fetus In Ot eititnr.
THE WINDSOR C OURTS-MARTIA.L.
23d August l854. Sue—Although the attempt to stem the tide of popular feeling, when setting strongly in one direction, is seldom at the time successful, and he -who desires to change it had better reserve the effort to a later and calmer time, it is probably, on the other hand, a not infrequent mistake to take for granted that all the opinions sedulously propagated by journals of wide circulation, and reiterated in every shape that exaggeration, prejudice, or ill-informed judgments are prone to adopt, are always shared by the mass of readers; still more, that they are adopted by the smaller portion who are accustomed to reflect, instead of passively receiving and repeating such ready-made conclusions. In the columns of yoter journal, at least, there is generally to be found a still and noiseless corner where calm reasonAind unimpassioned argument may hope to make themselves heard when over- borne by the noisy declamation and verbosity of practical caterers for the appetite of the readers of daily papers. It would be, it must be admitted, at least unusual and contrary to our notions of justice in ordinary legal eases, for the newspaper press to discuss from day to day the evidence given in any trial for a criminal offence befhre the established courts of law ; or from the partial and onesided impressions thus gathered, to announce in advance " the verdict of the public,' which may be found to be opposed to that of the legitimate jury. Yet this has been unreservedly done by a large portion of the press in the case of the now notorious Courts-martial held at Windsor on two officers of the Forty- sixth Regiment. It is, I cannot but think, equally unusual, and contrary alike to English fairness and English manliness, to assail with invective and insinuation public servants acting in the performance of duties not assumed by but devolved on them, while in the midst of those duties, or to endeavour to bias or intimidate by the assertion of the (assumed) general voice, the jud2ment of the highest military authorities, as it mould be criminal to at- tempt by similar means to influence a judge upon the bench. Yet the former has been done in no measured degree against the Commanding-officer of the Forty-sixth, and (with more caution, it is true, but with equally evi- dentintention) against the officer charged with the duty of prosecutor in the last a these trials : and the latter has been attempted, if there be any intel- ligible object in certain recent articles in the Tires, with equal lintlacity and ignorance,—ignorance, beeinuie, if' the senteech oT -the theft should be the forfeiture of Lieutenatit Peirfa commission' consequent on his being found guilty, the confirmation of such sentenee, or any remission of. it; would depend , not upon Lord Hartlinge, but. upon the prerogative of the Crown ; audacity, ' if- in truth the author. of those articles persuades himself that his anntinciation of consequences can have any weight with the Gene. .!al Cenimanding-iii-chief or the higher authority alluded to, in a decision paiiivIving consequences to momentous -to' the discipline .and government of laid's Army. - - . : 'hat, Sir, are the naked facts of the case before us ? Are they not these l■ —Two officers of a regiment on the, eve of embarking for the theatre of war are found to have been engaged.in a personal affray, of such a nature Chet one of them luta to be placed under the surgeon's care. Such an occurree could not have been overlooked- if between two policemen; 'occumngbe, tweeu two private soldiers, it- vrould have drawn down heayy putital4 went on one or both. These officers were arraigned in the ordinary form for this flagrant breach of discipline and "good order." After the first (Lieutenant Perry's) trial was concluded, and when his fate was sealed, so far et least as lay with the Court that tried him, he sent in to the President of another Court convened for the trial of another offioer, and simul. taneously published in a daily paper, a letter containing grave charges against Colonel Garrett, and a personal attack on the character of Captain Nicholas, whose name was gratuitously dragged by him before the public. (It would be out of plat's here to discuss the startling plea put forward in. his defence by a legal adviser—" that he did not write, but only signed the letter" ! Such an excuse, admitted, would be equally available to the utterer of a forged bill or acceptance to a minister of state signing,a treasonable paper, or to a magistrate putting his name to an illegal coal, mittal.) The impolicy of this step most now be deeply felt by the prisoner himselfi and by his fatally injudicious adviser, since the publication of the result of' his first Court-martial, which left him unscathed- as to the tenure of hie commission. Its flagrant violation, not only of military discipline, but of ordinary law, (since the publication of that letter was a distinct libel,) ren- dered inevitable the further proceedings taken against him. It is indeed argued by several of the self-elected advisers of the military authorities, that the parties libelled, not the author of the libel, should have been placed on their defence ; that Colonel Garrett should have been brought to a Court-martial on the (at that time at least) unsupported charge of his subaltern officer—and, some have even had the hardihood to urge, should have had the whole history of his command investigated (I presume on cbargesframed by the writers in the newspapers) ; not the officer who, stepping out of all rule and prescribed