The Sun.
London, England, 1832-01-14 00:00:00

report.

-PRESIDENT—Nave you, Major Mack north, in
conformity with my orders, been at the house of
Colonel Brereton 9 Major Mackworth—Yes.
PREsmENr—llave you seen the Colonel % Ma-
jor Mark worth—Yes.

PII.IDENT—AIive or dead `r Major Mack-
n'tftrth—Dead.

PRESIDENT—GentIemoi, under the unfortunate
circumstances which have been laid before the Court,
it only remains for me to adjourn the sitting until I
receive orders from his Excellency the Commander-
in-Chief, to whom I shall forward a report.

Major Digby Mackworth, sworn by the Deputy
Judge Advocate, deposed that he (Major Mack-
worth) was Acting Assistant Adjutant-General in
the Bristol district; that he had seen the body of
Colonel Brereton, and that the Colonel was dead.
PRESIDENT-Sir Charles Dalbiac.
Sir Charles Dalbiac rose and addressed the Court.
President and Members of this honourable Court,—
I rise by permission of the President to address a
few words to you. If the tragical event that has
Just been communicated to the Court, be a source of
pain to you, gentlemen, how much more deeply must
it not affect the individual on whom has devolved
the duty of conducting the prosecution ? I assure
you, that I rise with a degree of distress and em-
barrassment such as I never experienced in all my
previous life.— (Sir Charles paused for a moment
to master his emotiens.) But I have one consola-
tion,—and a great one,—l declared in my opening
address, that I did not entertain the slightest
feeling, save that of impartiality, towards the
prisoner ; and I now repeat that declaration
9t solemnly as if I were in presence of my
God. I did not know, nor did I see Colonel
Brereton until the ]7th of November, when I was
ordered to investigate the circumstances of the
Bristol riots. I may add, that I was sent thither at
the might say the command—of my King.
I have borne the arms of my Sovereign, I have had
the honour of serving him, and if Colonel Brereton
had been my brother officer and my friend, instead
of being altogether a stranger to me, I could not
have departed from my duty, hut must have held
the same course towards that friend which I have
held to the unfortunate prisoner now no more.
The PRESIDENT—I feel called upon to say for
Sir Charles Dalbiac, that no proceeding of the kind
could have been conducted with less acrimony and
more propriety than have been displayed by him.

The PRESIDENT then directed the members of
the Court to leave their respective addresses until
he should have received a communication from the
Commander•in-Chief.

The COURT adjourned at twenty minutes past
ten o'clock. It is said that it will probably meet
again on Monday.
It is understood that a Court-martial will be
held upon Captain Warrington, of the 3d Dragoon
Guards, for alleged breach of duty during the riots.

PARTICULARS OF THE SUICIDE OF LIEUT-
COLONEL BRERETON.
The report of this tragical event, as we have al-
ready stated, reached Bristol about nine o'clock this
morning, and, 113 may be imagined, it created an in
describable sensation throughout the city. It took
place at Redfield-lodge, Lawrence-hill, an exceed-
ingly neat and pretty cottage, the residence of the
unfortunate deceased, and situate about a mile and a ,
half from Bristol, in the upper Bath-road. Colonel
13rereton, it appears, returned home there last night
about eleven o'clock, from Reeve's Hotel, in this
city, where he had been stopping during the progress
of the Cqurt-martial. He came home in his gig, ac-
companied
by his gardener. There was nothing
unusual observed by his domestics in his manner or
deportment on that occasion. He retired ro his bed-
chamber
some time after twelve o'clock, but he must j
have remained up a considerable time in committing i
to writing the reasons which had induced him to
perpetrate the fatal deed, for he leftafter him on the
table a statement on the subject that occupied nearly
half a quire of paper. His pistols had been as usual
deposited on the table in his bed-room. He did
not undress himself, but merely took off his coat
and threw himself on the bed. About a quarter
before three o'clock, the housekeeper, hearing the ,
report of a pistol in Colonel Breretort's bed-room, ;
gave the alarm, and the Colonel's footman immedi-
ately proceeded thither. He there found his un-
fortunate master stretched on his bed, and life com-
pletely erinct. The ball had entered in the left side,
directly in the region of the heart, which it must have
penetrated, for instantaneous death was the result.
The pistol was lying on the floor, which as well as
the bed, was inundated with blood, in consequence
of the profuse hemorrhage from the wound. It was
observed yesterday that the unfortunate deceased ap-
peared more than usually affected by the evidence
which was given towards the conclusion of the court-
martial. In the written statement which he is re-
ported to have left behind him, he is said to have at-
tributed to some particular quarter the immediate
cause of his untimely end. He was a widower, and
has left two daughters of very tender years to mourn
the fate of a good and kind-hearted parent.
Colonel Brereton was very respectably connected,
and was about fifty-two years of age, thirty-three
years of which had been spent in the army. Though
never present in any remarkable engagement, he
had acquired the reputation of being a trustworthy
and meritorious officer. He served at the Cape of
Good Hope during the government of Lord Charles
Somerset. Appointed to the command of a regi
meet on the Caffre frontier (reported as being in a
state of insubordination), be was intrusted by the
Governor with the command of the whole frontier.
The officers of his regiment (the 49th, we believi')
presented him, through Sir Henry Torrens, with a
sword, valued two hundred guineas. He was eight
years Inspecting Field-officer of the Bristol district,
where he succeeded Colonel p amen, by exchange.
In the disastrous occurrences which led to the in-
vestigation into his conduct, the character of the
officer suffered from the benevolence of of the man.
Deficient in the great military principle of decision,
averse to the shedding of blood, and obliged to
seek instructions from a magistracy anxious to shift

the burden of responsibility for severe measures
from their collective shoulders, he neither discerned
with the requisite precision, nor acted with the
promptitude which the exigency of the occasion de-
manded. The censure of thoge who were most
bitter in their condemnation of him when living, ex-
tends no further, now that he has made his fearful
and rash appeal from a tribunal of his fellow-
creatures to the judgment-seat of God.
In his private relations, his conduct was un-

impeachable. He was distinguished by invariable
kind-heartedness to ail ; and when his death was
made known in the neighbourhood of his dwelling,
a crowd of women and children, many of whom
wept him as a benefactor, gathered to his threshold
to mourn his loss. His liberality was the more esti-
mable, as, with respect to fortune, he possessed hut
a small private independence.