The Sun.
London, England, 1837-04-14 00:00:00

1826, and struck off the list in September of that year,
without inquiry, and without having been'made acquainted
with the charges against him. Gir George Cockburn in-
duced him to accept the situation of gunner. Now, if he
was not fit to be a Lieutenant he was not fit to be a gunner,
which was a very responsible situation. He accepted it, in
the hope that he might be afterwards restored. In the
next case, that of Lieutenant Thomas Williams, he got no
copy of the case against him till five years after he was
struck off the list. He totally denied the charge, and as-
serted that Collier himself, the solicitor who brought it
against him, was also ready now to deny it. The last case
was that of Surgeon Wm. Boyce, who was declared a bank-
rupt in 1817. He owed his agent at the time 561. The Com-
missioners said that it was to be considered in the seine
light as any other debt in his schedule, and lie was accord-
ingly discharged. He was, however, deprived of his half-
pay. Why were officers of inferior rank to be subjected to
so severe an ordeal, while the Admiralty, as he could
prove, entirely overlooked far more serious charges in a
higher quarter. He did not impute the blame in these
cases to the present Board of Admiralty ; but why should
they father the conduct of the former Board ? If lie
should be hard driven, he would prove, by cases which
would astonish the House, that the rich and the poor
were not treated in the same way. He claimed the
support of the Noble Lord the Secretary for the Hume
Department, who, upon two occasions, when the question of
Orange Associations was under consideration, said that
no man's case should be decided on without having pre-
viously given him a hearing. If the Noble Lord did not
support him upon this occasion, he would never support
the consistency of the Noble Lord in that House. Allu-
sion had been made, upon a former occasion, to the case
of Mr. Booth (as we heard it), a purser, one of the most
respectable men in the service. This gentleman had some
reason to think that he had not received all to which he
was entitled while serving in the Mediterranean under
Lord Exmouth. He applied to that Noble Lord for a
certificate, who furnished him with one, signed " Ex-
mouth." He immediately called him back, and sub-
stituted the word " Pellew." He presented it to Mr.
Croker, then Secretary of the Admiralty, who called him
back, and said, " This is a forgery, and you are a forger."
He was going to knock the Secretary about the head, as
would naturally occur to an honourable, high-minded man,
were it not that Sir George Cockburn came to his assist-
ance. He was struck off the list in consequence. Sir
Matthew 'White Ridley threatened to bring the matter
before the House, and the consequence was that this gen-
tleman was restored, by an Order in Council. He would
also claim the support of the Right Hon. Baronet (Sir J.
Graham), who laid down the principle that in cases of this
kind ❑o man should be condemned without a hearing.
Mr. ROBINSON seconded the motion. If the
prerogative in such cases wus exercised with the advice of
Ministers, Ministers ought to be responsible. He saw no
reason for refusing inquiry except the mere technical one
that these officers not being o❑ full pay could not be tried
by court-martial. It would be easy to substitute some
other tribunal of officers.

