MILITARY RESPONSIBILITY.
TO THE EDITOR, OF THE SPECTATOR.
19th January 1832.
SIR—Colonel BRERETON is gone—peace to his manes ! Whatever is said now, affects not him; but it may be useful to the living to point out the defects of our military code, to which this estimable officer has been a sacrifice, and consolatory to show that lie evinced no defect in this most difficult service of his country.
That it requires no talent and no courage to sabre or fire upon unarmed men,
is quite evident; but as it is inadmissible by the principles of the British Con- stitution to employ an armed and disciplined forceagainst the people,* and the law of the land has made particular and ample provision for the suppression of riots by the civil power, without ever recognizing the use of military force, under a command distinct from the only lawfid one, that of the Magistracy, so it does require both courage and talent of a high order to direct troops on such an occasion, "lest,'.' as observed by a high legal authority (HAWKINS), "under the pretence of keeping the peace, they make a more enormous breach of it." Moreover, the officer so commanding, as it were in opposition to the municipal law, has no warranty from the law military ! The Articles of War furnish no rule for his guidance ; and the Regulations and Orders fur the Army, which contain a specific prescription for hint in all other cases, yield none in this. Au opinion of the late Lord ELLENBOROUGH, given on a case thirty-one years ago, has been latterly revived ; but, though long and vague, it goes no further than to assert that officers and soldiers, "as well as all other individuals," may use ORDINARY means of force to suppress riot. Ilis Lordship does not, there- fore, mean sabres and carbines, in disciplined bands formed for of l•nsive war ; and he did not recollect that such armed and disciplined bands are separated in distinct bodies from the posse comitatus, contemplated by the law of England from the earliest to the present period. The Act of Parliament (1st Geo. I.) called the Riot Act, enjoins "every justice, sheriff, or other head officer, on no- tice of such unlawful assembly, to resort to the place, and make the proclama- tion. It' such persons, after all, do not disperse themselves within onc h:,:vr, it shall be lawful for any justice, &c., who is empowered to command all his Ma- jesty's subjects of age and ability, to be assisting—[to do what ? not sabi: or fire upon them, even after an hour's delay, but]—to seize such persons, and carry them Wore a justice of the peace," tke. All this Sergeant LUDLOW of Bristol ought to know, as well as that this A at is enjoined to be read at every quarter sessions and leet; but, as Mr. PELHAM, nearly a century ago, said in Parliament—" Where a magistrate has a guard of regular troops to trust to, he is at to neglect humouring the people." But some may possibly say, that, notwithstanding the laws upon the subjeet, the employment of the Army is countenanced and protected. I would just refer such persons to the frailty of that protection in a case of popular (honour. The Guards, most privileged, were in the beginning of last century threatened by a Judge to be hanged, officer and men, if they hdled a man in pmformi ng the orders they had received to suppress a riot. In that case, a house was being pulled down in Holborn, when the order was given. Major-General MOYLE, m the Porteus riots at Edinburgh, saved himself from an ignominious death, only by guarding himself, as Colonel BaEREToN wished to do, with the civil autho- rities. Lieutenant Munamr, of the Guards (probably a relative of Lord MANSFIELD), with three of his men, were arrested for the murder of ALLEY, shot in St. George's Fields in one of WILKES'S riots; and the man who fired escaped hanging only by an error in the proceedings. The Sheriffs of London in 1771 refused the assistance of Sir Davin LINDSAY with a detachment of Guards. In the riots of London in 1780, the Guards were only late called out, as it would appear, chiefly at the personal instance of the King. On that oc- casion, Kennet, Lord Mayor of London, was fined 10,000/. for flying front the Mansionhouse and abandoning the city, instead of collecting its power. At the Manchester meeting in 1819, Colonel L'ESTRANGE, commanding a regular force, received unqualified praise for his forbearance ! One word of the composition of the Bristol Court-Martial. The General-hi- Chief, it should seem, found it necessary to institute an inquiry; and it should also seem, that military men found enough in what was laid before them to say that Colonel BRERETON should be tried by a competent military tribunal ; and one was ordered aceralliugly. All to be now expected, in so novel and extraordi- nary a case, was that the proceeding should be conducted with precision, accord- ing to military law, so as to establish a worthy precedent for the future conduct of the Army employed on such a service ; a matter in which every officer and soldier must be deeply and personally interested; and not less the ordinary autilotities, front the necessity of settling the relations between the military and civil powers. It was naturally to beexpected, that the Court would be formed of iv ttn of the greatest intelligence and experience in the Army, in all its various duties and relations ; that the Judge-Advocate-General in person shoal direct its pro- ceedings :net (satinet time prosecution; that the charges should be framed in it manner comporting with the dignity of the question; and that the rolos of evi- dence which have been established for the search of truth in all cases should be rigidly preserved. Your present correspondent, upon learning that the result t a• iitquiry to be a Court-Martial, wrote to Colonel BRER.ETON, whom he had siii:J:tly lcr c, and, as the Colonel conceived, served, on his return from A Crim, to instro:•t him on some points, particularly with regard to the illegality of the Court of Inquiry being in any way mixed up with the Court-Martial ; and he must confess, that he was afterwards surprised to find that the officer who had the honour to be President of the one court became Prosecutor in the other ; and that the prti- vision for the office of Judge-Advocate was merely such as would take place in the hurry of active service on an ordinary military question.
However, that case is now buried with its victim in the dust ; it is net flnr him, therefore, but for the Army and the Country, that you have been troubled with this hasty letter front Your constant reader, JURIS MILITAR/5.
• It appears decided that Captain LEWIS at Bristol had no iutentim of killing the youth for which act he was tried ; the guilty escaped, the innocent tM. $ The celebrated Lord Chief Justice Hour, the "Verax" of the Thar.
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