The Sun.
London, England, 1837-03-18 00:00:00

DEPARTURES.

The Marquis of Bute,frOMl7Va;;;;;s Hotel, for his seat,
Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire; the Bishop of Lincoln, from ditto,
for Bugden Palace; Lord Acheson, for Hastings; Mrs.
Massingberd and Miss Nixon, from the St. George's Hotel,
for Bath ; Mr. and the Misses Cunyngham, from ditto, for
Edinburgh ; Col. P. Dundas, from ditto, for Bloxham ; Wm.
Coke, Esq., from ditto, on a tour.

The Manchester Guardian states that William
Francis Drake, the man whose examination we gave some
time ago, on a charge of uttering a forged bill of exchange for
11,4371. 125., was fully committed for trial. He has since inti-
mated his intention of pleading guilty to the charge.

TO LORD HILL.

United Service Club, March 17.

- -
MY Lnan.---r fhe late Brevet Promotion has given rise to
much expressio n of opinion on the scanty and unequal rewards
for Military S€ ala ice, and although a very humble individual, I
take the libert y of addressing your Lordship, as having par-
taken of a larg u 1 share during a period of nearly forty years.
It will be si.fer t by reference to the Army List that there are
Generals and 1 .ieutenant- Generals without Regiments but
who have been iin the army fifty years and upwards and when
the uninitiated .trequire explanation they are told such and such
a General net: er served ! !—Surely then they have no right to
hold that Hor towable Rank, with a certain though not very
munificent err iol ument attached to it ; and had the interests of
the profession. tnd the country been consulted, they would
never have obt fried either.

When, how ei -er, it becomes almost impossible to repair an
evil, the next be ,st thing is to prevent a recurrence of it, and I
would therefore propose for consideration :-
Ist. That n.O officer of any Rank should in future be allowed
to retire on hailf.pay (unless wounded) who has not served
twenty years cc) nsecutively on full pay ; and it is fair to con-
clude, if he ba: 3 passed that ordeal, that he has honestly per-
formed his duty ,
2d. Those 'a /he are now on half-pay of any Rank under
twenty years service should be obliged to fill vacancies or retire
altogether from the army. Such a regulation far from stopping
promotion woul d accelerate it ; half those so called upon would
Immediately se 11 their Commissions rather than go to our
Colonies—thus' there would soon be few General Officers who
had not served :fairly.
Then comes the question—whether large emoluments should
be lavished on favourcd individuals? And it is here suggested
that Honorary ,Distinctions, the Gift and Boon of Majesty, to-
gether with the appointments to lucrative commands, are an equi-
valent and sufficient recompense to the honourable ambition of
the profession. Hence would arise the consideration of the
payment of General Officers, which might be nearly equalized
by Government taking the clothing of regiments into their
own hands, and the present savings being thrown into s fund
for that purpose.
Under the present system, emolument must necessarily be
partially distributed, and depend as much on interest as merit.
Is it just that one General Officer should have a regiment—a
government—a pension for wounds (which don't affect his
health)—perchance, a lucrative command I—and that there
should be others of equal, or nearly equal, pretensions, with
nothing but a bare subsistence ?
.

I shall, on a future occasion, take the liberty of saying a few
words on the monstrous injustice of the promotion in the House-
hold Troops, by which junior officers step over the heads of
their seniors. I have the honour to he,
Your Lordship's obedient servant,
A COLONEL.