned in our favour ;
failing this, the best thing to hope is that we may at
all events hold our own till the arrival in India of
inch a British force as is demanded by the magni-
tude of dye crisis and the dignity of the empire
shall place within our determined grasp the restora-
tion of our dominion, and the gratification of our
just revenge. That our dominion will be restored, and
that the atrocities of this foul rebellion will have to
be wiped away in blood, every Englishman knows
and feels. .les,nwhile, one short question—is this a
time even for the most exhausted of Parliaments to
be dispersing in pursuit of partridges and grouse'

&ear SMITH used to say, "If you mean to
lemimer a book don't read it—it will only prejudice
re' The advice is worth remembering. But then
yea "lout take are not to reveal the fact that you
haw scarcely used the paper-knife. Unless we arc
mistaken, our contemporary the Times seems to have
adopted the advice, but to have neglected the caution.
It complains that the Report on the Purchase Com-
mimeo, with its Evidence and Appendix, contains a
greet deal of speculation but very few facts. The
apilion would have carried more weight if the writer
had only so far looked into the Blue Book as to swee-
ten who signed the Report—for we take leave to
inform rum that Mr. EDWARD Entree did not sign
it, bat intends to make a separate report of his own.
The truth appears to be, that our contemporary
hes read only the Report itself very cursorily, and
the evidence--except that :of Sir C. Taerstemr—
not at all. Now, this is really a little too bad.
The subjects one of the utmost importance. It
is one in which, we believe, the public feel the
deepe►t interest, and the strongest desire for further
information. Something indeed they know already.
They know ;from the history of the Crimean di..
asters that whilst the common British soldier is of
the best, and theregimental officers arc of the beet.
still military knowledge and experience are denied
their reward. They know that wealth and legu-
me* arc preferred to poverty and ability, that
some of the best officers in the service retire in dis-
gust, and that these lamentable results are due to
the system of Promotion by Purchase. We believe
that the public fully appreciate the feelings of those
noble-hearted mea who writhe beneath the
galling necessity of suffering themselves to be
superseded by officers, not because they are better
soldiers, but because they are richer men.
The idea of abolishing the Purchase System is, we
are told by some public instructors, all theory. Let
as consider the following case, the facts of which
are this stated by Sir COLIN CAMPBELL to the
Commission:—" There was an officer in tho With
Regiment, and my attention was called to the
sue by General PENNIWATHER. This officer had
bora promoted for service in the field, and he had
setae& his brevet majority. lie led the assault
at Ming Riang-foo, and though he became brevet
lieutenant-colonel, end was in command of
the SZith Regiment in the field, in the pre-
sence of the enemy, a young captain who had
just come out purchased over his head, and took the
command of the regiment, and he was obliged to
descend to the command of a company. This poor
fellow was killed in leading his company against
the Redan. His name was Lieutenant-Colonel
uouDT. The young officer was very young: and
la this ease • man of experience, who was fitted for
his peeitioa tre that particular occasion, and had
lewd Mord( a bold and intrepid soldier, was
soperemied be his command by one who, I dare
say, was wally so, but who did not possess
his ezporimee ; nor could that young man
have aommeaded the confidence of the soldiers
in the mew in which CUDDY had done from his
having",been frequently in the field with them and
having distinguished himself as a soldier." Surely
this is a fact, and • fact worth noting. Surely this
is a conclusive answer to that single argument in
favour of the Purchase System, that it accelerates
promotion. No doubt it does. It accelerates it by
promoting young wealthy boys over the heads of
tried soldiers, by excluding able men from positions
which they are thoroughly competent to fill, and
Obtruding into them youths who are utterly incom-
petent. If the aristocracy of wealth is still to govern
the British army, if the Purchase System is still to
subsist, at all events let it be improved. Have done,
as Sir COLLN CAMPBELL said, with this jumping over
each other's heads—this leap-frog system of which
poor CUDDY was the victim.
But it is said that whatever objections there may
be to the Purchase System, one thing is certain, that
under it we get an admirable class of officers ; and
then we are told to look at that army of 30,000 men
who have just embarked for India without •
murmur, though many of them will never return
borne, and many of them must lose by death the
whole, or the great bulk of their fortune.
Let us hear the evidence of that stalwart cham-
pion of Army Reform, who appears in the Report
as M. J. HIGLIN.,, Esq., but who, under the world-
giunous pseudonym of Jacob Osmium, is currently
reported to have sounded the attack against Com-
misatiers-in-Cliief and their Staff at the Horse Guards
se furiously as General JACOB ever sounded it on the
plains of Seinde.This eloquent writer was examined
by the Commission, and what did he say ? It is well
worth attending to : "The Horse Guards, determined
that every officer shall do his duty without shirking
when the regiment is ordered abroad, say—'No ex-
changing; you must sail or ull.' There is no mis-
take in the spirit of that rule ; every man is expected
to take his turn. But if you watch a regiment
Ihst goes out to India, you will find that in
died eighteen months or two years every man
tabhss uwaey or influence has exchanged back to
Dame. They do not come immediately, because
thee who are pretty nearly at the top of their
pis wait until they get their step, and then
limy exchange back to England, and leave the
poorer men to do the duty. Now for an instance :
The 43rd Regiment went to the Cape, and then at
te India. It was a Light Infantry Regiment, and
mar 'considered to be a very good regiment. When it
went to India there were eight or nine sons of Perri
in it, but in about IS months after it had been thew
only one eon of a Peer remained in it, and he 101
got an S attached to his name, having got GB
the Staff somewhere. I then looked bull Is
see what bad become of those men who
had thus evaded the wish of the Hem
Guards that they should take their tour of
Indian duty, and I found that nearly every one of '
them had fared much better by returning home than
if he had remained with the regiment. There was
one remarkable case —Lieutenant Onuanov,who was
the second lieutenant in the regiment; he com-
manded a company on board the Birkenhead when
she sank under the troops on board her. He
was all through the Kaffir war, and seven-
teen steps under him was Lord Erusee Celt,
who was second ensign; and Lord Ennotz CILCIL
remained out there till he became juice lieutenant;
he then immediately exchanged into a regiment in
England and was for so doing selected for • cap-
taincy in the Guards without purchase, by which he
not only outstripped Lieutenant GIRAILDOT, and all

