Celebrated Naval and Military Trials. By Peter Burke, Serjeant - at- Law.
(Allen.)—Mr. Burke has collected some interesting matter in this book. He gives a dozen of these trials, and it is convenient to have, in a handy volume, the proceedings connected with such memorable incidents and persons as the mutiny at the Nora, the treachery of Benbow's captains, Admiral Byng, Lord George Sackville, and Governor Wall. The last-mentioned case has been a good deal in men's minds lately. Wall, it seems, when Governor of Gores, ordered a soldier to be flogged, and this man died under the infliction; twenty years afterwards he was tried and hanged for it, there being a discre- pancy of evidence as to whether a mutiny existed or a regimental court-martial had been hold, but the weight against the accused. Chief Baron Macdonald, after premising that allowances must be made for officers in difficult positions, proceeded to say that it was of consequence, on the other hand, that a commander should feel that if, when at a distance from his native country, from inspection, from immediate control, he should wanton with his authority, it would certainly be the duty of the law to control that, and keep it within proper bounds. Mr. Burke has extracted his matter with judgment, but he is careless with his dates. In two successive pages we find 1810 assigned as a date to a letter of Horace Walpole, and Lord George Sackville described as in office from 1755 to 1782.
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