The Sun.
London, England, 1803-07-12 00:00:00

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COURT PF KNC :TENCH, It.
SITTINGS nzroks. ',CARD ELLENSOROIIGH ANT) A SPt..-
C-lAL JURY, IN WESIMINUTUI BALL.

TIME KING V. HvPBURN, ESQ. ANOTHER.
TIII, xas an Information:fi:cti by.fl6 Maieity''s

Attorney General against th, Defendants, William
epburj E.q. the Lieutcnant.ColOnel of His Mal.
jesty': 3ist Regiment of Foot, commonly called
the Hutaingd,o Regiment, and John IVPCAlmming-,
Esq. Cartaio and Paymaster of the said Regiment-,
in the ye A's' t79s.and 1797, for a conspiracy to
defraud, and for atitially defrauding His Majesty of
divers sums of money, by making out false lists of
men adually in pay in the Regithent, some hundreds
of them two days after they died, and of charging
for several "pon.commissioned Officers, S:•rjeants,
Corporals, &c. who never were such; but who only
seceived the ray of private Men, and of charging
some as Serjeants and others as Corporals at an
higher rate of subsistence than was adually allowed
to these non.Lommissioned Officers,.&c.
There were several Counts in the Information,
which stated these frauds to have been committed
without alledging any conspiracy, to which the De.
fendants rleaded—Not Guilty.
'he ATTORNEY GWNEVAL opened the Case for
the 13103eCtItiOn, which he said was that of an In..
formation filed against two Officers in His Majesty's.
service of high rank in the 31st Regiment, known
by the name of the Huntingdon. The Jury would
do him the credit to believe that it was with ex-
treme regret that besbrought before their consider.
anon for trial a case of this description, which
charged two persons of such distinguished rank and
station,'in so honourable 'a profession, with so mean
and disgraceful art offence.• At any time, and under
any circumstances, it would be painful to be en.
gaged in fixing a stigma and dkgrace on persons
whose rank, station, and profession bad so many
calls on us, in their public situation, fiir our re.
aped, and who, from that public situation, had
themselves so many incitements to honourable con.
duet on their part towards the Public whom it was
their duty to proted, and towards their Sovereign,
whom it was their duty to obey. He repeated,
that it would be a painful duty, ac any time, to be
engaged in exposing the dishonour of men so ho-
nourably stationed ; it was at the present.tinie most
particularly so, when the whole CountrY at large,
and almost every individual among us, was turning,
as it were, .the whole offedion of his heart towards
that important and honourable service, and looking
to almost every individual belonging to it as a per-
son to whom, or to whose courage and exertion,
this Country may owe its political salvation, and
yossibli its existence, 'To be obliged to represent
any persons connefted with such an honourable ser.
vice, as haying degraded themselves .with
,the
meanness of peculation, or of fraud, such as this
information charged these Defendants with, and
called, upon the Jury to pronounce upon them; such
a task-, he said., was now most painful ' but if the
fads were as he had too much to believe, the
Jury would find they would be called upon, in the
discharge of that painful but imperative duty, to
pronounce them guilty ; by which they would say,
that these persons, so stationed, where they had so
'many incitements to honourable conduct, had de-
graded themselves beloW the level of common ho.
nes:y. It would, in such case, be the duty of the
jury, not only to the Public whom the' Defendants
hid so defrauded, hut also. to the honourable service
of which they had been unworthy members, to
mark them as persons whoM it Was fit to separate
from that honourable burly, that such a case as this
might not, by its unpunished example, hold nut
that the. Government of the Country was indifferent
to the honour of the service to which their indivi.
duals bel-nged. He trusted that the jilry, as well
as every person concerned in this Proseciotou, would
be persuaded of, and feel tthe propriety Of theSe oh.
seri/A(01s; and although every omit would shrink
back with 'disgust .from any 'suspicion of meanness,
in the condud of men so honouraltly stationed, .yet
if the evidence of :it was clear, t hej ury would not
shrink from their imblic duty, but perform it as he
had done his, for lie had been under .the absolute
necessity of bringing this matter before them,
He then proceeded to state, that the nature of
the service required, as;tbe jury would easily anti.
perfed regulations in.making returns of the
tillmber the rank of persons serving in the Re.
gonents to which they belong. The money af.
forded to the body of a whole Regiment depended
comrsiderably on the number of those who held a
certain rank in ir, who were called non-commis.
sinned Officers, and this was pruvidemi •by parlia.
mentary regulations, as , well ;as the Articles of
War, which provided, amongst other things, that
Returns shtsuld be made half yearly of every Regi.
ment.

The substance of this information brought Wore
the Jury three accounts of this Regiment, made out
by Captain M'Cumming, and certified by Colonel
Hepburn, of three half years, in the years 1796
and 1797. He then proceeded to state to the Jury
the nature of the case, and the manner in which this
fraud was pratlised, to give to th:ln, as he said, a
key to the whole' iransuttion. The nature of the
offence was that of. making false returns, and of
representing the strength of the Regiment greater
than it was at the time when these accounts were
made or, and consequently giving a greatei charge
into Government than was iktually borne, so that the
difference bet weeri the sum actually paid for the Non.
commissioned Officers, &c. and the sum charged .toi
Government by these false accounts by the Captain,
nd certified by theCotnmandingofiker to be t rue,was
put into their pockets. This was done in many in.'
stances by representing a number of Privates as if
they had filled the [station of- Serjeants, Corporals,
&c. at the time when they were in the West Indies,
and where they hail' to encounter much more titan
the 'common enemy, a maligna►►t fever, when the
Regiment, was reduced from tOOO strung to tzo or
130. This was one source of imposition of. these
Officers on the GOvernment. The other source .of
imposition. which they had successfully prani.,ed
was, to continue all the names upon the list ,of the