and on marching into Deptford I found myself in command of the company of Captain Thaddeus Omeara, an officer who had invariably committed himself in that command, and been latterly as invariably protected by Colonel Beaufoy, in all his irregularities.

"That I had no desire to make myself prominent in this command will be best proved by the conduct I pursued on the occasion. The Paymaster applied to me with a degree of solicitation to know if I would permit the Pay-Serjeant of the company to receive from him the checks for its subsistence, as had been done by Captain Omeara; and I replied, that if it did not create any deviation from regularity, I had no wish in my temporary command to violate the arrangements of the Captain of the Company; but at the same time I mentioned claims of the Pay-Serjeant on the contingent allowance, for which, I understood, he had an order, and which the Paymaster denied, though he afterwards paid it! The Pay-Serjeant next approached me with some anxiety as to my orders, and to know if he was to be permitted to go on with the company as usual? I soon found that this man had cause for anxiety, in the embezzlements of the company's subsistence, which he had had as far as it was done at all, to make good, and which were still unfurnished to him: but at the same time it called upon me for the greater exactitude. I therefore told him, that while I had no desire to create any disorder in Capt. Omeara's arrangements during his absence, until it was ascertained, as reported, that he would never return, it would be necessary that I should see the company paid; that especially, the soldiers must receive their pay regularly, and without any deduction beyond the King's Regulations, and specifically desired him to avoid the evils which the Pay-Serjeants of the 1st Surry Militia had fallen into. I directed him to apply to me at any time for his own charge for paying the company, and for any expense he might regularly incur, and to charge for stationery, and even arm-chest room, for which he said he paid rent, which he did do, and which, without having received the contingent, I promptly paid."

"I found difficulties of which I shall not trouble the Court with a renumeration; but while I took care that the soldier was paid, and his claims considered, I again endeavoured to pass innoxiously to the end of my brief command. Still, however, a difficulty in seeing the Quarter-Master's bills haunted me, and when I did see them, their prices still more: and yet farther the excess in charge of a former article of necessaries, pipe-clay, and its calculation not formed from the effective strength of the company, or the number of men present, but from the numerical roll.

"In this also I endeavoured to make justice palatable. Instead of a sudden abrogation of custom, I communicated to Paymaster Stable my conviction that the deduction he made was not right, and to the Pay-Serjeant that the justice of it was to be ascertained by him by calculation. The Paymaster told me he would have nothing more to do with it,' and in consequence I directed the deduction to be no more made. It was nevertheless made by him under the orders of Colonel Beaufoy, although it was known that by then making it, it was simply taking from my pocket the whole sum, as I had paid it; and I had no other resource than by charging the Pay master, after many applications on the subject, with illegal deduction. "Instead of this charge being submitted either to amicable adjustment, or VOL. IV.

D

the investigation and settlement of competent authority; as usual, a secret meeting of three persons was ordered, which was composed, first, of the nearest relation of the accused; secondly, an officer whom I had necessarily and efficiently challenged at a General Court-Martial; and for the third, was selected one who had been justly reprimanded by a Brigade Court of Inquiry for embezzling his company's subsistence: the result of which has, as usual, been withheld from myself and the regiment.

"On this wretched renewal of the system which had before been carried on so injuriously, it was not possible that I should suffer myself to be committed.

"While, therefore, with due deference to the orders of my superiors, I attended the meeting to which I was called, I deemed it prudent and proper that the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces should be informed of the abuse I was about to witness and to suffer, and also of my wish for a due investigation.

"His Royal Highness, with that promptitude by which every proper representation is ordinarily attended, not only directed that that charge should be preferred, but was also pleased to order that charges should be instituted (on the full grounds of my memorial) against Colonel Beaufoy; and afterwards to grant me that exemption from all other duties, which was absolutely necessary to cope with the various impediments which would naturally be thrown in my way. Thus proving that Military Law, notwithstanding the lawyers, is neither vague nor uncertain, and reiterating that that slavery, which is a stranger to British freemen, has no impervious influence in the British Army.

"This was, nevertheless, as hath been already shewn, an arduous duty, and one for which I could be but ill prepared; it was one which, taken in every point of view, was critical in the extreme.

"I was aware then how difficult it is to steer between the Scylla and Charybdis of a Court-Martial, without being lost for want of evidence, or wrecked on some ill-understood regulation; and I know now I ought to make out a strong case indeed; yet if, without violation of my own feelings, I could have interrogated a single individual as to what he could tell, in the ordinary course of civil suits, would it not have been deemed at least a creation of discontent in either officer or soldier-perhaps an excitement to mutiny, or persuasive to desertion?

