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ious to avoid the two difficulties, of either, on the one hand, acting on insufficient evidence, or, on the other, of waiting too long for the full discovery of all the signatures affixed to it, as I had reason to believe that the spirit of dissatisfaction was not gaining ground in the army; it did not appear that any danger was incurred by waiting hitherto for fuller proof as to the individuals who had been concerned in signing or promoting the circulation of this paper."*

What a confession is here! that the governor of a vast empire, assured that there was no threatening or impending danger, condescended to play the spy and to lay in deceitful ambush, until he could surprise all the unfortunate persons, parties to a thoughtless and angry writing, cancelled and condemned to the flames! He had no fear, no anxiety it seems, but that the period should pass away without affording sufficient victims, or without a possible opportunity of displaying the extraordinary energy of his government. He could not bear to wait, lest peradventure the crime and the actors in it should have been lost and forgotten, and no new offence or offender might arise for reprehension and punishment. It needs not another observation to prove that neither the times nor the occasion called for fresh and renewed severities, or that any other than measures of forbearance or neutrality were requisite for preserving the public peace.

Fortunate would it have been indeed! for Sir G. Barlow, if a gleam of reflection had shone on the past, or that a ray of wisdom had irradiated the way before him, but he seems wholly lost in the regard of the stupendous engine in his grasp, and cannot restrain his eagerness to put its powers to the test. He hunts down with avidity the authors of this almost-forgotten paper, in every possible direction, and joining them with less heinous malefactors, he showers down on them the blind indiscriminate vengeance of the government,

• Vide Page 273.

in the memorable orders of the first of May.†

This official instrument claims the attentive consideration of those, who wish to form a true opinion of the provocation which induced the agitation of the army, and the events to which it gave rise; combining with it the history of proceeding transactions, and the existing state of things. These will enable them to draw a fit conclusion both of the internal merits of the order and its probable effects. By this one instrument is awarded, as it appears, a sentence to several offences, and to numberless offenders-varying in the extent or quality of guilt-yet visiting all alike, or, with little apparent distinction, with the extremity of punishment; all of them judged alike, in the same hurry, and in the same measure, without hearing, without a defence, without a knowledge of their crime, except in so much as it may be learnt from the language of their sentence, written in so unintelligible a style as to perplex both the individuals suffering, and the public, to be instruct ed by the example, in understanding the proclaimed offences. In one place the army had to view two respectable officers, captain J. Marshall, late secretary to the military board, and who was then at Seringapatam, and lieut. colonel G. Martin, who was far advanced on his way to Europe, declared highly criminal for having been “ principally concerned in preparing and circulating the memorial;" and another officer, the hon. colonel A. Sentleger, who had so eminently distinguished himself in Travancore, and who was then in that kingdom, condemned in the self same paragraph, for the very determinate and yet but half offence of the principals, of having been "active in promoting the lation of the paper;" and Capt. Marshall and col. Sentleger, lieut. colonel Martin, (being luckily beyond the reach of Sir G. Barlow) are both injudiciously confounded in the judgment of suspen sion.

+ Vide Page 100.

circu

Major J. De Morgan, who was then at Tellicherry, remote from any of the parties just described, is adjudged in the like loose terms with colonel Sentleger, and for the same indeterminate crime, to the unvaried punishment of suspension from the service. Captain J.Graut, commanding the body guard, and then assistant to the resi-. dent in Travancore, is involved in the like penalty with his brother officers, for having put his signature to the address to major Boles; admitted by Sir G. Barlow to be of inferior guilt to the memorial, and attended with circumstances that would undoubtedly have found favour in other times and with other persons, than those of whom the Madras government was composed. In another place, in the same order of the 1st May, the army witness the punishment of other classes of officers for alleged offences, even more doubtful than those already particularised, to whom the principle of suspension, though somewhat modified, is lavishly applied.

