The Sun.
London, England, 1854-08-11 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, AUGUST 11, 1854.

The Sovereigns of Europe don't appear to be
getting on so very well latterly. There was the
King of PRussil the other day, scarcely recovered
from the effects of knocking his head against a
tree in the royal garden at twilight, must needs
go tumbling down and nearly breaking his neck
in another fit of champagne. The poor King of
SAXONY, we learn to-day, was killed suddenly a
few hours since by a kick from one of his horses,
in consequence of an overturn in his carriage on
leaving Munich to return to Dresden. The
King of GREECE has but just saved his crown
from being forfeited, by au odious complicity
with the designs of the Russian AUTOCRAT, by
listening, just in time before it was absolutely
too late, to the sagacious councils of Mr. WYsg
and his French colleague at -the Court of Athens,
M. le Baron de ROUEN—backed as the advice
coming to OTHO from those two able diplomatists
fortunately was, by the arrival at the Pirmus of
a small body of troops otherwise destined to swell
the ranks of the Anglo-French contingents sent
out to the aid of the Sultan ABD-UL-MEDJID.
The Queen of SPAIN too—we have all seen how
nearly her Most Catholic MAJESTY was (about a
week or so back) running her head, not
as with the roystering KOENIG FRITZ WILHELM
against the branch of an apple-tree at sun-
down—but at broad noonday against the stone
wall of a Revolution.
by the A not inapt meta-
phor,way, for a barricade ! As for
her luckless parent the Dowager Queen CHRISTINA
—we have yet to learn whether she has contrived
to escape with her MUNOZ "Mood) scot-free from
the bands ofthe Spanish people, as well as from
the more gentle ones of the leaders of the trium-
phant insurrection. We were told the other
morning, in a somewhat startling manner,
cer-
tainly, of the Eacrwaoit of all the Russias
aving
been within an ace of making a voyage down the
Baltic as a prisoner of war on board an English
steamer, for ultimate incarceration in one of the
historic chambers of the Tower of London, It
appears, however, on inquiry, that the whole story
is what our Yankee cousins ou the other side of
in the
that little fishing-pond the Atlantic are
habit of calling monosyllabically a "barn "—and
what we are accustomed here at home to term in
the vernacular rather more periphrastically, a tale
about a Cock and Ball ! However this may be,
the Czar NICHOLAS is just now manifestly in any-
thing but an agreeable predicament. Confronted,
whether he looks to the Baltic or to the Black
Sea, by the mighty fleets and armies of France
and England ! With his own legions driven
back from the mud walls of

beaten in every encounter by the Turks he af-
fected to despise—with his ablest commanders
lulled,- or wounded, or out-generalled—and his
trOpp4.oomPellOs\lvith the loss of nearly 50,000
(me% tic-Aittirel,vieilly in the direction of Besse-
;.' ra,bi5..7.7-Ar*is.t.,;.llael himself, in fact, to say the , A.rivl.kriallvi i I
.7
lout ofiti,- ,43A a Qtand.a.ri't B4wombilatit

ri 04: :"

)iad

all the while the witty axiom (if we recollect
rightly of Prince TALLEYRAND), that the "natural
death" of a Russian Exrsaon is—not fever, not
apoplexy, not bronchitis, not any of the cu tom-
ary ills that " flesh is heir to," but simply in one
word—assassination I
Really, when the calamities that have lately
gathered about the crowned heads cf Europe,
here enumerated, are borne in recollection—
their imperial and royal contemporaries, more wise,
or less unfortunate, have each we cannot but think
great reason, indeed, for gratitude to GOD and
for earnest self-gratulation. His MAJESTY of
Sweden and Norway, listening in his palace at
Stockholm to the distant booming of the
bombardment in the direction of Bomar-
sund ! His MAJESTY of Denmark giving
audience to the General BARAGUAY D'HIL-
LIERS, on his way to conduct 10,000 of the
heroic soldiers of France to the aid (by laud) of
the combined fleets sent out for the capture or
destruction of St. Petersburg ! Or, again, the
stripling King of PORTUGAL, still on his gay
tour from court to court among the less
agitated countries of the European Continent !
While his Majesty of SAXONY is being killed by
a kick from a horse on the Munich highway, the
King of the BELGIANS is happily presiding undis-
turbed over his Constitutional Government—the
King of SARDINIA. endeavouring in some man-
ner to carry out by a pacific policy what his gal-
lant and lamented predecessor vainly strove to
effect by warlike means, namely, the advancement
of his own subjects, and the regeneration, if pos-
sible, of the whole Italian peninsula. The youth-
ful Emperor of AUSTRIA meanwhile consoling him-
self for the close of the honeymoon by exult-
ing 'over the success of the new loan which in
any way empowers him to act as prudence
may seem to dictate in any emergency—deferring
still, as long as possible, the inevitable day of
action, when there must at length be an end of
this long wire-drawn coil of diplomatic nego-
tiation.

