The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-22 00:00:00

LORD CARDIGAN AND 'Nat.
MACALTLAY,
(From the ..11,forkiT'zj Chronicle.)
The answer of Mr. 'Ma2aulay to Mr. Hurne's question
respecting Lord Cardigan has done little service to that
noblemen, wtile it will, we fear, prove itkittrieltS 1.6 the
Right Hon. Gentleman himself.
Mr. Macaula3's statement (kiter irrelevant or UP..
true. As to the eirC'eAis'tance so minutely described of the
11th Regiment arson !Kea matched out of the Ri;.ii-tt
school, inspfected for half an hour, and thef..l,ll`.`,'Zheci hack
to the hiding-zchocl, ult,.'n the punitinnent was inffcted,
we nnderstand that the whole took place under what is
called a " church parade," But the matter is unimpsrt-
ant. Mr. Macaulay, however, went out of his way to
volunteer a tribute to the humanity of the Earl of Cardi-
gan. We have already observed that the charge against
his Lordship was nut for inhumanity, but for indecency.
In noticing the case, we expressly avoided entering into
the question of flogging. or whether private Rogers de-
served it or not, and confined ourselves to the mere fact
of the punishment having been inflicted on a Sunday.
But as Mr. Macaulay has become Lord Cardigan's truzn-
peter, and injudiciously raised the question of his humanity,
as a set-off for his disregard of decency, we will proceed
to join issue with him on that point.

As a proof of the humanity of Lord Cardigan, Mr.
Macaulay has asterted that no man in the 11th Hussars has
been punished with the lash since 1839. This inference
can scarcely be drawn from all the circumstances conLec-
tad with his Lordship's command.
The strength of fan corps under his Lordship's com-
mand is about 335, rank and file.

The number of Courts-martial from June, 1838,
to June, 1839, was about
June, 1839, to May, 1840, about 45

Totll lO3
Of this number four were pardoned.
The punishments by Lord Cardigan's own authority on
the delaulterb' list were—
In the first year, about
In the second eleven months, about

Total 748
During the time the regiment was in Canterbury time
were about 90 icon confined in the gaol.
In regard to the defaulters amounting to about 748, it
is understood Lord Cardigan received instructions from
head-quarters to diminish the severity of his punishments.
And as to the courts-martial, the Inspector-General of
Cavalry, Sir C. Dalbiac, recorded his opinion, that " Lord
Cardigan's command had been characterised by unneces-
sary harshness."

The inference therefore is, that it is not to Lord Cardi.
gan's humanity, but to the orders of the Horse Guards cot.
sequent on his Lordship's severity, that the diminution cf
punishments is to be attributed since the regiment lett
Canterbury,

With reapect to the quasi-justification, that " the case
was, not peculiar, as similar instances had occurred in the
army, as well as in the other branches of the service," we
were sure that Mr. Macaulay was here calumaiiting the
officers of the army. We have made inquiries in the proper
quarter, and are positively assured that such a thing as
flogging on a Sunday is utterly unknown in England—
nay, that even in the colonies it is unheard of. We sub-
join a Ltter on the subject from an officer who has com-
manded two regimeuts, in which Mr. Ma •aulay is chal-
lenged to produce a single case of such an outrage in the
United Kingdom or the Colonies :
" Sir,-1c appears to me most essential that the public
should be disabused with regard to punishment in the
army being inflicted on a Sunday. I challenge Mr.
Macaulay. or any other person, civil or military, to pro-
duce a case of such outrage in the United Kingdom, or in
the Colonies, and I hope you, on behalf of the public,
will not let the matter rest until the case is produced. It
is possible that in the field or active service such an occur-
rence has taken place ; but th at is a very different affiir.
Your obedient servant,
" AN OLD OFFICER,
Forty years in the army, having com-
manded tao regiments."
We cannot quit th subject without ot)aerving that it
gives us pain to see a man like Mr. Macaulay compromis-
i'g his own title to public regard by his mode of defend-
ing Lord Cardigan. When Lord Cardigan was the sub-
ject of n discussion in the House before the recess, the
Right Honourable Gentleman positively misrepresented the
nature of tha communication trom the Commander.in-
Chief, when he contradicted Mr. Warburton, whose ac-
count of it was strictly correct. Mr. Macaulay said
"he believed that the communication of Lord Hill
was a general admonition to the regiment, to the effect
that the dissensions between the commanding officer and
some of the officers had a tendency to render the corps in--
efficient," whereas ire mmanding officer distinctly
stated " that thellth Hussars is not in the state in which
a regiment ougid to be, in order to afford ground for con-
fidence that it would, in quarters or in the field, at house or
abroad, render the efficient service which might be ex-
pected" from such a bady. It cannot surely be necessary
for the Right Honourable Gentleman, in the discharge of
his official duty, to play the advocate for Lord Cardigan,
though, even as an advocate, he has indulged in a mare
than allowable looseness of sta:emcnt. The whole style,
too, of his answer to Mr. Hume on Tuesday night—his
laboured tribute to Lord Cardigan's humanity, and his
questionable endeavour to shelter his Lordship's inde-
cency under precedent, in order to weaken the feeling
which his outrageous conduct was calculated to excite—
was altogether unworthy of Mr. Macaulay.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
In the whole course of our newspaper experience—that
experience extends to about ei(Biteen years—we have
never heard or known of such an atrocious outrage upon
public feeling es that perpetrated by Lord Cardigan in
flogging a soldier upon the Sabbath-day—a day of rest
and forgiveness, and forgetfulness of injuries—of charity
and prayer—of kindliness and good feeling.
Flogging, in any instance, is a brutal, barbarous, and de-
moralising act, and can only be committed, or put into
practice, by a barbarian or a brute ; but for any one to
have said, as in the course of diine service he must
have said, "forgive us our debts, as we forgive the
debts of others," and flogging a soldier immediately after-
wards, the barbarism of tile flogging becomes infinitely
more disgusting and atrocious.
And what did Lord Cardigan do, according to the ac-
counts which have appeared in almost every paper? Why,
after making his orisons to his Maker—after hearing
Divine service, in the course of which we doubt not the
Rev. official inculcated the principles cf mercy and for-
giveness, and brotherly love—he leaves the house of God,
and in thorough contradiction of the holy principles at-
tempted to be impre,sed upon his mind, he orders the haL
bests to be prepared, the cat to be in readiness, and a mi-
serable poor brother in flesh to be stripped, and his bare
back exposed to the involuntary but savage lash of
the drummer. Was there ever such a scene exhibited in
the whole annals of the army as that to which we now
refer ? Will even the " Nee gate Calendar," or the Ca-
lendar of any other gaol in any part of the United King-
dom, furnish us with such a signal instance of cruelty on
the one hand, or desecration of the Sabbath on the other?
Lord Cardigan, if we are rightly informed, is supported
by a Royal Lady, and has hitherto escaped from being
cashiered, in consequence of his private influence in that
quarter; but whatever that influence may be, we will tell
Lord Melbourne, honestly and sincerely, that if he sub-
mit to the dictation to which we allude, he v ill nit only
materially damage his own personal character, but als,
that of the administration of which he is the head. If
Lord Hill be waning into dotage, and incapable of dis-
charging his duties as Commander of the Forces, which
to all appearance seems to he the case, he ought to be
cal'ed upon to resign his iffice, which he has held too
long, and to transmit its rights and privileges to more firm
and able hands. At all evente his conduct respecting
Lord Cardigae, has given the greatest disgust te) the pub-
lic generally ; and if Lord Hill do not have bim dismissal
for the desecrating outrage of which the Noble Lord has
been guilty, since the last lecture administered to him at
Brighton, there is no one who will not concur in the
opinion that he is utterly and totally unfit to fill the high
situation, and execute the important duties committed to
his charge.