Lieutenant-colonel Bell, the commanding officer of the coast artillery, stationed within eight short miles of the presidency, and whose particular offending might have been minutely ascertained, is removed from the command, the pay, and emoluments, of his station, or, in other words, suspended from his office; because a paper of a similar tendency with the address to major Boles had been circulated aniong the officers of his corps, and that its circulation was said to have been promoted, but when, and in what manner, is not stated, by lieut.-colonel kell.

In a succeeding paragraph of this singular paper, lieut.-colonel Chalmers, commanding to the south of Travancore, and lieutenant-colonel Cuppage, employed in the northern extremity of the same kingdom, and who had been recently appointed from his acknowledged character and desert, to the oilice of adjutant-general of the army, are removed, the one from his command, and the other from his staffappointment, for this capricious reason, that they "appear to have taken Lo steps whatever, either to repress, or

report to the government the improper proceedings pursued by part of the troops under their orders." What improper proceedings had been pursued, and by what part of the troops under the respective orders of these officers, are not described; neither is it explained whether colonel Chalmers, or colonel Cuppage, had any knowledge of such proceedings.

Captain J. M. Coombs, assistantquarter-master-general in Mysore, is also removed from his staff situation, for having "been concerned," as the order alleges," in these reprehensible proceedings;" but whether they were the last-mentioned proceedings, or any other particular proceedings mentioned in the order, there is not a ground even for a conjecture.

are

In this unheard-of manner, eight officers, some of them of superior rank and station, and all of them of great respectability in the service, suspended, without private question, or public enquiry, from the service, or their stations; for causes either unspecified altogether, or if specified wholly inadequate to the punishment inflicted.

Sir G. Barlow, sitting in his private closet, and viewing objects at the four cardinal points of the compass, bids his anger travel N. E. W. or South, according to caprice or whim, for it is impossible, that a single vision can embrace the whole expanse which his severity visits. It ranges by turns, leaving every where a mark of its displeasure; the kingdom of Travancore, the

cars, the Barhamahl, the Carnatic, the Mysore, some hundred miles distant from each other, and from the point of view, trusting its own keen sight, or borrowing for its purpose the eye of others--liable to the delusion and infirmity to which that organ, by the law of nature, is subjected.

From every one of these remote recesses is a conceived culprit cooly drawn forth; his hands tied, his mouth gagged, and rendered up without pity or remorse, not to the hands of justice, but of the excutioner. What are the mad and melancholy times, in which such a practice can be men

tioned, and borne with patience? At this season the army had not been driven into despair and revolt, but, according to Sir G. Barlow's report, the military discontent had not appeared" to gain ground." But how far the day may be distant, warranting the application of summary and unrelenting sanctions, it demands nó uncommon foresight to say. But these will be produced, not by the violence of the times, but the times by the violence and frequency of the punishment. The edge of the uplified sword of government is not suffered to fall on every devoted neck, by the merciless sentence delivered in this order. There are other victims reserved for a succeeding execution, which follows on the ensuing day; when the commanderin-chief is ordered to relieve the tired hand of the governor. He perfects the business of vengeance, by proceeding with the proscribed list, and removing from the command of corps,

Captain Smith, 2d battalion of the 14th regiment.

Major Keasbury, 2d battalion of the

9th regiment.

Major Muirhead, the 2d battalion of the 18th regiment.

Major Hazlewood, 1st battalion of the 24th regiment, for the alleged, but unproved offence of not "having exerted themselves in maintaining order and discipline in their respective corps."

At the time that this extraordinary commission is given to the commanderin-chief, he is vested with the strange and most dangerous power, the right of supercession of officers, whom "he may be induced to consider," from his information, "as improper persons," to be entrusted at the moment with the charge of corps. So that the assumed prorogative of the government, of punishing at will, is communicated, without hesitation, to the temporary commander-in-chief; and, on the same principle, might have been transferred to a hundred subordinate links of the chain of authority, without the fear of the abuse of that delicate power, or any anxiety about the possible

sufferers by it. And as a specimen of the care with which a prerogative of this consequence should be exercised, the government, at the instant of communicating it to the commanderin-chief, require him to remove lieutetant-colonel Rumley from his regiment of cavalry, for this very flagrant fault, "that his conduct had been for some time unsatisfactory."

