mine upon claiming an investigation into his conduct. Here was a letter signed by twenty-three officers, of the high birth, talents, and rank of which the House had heard so much, arraigning the character and conduct of their superior officer. He would ask again, what course could this old and meritorious officer pursue? He might, to be sure, have retired; but if he had, he must have retired from society with disgrace. It was not colonel Quentin, therefore, that forced on the Court-martial, but those who wrote that letter.

The right hon. gentleman said, it was hard these officers should have been called upon to produce a letter to criminate themselves. It appeared, then, that the officers were aware of the nature of that Jetter; they knew, that if they could not substantiate the charges which they had preferred against their commander, they must submit to the consequence that would inevitably result: they knew that the step they were taking was contrary to the discipline of the army, and that nothing could justify that step, but their proving the material charges which they had preferred against their commanding officer. The right hon. gentleman, however, seemed, in a great part of his speech, to have confined himself entirely to the first letter; he seemed to have forgotten the second letter, written by major Robarts, which contained a direct and unequivocal charge of cowardice against colonel Quentin; and indeed it could not be doubted, that that was the real meaning intended to be conveyed in the first letter. The right hon. gentleman had contended, that these officers were punished for having concurred in opinion with the duke of Wellington and lord Combermere; but the fact was quite the reverse: they were punished for asserting what those great officers had never asserted; they were punished for preferring charges of cowardice against their commanding officer, which they were unable to prove. In one of the charges they certainly did concur with the duke of Wellington and lord Combermere, but it was one of the least of the accusations which they had brought against their superior officer, and for that he had been previously reprimanded by the duke; and he believed it would be a new case in British jurisprudence, to punish a man twice for the same offence.

The right hon. gentleman had said a great deal upon the subject of favouritism, and had complained that these gallant

young officers were dismissed, while the colonel, who had been in part found guilty, had been suffered to remain in command over a parcel of mutinous soldiers. But what was the fact? These young officers had entered into a conspiracy against their commanding officer. [Here there was a cry of order, order!] He did not mean to use the word in an invidious sense; he had before said, that he was convinced that their conduct was influenced by honourable, though erroneous, principles; and he could not be suspected of wishing to speak harshly of them, for there were among those officers some near connections of his own. Those officers had, however, conspired together to prefer charges against their superior officer, an officer of great experience and of excellent character; and some of those charges, let it always be remembered, affected the life and the honour of that officer: of those charges he was acquitted. What, then, must be the result? The accusers and the accused could not be suffered to remain together in the same regiment; that would have been quite impossible. Would it have been right to dismiss the colonel, who had been acquitted of the main charges brought against him, and when the only offence of which he was found guilty he had been punished for before? To have dismissed him, therefore, would have been to inflict a second punishment for the same offence, which would have been unjust and unprecedented. It only remained, then, for the crown to act upon the acknowledged principle of the service, and to remove those officers who had brought forward accusations against their commanding officer, which they were unable to substantiate. If the crown had been influenced by favouritism, surely it would have pursueda very different course. If there had existed any wish (to use a vulgar phrase) to curry favour with great people, surely it would have been more easy to remove one old, almost worn out, though meritorious officer, who had not a single connection in the country, than to remove twenty-three young men of the highest rank, pretensions, and connections in the empire.

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He confessed, that he rejoiced in the sentence which was passed in this case, because it would shew to the army and to the public, that neither high birth nor great connections could prevail against justice. It would have a most beneficial effect upon the service; it would teach

young officers not to become generals | before they had learned their duty; it would teach them not to pronounce opinions before they were competent to form judgments. Every man at all acquainted with the army, must know that such a lesson would be most salutary. He recollected an expression of a noble relation of his, who said, when some young officers joined him, who entertained a high opinion of their own military proficiency, "They don't know how to mount a guard, but they are all ready to manœuvre an army of 80,000 men.' The proceedings in this case would be of great use to the army; it would prove to the young officers of high birth, how little their rank or connections would avail them, if they were not attentive to their duty. [This part of the right hon. gentleman's speech was accompanied with loud and repeated cheers.] He should now conclude with declaring his conviction, that no parliamentary ground had been laid for the production of these papers; he should therefore vote against the motion, being satisfied that the most dangerous consequences would ensue, if parliament were to assume to itself the right of reversing the decisions of courts-martial, unless some extraordinary case were made out, which would call imperiously for its interference.

Mr. Vyse spoke shortly in defence of the decision of the Court-martial, of which his hon. relative had been president, and who, in the anxious duty which he had to perform, had been guided by no private or partial motives. He opposed the motion, on the ground that it was unnecessary, and entered into a short review of the evidence submitted to the Court-martial. He maintained, that there was only a part, and a small part, of the first charge proved, with respect to the foraging party being left without orders. He objected to the principle, that the House of Commons should constitute itself into a court of appeal from courts-martial. Cases might occur of such an extraordinary description as to require their interference; but the dispersion of the officers of the 10th, under the circumstances, was not such a case. He concluded by paying a compliment to the officers, whose conduct in the field entitled and obtained for them the approbation and gratitude of their country.