Mr. C. WOOD opposed the motion. In all the cases
mentioned the parties had an opportunity of stating their
case before a fair tribunal. That House was not the
place to adjudicate them in. He believed it was not
denied that the King, by his prerogative, might dismiss
officers of the navy and the army. There was this
difference between the two branches of the service, that
the King delegated the whole of his prerogative to the
High Court of Admiralty, but did not do so as re-
garded the army. The House knew that there was a
class of offences qualified under the designation of ungentle-
manly conduct. When charges of this nature were made
against officers on the full pay they were tried by Court
Martial. It was not the case as regarded officers on half
pay. The Admiralty had the power to dismiss officers on
half-pay. He would admit, however, that in all such cases
as those alluded to by the Gallant Officer there would be
just ground of complaint if no inquiry was made into them,
and if the parties were not called upon for explanation.
So far as he knew, the fullest and fairest inquiry was made
into all the cases now brought before the House. He
would refer only to one or two of them. The first case
was that of Commander Edwards. He was called upon
to state his case. He did so, and the Admiralty was not
satisfied. He was, therefore, struck off the list. With re-
spect to Lieutenant Milner, it was not true that he had no
half-pay due to him, when he gave the power of attorney.
If his offence had been known soon enough he would have
been tried by a Court Martial ; but he had been so long
on half-pay that that course could not be resorted to. As
to the case of the next mentioned officer, he had not been
removed from the service without trial, and the explanation
he had given had not been by any means satisfactory.—
( Hear, hear, hear.) With respect to the case of Dr.
Williams, it was one which had been so frequently before
the House, that he did not consider it necessary to go into it
on the present occasion; and in the case of Mr. Bee, to whose
correspondence with Sir G. Cockburn allusion had been
made, no satisfactory explanation had been afforded the
Admiralty to induce them to act differently from the course
they had pursued with regard to him. The lion. and
Gallant Member had alluded to the case of a Mr. Booth,
but he (Mr. Wood) must beg of the House not to take that
for a matter of fact which they only knew from the state-
ment of the party himself.—(Hoar.) Mr. Booth had not
been hastily struck off the list. The document supposed
to have been forged purported to be a letter from. Lord Ex-
mouth. Mr. Booth was dismissed on the 24th of March ;
on the 29th Lord Exmouth's letter in reply to a communi-
cation made to him was received by the Admiralty, and the
very next day a letter was sent off to pray that his Majesty
would be pleased to allow the Admiralty to repair the error
and injury they had committed.—( Hear.) Those officers
who had been removed from the service had been struck off
upon the strength of reports made by officers competent to
judge of their cases. They had, he believed all been guilty
of swindling in this manner, viz , drawing their half-pay
after having given warrants of attorney to other per-
sons to receive it, or after signing affidavits that they
would not receive it. The House had the best se-
curity as to the competency of the tribunal before
whom the conduct of those persons had been examined.
(Cries of Hear, hear, and No, no.) Let them look at the
case of Mr. Bryant: An important witness, no other than
his (Mr. Bryant's) own brother, had come forward, and
stated that the evidence he himself had given was false.—
(Hear.) The truth of that statement had been ascertained,
and on that very ground the officer in question was restored
to his former rank.—(Hear,) All the officers who had
been removed had been called upon to give explanations of
their conduct, and in some cases those given were not sa-
tisfactory, and in others none had been given at all ; and
the natural consequence was their being struck off the list
—(Hear, hear)—on the ground that the real effect of grant-
ing the motion would be a call for the production of all the
evidence in the Admiralty for many years back, for the pur-
pose of retrying these cuses, and as he thought that a fair
trial could not be had before a tribunal which he now con-
sidered incompetent, he should most decidedly oppose it.
Mr. AG LIONBY had heard nothing in the arguments
of the Hon. Secretary to the Admiralty to warrant his re-
fusal to produce the Returns moved for.—(Hear, hear.)
The real state of the case was, that there had never been
any trial at all—( Hear, hear)—at least nothing worthy the
name of one. There never was a case of greater hardship
and injustice than that of Mr. Rowland Millner. Talk of
the honour of the service ! Was it for the honour of the
service that the evidence taken before a harsh tribunal like
the Admiralty was never laid before the parties accused ?
—(Cries of Hear, hear.) The Honourable Gentleman
the Secretary to the Admiralty said there had been in all
these eases the fullest investigation, and that they had
had every opportunity of' clearing themselves. He (Mr.
Aglionby) would assert that the investigation had been a
secret one—(Hear)—and before a tribunal that exercised
the power with which they were invested most harshly.
With respect to Mr. Millner, the first notice he ever re-
ceived from the Admiralty was in a letter from Sir John
Barrow. He was accused of having borrowed 121. from
one Solomon Alexander on the security of his half-pay,
having already drawn that half-pay. If that was really
the case, then the sentence passed upon him was a just one.
But the allegation was made, let it be remembered, in 1810,
and the investigation only took place in 1831. It was
proved that Solomon Alexander was a money-lender of the
lowest description, and had gone under false names.—
(Hear.) Did the Hon. Secretary mean to say that Mr.
Millner had ever been personally examined, or that he
(Mr. Millner) had ever so much as seen the letter in
which he was accused to the Admiralty? Had Alexander
been personally examined?—(Hear.) If so, then his
(Mr. Aglionby's) observations at once fell to the ground ;
but if not, then he would say was it just that
an officer should on such weak grounds as these
be removed from the service ?—(Cheers.) Mr. Mill-
ner denied having received his half-pay at the time,
• and wrote to the Admiralty to that effect. The reply lie
received from Sir J. Barrow was, that he had laid his letter
before the Lords Commissioners, and that they had autho-
rised him to say that they could not comply with the re-
quest contained in it. He wrote again to Sir J. Barrow,
requesting at least to see the documents which it was
stated had been produced against him, in order that he
might say whether the signatures to them were in his own
handwriting or forgeries. The answer was that his request
could not be complied with.—(Hear.) He presented a
petition to the King, and Sir Herbert Taylor's reply was
that, in compliance with his Majesty's order, he had referred
the petition to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
who finally referred Mr. Millner to their former answer to
his communications.—( Hear, hear.) He considered it was
the duty of that House to exercise a control over every
Court where it could be shown that harshness and injustice
had taken place.—(Cheers.)
Mr. WOOD had the necessary papers with him upon the