"I could not fail to have before my eyes in the investigation to which the dignified justice of the Commander-in-Chief has called me, the fate of Captain Roberts, for having presumed to bring irregular charges against the command of Governor Wall, of which that officer did not fail to boast, on the subsequent trial which ended in the forfeiture of his life! I cannot but recollect the agonizing punishment of Assistant-Surgeon Talbot, for intemperately accusing Colonel Rainey of the very crimes for which the Colonel was afterwards cashiered? Nor can I forget the dreadful suicide of Paymaster Mackenzie on the result of charges not proved, and the consequent censure! not to mention a host who have failed where I tremblingly stand. "I have therefore, however, endeavoured so to conduct the present prosecution, as that it should be evident,-1st, That I have not volunteered it : 2d, That I have no vindictive feelings in it: 3d, That I have not presumed

an iota beyond the written law of the army;-against which, if usage, regimental, or even general, be attempted to be set up, I have the opinions of no less judges than Generals Maitland, Stewart, Montgomery, and Ackland, of its futility, which opinions have also now in some respects become a law; and of one more general, that of Lord Erskine, himself a Captain, who has said, while the single letter of a statute remains he will not admit custom to start up against it.

"Indeed nothing can be more reconcileable to every one's experience; since if a bad Law Military, may possibly in some cases be extended to a slight advantage, the best may possibly be relaxed to the serious injury of every individual of an army; and it is thus that Colonel Beaufoy is this day presented before ye a memorable instance of how large a quantity of ill may be done in the abuse of a small power.—[A considerable sensation of impatience having been here evinced by several members of the Court, this excursive part was waved by the Speaker, and is therefore here omitted.]

"These are premises which appeared to me necessary to imbue your minds with the subject and its relations.

"To return immediately to the question then-the causes and consequences of the miserable state of inefficiency of the First Tower Hamlets' Regiment, acting and re-acting upon each other, as stated in the charge, may be thus traced in contradistinction to the picture already given of the settled Regulations and Orders of His Majesty.

"Inlisted irregularly in distant counties, the secret management arising out of the illegality must naturally remove all those checks by which the laws secure to the regularly inlisted soldier the full benefit of his bounty; and the attestation of them frequently privately before the Lieut.-Colonel of the regiment, Sir Daniel Williams, and sometimes I believe, merely within his hearing, deprives the recruit of the advantage which the liberality of the state has wisely given him, of making any complaint in respect to irregular dealings with him, by ordering that the magistrate should in no case 'be a military officer.' (Mutiny Act, § LXXV. &c.)

"His bounty is thus, in the first instance, for want of the check of the civil magistrate, mulcted with impunity by illegal charges, by the recruiting parties, the Regimental Clerk, and others, for their time and trouble; and the payment of the second part being made through the hands of the Quarter-Master, enables him to make any deduction, by way of necessaries, he pleases, and to grossly overcharge every article the recruit receives. The recruit often takes the lesson to be derived from this example, and deserts even before he joins the regiment.

"The operation of the Quarter-Master does not end here; for instead of two guineas, he pays the bringer, unless the remainder be insisted upon with vigour, which can rarely happen, only one pound, reserving to himself the remaining twenty-two shillings, under the pretence of being RecruitingOfficer, although not with the regiment, nor within a hundred miles of the place where the recruit is raised,-nor, perhaps, ever seeing either party or recruit, before, (if then,) when he is compelled to pay the small remnant of the bounty.

"The recruit, however, supposed to become a soldier, finds himself unable to exist, or his Captain to keep him out of debt; he is starving, and he robs;

or his heart sickens, and he deserts; for he finds that instead of the illusion, which drew him from a better service, perhaps, that he could work with facility at his trade in the restricted service of the Tower Hamlets, if he cannot purchase freedom by bribes of his non-commissioned officers, and admitting palpable frauds on his pay, he has a severer service in point of attendances than is always necessary on active service, and incurs, without knowing how, very frequent punishments.

"If, indeed, his trade is productive to him, he fares better, for it is soon intimated to him at how reasonable a rate he can buy his discharge from the Colonel, and upon declaring his wish to do so, leave of absence is obtained by him with facility; or if not sufficiently confidential, he hears how others have frequently obtained it by desertion, and returning with money to purchase their discharge!