the seventeen steps that he was below him, but he is
now actually several months senior to him in the
army—the one man having remained doing very dis-
agreeable duty, the other having come home and
stopped at home." This is no new case. It has
llsen long before the public. When a powerful
karma was advocating all sorts of army reforms, and
isooramsing the iniquities of the Purchase System, this
story of Lord E. CECIL was the great crucial case,
What change has passed over that journal we are
at a loss to understand. Certainly the list of wit-
nesses before the Purchase Commission shows that
the eloquent hand which was generally supposed
to have wielded a portion of its war thunders is not
yet paralysed.
The officers who have lately embarked for India
may be all of them most ardent soldiers—eager for
the Eastern fray—leaving England without a pang;
but such has not been the case always. Let us hear
Sir JAMES SIMPSON on the matter. lie is asked this
question: "It has been stated to the Commission
that when young men enter the army, as soon as
their regiment is sent upon any disagreeable service,
either in India or in the colonies, it is observed that
those young men who hare monsyshirk their duty, and
trytoexchsngewith otherofficers who are sent out in
their place ?" To which, after some little hesitation,
be replies:—" At Portsmouth a regiment was ordered
to the Mauritius, and I believe at the Horse Guards
it can be shown that nearly every officer of that
regiment wished to exchange, and I think that
Lord 111RDINGE was extremely angry about it."
The officerswent out. But Sirfmths adds : "I know
that one came home in the same ship that took hiss
out, after remaining in the Mauritius five minx
weeks." Again, Sir COLIN those:a.m., in answer to
a similar question, said : "I had one of the nicest
corps of officers when I was ordered out to China;
all them men embarked with their regiment, but as
soon as that service was over, and they had to remain
in a climate like that of China, most of them imme-
diately exchanged, and I lost all my young friends,
whom I so much esteemed." Such is the effect of the
system of exchanges—and that is part of the system
of purchase. If a man has purchased, he must have
the power of exchange. But then, if the climate is
deadly, and his fortune is embarked in his com-
mission, he must naturally, nay necessarily, desire to
return home. Is it credible, that if the three regi-
ments of Guards, the value of the commissions Ia
which amounts to 600,0001.., were ordered to Homy
Kong, they would not follow Sir COLIN CAMPBELL'S
friends if they could? But if the system of promo-
tion by selection were adopted, instead of promotion
by purchase, and if service in the colonies--severe
as it certainly is—were to have a special value
attached to it, not only would officers cease to desire
to come home, but they would eagerly pray to be
sent out. Let us not be deceived by the absurdity
" that it is good for an officer to know when he
lands on a pestilential coast, or enters into the battle,
that in hazarding his life he hazards also the future
prospects of those who are dearest to him." And
yet this is one of the necessary effects of the Pur-
chase System.

