The Sun.
London, England, 1824-11-01 00:00:00

[THE TIMES.]

There is in some of the newspapers the report
of two courts-martial held at Malta on the Ist
and 24th of March, 1824, and afterwards re-as-
sembled for a revision of the sentences. Two offi-
cers of artillery were the parties prosecuted, and
they were dismissed the service,—we do not say
unjustly, considering what sort of thing an army
is, and what an absolute surrender of all his
faculties must be required of every man who
once consents to make himself a poition of that
powerful but passive instrument. The parti-
cular crime, however, of these gentlemen was
one which we will venture to say was never yet
recorded or anticipated in any catalogue of
offences against law or gospel. It was nothing
less, on the part of Lieutenant Dawson, than re-
fusing to fire certain rounds of artillery in
honour of a tutelar Saint, whose name is not
given for our edification, but who seems to have
been an important personage in the eyes of our
Maltese fellow-subjects. The Commandant of Ar-
tillery had issued orders that the Saint should be sa-
luted—the lieutenant remonstrated ; then declined
the office; and, as we gather from the learned Ad-
jutant-General, pleaded some religious notion for
his disobedience of orders and disregard of the
Saint. A Captain Atchison, it seems, did not
enforce the commands of his superiors upon Lieut.
Dawson, and was also tried and cashiered for this
negative transgression. His Majesty, in approving
both sentences, takes occasion to lay it down
as a military postulate, that if " religious
" principles were allowed to be urged by
" individual officers as a plea for disobe-
dience of orders, the discipline of the army
" would sustain an injury which might be
" dangerous to the welfare of the State." What,
then, it may be asked, are officers to despise all
scruples of conscience, and fly in the face of
what they conceive to be a religious duty I Un-
doubtedly not ; and the alternative is in their
own hands. A person whose military duty has
the misfortune to offend his conscience ought to
quit the service ; he has no business there ; his
conscience ought to tell him how little right he has
to appropriate the public taxes, and to wear fine
clothes at other people's expence, and to exercise
great privileges which men of peaceable profession
are debarred from, unless he is satisfied to give

the State an equivalent for its money, by shooting
away whenever he may be ordered, let the purpose
be to send living men to heaven, or to compliment
the dead on their supposed reception th►rre+. Now,
it is more than probable, that Messrs. Atchison and
Dawson, who felt so much religious delicacy about
firing blank cartridge in a Catholic country, to
indulge the foolish reverence of the inhabitants
fur their Saint, had never betrayed the least hesi.

MARRIED.
On Saturday, the 30th ult., at Croydon, the Rev. Edward
Serocohl Pearcie, only son of the late Dean of Ely, to Georgians
Elizabeth, second daughter of George Smith, Esq , M.l'.
On the Ifith ult., Mr. henry Maitland, surgeon dentist, of
Abchurch-yard, to Frances, youngest daughter of Mr. Corne-
lius Berry, of Blackfriars-road. •
On Thursday, the 28th ult., at Battersea, Mr. Richard
Peele, of Wisbeach to Marianne, eldest daughter of Mr. John
Ashlin, of Rush-hill-house, Wandsworth-road.
On the 211th ult., at Brighton, the Rev. James Parker
Voules, 8.A., of St. Peter's College, Cambridge, to Aurora
Mary, daughter of James Daniell, Esq.
On Thursday last, at Daventry, Edmund Singer Burton,
Esq., to Ana Maria, eldest daughter of the late Clarke Wat-
kins, Esq.