The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-07 00:00:00

LONDON, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 1854.

There is at length reason to hope that the un-
accountable, and, we may add, culpable inactivity
that so long prevailed amongst the allied forces in
the East is about to be dispelled. The pestilence,
possibly occasioned, certainly aggravated, by that
sloth and inactivity, and also by the gross neglect
of the most ordinary sanitary precautions, has
happily abated, and there is but little doubt that
our gallant seamen and soldiers, notwithstanding
the severe losses they have sustained, will be ready,
as on all former occasions, to discharge their duties
energetically and efficiently, and to achieve all
that they may be permitted to accomplish.
Even the ABERDEEN organ now acknowledges
the impolicy, to use no harsher term, of the course
adopted by our leaders in the Euxine and its
vicinity. But a few days since—even during
the present month, the first week whbreof has not
yet expired, the Times makes the following
remarkable admission :—" It can hardly be de-
nied, however," says our contemporary, " that
the casualties by which the army has been visited
might possibly have been avoided. By the wisdom
which comes after the event we can now mark our
errors and their consequences. By this time we
trust that the troops have exchanged the sickness
and monotony of a life in camp for the excitement
of active operations in sight of Sebastopol ; but
nothing can be clearer than that this movement
might have been effected months ago. As it turns
out, our army might as well have sailed for Varna
direct, and embarked from that port to the Crimea
as soon as ever the requisite preparations could
have been made. Our expedition, in short,
might have been an expedition against Sebas-
topol, without any reference to the Dardanelles,
the Bosphorus, or • Bulgaria. The line of the
Danube was effectually protected by OMER PASHA
and the troops of the SULTAN, and we might have
addressed ourselves at once to Russia without
expending any solicitude upon Turkey. There
was literally no reason at all why the resolution of
invading the Crimea should not have been formed
and executed within two months after the army
left the shores of England, and, if this had been.
done, it is quite within the bounds of possibility
that the whole work might now have been over.
As it is, five months have been consumed under
canvas without any result but discouragement,
weariness, and disease."

Yet this was the line of argument adopted by
ourselves and other journalists, which, no later
than Saturday last, called down on our devoted
heads the indignant reproaches of the very consis-
tent leading journal for our factious attacks on its
protege, the good and excellent ABERDEEN. Now,
however, its tone is altogether altered. In addi-
tion to the matter above extracted, it tells us that
" our troops are not useless in Bulgaria, but
they are suffering deplorably from the very inac-
tion to which such a position condemns them ;''
adding, " that it must appear to every one that
with such an expenditure of life and strength
Sebastopol must infallibly have been ours," and ad-
mitting that "no doubt that fortress is strong, its
garrison numerous, its artillery formidable, and its
defenders brave, but that no weapons or devices
of the enemy can be half so destructive as that
protracted inactivity which consumes the very soul
of the army, while pestilence with all its horrors
is abroad."

Why, here is a leaf out of our own book. The
Times has suddenly become a convert to the
vigorous and energetic carrying on of the war, and
impliedly censures those who so long continued
indifferent to the wisest and most eligible line of
policy. It says, " the sooner we Now get to
Sebastopol the better !" From this we may fairly
conclude that it is tolerably certain that we are
going at Sebastopol, for our leviathian =item-
temporary is, to use its own language, justly
celebrated for " the wisdom that comes after the
event," and would by no means recommend a
course which it had not very substantial grounds
for believing to be resolved on.
Once in action, we cannot permit (Ai rselves for
a moment to doubt the result. The bombard-
ment of Bomarsund, and the speedy surrender of
that quasi impregnable fortress, has completely
established the supremacy of cannon-balls
and shells, and the iimpossibility of the