Tne horrible charge of murder on the high seas
just tried at Liverpool has resulted in a verdict of
guilty against HENRY ROCER.,,, the captain, and
WILLIAM MILES and CHARLES EDWARD SEYMOUR,
the first and second mates of the vessel. This ver-

diet the jury have thought tit to couple with a ro
commendation to mercy. To this recommendation,
for which no ground whatever is laid in the evidence,
we trust that the authorities of the Home-office, as
far, at all events, as HENRY ROGLIIS, the principal
culprit, is concerned, will show the most absolute
disregard. A more atrocious and appalling ease
of infernal barbarity it is utterly impossible for
the human imagination to conceiNe. It is a case

for justice and not for mercy; or rather it is a case
in which clemency to the individual would be cruelty
to a elsss—an unprotected and suffering class over
whose welfare the executive government of this
country is especially bound to watch. There is no
body of men more liable to gross tyranny and brutal
violence than the mariners in our merchant sere ice;
there is none whose safety and comfort ought to be

en object of such paramount care to the government
of the greatest maritime and mercantile community
in the world. Unless a signal and terrible examine
be made of such monsters as this HENST Ittn.rits,
the annals of our mercantile marine will continue to
teem with instances of oppression and crime that
make the blood curdle, and the heart stand still in
an icy trance of disgust and horror.

So loathsome are the details of this atrocious crime
that nothing except a strong sense of public duty
could prevail on us to reproduce them. Even as it
is, we must refuse to pollute our pen with some of
the unspeakable horrors whose recital sickened even
the least squeamish hearer in that Liverpool amigo
court. The narrative we present is a bare outline of
the facts proved, but it is enough—more than
enough—to above that no mercy can in justice be
extended to the principal perpetrator of this enor-
mous gait. ANDREW ROSE, the murdered man,
shipped at Barbadoes as an able seaman on honed
the nartha Jane, on the 29th of last April,
for her return voyage from llarbadoes to
Liverpool. The man, when ho joined the vessel,
was to all appearance hale and hearty, but he was
not strong in his intellect, and, from the unavoid-
able effect of an internal malady with which baba
been for some time afflictcd,was the reverse of cleanly
in his habits. This was the immediate occasion of the
brutality which caused his death. No sooner had he
come on board the ship than for some trifling often°s
he was beaten severely. The ship was then in har-
bour, and the man, resenting the ill usage, ran
away. He was brought back and put in irons till
the ship sailed. The day after she sailed the beet•
lags recommenced, and from that time till within lees
than a week of his death there was no day on which
he was not repeatedly beaten severely with a rope's-
end, and flogged, till the blood flowed, with a whip.
" I saw him," says the witness 'Nome.: H vvv, whose
evidence in creswexamination was not shaken even in
the minutest particular, "I saw him dogged every
day by the three prisoners. Never a day passed that
they did not flog him. I saw him flogged ten or
twelve times daring one day by the prisoners, or one
or other of them. He wasfrequessay flogged while
in irons." He was deprived of every rag of clothing,
and compelled to go about the rigging for days ab-
solutely naked. He was allowed no rations hut
bread and water. The poor wretch was in the habit
of endeavouring to solace his misery by singing
incoherent fragments of hymns. The noise die-
limed the captain. An iron bolt was forced as a
gag into the poor ereature's mouth, and bound tight
with spun yarn round his head. In that condition
he was left for an hour. "There was a dog on
board,"saysTuonas HATS " I have seen the captain
set him at Rose. The dog bit deceased on the leg
and arm. I have seen the blood flow." " I have seen,"
says another and equally uneentradected witness,
" the dog fly at the deceased, and take pieces of flesh
out of his thighs, arms, and feet." The appetite for
cruelty in them atrocious miscreants grew more
rabid with what it fed on. The day after the in-
fliction of the iron gag, a still more infernal form
of torture was resorted to ; the head was keocked
out of a cask ; ROSE was forced into it naked.
mangled, and bleeding ; the cask wee fastened up