point of the half-pay alluded to, but he was sure Mr.
Millner was at the time on half-pay, and that, being after-
wards appointed to the Diudcnz on full pay, and wishing to
raise a little money to fit himself out, he applied to Alex-
ander for a loan, to whom he gave an order to draw his
half-pay. Alexander sent the order to his agents in town,
and up to the day of his death he swore that the signature
was that of Mr. Millner; in addition to which his (Alex-
ander's) wife had since corroborated his testimony by stat-
ing that she remembered the circumstance. Mr. Millner,
on his return home, kept out of the way so long that the
time within
,which he could have been brought to a Court-
martial passed away before recourse could be had to such a
trial.—( Hear.)
Mr. RICH ARDS denied that the officer in question

had,ever had any trial. The Hon. Gentleman objected to
the manner in which one of the gentlemen alluded to
had been received by Mr. Croker when Secretary to the
Admiralty.

Sir L. PARRY said, the returns moved for could not,
with any show of justice, be refused.
Sir T. TROUBRIDGE denied that injustice, if any
had been done, had been inflicted by the present Admi-
ralty. It was a case of thirty years' standing. He had
himself investigated the case, and was satisfied that no in-
justice bad been done.

Mr. O'CONNELL said, that the observations of the
Hon. and Gallant Member had fully convinced him of the
necessity of some systematic investigation.
Major BRUCE said, when it was borne in mind that
under the present system the British navy had been raised
to be the first service in the world, he thought that they
should be very careful before withdrawing its manage-
ment from the controul of the responsible Ministers of the
Crown, and placing it under that of the House of Commons.
Mr. A. TREVOR would vote for the motion.

After a few, words from Colonel THOMPSON,
Mr. D. W. HARVEY urged on the House that suffi-
cient attention had not been paid to the fact, that the
proposer of the motion was himself a Gallant Admiral,
who had won high honours in his country's cause, and
was therefore a man most unlikely to attempt anything that
could operate to the prejudice of the service to which he
belonged. He should support the motion.
Admiral ADAM called on the House to beware how it
interfered with the prerogative of the Crown, which had
been given for the benefit of the country.
Captain GORDON also opposed the motion.
Mr. P. HO WARD supported the motion.

Sir E. CODRINGTON, in reply, said that the case
of the aggrieved persons loudly called for inquiry. They
had not been brought face to face with their accusers.
They ought to have had an opportunity afforded them to
prove their innocence, if innocent they were.—(Hear.)
Now he begged to ask, nay, he thought he was entitled to
ask, the Right Hon. Baronet whether, if an officer em-
ployed the ships of the Government in conveying materials
for building a house on speculation, not as his own resi-
dence, but for sale, he would consider such conduct unbe--
coming an officer or a gentleman ? It would remain to be
seen who were the friends of the navy in that House, and
who were its enemies.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM must deny that he had ever
contended that the power vested in the Board of Ad-
miralty should be exercised in all cases ; but he had
said that where the officers of the navy or army—who
were not on full pay, were not amenable to the tribunal
of a Court-martial—were guilty of conduct that tainted
their honour, it was the paramount duty of the Govern-
ment to strike them off the lists of the service.—(Hear,

hear.) This power was of course exercised under re-
sponsibility, and never called into action unless the case
brought against the individual was fully established against
him, to the satisfaction of those in whose hands the power
was placed.—( Hear.) The Hon. and Gallant Officer had
called upon him to define what the conduct was that he
considered would be unworthy of an officer and a gentle-
man. Had the Hon. and Gallant Officer ever presided at
a court-martial ? If he had, was it for him to tell the Hon.
and Gallant Officer what the conduct was that would be
unworthy of an officer and a gentleman ?—(Cheers.) Every
man who heard him was as competent to answer the Hon.
and Gallant Officer's question as he (Sir James Graham)
was, and therefore he must express his surprise at finding

that the Hon. and Gallant Officer was so uninformed as to
render a definition on the subject necessary.—(Great cheer-
ing.) He was surprised at the reference which the Hon.
and Gallant Officer had made to the conduct of a brother
officer, who was not present to defend himself against such
insinuations as the Hon. and Gallant Officer had thrown
out. He was aware of the name of the Gallant Officer to
whom the Hon. and Gallant Officer alluded, and it was but
right that the House should know that he was an officer
not on half, but on full pay. Now, would the Hon. and
Gallant Officer have had him (Sir James Graham) exercise
the authority of the Board of Admiralty in such a case ?