Passing over the lesser potentates of Europe,
unnecessary here to be individually particularised,
and looking nearer at hand—to the august rulers
of the two great allied nations of the West, the
c:llefs of the world and the champions of civili-
sation—we find them of all the most happily
situated, while surrounding Monarchs are struck,
one by one, by calamitous death, by agonising
suspense, or by the thunderbolts of revolution.
The Queen of ENGLAND, in her Royal yacht, passing
a summer's holiday iu a pleasant cruise among the
Channel Islands ! The Emperor of FRANCE,
whiling away in domestic seclusion at his.
imperial retreat at Biaritz, the hours not ne-
cessarily dedicated to the gigantic labour of
directing every movement, the least and
the mightiest, of his immense and magnifi-
cent Government ! VICTORIA and NAPOLEON—
united in purpose by the bonds of a cordial
alliance have, indeed, ample reason to
exult with profound emotions over their
own tranquil happiness now, when, with
misery apparent as the lot of so many of their con
temporary Sovereigns, they are sending forth
their enormous armaments to the ends of the
world, in the cause of civilisation and in the
interests of humanity, not for selfish conquest,
but for the re-establishment of the peace of
Christendom.

At length, after a delay of nearly four weeks,
the decision of the first Court-martial on Lieu-
tenant PERRY has been officially promulgated.
Fortunately, it was essential that the entire pro-
ceedings should be considered by a fair and impar-
tial officer (the Right Hon. C. P. VILLIERS, Judge-
Advocate, or his deputy), and by him submitted
to our most gracious SOVEREIGN for approval
before the sentence could be carried into execu-
tion, or the practical jests of the officers of the
gallant 46th brought to their appropriate termi-
nation by the dismissal of their unfortunate
butt from her MaJEsTv's service. Had it
been otherwise, the ruin of the victim would have
been accomplished ; his name would be stigma-
' tised for the remainder of his life, and the
career on which he had entered brought to a
premature and most untoward conclusion.
The finding of the Court substantially was, that
Lieut. PERRY was guilty of the charge preferred
against him, and he was thereupon sentenced to be
tlisna issed from her MAJEsTy's service. He was, how-
ever, unanimously recommended to mercy, on ac-
count of the great provocation which he had received.
The ill-used young man was, however, a suitor
for justice—not for mercy. The recommenda-
fon of the Court would probably have procured
him the purchase-money of his commission, the
sum which he himself had actually paid for the
privilege of being bullied and maltr6ated, addressed
in the most opprobrious language, and subjected
to personal violence by the "officers and gentlemen"
~f the 46th Regiment. But for that indulgence,
he should have consented to rest under the re-
proach of an unfavourable decision of a military
tribunal—of having been guilty of " conduct un-
becoming an officer and a gentleman, and to the
prejudice of good order and military discipline."
From this opprobrium he has, however, been
saved. The disgrace has been transferred
from his character to officers of far greater
experience, and holding much higher rank in
the service. The Judge-Advocate-General hav-
ing carefully perused the proceedings of the
Court, discovered that it had been guilty
of sins both of commission and of omission—that
it had admitted evidence against the prisoner
which ought to have been rejected, while it had
refused evidence in his favour that ought to have
been received. Under such circumstances there
was no alternative but to advise her MAJESTY to
refuse the necessary confirmation of the sentence.
This has been done, and the entire proceedings
have accordingly fallen to the ground.
Although it could scarcely be supposed that the
Court would have convicted Lieutenant PERRY for
an act not merely committed under great provo-
cation, but what was palpably one of self-defence,
it was quite clear that the refusal to abide by any
authority was in itself sufficient to vitiate the
proceedings. When the cross interrogatories put
by the accused for the purpose of eliciting the
cause of the quarrel were suppressed,. and he was
told that " he must confine himself to the shaking
of the evidence of the witness," with the addition
that he should " have an opportunity of bringing
these things forward when called on for his de-
fence"—when also the authority of the standard
work on military tribunals (Simmons on Courts-
martial) was contumeliously repudiated, and the
extraordinary doctrine put forward, that " the
only auth"ority for the court was the Mutiny
Act" (!), the gross illegality of the whole pro-
ceedings became too painfully apparent that there
could be no hope of an impartial and equitable
adjudication. Everything that could bear
against the prisoner was admitted, however inap-
plicable—everything in his favour rejected. He
might, if he pleased, traverse what could not be
justification,denied,bt
and
he should not venture to set up a
prove it out of the
"matterhemouth for
sorf
ihiiiss addevfeenrsacer;i,esfoc twhahti,cifloheraooth, wa
should bringe license
forward
hostile witnesses, and not be allowedD
necessarily granted on a cross-examination.
spite all the objections offered, and what Colonel
GARRETT termed the animus exhibited, the in-
tended victim passed triumphantly through the
ordeal, and the barbed shafts aimed against him
have recoiled with telling effect against his perse-
cutors.