.gain, and for twelve hours the wretched being was
weaned in that vile durance, on the shelterless
deck, under the unrelenting blaze of a tropical sun,
with the open bunghole for his only breathing
place. He cried for water ; ono of the sea-
men gave him some; the chief mate, on hear-
ing of it, declared, " if he Knew who gave
it, he would rope's-end the man." Obviously the
force of torture could not go much further, and the
end of the man's horrible misery was at hand. The
captain one day called out to HAYS, " Come and
make a hangman's knot, and we will hang host:."
The reply of HAYS WU, " I cannot make a hang-
Nan of myself." " I then," says the witness, "saw
the captain get a rope, and make a timber hitch ;
that is such a hitch as is put about timber. lie put
it round ItosE's neck. The two mates were assist-
ing ; they hitched Bose by the neck off the deck,
and he hung suspended by • spar for two minutes."
"The face of the victim, while hanging," says
another witness, " was all blood-red, with his
tongue hanging oat, and his eyes starting
from their sockets." " When he was lowered
again he fell on his back and lay like a dead man."
This was the final atrocity. The poor wretch never
rallied. That night he was in a state of raving'
madness; eight days after he sank exhausted, and
just as the vessel sighted Cape Clear his mangled
and swollen corpse was dragged by a rope to the
ship's side and flung into the sea.
Such, with certain aggravations too revolting for
mention, were the leading facts proved against
Itocitas and his accomplices at the Liverpool trial.
The witnesses gave their evidence with perfect
simplicity and straightforwardness : a searching
cross-examination failed to elicit any semblance
of inconsistency or exaggeration. And this miscteant
a jury of Englishmen have recommended to
mercy. Mercy! why it makes one's very blood boil
to hear the word profaned in connexion with atro-
cities so merciless. Mercy! yes, the same mercy
that ho meted out to his victim is all that ought
to be to this abominable culprit. That instinct
of wild justice which all the conventions of civili-
sation cannot utterly put down, irresistibly impels
every honest hearer of this vile story to regret that
the law, even if carried teat to the very uttermost,
can only punish, and not retaliate. Rapid extinc-
tion at the hands of CALeurr is but a poor requital
for the protracted tortures under which this miscreant
worried the life out of his defenceless victim. But
merry—the remission of the death sentence—would in
this case bean unpardonable weakness. An example
—a terror-striking example—must be made of this
fiend in human form, if there is to be hereafter any
security for life and limb for our mariners amid the
silence and solitude of the MS. The brutality of
masters and mates, both in the British merchant ser-
vice and that of the States, has long been tending to
a climax. The climax is reached. It is time for jun-
the to interfere with all her salutary terrors. In
certain classes of crime we have no great faith in
the efficacy of deterrents. Where the man lives by
crime as a profession, he will not be frightened out
of its pursuit by penal awards ; but such crimes as
those of liEntv RooEos are precisely of the class
in which deterrent punishments are most efficacious.
As the law stands, this brute's life his been mast
justly forfeited. In mercy to an oppressed class of
meritorious and defenceless men, we &Aland that the
law should take its course.

