The Sun.
London, England, 1844-01-19 00:00:00

It would he slid that he wanted to corrupt the soldiery, and
withdraw them from their duty. It would be put down as an act
of high treason. It was, therefore, consummate wisdom on his
part never even to have alluded to it. His system cannot be per-
fect, it will not embrace every class through whose agency an
oppressed and plundered people can create for themselves a
wise, just, and impartial Government, without bloodshed,
rapine, or any species of crime, unless the soldiery are in-
structed in their conscientious duties. The very life and soul
of a soldier's profession is to die_ for his duty ; let the brave
soldier, therefore, know his duty, and he will die to perform it,
but as he every day of his life dares death be will die before he
would exceed it. My present purpose is to explain as clearly
as I can what that duty is. I cannot be suspected of corrupt-
ing the soldiery or bringing them over to second soy views of
my own. I can have no political object, no ambitious projects.
I took the oath of allegiance, and 1 shall adhere to it to my
death, and my position in society is immoveably fixed. I can,
therefore, have no object but to state the truth, as truth and
justice must ever go hand in hand, to make the statement of
the true doctrine on this point subservient to universal justice
as 'far as it may. I do not presume to be an authority
on this most grave and important subject, but stating
thus publicly what I cones ye to be in the true doc-
trine regarding • it, I am, open to correction. 1 . call upon
my fellow-clergymen, whose duty it is to be accurately
informed on it, and to communicate that information to all
whom it may concern, to set me and the public right when I
may have erred. lam sue many of them will be found to do
so when Igo wrong. A soldier is a person who hires himself
to a Government for the purpose of slaying his fellowmen.
He does not carry destructive weapons for the purpose
of hunting down wild beasts, or butchering sheep or
oxen. No; expressly and distinctly it is to kill his own
fellow-creatures. Viewed solely in this light, every teeling
of our nature recoils with horror from the profession of a
soldier ; and yet the true soldier is a manly, generous, and
noble fellow., His duty and his object it is true is, to slay
his fellow-man ; but then he is no cut-throat or Orangeman.
He would sooner be the victim of either than stain his high
character with the crime of the one or the infamy of the other.
He is not the ready tcol of a bloody minded tyrant, who
would employ him to cut down the unarmed and defenceless.
He would sooner stand to be shot at than be converted into a
murdering man-butcher by any such horrible miscreant. It
has been reported of a certain officer now stationed in Ireland,
that he attended an assemblage of magistrates held un the eve
of one of Mr. O'Connell's great mcnster meetings, as they
are called, and that he offered, on just getting a hint, to drive
a troop of dragoons into the body of the meeting, and trample
and cut down like weeds, men, women, and children If it be
a fact that this red-coat fiend made such an offer, and that it is
known to his fellow-officers in the service, and that they now
associate with him, I call them to their teeth a pack of cowardly,
infamous, unmanly scoundrels. He is no soldier. He is
Rot only a digrace to the character of an officer, but he
would be a .disgrace to a gang of pirates. No brave man
ever made such an offer. A brave man would let himself
be blown from a cannon before he would even contemplate
it, and the officers who tolerate such a filthy cannibal
amongst them, deserve to be sent out to gloat themselves
upon human flesh in the congenial companionship of their
fellow savages in the South Sea Islands. Having said this
much upon what is not, I now come to state what is the
duty of a soldier. It is his duty to fight against the enemies
of his country, armed for attack, or armed and forepmarned
for defence. This is the sum and substance of his, -duty ; if
he is ever employed for any other purpose he is not bound
to obey, but to this duty he is bound to devote every
energy of his mind and body in life and death. , In
action the soldier is to have no will of his own.' It is the right
and duty of his commanding officer to point out what he is to
do. It is his duty to do it or die; not only as a matter of per-
sonal bravery, but as a conscientious duty before God; he is
bound to give up all thought of self-preservation, all feelings
of humanity towards the enemy, not, however, to the extent t,f
unnecessary cruelty, to weaken and destroy the adversary in
every way in his power, and even when he sees that his own
death is inevitable, to sell his life as dear as he can. War
being once legitimately proclaimed, the soldier is a mere
instrument in the hands of the Government of his
country, to be employed by the general 'laced over
him for the destruction of the enemy ; and what-
ever ictellect he possesses, he is only to use to
carry into effect the commands of those in authority over him.