This is the worthy sequel to the order of the 1st May, which cannot be quitted, without a brief remark on its concluding office; which is to correct, as it states, "a misapprehension, highly dangerous in its tendency, which had arisen in the minds of some of the officers of the army, with regard to the nature of the authority of the govenor-in-council;" which misapprehension is ascribed to the influence of the order of general Macdowall to the army, of the 28th of January, preceding the order of reprimand. could be no future misconception, it should seem, even without this observation, of the extent of this authority, from the liberal use that had been made of it in the striking punishments, just exhibited. This practical lesson superseded the necessity that might have existed for the promulgation of the doctrine, which at best appears out of place, following, and not leading the acts, to which it is applicable.

There

After publishing the conviction of the government, that the majority of the army did not participate in "the improper and dangerous proceedings," declared in the order, it ends, with a particular, and ill-judged, compliment to the exemplary conduct of the Hydrabad subsidiary force. This commendation, at the expense of a part of the military community, was indig nantly refused in the very moment it was offered; a striking proof of the temper, which the order of the 1st May was calculated to excite throughout the army. The two powerfui motives, praise and expected favour, could not influence the Hydrabad force to view the acts effected by that order in any other light, than as destructive of the

rights, and insulting to the feelings of
the whole military body. Some indig-
nation might, perhaps, have been
occasioned by the conceived attempt
to cajole them, through the medium
of the order, by placing them in con-
trast, and in seeming opposition, if
they willingly admitted the governor's
approbation, to their brother officers
in other branches of the army. A
declaration was thereupon made to the
officers of the Madras army, and the
government, by the Hydrabad force,
which gave both reason to understand,
that the sufferings of the army, as
wrought by the orders of the 31st Ja-
nuary, and the 1st May, were as keenly
felt by the members of this corps, as
by the general body of the company's
officers. The spirit and language of
these papers, which no one could com-
mend, and which few would seek to
excuse, may serve to show what was
the nature and the strength of the feel-
ings that had been roused by this most
obnoxious and operative order,
what was immediately to be expected
from the force and influence of such
feelings, if no m: ans should be disco-
vered for the counteraction of their
effects.*

and

The danger threatened by the existing temper of the army seems either to have been misunderstood, or the possible result of it miscalculated or despised, for no other state measure appears to have been resorted to for quieting the turbulence of the times than soliciting and procuring a long and laboured discourse from the chair of the supreme government of Bengal.

It cannot be considered that Sir G. Barlow could have imagined, seriously, that men, so inflamed, would be preached out of their humour by a tardy sermon from Calcutta. But it is not difficult to guess the reason of the

request, so flattering to the governorgeneral, who seems to be deluded, step by step, until he becomes identified with the governor of Madras.

This paper comes at last; the purport of which is to allay, as it would appear, the terment which is universally understood to rage over the military state, and this it expects to promote by the opposite and contradictory means of reprehension and of reasoning. These at any time, would seem but slender means for soothing or healing the passions of an inflamed multitude; but little, indeed, could be done by their aid, when urged, as here, through the dull medium of a tedious epistolary disquisition; in which doctrines are broached and broken in the same breath, and in which truth in statement, and error in application, are so blended, that one is at a loss which to admire most, the sense of the writer, or the apparent perversion of it in the use.

