The Sun.
London, England, 1854-09-04 00:00:00

sufficiently account for the visit being merely that
of Prince ALBERT without Queen VICTORIA ; but
we hope ere many months to be enabled to an-
nounce the visit of LOUIS NAPOLEON and EUGENIE
to VICTORIA and ALBERT, and to be allowed to
testify, on English ground, the feelings- of the
people of the United Kingdom to the elected of
Eight millions of Electors—voting by ballot—and
to the Royal Lady whom he elevated to the high
position she now occupies, not for reasons of
State policy, but because she was the chosen of
his heart, the object of his disinterested love.

The visit of King LEOPOLD his already been
brought to a conclusion even before that of Prince
ALBERT commenced. In consequence of the resig-
nation of the Belgian Ministry, he found it neces-
sary to return to Brussels, in order to preside at
a Council this day. The meeting, therefore, took
place at Calais on Saturday and yesterday. The
Royal party arrived at Boulogne, from whence
King LEOPOLD and his heir apparent, the Duke
DE BRABANT, started yesterday evening on board
a Belgian Mail-packet for Ostend. This day the
King of PORTUGAL is expected to arrive at
Boulogne. This Royal Congress, however it
may be regarded here, will have a more peculiar
signification to the CZAR, who will thereby learn
how deeply he was deceived in supposing that a
new enteinte cordiale between the reigning dynas-
ties, as well as between the People of France and
England, was morally impossible. It is not the
only mistake into which he has been led since the
appointment of the Earl of ABERDEEN as Prime
Minister of Great Britain.

It was on. Friday, the 20th of July, that the
third Court-Martial on Lieutenant PERRY com-
menced its sittings. Since that time five weeks

and a-half have elapsed. The proceedings were

actively carried on during sixteen days, exclusive
of one day occupied by the Court in considering
its verdict ; and yet the deeply-injured young

man is still virtually under arrest, suffering from
the nervous anxiety which, under such circum-

stances, it is impossible to avoid, and " the hope

deferred which maketh sick the heart."
It is true that he has had something to cheer
and, encourage him under his affliction. He has
found public sympathy more strongly excited in
his favour than perhaps it was ever for any victim
of a similar persecution. He has found that it is
not a barren expression of feeling, but that it has
been, and we venture to assert will be, testified
by more solid proofs,which will be doubly valuable,
inasmuch as they will foil the persecutors in their
chief object, and will retain a meritorious officer in the

service of which, we trust, he will one day be-
come a distinguished ornament, and from which
they intended to effect his compulsory withdrawal.
We shall not, however, until the conclusion of
the proceedings, enter at any length into the case

of Lieutenant PERRY personally. When the ter-
mination of Court-matial No. 3 is announced,

and the next move developed, we may have some
further observations to offer. At present we
shall content ourselves with directing public atten-
tion to the composition of military tribunals, and
the system of procedure there adopted, and ask

whether, in any respect, they are in accordance
with the spirit of the age ?—whether, in fact, it
is not essential that there should be a large and

comprehensive measure of reform in the constitu-
tion and practice of these courts, so as to render
them better qualified for the administration
of impartial justice, without reference to the
rank or station of the parties implicated, whether

as prosecutors or defendants ?
Now, in the first place, we may ask, can any-
thing be more injurious to the morale of the ser•

vice than the fact that six weeks may be dawdled
away without the results of a trial being made

known even to the defendant. Why, Chancery

in its worst days had nothing so atrocious. Had
a case like that of Lieutenant PERRY been brought
before one of, the Superior Courts, had it been
tried by an experienced and impartial Judge, as-
sisted by a Jury, it would have been decided in
two or three days at the outside, and that decision

promulgated to the community. It would be
received with respect, because the objects of those
by whom it was delivered would be above
suspicion. They might fall into an error,
for perfection cannot be anticipated in merely
human institutions. But that error could
not be occasioned by—nor—what is no less
important—attributed to any undue truckling

to the influence of a superior, who, while acting as
prosecutor, and pressing every argument to the
utmost extent to which it could not merely
" fairly " be applied—had, from his official posi-

tion, power over the fortunes of every one of the
jurors. Major-General WETHERALL was practi-
cally the dictator of the Court. According to his
mere will and pleasure, the most pertinent pieces
of evidence—those directly applying to the ques-
tion at issue—were rejected ; the most imperti-
nent admitted, if only prejudicial to the defen-
dant. When the prisoner endeavoured to elicit
truth from reluctant witnesses, which would ex-
hibit their " prevarication"—perhaps we might use
the stronger phrase, "falsehood"—in the clearest
light, lie was stopped by the sneering suggestion
that " recrimination was not defence." But when
the vindictive malevolence of his accusers trumped
up new accusations, although not in the remotest
degree bearing on the points at issue, they
were eagerly grasped and improperly admitted
on the records ; for, although not apply-
ing to the charges, they might serve to pre-
judice Lieutenant PERRY in publig estimation,
and to show a colourable excuse for dhis ill-treat-
ment by his brother officers. Experience proves
that nothing is more essential to the due admi-
nistration of justice than the . supremacy of the
Judge over the prosecutor, and the complete in-
dependence of both Judge and Jury. But that
we have shown to be utterly impossible when the
Adjutant, or Deputy-Adjutant-General, comes
down expressly from the Horse Guards to prose-
cute, and strives, as an advocate, to obtain a
conviction.

Besides, a "leetle" knowledge of the law re-
lating to evidence and crimes, on the part of the
Judge, is clearly desirable, if not indispensable.
There is no "Royal," or perhaps, in this case, we
might more appropriately say "military," road
to legal acquirements. The gentleman who
has previously been occupied in learning
strictly professional matters, oven if his studies
were as innocent as those of Lieutenant PERRY
himself, and not directed to drawing his brother
officers out of bed, drinking, gambling, rioting,
or even more objectionable conduct, cannot be
supposed to be thereby qualified for sifting dis-
puted points of conflicting evidence, or ascertain-
ing the value that should be assigned to each. He
knows not what to admit, or what to reject—what to
value, or what to treat as of comparatively trivial
importance. The undisguised contempt with
which the highest authority on such matters is
treated, the refusal of the President to listen
even to the quotation from SIM3IONDS on Courts-
Martial, and his assertion that the tribunals are
" bound by nothing but the Mutiny Act," must
shake the faith of juries, and deter any one de-
sirous of discharging his duties fairly from enter-
ing on a very arduous and troublesome task, in the
hope that he might be enabled the better to
urte ifa t
e w s
te haveex pen s.
die-
chargeE such a duty when it fell to his lot.
the eenea
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g
where there is a
manifest perception that " the
eyes of Europe" were surveying their proceedings,
what are we to suppose might have been the
case when the Press maintained
an unbroken
silence, and when the friendless
prisoner had no
" DARVILL" at his right hand to bri •
ng the blush
of shame in to the cheeks of persecutors. In
such a case there would not have been 16 days' • sit-
tings, the obnoxious subaltern would be very sum-
marily " dismissed her MAJESTY'S service" or
44 cashiered," the non-commissioned officer or
private flogged, or sent to hard labour at the
military Prisms) or, possibly, transported. From
what we have witnessed, we may form some
estimate of the injustice that may bo perpetrated
under less favourable circumstances, and are jus-