The memoranda recently issued by the Corn-
mander-inChief respecting the Windsor Courts-
martial, prove beyond the possibility of doubt tl.e
incompetency of the members of these extraor-
dinary tribunals to conduct a trial properly, or to
arrive at a correct conclusion on the testimony
which they have actually received. Among many
offences of omission and commission, if properly
admitting, and as improperly rejecting evidence,
there was one point especially referred to by
Lord HARDINGE that exhibits their gross igno-
rance in the clearest point of view. Oa the cross-
examination of Lieutenant GREER by the prisoner
in the first trial, the following question was sub-
mitted—" Did you not seize me by the breast
and throat, and throw me on my bed, and did not
I order you under arrest, which you refused to
obey, saying you would see me damned first ? "
This question the Court, after mature considera
Lion, decided against allowing to be put to the
witness. The clear inference from which refusal
was, that the members did not consider it pertinent
or relevant to the issue—that, in fact, it would not
constitute any valid defence if it had been
proved that the quasi prosecutor had acted in the
manner imputed to him. Now, if there was any
subject with which the Gallant Gentlemen, sitting
in judgment on their brother officer, might be
supposed to be thoroughly acquainted, it is the
code comprised in "the Articles of War," the only
authority by which they professed to be influenced.
They unhesitatingly scouted the views expressed
in STAIMONDS, on Courts-Martial, but they could
not exhibit similar contempt for the Articles of
War. Now, the 15th Article expressly declares
that " All officers, of what condition soever, have
power to quell all quarrels, frays, and disorders,
though the persons concerned should be of supe-
rior rank, or belong to another corps, and either
to order officers into arrest, or soldiers into con-
finement, until their proper superior officers shall
be acquainted therewith ;" and the 44th Article
declares that " Any officer who; being concerned
in any fray, shall refuse to obey any other officer
(though of inferior rank) who shall order
him into arrest, or shall draw his sword
upon, or offer violence to, such officer, shall for
each and every one of the aforesaid offences, on
conviction thereof before a General Court-martial,
be cashiered." Now looking to the terms of these
imperative regulations, it was perfectly obvious
that if GREER had been guilty of such conduct,
not only refusing to obey the order of Lieutenant
PERRY that he should be placed under arrest, but
offering personal violence against the officer who
gave that order, he would be a mutineer, whose
violence should be terminated in the most deci-
sive and summary manner. The admission of
the witness would have been a complete answer
to the charge, and yet he was not allowed to ob-
tain that answer through the undue interference
of the Court, which thus manifested not only the
most profound ignorance of the ordinary principles
of jurisprudence, which allow any person on trial
for an assault to plead " Son assault demesne,"
and to prove that his violence had been committed
in self-defence against a previous attack of the
prosecutor, but also of the Articles above quoted.
This was alone sufficient to prevent the confirma-
tion of the proceedings, and the refusal to do so
was practically the heaviest censure that could be
inflicted on the " unlearned tribunal."

While on this part of the case we may express
our surprise that in the charges subsequently pre-
ferred against Lieutenant GREER no allusion was
made to this, the most serious military offence
that could be committed. He was accused of hav-
ing used violence and uttered improper language
against his brother officer, but not of having re-
fused to obey an order to go under arrest, a mat-
ter on which there could have been but little
doubt. The obnoxious point was, however, over-
looked, and apparently not through inadvertence,
but in order to afford a loophole for the escape of
the culprit ; and, inasmuch as it was through the
special direction of the Horse Guards that the
second Court-martial was directed, we cannot alto-
gether acquit these high authorities from a very
considerable portion of the blame thereby merited.
The finding of the second Court-martial also
remained without confirmation or approval. Not-
withstanding the locus penitentice afforded the
order for the reassembling of the Court, with
a view to the revision of the proceedings, the
members adhered to their former finding, the im-
propriety whereof has been very clearly explained
I ,by Lord HARDINGE. Never, indeed, was there a
decision so palpably opposed, not merely to " the
i weight of evidence," but to " the entire evidence,"
in the case. The rough and brutal GREER had,
however, the sympathy of the Court, rather than
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