It will be said that this' is a degrading and debasing con-
dition to place rational beings in who are all accountable
for their actions, and many of whom may be as intelligent
and as enlightened as the very general whom they are thus
blindly required to obey, but the strength and effectiveness
of an army is in proportion to the extent to which this spirit
pervades the whole mass, men and officers. Prompt, cheer-
ful, and determined resolution. to carry the commanding offi-
cer's orders into effect, is the whole secret of military discip-
line. On it alone depends victory; it will tell almost against
any odds, and it
,is therefore that it is a moral duty in a-
just cause. This is the full extent to which the unreflecting
mechanical obedience required from the soldiery can be
carried. It is absolutely impossible that any human autho-
rity could exist on earth which could absolve any man in any
condition or profession from the moral responsibility which
attaches to every rational being. The soldier, like every
other man who hires himself for any' particular business, if
required to go beyond it, is not bound to obey ; if it ceases
to be legitimate, he is bound not to obey. The soldier is
'bound to fight against the enemies 'of his country in a
just war. This is his sole' dutps—this is his only- obliea-
tien ; if commanded to do anything else, he is not bound to
obey; and if he did obey with arms in his hands, when required,
to do anything unbecoming a soldier,-I • w ould call him not
only a base slave, but an arrant coward: If the• Government to-
Which he has engaged his services as a soldier should be so
iniquitous as to enter upon a war of plunder or unjust oppres-
sion against an unoffending people, he should die before he
would participate in such a' horrible crime. No supposed-
obligation, no imaginary duty, woutd justify or' excuse him
before God and the world ; he would be a robber and a'
murderer if he advanced one step in obedience to any human
being for such'a wicked purpose. But here arises the embar-
rassing difficulty to the brave and honest soldier. If believing
the service, to be iniquitous he disobeys, he is put down
as a coward. If he fights he is a murderer, and this to
be sure is a hard case, but why should a soldier talk of a hard'
case? If he be that milk-and water kind of thing, that
would sit down to bemoan his unhappy fate, what business had
he with the profession of a soldier? Will not the government
that would be so depraved as to engage. in such a war, be
sure to treat its own soldiery with as great barbarity as it
would the unoffending people, whom it would rob ? Will not
the brave and-1.,,,..r folii,oz who would disobey such pirates be
tried by court martial and shot at the dram 1...4a, —v.v..-
this world will ever make him take chance of escaping amongst
the gang of robbers who would obey, and then who is the
real coward ? Clearly the man who would take chance to
escape as the murdering thief, not he who would die sooner
than be such a villain. The fate of such a fine fellow would
no doubt be melancholy. There is no brave or generous
man living who would not shed the tear of warm sympathy
over his honoured grave. He himself would be the
only man who would stand unmoved when the instruments
of death would be pointed at him ; his very murderers would
shudder at their own crime, while the blessings of all that
is good and virtuous on the earth would follow his brave and
manly soul before the throne of that God, whom alone he
could be made to fear and obey, but whom upon that occasion
at least, he would have no cause to dread. Ido not, of course
mean to make any practical application of this doctrine to the
actual state of this or any other country at the present moment.
I put it forward solely as an adjunct to Mr. O'Connell's gene-
ral theory of peaceful agitation, which would bring about every
amelioration in the csndition of mankind, by instructing every
class of the community in the moral duties they owe to each
other. . The military have been in all ages .the most powerful
class; when ignorant, depraved, and blood-thirsty, they have
been invariably employed for the plunder and oppression of their
fellow-men; when intelligent, moral, and generous, they have
ever been the protectors of the people, the defenders of their
liberties, the. scourges of their tyrants ! It is therefore
essential that they snould be included in the grand scheme
for the universal regeneration of mankind by intellectual
instruction alone. If this short notice of this extremely im-
portant subject should contribute to bring it under general
discussion, it will be doing good service. If any one differ
from my views regarding it I shall be glad to have his reasons.