The governor-general,desirous, as he professes himself to be, of instilling into the minds of the Madras officers, the principle of passive obedience and of indeliberate insubordination, to the commands of the civil authority, argues throughout the endless paragraphs of this paper, with the passion and the persuasion of the advocate, not with the authority and decision of the judge, to establish positions, where he should declare the law. While he would forbid deliberation, he calls upon the army to deliberate; while discounte nancing military discussion, by his doctrine, he promotes it by his practice. He makes opponents and disputants of those whom he is regarding in his address as silent and submissive pupils, yet he loses not the sight of his authority, except in the manner and the moment of exercising it.†

In this production, lord Minto enters

The manner of ordering colonel Sentleger to the presidency, seems to have roused, He is removed without any in a peculiar manner, the indignation of his brother officers.

explanation, save through the order of the first of May, from his command in Travancore, the field of his late brilliant operations. and instructed to pursue a private route to Poona mallie, the depot of French and Dutch prisoners, the enemies of his country: from the contact of which society he is not permitted to free himself, but by the especial indulgence. of the government.

Vide letter of Lord Minto, of 27th May, page 973.

on the detail of events, which it will be convenient to pursue, that had produced the general discontent. Every where, as he goes along, he vindicates the proceedings of Sir G. Barlow, by the unqualified condemnation of the conduct of the army. He censures, in broad terms the act of petitioning or memorializing in bodies, inveighs generally against military combinations, condemning, without reserve, the meditated memorial to the governorgeneral, to which the order of the 1st May refers. He illustrates his statements, on every one of these topics, by allusions to the acknowledged principles of the British constitution, and genuine British feeling.

If he had confined his labour here, though there might be some doctrines, and some illustrations attempted by him, that had more of splendour in them, than substance, none would have been much inclined to have excepted to his general propositions. But his lordship has not only conclusively pronounced in disfavour of the right of memorializing in the present instance, but bas utterly denied the existence of any grievance as a cause of memorial in the army; and has endeavoured to sustain his assertion, by a minute examination of every one of the acts attributed to and affecting that body of men. These have already been described, in a general way, but it will be necessary to advert to them more particularly, that it may be seen whether the army were setting up, as it is alleged, ideal and visionary grievances, and whether the government was justified or not in the severe measures pursued for the suppression of military complaints.

The practice of memorializing in numbers, though it may not be strictly military, is not novel in point of fact. Numberless instances might be quoted where memorials have been forwarded to his majesty, and the court of directors, from the Indian army, or large bodies of officers attached to it, and have not only been received in that form, but have been wisely and formally attended to. An extraordinary paper of this sort was presented to the king,

by the Bengal army, then commanded by general Popham, in which his majesty was informed of the sufferings and sentiments of that branch of the service, and the redress which it expected, accompanied by a bold, if not menacing declaration, that the sufferers were 150,000 men, with arms in their hands, and with ability, at least, if not relieved by the beneficence of the sovereign, to enforce, by their own means, a redress of their grievances. The appeal was not thrown back on the appellants, neither was it without effect. On another, not less memorable occasion, the complaints of the united Indian army were received at the India house, and in Downing street, through the hands of acknowledged representatives and commissioners, chosen openly by their military constituents at the three presidencies. These representatives were treated with respect by Mr. Pitt, and they were admitted by that enlightened statesman to discuss and adjust the rights of those whom they represented. It is observable, also, in the papers laid upon the table of the House of Commons, that the court of directors have very recently thrown out something like disapprobation of the conduct of Sir G. Barlow, in not forwarding to the court the memorial of certain officers, complaining generally of the reduction of their advantages, which had been sent to the Madras government by general Macdowall, for transmissal to England. These are all in proof of the manner and extent of appeal in military matters. It appears, at all times, to have been permitted to the officers of the Indian army, in indulgence, if not in right, to make a join t representation of their wrongs to the constituted authorities, both at home and abroad. Convenience may have had much to do in the toleration of the practice; and, perhaps, a contrary course would be unsuited to the peculiar constitution and situation of the Indian army. Lord Minto himself seems to admit, if not directly, by the tendency of his illustrations, the right of individuals to memorialize together, but not the right of officers to

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