(From the Morning Herald.)
In adverting—in the Herald of the 15th instant—to tine
case of a flogging inflicted on a private of the 11th Hus-
cars on a Sunday, in the riding-school of Hounslow Bar-
melts, and " immediately after (as it was alleged) the
celebration of Divine Service," we availed ourselves of
that opportunity to express a doubt as to some parts of the
statement which was originally published of that transac-
tion. The explanations which have since been offered in
the House of Commons have amply justified the doubts
which we then intimated ; we wish we could add that
they had altogether relieved us from the necessity of re-
deeming the pledge which we then gave, that, in the event
of its theresf er appearing that Lord Cardigan had ren-
dered himself justly obnoxious, by his conduct in the mat•
ter, to the imputations which had been lavishly cast upon
him, we should not be slow to concur with the Chronicle
in calling for the severest censure upon his Lordship at tho
hands of the highest military authorities.
We must own that the discussion which took place on
this affair, in the House, the night before last, has excited
in us a strong feeling of disappointment and regret. The
case, as very fairly put by Mr. Macaulay, the Secretary at
War, certainly exhibits an important mitigation of those
circumstances, on the assumption of which, alone, we pre-
sume, could our Contemporary, the Morning Chronicle,
have been betrayed into the coarse, not to say ferocious,
expressions in which it passed judgment on Lord Cardi-
gan, unheard:—
" With the punishment of the soldier in question asked
by his Hon. Friend had nothing to do, and, whatever
other charge might be brought against the Noble Lord
( Cardigan) in the command of that regiment, there could
be none on the ground of humanity, as would be proved by
the fact, that since the early part of 1839 there had Dot
been an instance of corporal punishment in the regiment,
except in the case just referred to. The charge which
might be, and had been brought against Lord Cardigan
on this occasion, was for having directed the punish.
ment to be inflicted on a Sunday__( Hear, hear)—a pro-
ceeding which he (Mr. Macaulay) would not defend, be-
lieving it to be utterly repugnant to the general feelings of
the country—( Hear, hear)—and though the case was not
without a precedent in the service, yet all the officers of
great experience whom be had consulted on the subject,
stated that corporal punishment was never inflicted on a
Sunday, except under circumstances of great exigency--
circumstances which certainly did not exist in this case.—
( Hear.) However, he had to state to the House that
such notice had been taken, and would be taken, of the
case as would effectually prevent the recurrence of any
similar one in future."—(Hear.)
Now, taking for granted the perfect impartiality of
this account of the affair, it amounts to no exoneration of
the Noble Lieutenant-Colonel, from the charge of having
needlessly and offensively desecrated the Sabbath. His
Lordship may—as the Secretary at war seems, in charity,
to suggest for him—have been intent only on carrying cut
that unremitting system of discipline, for his sueccss
in administering and maintaining which the corn-
mander-in- Chief has, on more than one occasion, so highly
eulogised bim. Butewhatever value Lord .Cardigan may