"If neither occur, he probably remains for some time in a state of privation, a memento against recruiting the service, and trembling to utter his wrongs from the audacity with which he sees them inflicted, and the ignorance in which he is kept of every regulation that marks the beneficence of his king and country. He is told to complain on the 24th of some bad and useless article he has received, and it is returned by the vulgarest ridicule. On being asked on such an occasion by a soldier for the amount of a loaf which had been allowed by the Commissariat from its badness, Col. Beaufoy answered, 'O, by God! it's a stale subject. On another occasion he rereplied, with the same horrid expletive,- Is not this man a great liar? take care of him.' And on another he has referred a palpable thing to the very non-commissioned officer in whose failure cf duty it originated; or, as even to myself, he has not answered or regarded it all! Perhaps the next moment the regiment was assembled in an inclosed ground in a deep snow, or in a private house, for an inspection of necessaries, and neither officer nor private was permitted to quit his company till a list was made out of whatever, from any cause, he might not have at the moment there to shew, and those articles furnished on the spot at an exorbitant charge, lest the soldier should have an opportunity of supplying himself before the next parade! Over all which, his Captain, or the Commanding-Officer of his company, who is held responsible to prevent it, had no controul, even in any solitary instance in which he might desire to exercise it. He sees the soldier of another regiment in the same quarters receiving allowances in money that he does not receive, and receiving articles at a price considerably less than that which he is charged, or perhaps for nothing at all! His comrade of another regiment laughs at the idea of a deduction made from his pay. He receives on a certain day his new clothing, that the Inspecting-General may see it on his back, and supposes it is, according to order, to be taken into constant wear; but, alas! as soon as the General has turned his back, he is ordered to take it off, and return it into store till the General returns, when it is put on and off again in the same manner, and he returns to his rags for thirteen months (for his mulcted arrears will not supply him better), while every regiment around him perhaps is neatly and completely clad; and in the same manner in winter he sees in the Regimental Store the great-coat for the want of which his health is injured, and the worn state of the substitute, after many years' wear, scarcely hanging on his body, a dis

grace to his corps, on a duty even occasionally visited by Royalty. The same is the case with respect to his expensive articles, miscalled necessaries, tattered as soon as worn. And all possibility of interference is destroyed by the happy coincidence of the Quarter-Master with the Pay-Master, who deducts from the subsistence of the companies the gross amount of every company's bill, without reference to any one, so that no check to an overcharge can either in payment or transit be made; and the same even with a monthly deduction under an old regulation superseded from its inexpediency, by which even the very earth is made another object of lawless tribute from the soldier's means!

"If worn out by repeated vain appeals he attempts resistance under any vague notion of the law, or even refuses to sign an acknowledgment of what is contrary to his knowledge, a receipt for what he has not received, every one interested are witnesses for each other, and all are honourable men;' who therefore shall believe him alone against so powerful a weight? and where shall he find one who dare subject himself to suspicion of dissatisfac tion by witnessing for him?

"Thus it is pursued through innumerable grades and channels with impunity. If he desires the consolation of a relative, the king has provided that his letter shall be post free, with the exception of a penny only, when franked by the Commanding-Officer, but an additional half-penny must be found to bribe the Drum-Major for its access to the Commanding-Officer! before the conveyance which the King has given to it is allowed. And so acutely are these abominable calculations made, that on the return of the answer, as the relative will then have paid the penny, and the poor creature by the bounty of his king would receive it free, the bribe is raised to that penny, and whatever the contents of the letter, from a wife or a mother perhaps, it is detained till that impious gain can be extorted from him! If he obtain a pass to labour for a few hours it must be paid for to some one, perhaps the Regimental Clerk, who is already paid by government, or commuted by a weekly allowance, as an inducement to obtain them unduly. If a furlough is obtained (and even this is extorted contrary to the laws respecting elections) a shilling must be first supplied; and the same with respect to attestations and discharges.

"These things are all perfectly known, and breathed forth in murmurs even from those prejudiced in favour of Colonel Beaufoy; but his terrors do not-retire even from the vestibule of justice! and either attachment, fear, or hope, are not propitious to the decisions of a Regimental Court-Martial.

"Is the soldier drooping in sickness as well as sorrow?—I shall not till I come to prove facts, enlarge on this subject; but though I am well satisfied with the Regulations on this head, and very fastidious in respect to the evidence of private soldiers in this department of their economy, yet surely all cannot be well when the hospital is, and always has been, a perfect object of terror !

"I know the excellence of the medical institutions, and have seen the York and other military hospitals; and the patients appear happy in the obvious propriety of their regulations; but John Shaw, a man of the excellence of whose character all will bear testimony, lately continued, without complaining, to do his duty till he was dying on his post, rather than ask medical aid,