LORI) PALMERSTON'S reply to Mr. WILLIAMS'S
question respecting the political refugees in England
is perfectly satisfactory. Lord PALMERSTON says
that no application has been made to the English
Government for the expulsion of any of them. This
is true; the demeanour of Lords Pautralsros and
CLittzstroz, when en attempt was made to ap-
proach the subject, was sufficient—no application
was made. In politics as in love, an icy manner
can nip definite overtures in tho bud. Not the
less true is it that several French diplomatists
—and we fear also some English once—have
spoken confidently of the readiness of the Cabinet
at St. James's to comply with the wishes of
the Government at the Tuileries., in the vain
hope of intimidating M. LEDRU ROLLIN, and
inducing him to betake himself to the United States.
Lord PALMERsTON has, with the high spirit of an
English gentleman, and the brave bearing of a
British statesman, embraced the first opportunity
that presented itself to show the world that he will
not incur the risk of being even suspected of counte-
nancing such a shallow intrigue. Ile gives the
Emperor of the FRENCH and his Councillors to un-
derstand that the English Government cannot for a
moment entertain any proposition for the betrayal
of political exiles who have entrusted themselves to
the traditional hospitality of England. The Eng-
lish people and Government have the ability
as well as the will to extend to political
miles that protection which even the much
Mr powerful Government of Switzerland was reso-
late to extend to Prince Louts NAPOLEON in the
days of his adversity. Nor will the English people
sad Government be mystified and prevailed upon to
abandon their hereditary policy in this respect by
sham trials and plots concocted under the auspices
of police emissaries.

M. LOUIS BLANC ,tleD THE THEORY OE TTRAN-
NWIDIL—We have been permitted during the past week to
look over some proof sheets of the ninth velem of M. Louis
"Maury of the Revolution," which incidentally
furnish a decisive reply to certain charge* recently circulated
with ineitetriewi malice against the republican refugee* in
this country. The following are the reflections with which
be ecreludes the chapter devoted to Must and Charlotte
Corday We may here repeat, in conclusion, and with all
the authority of the facts jut detailed, what we have
already mid in another work—that smassination is • mistake
aa well sea mime which ought to be left to aristocrats said
tyrant'. When Henri 11. allures the Duke of Guise into the
Chateau de Blois and cause' him to be strangled by the
heaves of the ante-chamber, when the royalists attempt the
life of Napoleon by an infernal machine—these are crimes
worthy of these who commit them, but denvoereey rehires to
be waisted thus. Such means an essentially opposed to its
genius and principle. For who can, without presumption, ar-
rogate the right of setting himself as an avenger of liberty eras
the Nemesia of destiny, in the Om of • whole people,
almost in the place of history P The stroke of • dagger is
usurp:ties. Where ie the power answering to that monstrous
right. What; then the hest corns by ftg his arm may
change the course of historic laws. Any man in the street
by pulling the trigger of • pistol may convulse the world I
No, it is not moved thus. Evil, when it exists in the midst
of • society, springs from a vast number of cause., amongst
which the existence of an individual, however powerful he
may be deemed, has only an accidental preeeminenee. To no
man is accorded the honour of holding a people. I ire in his
own. Begging pardon of Pescara shade, it appears to na
that he he. wantonly degraded humanity in making the fate
of the universe depend on the length of Cleopatra's nose.
Tits occasion is only the engem of the cause, but we too
often confound the one with the other. We think to destroy
tyranny by destroying the tyrant. Vein thought Evil,
whenever it exists, la at the root of things.. It does not exist
because it has • representative, it is rrpreeente,l because it
waste. You have stabbed Cterrl He reappears in the
more terrible form of Octavio,. Have you compelled Nero
to commit Feticide? You do not recaps %%left's. Mast
expires bathed in blood. Bee !Leber' succeeds. It avails
nothing to destroy the pereanifteation when you leave un-
touched the principle personified, which always finds instru-
ments for its work."—Leader.

FAILURES IN lavEnroor..—On Thursday the sus-
penaion wail announced of Mr. J. H. Hayes, corn-broker,
Liverpool, and yesterday that intelligence was followed by
the reported failure of Messrs. Buchanan, Brown, and Co.,
produce brokers, with liabilities to the amount of 300,0001.
This latter failure is mid to be owing, In soma measure, to
one of the ms es referred to yesterday.—Tbeem.
ST. JAMES'S PALACE, AUGUST 20.—The Queen
has bean pleased, on the nomination of the Right Hon. Lord
Foley, to appoint William Walker, Req., open( her Majesty's
tionounible Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, via Champion,
nand.