I undertake to go fully with him into it, and to define and
demonstrate the moral duty of the soldier under all possible
circumstances—in peace and war, at home and abroad. As a
beginning, to mark out those two or three prominent points,
about which there can be but little rational controversy, is,
perhaps, quite enough."
Such was the liberal, enlightened, and patriotic view taken
by a clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church of the duties
of a British' soldier. Was there in the community a
man of common sense, who could for a moment miscontrue
or misunderstand the, object and intention with which that
letter bad been written by the Rev. Mr. Power? No ; the
object of the Repeal leaders, in adopting this course with
respect to the soldiery, was as clear as the sun-light.
Their plans were crafty and subtle in the extreme, and if they
took especial care 'that their meetings should be conducted
• without turbulence, violence, or disorder, they adopted this
precaution for the purpose of warding off suspicion, and con-
cealing as effectively as possible their ulterior ends, which
were illegal, and in the last degree unconstitutional. There
was no expedient which the most corrupt ingenuity could de-
vise to winch• recourse was not had, in order to impress upon
the minds of the popular classes in Ireland, the necessity of
obtaining what they called " justice" from England, by peace-
able means if possible ; but justice at any hazard, whether
of peace or of war, in case that the attempt to attain the ob-
ject of their political ambition by " moral means" (as
the phrase had it, should prove abortive. They were resolved to
have " justice," which being interpreted, meant Repeal by peace-
able means if possible, but at all events " justice." And in
order to the more effective carrying out of this project the
crafty men who took the management of the repeal move-
ment into their own hands, thought it advisable to impress
upon the minds of the soldiery that if the present Government,
acting on the principles adopted by their predecessors, the late
Ministers of the Crown, who declared that they would prefer
civil war to the dismemberment of the empire—should think
fit to employ active measures for the suppression of sedition
and disaffection, they (the soldiery) were not in duty
bound to contribute their exertions to the attainment of
that end, nor to use the arms which had been placed in_
their hands by Government for the punishment of the.
disloyal, and the protection of the well-disposed subjects
of their Queen. The plan was singularly ingenious, whereby
it was intended to achieve "a tearless, bloodless revolution."
The popular classes were to be combined "as one man" (this
was the ordinary phrase) —the bond of union being detestation
of the Saxon oppressor—and when the popular mind had been
brought to this tone, the sergeants were to " pronounce," as
they had clone in Spain, the arm of military power was to be
piralysed by a coalescing of. the civilians with the soldiery, and,
by this means the-union was to be rei.ealed, and the empire was
to be dismernbered.l.And now he begged leave to make another.
allusion to a meeting to.which he: had alluded on the day pre-
vious—the meeting of the Loyal National, Repeal Association,
which was held in the Corn Exchange on the 4th of September
lait. On *that .occasion Mr.. O'Connell made a speech, in the
course of which he used, amid other remarks, the following
observations :

" I want no revolution, or, if any, only a return to former
times—such a revolution as that of 1782, or 1829—a bloodless,
stainless revolution. a political change for the :letter ; but, who
can tell me that we have sufficient resources remaining, even it
our present plans should be defeated? The people of Ireland
might increase the potato culture and leave the entire harvest
oflreland uncut. What would be the remedy for that? Who
would tell me that the Repealers of every class might not
totally give up the consumption of excisable articles ? I throw,
out these things merely to show that if the diabolical attempt to
,create bloodshed should succeed, the people would not be de-
prived of their resources, and the means of vindicating their
cause."
What ! forsooth, to leave the harvest of the entire country to
rot in the ground, to give up the the of all exciseable articles
—such was the constitutional mode by which Air. O'Connell
taught the.people to defeat the Executive Government. Why,
the Secret Committee of seventeen hundred and ninety-seven
made allusion to precisely a similar plan ; the harvest was to
remain uncut the year before the rebellion of '9B. But Mr.
O'Connell thought he hail gone a little too far, for in the
same address he said, " But, of course, I do not
suggest them. The harvest is now cut ; I speak the
day after the fair, and, therefore, st ith particular
safety, a resolution for the non-consumption "of excise-
able and cusfornable articles is not proposed at present, it is
reserved for a greater emergency; but I am far from saying
that it may not be proposed." In another part of his ad-
dress, he says, " On Sunday next I shall attend a meeting at