course, flung before the publio a charge so serious, and which he himself has shown he had never brought forward to the notice of any superior military. authority. But all who are conversant with the procedure of either the ordinary courts of law or that of military courts must see, that any such prosecution, instituted against either Colonel Garrett or Captain Nicholas, must have utterly and ridiculously failed for want of proof ; that the time of the Court would have been wasted, and that the result muat have been equally the arraignment of Lieutenant Perry on the very charges he has now had to meet, with the additional disadvantage to him that the members of the Court then formed must have been to some extent prejudiced, or at least preinformed, by the fact of his failure (on the supposed antecedent trial) to substantiate any of his allegations. By preferring at once these charges against him, he was placed in a aimi- lar position to a defendant against whom a criminal prosecution for a libel is brought. Yet this course, admitted in ordinary life to be the moat favour- able for the defendant if borne out by having truth on his side, and most proper and manly on the part of the prosecutor who relies on his own cha- racter, is denounced by the press as unfair and oppressive in Lieutenant Perry's case. I shall offer no opinion as to whether, when placed in this position, he has exculpated himself to any or to what extent from the charges, or has supported by evidence the allegations made by him and the numerous still stronger charges implied and insinuated in his questions and defence. To decide on them is the province of the Court alone. But I as- sert, and it will, I feel assured, be admitted by all military men of any experience, that he was allowed on this remarkable trial a degree of latitude as to assertions and in putting questions, far exceeding the limits generally observed as necessary for the protection of the absent and for preventing mere frivolous waste of time. It was probably the object of the Court and of the prosecutor to afford him the utmost facility for his defence ; and was designed to show that there was no intended concealment of anything in the system of the Forty-sixth Regiment, or in the conduct of the officers to. wards Lieutenant Perry, from the day of his entering the corps. To have made this the occasion of reviewing the whole past history of the regiment previous to his connexion with it, would have been simply absurrt. His accusations were of specific ill treatment of himself and others, to Air knowledge. Those who, with the writer in the Times, maintain that the prisoner's ease was damaged by the defective memories of his (presumed) reluctant wit- nesses, do in truth assume, (for we may sweep aside the flimsy and not very brilliant irony intended by the-hacknied "Non mi ricordo" phrases,) that a body of officers of her Majesty's Army, to the number of some fifteen or thereabouts, are in a general Conspiracy to'perjure themselves. Is this mon- strous assumption to be listened to ? What is there to stamp the prisoner as the only officer in that regiment not deserving to be branded with false. hood ? He asserts, indeed, that there was a combination against him, and that he was shunned solely-on account of his having resisted their ill treat- ment and threatened to report it. Is this credible I Is it in accordance with what either men of the world or military officers have found to be the ease, at school, in the Universities, in clubs, private society, or in their own regiments ? It is at least totally opposed to my experience (of upwards of twenty years) of regimental life. One word more—as to the insinuations of unfairly pressing against the prisoner or stepping out of his province to influence the Court, levelled at the prosecutor. Those who have known Major-General Wetherell either as the commanding-officer for many years of a distinguished battalion, as an officer in the Staff of the Army, or in private life, need not to be reminded that such tendencies are repugnant altogether to his custom or disposition. The general public, if deceived by such assertions, will not be so for long; and, if intended to influence or intimidate him in the performance of the duty assigned to him, they can only be despised, however he may be pained by the necessity for executing that duty, or by the misconceptions it has given the scribblers an opportunity to circulate. In conclusion—As it may be perhaps imagined that this imperfect attempt to recall to the test of simple common sense and ordinary experience the facts of this case divested of the web which a spurious sympathy (I care not whether paid for or merely professional) has woven round them, proceeds from one interested by friendship or connexion with some of the parties, I beg to assure your readers, that I have never, to my knowledge, set eyes on any one of the officers of the Forty-sixth, whose names have been before the public, except Colonel Garrett, whom I saw but once some nine years since, and with whom I have not, nor ever had, the slightest per- sonal acquaintance; and that-I have not now nor ever had the slightest con- nexion with or interest in any individual belonging to that corps. My sole object is to arrest and expose a system of misrepresentation injurious to the cause and interests of justice inskif'tli4prie: for who is more interested in the discipline of the Army thaw ..7.110 whom would the tyranny of the press,-if pennittearoverthe,ddinviditAtation of justice, be more in- jurious?
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