The Sun.
London, England, 1855-04-26 00:00:00

PROMOTION IN THE GUARDS.

The following letters have been addressed to the
editor of the Times:—

Sir,—l shall feel much obliged by the insertion in
your columns of the following correspondence, the pub-
lication of which bas been rendered necessary by the
gross misrepresentations of Mr. Layard's speech at
Liverpool as reported in your paper.—l have the honour
to be, Sir, your obedient servant,
A. E. HARDINGE,
Lieutenant Colonel, Coldstream Guards.
15, Great Stanhope-street, April 25.

(Copy No. 1.
" 15, Great Stanhope-street, April 23.
"My dear Wilson,—l have this instant read a speech of
Mr. Lay aril's, delivered at Liverpool, in which he evidently
alludes to you, introducing my name in the following
manner -

" I will give you an instance of a friend of mine, a
gentleman who served throughout all those battles, and dis-
tinguished himself most signally. He came ovar to this coun-
try sick and almost dead. There were two men above him,
officers in one of the Guards' regiments, who had never
left England. They were members of high families, and
they were promoted without purchase ; but my friend was
a poor man, and they male him pay 3,000/. for his com-
mission ; and why ? Lord Hardinge's son was next to him,
and got his commission without purchase. (Loud cries of
' Shame ! shame !') I say these things are scandalous.'
" You are evidently the friend to whom Mr. Layard
alludes, and I am more openly declared to be the officer
who, as the son of the Commander-in-Chief, got my pro-
motion for nothing.
" I call upon you, therefore, as an officer conversant
with the rules of the service, to state whether the trans-
action can bear in the slightest degree the colour given it
by Mr. Layard.
" Your decision to purchase was uninfluenced by any
but what appeared your best interests at the time, and did
not affect your chance of obtaining your step without pur-
chase by the accident of a death vacancy; but you were
not prepared, like Dawkins and Strong, to allow a junior
(in their case Lord Dunkellin) to pass over your head, the
promotion coming in the usual way.
" Had you done so, I should have paid the 3,000 Z., taking
my place above you in the regiment, and you would have
succeeded to the vacancy caused by the promotion of Co-
lonel the Hon. A. Upton to be a Major-General.
" The mis-statement of Mr. Layard is so flagrant, by its
insinuations as well as by the perversion of its facts, that I
know you could not have been a party to it. Be so good
as to give me an early answer, as you know that my ar-
rangements are made to return to the Crimea.—Yours
truly, " A. E. HARDINGE."

(Copy No. 2.)
"62, South Audley-street, April 23.
" My dear Hardinge,—l regret that you have been hurt
by an allusion made to my promotion by Mr. Layard at
Liverpool.
" I frankly own I have felt, and still feel, myself to have
been more really entitled to promotion without purchase
than other officers whom circumstances had detained at
home, and whose length of service uid not equal mine ;
all toy friends, civil and military -Mr. Layard among them
coincided with me in this opinion.
"For my own part, I have always blamed the system of
these promotions, and am not disposed to censure heads of
departments, who. I believe, acted, as far as concerned me,
according to existing regulations.

" I world remark that I placed my name on the pur-
chase list when Dawkins and. Strong withdrew theirs, my
motive being the impossibility of obtaining my promotion
without purchase while two seniors were above me ; but,
had I imagined that Mackinnon's step would not have been
given me, I should have withdrawn my name from the
purchase list, taking the chance of Colonel Upton's retire-
ment from the regiment. Of course, I should have bean
influenced in this wise by financial views.—Believe me,
yours vary trury, " C. TOWNSEND WILSON.
" To Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. A. Hardinge."