Star.
London, England, 1811-07-19 00:00:00

Mr. YORKE said be could not help regretting .
that the Hon. Gentleman had referred to those moo
malous cases which he mentioned after the first. Ile
thought it was his duty, after having received such
information as he had described, to have given imme-
diate intelligence of it to the Admiralty, in order that
those officers should be called to an account for their
conduct ; and he thought that he (Mr. Yorke) was
bound in duty to call on the Hon. Gentleman, jf he
had possession of this information, to lay it before the
Admiralty. He was very sorry the Hon. Gentle-
man had thrown out this, without having so done;
for surely those officers, if they had taus offended,
should, as they deserved, be called to the severest
account by dust 13onrd, which had it in their power
to punish them effectually without troubling Parlia-
ment. He had no objection to the production of the
minutes of this Court-Martial, but he must beg the
attention of the House to a few observations which he
deemed it his duty to make on the occasion. He de-
nied that gagging was (as the Honourable Gentle-
man had been informed) a common.punishment in
the navy, but, if used, the officers sn using it would
be liable to be tried by a Court-Martial;. That it
might have existed in particular cases, he could not
deny ; but it must be recollected, that on board ship,
there are so'many to begoverned by so few, and attach
distance frequently from any land, that punishments
must someti roesberesorted to which 4 re not conforrn.it le
to the laws of society in general. The fact was, that
this was an instance of great cruelty ; but the officer
i who inflicted received for it the utmost puaislunent
the law would allow, lie was tried for his Ife, but
acquitted by the Court-Martial of the murder, Le-
cause it was thought he had no actual malice against
I the man ; and farther, that the man did not die in
iconsequence of the punishment alone. He was, how-
ever, held in such abhorrence for the cruelty, that he
v. as dismissed the service, and rendered incapable of
ever LeL ving his Majesty again. The seaman who
died was a very turbulent, noisy fellow, very apt to
get intoxicated ; and he was so much so when he was
first confined, that h- made the most unwarrantable
n&se,and blasphemed so loudly, and in such a shock.
ing manner, as to require some farther pueisairent
than confinement, by way of example. He was warn-
ed, that it he was not quiet, he would be gaped, but
he would not listen to any thing. After the first gag
was taken out of his mouth, he still persisted in m .k.
ing a noise ; and then the officer, very impreperly in.
deed, put a larger gag into his mouth, and w nt .11.
shore without ordering a proper sentry over him.—
The man certainly died, but he was much inti,xicat-d :
at and before the time. As to the Coroner's Imp est..
an order was given that the body should be taken i a
' shore, and it was actually put on board a boat for the
purpose ; but it was in such a state of putrefaction,
that after some time the seamen in the boat were
compelled, in their own dofence, to throw it into the
sea. The officer had already been tried by a Court-
Martial ; and, though acqiiitted of the murder, was
dismissed, and rendered incapable of ever serving
again. He thought the House would not be willing
to try him again, but he had no objection to the pro-
duction of the minutes moved for.
Sir R. BICKERTON said, he had been two-and-
twenty years in the navy, and he never heard of the
punishment of gagging in any ship he had.been in.
Lord WALPOLE said a few words t the case,
nearly similar to what Mr. Yorke had stated.
Mr. BROUGHAM explained.
Lord COCHRANE said, that in many cases there
was undoubtedly too much severity ; but in a general
view of the subject, he believed there was as much
humanity in the treatment of sailors as could reason-
ably be expected. If men enough could.be induc:.i
to enter voluntarily into the navy, he believed that
there would be no occasion for such severe punish-
ments ; but when convicts, and persons unfit for any
society on shore, were sent on board ship as sailors,
severe and summary punishments were necessary.—
He allowed that gagging was rather a cruel punish-
ment, but if a notorious drunken scoundrel would sell
his things to buy other men's allowance of grog, and
disturbed, by his noise, that part of the crew which
ought to be allowed to sleep, he thought it humanity
to the crew that such a fellow should be gigged. He
had known a vessel in which the crew were under
very good discipline, and where there were no other
punishments but such as were considered disgratetal;
but he knew that according to the general course of
things, and considering the variety of persons assem-
bled on board ship, it was impossible to preserve dis-
cipline without summary and pretty severe punish-
ments. As to the army, although he must speak
with more diffidence, he believed severe punishments
might be dispensed with, when the soldier was within
the jurisdiction of the laws of England ; but upon
foreign service, he was sure that it was absolutely ne-
cessary that the officers should have power of inflicting
severe punishments, if necessary. He considered, that
finding out a way for the navy to be manned by vo-
lunteers would be the only effectual remedy.
Sir FRANCIS BURDETT thought it extraordi-
nary that there should lie any objection to granting
the minutes of this Court Martial, w hich was the only
evidence upon which the House would be able to de-
termine. He thought his Honourable Friend (Mr.
Brougham) had exercised a proper discretion in not
mentioning the names of those who had given him
the information in the anonymous cases which he had
stated. Complaints of abuses were always so unpa-
latable to men in power, that he could not be suffi-
ciently assured, that giving up their names would not
expose them to some resentment from those persons
who had the power either to serve or to injure them
in their profession. The simple question was, whether
the minutes of this Court Martial should or should
not be granted, and he had heard no sort of reason
for withholding them. He lead felt so strongly on ,
this question of military punishments, that he nardly
conceived himself to be quite impertial on the subject,
and thought he might be inclined to look on those
cases, in general, with a great degree of suspicion.—
It was, however, evidently fair that the judgment of
the House should be formed on the whole evidence,
and not merely on those parts which the Gentlemen
on the other side chose to select. By the common
law of this country this case would probably be con-
sidered a tout murder. He did not know whether an

acquittal by the Court Martial protected the person
from being tried again at comm. n law.
The ATTO NEY.GENL RA L lamented that
his Hon. and Learned l'rieLid had not tiwught pro-
per, in the tirst instance, to submit the cases which
Ihe had adduced to the consideration of the Admi-