The Statesman.
London, England, 1810-01-09 00:00:00

LETTrat FROM LORD MINT() AND "ME OTHER
NIENIBERS OF THE BENGAL. 11.31-HI)LNCI,
TO Slit GEORGE BARLOW.

ronchitled from Fefday's Paper.
41. The next complaint is the redeate of Lieut..
Culotte, Munro.
pfla4rteasdiiilietiefsr,omas tl;oe
pat4h.erWihtselpi itronierrmyansdteplesgliod
become the instrument of party, to mix in poli-
`deal views, and to undertake the remoial of Go-
Vernors or Ministers, we should 1129 e expected
that any grievance they should addlice in sup.
port of a proceeding, so foreign to their own
' character, should consist at legit in some act of
grievance and intolerable oppression. The mea.
sore which is the subject of this complaint is',on
the contrary, au act of grace and justice. It is
not the unjust arrest of any Officer
for purposes
'of oppression anti vengeance, but it is the relief
of au Officer, amongst the most respected in the,
army, frum the !nest tyrannical and detestable
abuse a power by which aim innocent and highly
meritorious individual was ever oppressed.
46. We shall ever consider the presecution of j
Colonel Munro) and the part which Lieut. Gen.
Macdowell bore in that transaction, as acts of ex-
treme injustice, so far as.they relate to the indivi- '
dual who was- the subject of them. • Bet theiel
measures were nut len culpable in other points of
view. Both the advice which Licut.-Col. hider°
gave to ahuliati the Tent Contract, which we con.
eider as the real object of the proceeding; and the
Memorial convoying that = advice., a fee lines in
willeirtheiertilatfe,-*Withisei atirTeiglWaltirtailbe'
dation, the ostensible ground of the charges
preferred against him, had been not merely ap-
proved, but applauded by every authority to
which they could officially be submitted; by Sir
J. Ciadock, Commander in Chief of the army ,
of which tbo accusers of Col. Munro are Ulcers ;
by the Governor and Council of Vert St. George,
who held the Supreme Milifacy authority under
*hies those Officers served.; by the Commander
in Chief in India, to whom, as Officers, hey
owed iusplicii reverence and respect f and, lastly,
by the Governer-General in Commit, the Su-
preine and highest British authority in the East.—
To charge either the measure which had been
adopted uniler these authorities, or' the reasons
upon etti hi ac it was recommended, and which had
been sanctiened and appreved by the same autho.
rities, as " base and infamous crimes," was a
studied insult offered by those Officers, and by
Nlacilowall, who supported and co.
operated with them, to every authority which .it
was their duty to respect. This proceeding aimed
also distinctly at withdrawing the managemeat and
direction of all military arrangement regarding
the re.gidation aad ecdtiomy of the army, from the
legal authority of G9vernment, in order to place
it in the shape of Gnarls partial, Endo the dirce_
tiun of tbeitffiters of die army themselvei. Lieu-
tenanteColonil Munro was the nuiehial culprit,
+Out the articles were tq bear the absurd, and, foe
that maw( we must believe, the collusive and pre.
tended accusation against him of calumny and scan.
der; but the Tent Contract, or 'Other its abolition,
effect to be thiesubject,. for no tither sub._
stantial subject existed, of the trial.
47. We should, indeed, have been surprizedi as
well as concerned, if any considerable part of the
Coast Army had been prevailed upon to stain the
pure and honourable Character of their profession,
by lending their countenance in any shape, or in
ally stage, to a proceeding Stamped as this prose-
cution was with injustice and oppression, and
founded in such motives as all the circumstances
conspire to indicate.
48. But it is said, Colonel Munro was only to
be tried, and if innocent would have been acquit-
ted—yet the Nleinurialists themselves allege that
heweseelready coudemned—" liming incurred the
suspicion of having acted in a manner that was
must generally considered to have been criminal."
•''llueireg incurred the suspicion," are mere words
of form. The meaning of the passage is a posi-
tive assertion that Lieut. Col. Munro had acted in
a manner that was most generally considered to
have been criminal—we assume this to be the
meaning of the pa *eke, because there was no
question concerning the facts.
49. It is difficult to imagine, that such a charge
as that which was preferred against Lieutenant_
Colonel Munro, should have rested only on vague
report, and that the officers who signed should not
have used all the means in their power to obtain
the perusal of a paper on which they meant to
found an accusation of libel. We 'must, there-
fore, presuiee, that the Memorial on the Tent
Contract was in the hands of those who charged
its author with defamation. Erna that Memo.
riot, therefore, never denied nor disavoeed by
Licuteumit-Colonel Munro, and capable elf cer.
stain and easy proof, is to be collected " the man.:
.ner in what he had acted," ant if that ntannsr of
generally accounted cri-
acting was already most
urinal, sentence was already passed so far as faith
can be given to the Memorial intended to be pre-
sented to this .!rovernment. ‘Ve oust, however,
more in the honour of the army than in the party
feelings of the filemorialists, and we hope they
were too sanguine in their expectations of so um-
just a sentence. But although the acquittal, of
Lieut. Col. Munro must be supposed possible, it
wets nut fit that such an (Siker should be brought
to the bar as a criminal for his honest services. It
was nut lit that the niodi of providing carriage fur
the camp equipage or the army, approved and
adopted as it had been by all the legal authorities
in India, should he appealed from those authorie
tie, to a board of officers. It was hot fit that this
first should pass e.ithout opposition, in the
process of usurping the reguretion of the army
'from Govertimeat to the officers or the army, It
Wl* Cwt becotiliiig that time Supreme Government,
the Commander in Chief of India, the Govern.
meet of Fort Sir George, and the late Coluinan.
der in Chief of that Presidency, S.r J. Craduck,
should hold up their hands es culprits before a tri-
burial of officers silting in jedgment epee the de.
liberate measures of their Governments.
50. The whole proceeding was monstrous, and
we repeat, in the strongest terms, our warmed