The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-13 00:00:00

eb.tiliA3A Ant

LONDON, TIIITIIS9AY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1849,

Alreddy is our prediction as to the downfal of
the present system of courts martial beginning to be
verified. Commander PITMAN has been dismissed
he r MAJESTY'S service. That ignominious sentence,
hich was yesterday pronounced on the petty despot
of the Childers—that sentence, which will rejoice the
heart of every true man in these wide dominions—is
the inevitable antecedent of the reversal of the unjust,
because excessive, punishment recently inflicted upon
Lieutenant GRAHAM and his companion. The dis
grace and degradation of the person whose systematic
cruelties, while wearing the uniform of the Royal
Navy, drove two gallant and excellent officers to
desert from actual desperation, form a glaring testi-
mony of the want of some itnpartial and duly-qualified
tribunal to adjudicate upon all such casualties.
Here was a miserable tyrant casting a slur upon the
o'}lest, because'tho,most national, of all our noble
and national Profcssi )rIsL-inaltreating so bitterly those
who had the miefertune to be subordinate to him
in rank, that two or possibly three were goaded to the
commission of suicide, and that two others were
maddened so as actually to subside into a state of
insanity—and yet a bile the infamy of these proceed-
ings is revolting the whole soul of England, and
snaking the islands echo with the voice of popular
indignation, two of the victims of this little CALI
GULA of the Ocean are subjected to the additional
harshness of an unmerited dismissal. Far are we
from any inclination to number ourselves among the
apologists of desertion, regarding, as we do, the crime
of desertion to be one of the most heinous that can be
committed by Lny one wearing the sword of fealty
tither in the military or the maritime profession.
Yet this we are bell to aver, that extenuating
facts are admissible in regard to the offence
of desertion as in regard to any other
infraction of codes moral or material, human
or divine. And of all circumstances that could
by any possibility be advanced in extenuation of the
act of a deserter, none could be more fully entitled to
consideration then those, the reality of which were
yesterday determined at Plymouth. If this man was
the ruthless and relereless persecutor he is declared
to have been, especially during the period of his
authority on 'board the Chillers—if his brutality pro-
duced, as the fruits of his command, not subordi-
nation, or good seamanship, or a cordial and unanimous
attachment, but insanity, suicide, and desertion—
then was the otherwise culpable act of Lieutenait
Camel not culpable, but justifiable, one might
almost say commendable. For the generous and
gellaet heart of a British seaman, whether
an officer or a man- before • the mast would
naturally prefer any course rather than
that of submission to the fury of an ignoble and
vindictive temperament. With such tartars as this
arch tartar of the Childers commanding the war-
ships of her Britannic MAJESTY, it, would have been
scarcely possible for NAPOLEON, on the field ol)1
Austerlitz, to remark that this country could afford
to lose the victor of Trafalgar, seeing that all the
sailors of England were Nelsons.
So execrable, in our estimation, is the conduct ,i
Such wretched offenders. as Commander PITMAN,that
if such were rendered the alternative, we would
rather have seen Lieutenant GRAHAM promoted to
the rank of Commodore than dismissed the servic,
for an act in which he vindicated the independence
of spirit most honourable in his profession.
But Commander PITMAN has been dii
missed the service ; and his name will henc9
fsteh be only borne in recollection as that of
One who endeavoured to cast a slur upon a flat
which had hitherto fluttered over the brave and the
gentle, over officers and over gentlemen. It was the
beautiful exclamation of the philanthropist HoweaU,
when lying on his death bed—" Bury me under the
grass ; place a sundial over my grave ; and let me he
forgotten." Haepily for the human rage, neither the
deeds of the persecutor nor those of the benefacteir
are so speedily obliterated from remembrance. Orie
memory is preserved as an example, the other as
warning! One as a noble prototype worthy of imitai-
" tion, the other as a detestable monstrosity, cat-
Pe- •ble only of exciting abhorrence. Let the
late Commander of the Childers find a bitte!r
consolation in the knowledge that the horror
excited by his cruelties is even now exercising
a whole Some influence over the community. Sk,
far his, otherwise perniCious career will prove if
the end beneficial. Through the miseries of his
victims the next generation will obtain a salutary
exemption from excessive severity. And among the
other advantages whiCh will accrue from these
I hitherto baneful proceedings, will be one little intended
by the mare who.has experienced that degradation and
punishment which, in the estimation of all England,
he''; has so, richly merited. The case—ae showing
the extreme• injustice of the recent treatment of
Lieutenant GRAHAM and his comrade—will, as we
have before intimated, conduce to the more rapid dis-
solution of what was already perishing; we mean the
existing system of courts-martial.

Now that the Commander of the Childers has been
abruptly and peremptorily dismissed the aervic.e, Mr.
GRAHAM and his brother officer will necessarily,
as a matter of course, be reinstated. So far, acLane .n
point will have been afforded to those who clamour
for this reform in the general management of naval
courts-martial. Another and equally glaring exam.
ple, corroborative of the arguments advanced against
the present system of conducting military courts-
rnartial, has been afforded within the last few months
by an instance of injustice so glaring and undeniable,
that it Las bectace 'Wulff.), mote notorious than any
other 'cond. martial "Perhaps upon record. Of
coure, we s, allude to the atrocious son
tence pronounced by .a - supercilious and
incomketent tribunal upon Captain GEOAGS DOUGLAS,

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