The Sun.
London, England, 1850-01-23 00:00:00

411ipling

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1850.

Within a fortnight Parliament will have re-assem
bled, and then, besides many questions of vital irn
portance to the community at large, various matters
of a less general interest will come in rapid succession
under the consideration of the Legislature. Among
the latter we are sanguine that the great wrong done
to an officer in the military service of her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen of ENGLAND-a de-
plorable violation of the laws of this country, and of
the abstract principles of justice to which we our-
selves have already referred—will not be overlooked.
Our solicitude would unquestionably have been most
earnest had the evil influenced alone the fortunes of
this afflicted gentleman ; but seeing that, through him,
the status of the whole British, army is assailed,.our
anxiety that such an enormous error should be recti-
fied iF, if that be possible, considerably enhanced.
Had the lamentable misprisions of justice to which
we are here making allusion affected simply and ex-
clusively the position of a single one of the sub-
jects of her Britannic MAJESTY, we could not, we
repeat, have remained indifferent to a circumstance so
glaringly fraught with disgrace to the whole body poli-
tic. The recollection of the memorable remark uttered
by one of therenowned men of antiquity—Malle se ununi
civem servare, quam mille h.stes occidere—would
have been sufficient of itself to provoke our advocacy
of the violated rights of a fellow-countryman, and
must inevitably have elicited from all quarters
of the empire words of horror and indignation.
Nevertheless, beyond the cruelty evinced towards
a solitary 11Bit in the population of Great
Britain, the sentence of the recent • Court-
martial at Guernsey has betrayed a capacity on the
part of those tribunals to disorganize the whole ma-
chinery of the martial power of England. To pre-
vent the recurrence of such atrocious decisions, to re-
instate an officer wrongfully and ignominiously dis-
missed from the army of his SOVEREIGN, to dissipate
for ever these scarcely resistible incitements to in-
subordination—must be the aim, 'the desire, and the
resolution of every individual alive to the calls cf
justice and of patriotism. Hence it is that we are
induced to recur betimes to a subject already com-
mented upon in these columns at some length, and
which must, before many weeks have expired, be
formally brought under discussion in one, if not boti ,
of the Houses of Parliament.

One fact, which has been conspicuously demon-
strated by the late occurrence in the Channel Island,
would, if considered alone, be ample justification fur
a demand for the re-organization of military juris-
prudence—namely, that "in the existing state of the
law the unfortunate accused has no means of knowing
the sentence which has crushed him until it has been
ratified (by the Crown), carried into execution, and
therefore irrevocable " Surely, than this nothing
more violently opposed to the commonest principle 4
of justice could be contrived even under the most
Dionysian despotism. Ttiat a prisoner should be
deprived of all the chances of remonstrance until such
time as any remonstrance whatever 'is worse than
futile, is a system in direct contravention of all the
dogmas of British jurisprudence. It is to effect the
abolition of such an execrable scheme of punishment
that the energies of every true•hearted citizen in the
land should be directed. It is in the hope of aiding
in the removal of this crying evil from the military
code of Great Britain that we have written, that we
write, that we shall continue to write with such
unintermittent, unaffected, and undiminishable
earnestness. That this evil will be removed, and that,
moreover, very speedily, we are sanguine, with the
assistance of our hereditary legislators and our na-
tional representatives.
Having, in our previous observations on the case of
the unfortunate Captain of the 16th Regiment, al
luded in emphatic terms of admiration to the ela-
borate " Letter," addressed in his behalf to her Most
Excellent Majesty Queen VICTORIA by Mr. WAR-
REN, we may be permitted to instance the force of his
arguments by one or two very forcible quotations
from its introduction. After intimating at the outset
the want of all validity in the proceedings about to be
submitted to the attention of the SOVEREIGN, our
author avers—
" Those proceedings, I undertake to show, e.e
wrong from beginning to end: wrong in substance,
wrong in form; wrong in fact, wrong is law; wrong in
the conduct of the inquiry; wrong in the finding; wrung
in the sentence; wrong in carrving it into effect; wrong
in the recording of the proceedings; wrong in the col.-
firmation of them before being submitted Ibr your Mu-
jesty's approval; wrong in the rejection c f an appeal
from that confirmation; wrong, in Let, in everything,
but intention."

Nor, we are bold to say, will one dissentient voice
be raised against the accuracy of this damning cata-
logue of blunders. Throughout the whole of the 282
pages of this enthralling and masterly pamphlet the
evidences adduced' in proof of the veracity cf this
startling preliminary assertion are copious and con-
clusive. Every judgment will recognise the over-
whelming force of the whole exposure, every eye will
perceive at a glance the excessive hardship of every
step in these deplorable transactions, every heart will
revolt from the crookedness of each detail of the
proceedings.
With these touching sentences the author pri-
ludes his generous and dignified appeal to his
SOTERBION:--

"An officer, an accomplished gentleman, of ancient and
honourable family, in the very flower of his age, atter
having devoted thirteen years to the faithful and zealous
service of your Majesty, in almost every quarter i. f
your World-wide dominions, has been ignominiously ex-
pelled from that service, 'branded as a liar. He stood on
trial, before his brother-Aficers, with as high vouchers
to character, as could have been presented, had it un-
fmtunately been rendered necessary by such a casualty
as has befallen him, by any one cf themselves. He was,
moreover, the eldest son of a general officer, who late'y
descended to his grave with honour, after half a century
spent in the service,of three of your Majesty's prede-
cessors; leaving behind him, as his eldest son, the ui.-
happy gentleman to whose case I earnestly implore the
attention cf your Mejesty. His venerable father sleeps
calmly in the dUst, trom which he might start with
'horror, could he know of the blight which had falls
upon the ancient name inscribed upon his tomb. Ile
had lcft that name—the unsullied honour of his house—
ta be in like manlier sustained by his son, his succour in
your Majesty's service, and the head and representative
of his family. That son is himself a father -,-the father
of lovely children, and one of thew, a son: but the mere
sight of them is, agony to him; for they bear, alas! a
now dishonoured name; and are the unconscious of:-
spring of a ruined outcast." ,
Having so announced to her MAJZSTY the nature of
that great wrong which he, as "a free, fearless, but
loyal Englishman," beseeches her to redress, through
the plenitude of her royal authority, the
writer forcibly calls to the remembrance of the
Queen of ENGLAND two precedents of such inter-
ference on the part of the MONARCH, precedents
" recorded in glowing language by the late Lord
ER.SKINE." Before, however, entering into a more
detailed examination of the occurrences out of
which the recent proceedings emanated, Mr. WARREN
scrupulously disclaims any desire to attach blame to
any individual in regard to intention. In trutls,
even the principal portion of his condemnation, apart
from all charges of ill-intention, are directed indi-
vidually, against her MAJESTY'S late Judge Advocate-
General, whom he very naturally regards as one
indifferently qualified to direct any such
proceedings, having, shortly before his retire-
*ment from the bar, practised " not in the cow -
mon law courts, but in those of equity, which are
concerned with questions relating to property only,
and have to deal not with viva voce but with written