Mr. Brand said, in the reign of George 2, in 1745, the House had, in one case, thought proper to interfere with the de

cision of a court-martial, in the case of captain Norris, when, in the teeth of Mr. Pelham, the minister of that day, they had voted the proceedings to be partial, arbitrary, and illegal.' The hon. gentleman contended, that the case of the twenty-six officers did not fall under the sense of the General Order quoted by the right hon. the Judge Advocate General; neither did any of the arguments that had been used apply to that of the hon. colonel, who only obeyed the commands of his superior officers. It was admitted also on every side, that the hon. colonel had conducted himself, in the delicate situation in which he was placed, with a degree of temper, candour, and forbearance, which had never been exceeded. There certainly was nothing in the sentence of the court-martial to justify the sentence of the Horse Guards. If that sentence had been founded upon the plea that the Courtmartial had censured the want of cooperation on the part of the officers, he should then be able to see some sort of ground for what he must call a most arbitrary measure. A right hon. gentleman oposite had used the epithet conspiracy; but surely, if that right hon. gentleman had rightly and maturely considered the case, he would have abstained from such an expression. Whatever variety of opinions, however, might now exist, there was one thing to be remembered, that when the Act of Settlement should be resumed, as it would be, he believed, on the 17th of next June, the commission of colonel Quentin would be annulled, as he was not naturalised; and he should be glad when that period arrived. He hoped, also, from the experience of the past, that the House would pause before it renewed the suspension of that Act. Supposing there were more Hanoverians in our service than there were at present, he should like to know what might probably have been the consequence even of the present measure? That was a case which the wisdom of our ancestors had not overlooked. The provisions of the Act of Settlement, relating to the introduction of foreign troops, had been framed with a special view to the Dutch guards; and he trusted that the safeguards which had been handed down to us would not be thrown aside, but upon grave and urgent necessity.

Mr. Serjeant Best said, that whoever looked at the list of the names of those officers that had been dismissed from the

10th regiment, must be convinced, that his royal highness the Prince Regent, in acting as he had done, had sacrificed much of private feeling to public duty. With regard to the general merits of the question, nothing, he apprehended, could be more obvious than the necessity of removing officers from a regiment when they had preferred charges against their superior officer, which they failed in proving. No man could look at the charges brought against colonel Quentin, and say, that the officers preferring them could continue to serve with colonel Quentin. A right hon. gentleman had said, that his Royal Highness had forgotten his character as colonel, and had acted unconsciously in his capacity as Regent; but, for his own part, he could not conceive it possible for his Royal Highness, as colonel, to have acted otherwise than he did. If he had not so acted, after knowing the existence of a letter that imputed cowardice to colonel Quentin, it might indeed have been said with propriety, that his Royal Highness was influenced by a principle of favouritism, in screening colonel Quentin from that public investigation which such a charge imperatively demanded. LookLooking at the result of the Court-martial, he was convinced that the sentence which had been passed was the mildest that could have been passed, consistently with the good of the service. How was the discipline of the army to go on, if that sort of combination was allowed? The precedent quoted by the honourable member who spoke last, did not apply to the present case. There the court-martial was distinctly accused of partial, corrupt, and illegal proceedings, and consequently, those proceedings were a fit subject for the inquiry of that House. But would it be said, that similar accusations were or could be preferred against the Court-martial which sat on colonel Quentin? That was the broad distinction between the two cases. He deprecated the practice of considering that House as a court of appeal; such, he contended, it never could be; but, above all, to increase the facility of receiving appeals from courts-martial, would only tend to overturn the constitution, and destroy the discipline of the

that subordination was equally necessary. The very consideration of the private consequence of these officers would afford one of the most striking lessons to the army.

Sir C. Burrell contended, on the contrary, that the sentence on these officers was one of the harshest measures ever witnessed against men who had so highly distinguished themselves by their gallantry in the field. There was no proof that they had not most zealously co-operated for the benefit of the service. The fourth charge, which was, in his opinion, completely proved, made the censure passed against the officers the hardest possible. Never had men displayed more gallantry against the enemy. He knew of nothing in the evidence which went to prove that there was any want of co-operation if there was, he should vote differently from what he at present intended. Lord Edward Somerset's evidence was conclusive against the opinion; and the censure, on the whole, appeared to him unnecessarily severe.

Mr. Peter Moore said, he would assert, in opposition to what had fallen from the learned serjeant, that there was no other court of appeal but that House from the decisions of civil or military courts. He had the authority of lord Kenyon for saying, there could be no grievance without an appropriate remedy. He could also quote a much higher authority-that of the learned Selden, who was an honour to England. Mr. Selden being once asked by king Charles, what was the remedy for rebellion? replied, remove the cause. Being farther asked, what justified rebellion? his answer was, the custom of the country. The same, he would say, was a sufficient justification of .the interference of the House on the present

occasion.

Colonel Palmer shortly replied. The officers, he said, had only done their duty; and the question before the House was one of the highest importance, not only to the essential interests of the army, but to those of the country at large. The statement of the right hon. gentleman (Mr. Tierney), with respect to the letter, was perfectly correct. Colonel Palmer said, he certainly did lay that letter before his royal highness the Prince Regent, but without the slightest idea of its being made use of to the injury of the officers. He did not, indeed, imagine it would be used at all. He still retained his opinion that the sentence of the Court-martial was