Yes--the loose system of discipline—the unfair
4nd partial favouritism practised in the corps
have been brought to light despite every obstacle.
Even the strange and unaccountable oblivion that
hd,s, oppressed the faculties of the great majority
ci,i_tao.offikcga. a thize 4604 hay failed. to auvid

these extraordinary transactions in mystery. The
public have learned quite enough of the every-
day, or it might be more ap,;ropriately termed
the every-night-proceedings of the officers, sanc-
tioned and connived at by some, if nut all, of
their seniors. There is no longer any possibility
of concealing the discreditable revelations—and if
such conduct be suffered to prevail by the mili-
tary authorities, it is some satisfaction to know
that it is properly estimated by the community at
large, and that the voice of public opinion has
plainly and unequivocally proclaimed the general
feeling on the subject.

The decision on the first trial must be conclu-
sive on that now pending. It was for protesting
against decisions such as those which have now
been proved to be erroneous that Lieutenant
PERRY has been subjected to the last accusation.
The prejudice and bias of the Court now sitting
has been even more palpable than of that whose
decision has not been confirmed. In like manner
they have refused permission to the prisoner to
ask most pertinent and proper questions on cross-
examination. In like manner they have ad-
mitted that which should not have been received,
determined, like the Irish jury, who convicted a
man of murder because he had stolen, or rather
was supposed to have stolen, a colt from the fore-
man, that he should not escape under any circum-
stances. If his protest was erroneous, the QUEEN
and the Judge-Advocate-General have fallen into
a similar mistake. If it was correct, it should not
be made a ground for victimising him. He has
already been subjected to a ruinous expense,
sufficient to accomplish the desired object, of
crushing a young man, who deemed it more
correct to live within slender means than to
incur debts which he had no reasonable prospect
of being enabled to discharge. We must, how-
ever, await the conclusion of the proceedings before
we can speak more fully on this part of the case.
We believe, however, that the public will not
permit the unfortunate accused to be crushed by
the costs. As he has escaped one of the conse-
quences of the persecution, he must be protected
from another no less fatal to his future prospects.

LATE)T NEWS.

THE WAR.

AUSTRIA AND RUSSIA.

The Moniteur of this (Friday) morning publishes
a despatch from the Austrian Government de-
manding the evacuation of the principalities, with
the reply of Russia.