The Glasgow Chronicle. — 1850-09-04 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

INDIA, AUSTRALIA, AND CHINA.  We have received by our ordinary semi-monthly express from Marseilles our despatches in anticipation of the Overland Mail, which left Bombay on the 25th of July. The suicide of Colonel King, commanding Her Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons. on the 6th of July, has excited a painful sensation in India. The cit.cutustances which led to the rash act were 118 follows :—A private of the regiment was sentenced some time back to receive corporal punishment for charging the Colonel with cowardice, stating that he ran away at Chillanwallah. The prisoner was brought on parade for punishment in a state of palpable intoxication, having been allowed to Kit drunk in the guard-room of the 14th while under sentence; the punishment was, nevertheless, proceeded with. N\'' hen freed from the triangles the prisoner, infuriated by pain and drink (he had drunk in the guard-room near two bottles of spirits), becoming, as might have been foreseen, outrageous and abusive, rushed up to the Colonel, and in the presence of the whole regiment, repeated his former charge, for which he was again placed in confinement and sentenced by a court-martial to transportation fur seven years, which sentence the Commander-in-Chief refused, under the circumstances of the case, to sanction, and ordered the man to return to his troop. The remarks of the Commander-in-Chief on this trial, added to what he formerly said at Lahore ("that the men of the 14th would go anywhere if properly led"), stung Colonel King so deeply as to induce him to commit suicide.  The following are the general orders which are said to have led to the sad event:—  " Head-quarters, Simla, July 8. "No. 43.-1. At a general court martial assembled at Lahore, on Monday, the ad day of June. 1850, Private John 11PLean, No. 756, of Her Majesty's 14th (orKing's) regiment of Light Dragoons, was arraigned on the following charge For highly outrageous and insubordinate conduct, in having, on a parade of the regiment at Lahore, on the 20th of March, 180, alter having undergone corporal punishment, by sentence of a cour:-martial, advanced towards Lieutenant-Colonel J. W. King, C. 8., commanding the regiment, in a threAtening manner, using grossly abusive Language to that officer; and in having violently resisted the escort which secured him.  "Finding—The Court is of opinion that the prisoner, No. 736, Private John M'l.ean, of her Majesty's 14th (01. King's) Regimentof Light Dragoons, is guilty of the chat ge preferred against him. Sentence.—The Court sentence the prisoner, No. 756, Private John APLean, of her Msjesty's 14th (or King's) Regiment of Light Dragoons, to transportation for omen years. _  .Head-quarter, June 18. " Revised.—ln revising the proceedings of the Court, I am obliged to cell its attention to some facts which demand the most serious notice. _  .• 1. The prisoner was allowed to get drunk in the guardroom of he Majesty's 14th Light Dragoons, when under sentence of a eourt.martial.  '2. The prisoner was brought drunk to the parade. "3. Assist:nt-Sutgeon FaJson, whose business it was closely to have examined the state of the prisoner who was about to suffer corporal punishment, did not examine him, and did not perceive that he was intoxicated, till drink and the pain of punishment had made him so furious, that the asskt int-surgeon's own words are—'l thought he must be either mad or drunk.'  "4. The Adjutant, Lieutenant Apthorp, equally unobserving with the assistant-surgeon, did not find out that the pri,souer was drunk till after he had received punish. ment. "6th. When freed from the triangles, the prisoner, infuriated by having drunk nearly two bottles of arrack and some beer in the guard-room, as proved before the Court, became outrageous and abusive, as might have been forseen.  "7th. I ask the Court, therefore, to re-consider and to mitigate its sentence; for, however disgraceful and insubordinate the conduct of the culprit may have been, it was certainly as flinch produced by neglect of duty in others as by the drunkard himself. The sentence appears to me to be severe beyond all proportion to the crime, in the peculiar circum,tances above stated. " C. J. NAPIER, General, Commander-in Chief, East Indies." "