Sir E. CODRINGTON—No, no.
Sir J. GRAHAM—If the Gallant Officer referred to
had done anything wrong, if he had been guilty of con-
duct that was unworthy of an officer and a gentleman, be
was amenable to a Court•martial—to that tribunal on which
the Hon. and Gallant Officer so strongly relied, and from
an investigation by which the Gallant Officer in question
would not have shrunk had those charges now imputed been
preferred against him.—(Cheers.) He must say that it
was unworthy of the Hon. and Gallant Officer thus, with-
out notice and' behind his back, to pronounce such a cen-
sure on the conduct of a brother officer without at the same

ime mentioninc, his name.—(Renewed cheering.)
Sir E. COAINGTON was understood, in explana-

tion, to speak to the following effect Sir, I mentioned
the subject because I had complained to the Right Hon.
Baronet himself that men who were not at the battle of
Navarino had received two dollars each as prize money for
guns fished up after the battle from the Bay of Navarino.
—(Laughter.) I made the complaint because the Right
Hon. Baronet resisted giving to my men the gratuity I
claimed for them for that battle.—(Cries of " Oh, oh,"
and renewed laughter.) But, Sir, what • did the Right
Hon. Baronet do ? Why, he appointed that very officer
who did this to supercede me in the command of the Chan-
nel fleet.—(Loud and long continued cheering.) Sir, the
Right Hon. Baronet has taunted me with not having named
the officer to whom I alluded, but as I would be incapable to
speak that of a gentleman behind his back which I would
not say before his face, I have no hesitation whatever in
stating that the officer to whom I alluded is Sir Pultney
Malcolm.--( Hear, hear, from a few Hon. Members on the
Ministerial benches.) I, for one, Sir, disapproved of S:r
Pultney Malcolm's conduct, and I think that many men
would have been turned out of the service if they had acted
in the same way. If any other officer had been tried up-
on the charge, and it hall been proved against him, I am
convinced that this would have been the case. Now, Sir,

I hope I have spoken explicitly.—(Hear, hear.) Sir Pult-
ney Malcolm spoke freely of me, and in doing so he did not
speak the truth. I state this, Sir, as a Eta. I think I
have spoken explicitly now."
Sir J. GRAHAM—The Hon. and Gallant Officer
has spoken explicitly now. Sir, I entertain the highest
opinion possibly of Sir Pultney Malcolm, and I do not
believe that there is a more honourable or gallant officer in
the profession to which he belongs.—(Loud cheers.) It
is perfectly true that the Hon. and Gallant Officer was
superseded in the command of the Channel fleet, and that
Sir Pultney Malcolm succeeded him in that command. I
admit that I am responsible for having superseded the
Hon. and Gallant Officer, and that I did so because I
would not listen to- insinuations and charges Which were
made in such a manner as the insinuations and
charges made to me were made.—(Vehement cheering.)
Those who were fully competent to form a correct opinion
of the conduct of Sir Pultney Malcolm I consulted, and I
now feel it my bounden duty to declare that I totally dis-
believe the charges brought against him--(Cheers.) Sir,
had there been any foundation for those charges might not
Sir P. Malcolm have been called upon to answer them be-
fore that tribunal to which he was at that time amenable ?
He never was, and I therefore think it rather hard the Hon.
and Gallant Officer should have attempted for 'three years
to whisper away his character without mentioning his name,
until the Hon. and Gallant Officer fo,und himself driven
into a corner.—(Loud and long-cantinued cheering.)
Admiral ADAM—Sir, I must say that I also was sur-

prised to hear the Hon. and Gallant Admiral behind me
prefer such charges against my old and gallant friend Sir
Pultney Malcolm. If the Hon. and Gallant Admiral had
had charges to bring against my old and esteemed friend,
why did he not make them in an open and manly manner,
and not by of insinuation ?—(Renewed cheers.)
Mr. HUME was opposed to the power which was placed
in the hands of the Board of Admiralty.

The House then divided. The numbers were—
For the motion 46
Against it
Majority lO7

Mr. SC ARLETT moved fora return or account of the
manner in which the sum of 68,0001., voted in 1835, for
the relief of certain persons whose goods were consumed by
fire in the Custom-house of Dublin, had been applied.

After some observations from the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Mr. O'Connell, and Mr. Baring, the return
was ordered.

Mr. T. DUNCOMBE moved for a return of copies of
all the Parliamentary surveys of Church lands made in
1646, and de.posited by Parliament in the library of manu-
scripts at Lambeth Palace. The documents to which his
motion had reference were lodged, by the authority of that
House, in the library at Lambeth ; but he trusted the

House would order copies of them to be placed either in
its own library, or in some other place where the public
could have access to them. Indeed, perhaps the British
Museum would be the proper depository for them. He
(Mr. Duncombe) had lately occasion to make extracts from
these manuscripts, and he was charged six guineas fees on
the occasion.—(Hear, hear.)