Major Hodson's Life

Review of:
Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India (by George Hodson, 1859).

It is a difficult thing for those who are accustomed to use language with any degree of precision to bring themselves to make general statements about nations and national character; for a nation is so vast and so ill-defined a body, that it is almost impossible to have any very accurate or adequate knowledge of it. Still most of us do gradually form an estimate of the people amongst whom we live, sufficiently just for ordinary purposes, and sometimes of surprising accuracy; nor are any facts better attested than that this estimate varies materially in different nations, and that the differences it indicates regulate the position which such nations occupy in relation to each other. The whole course of history is mainly determined by the average qualities of human nature, and this fact gives peculiar interest to the cases in which average men are placed in extraordinary circumstances. Mechanical contrivances will inform us whether the gun-metal or the wrought-iron which present the same resistance to the touch is the stronger substance; but it is not once in a lifetime that the winds blow and the rains descend, and the floods beat upon the commonplace virtues of commonplace men, so as to show whether they are built upon sand or rock; and it is not once in an age, that the experiment is performed on such a scale as to throw light of the same kind on the character of a nation.

The Bengal Mutiny appears to us to derive a great part, perhaps the chief part, of its interest from the circumstance that it furnishes us with abundant evidence of this description. At a moment's notice, without the smallest preparation, far remote from effective assistance, thousands of ordinary Englishmen and women were plunged into what may, with no exaggeration at all, be called a fiery trial. In the midst of peaceful pursuits they were called upon to fight for their lives against overwhelming odds. From unsuspecting confidence and security they were suddenly awakened to the existence of universal treachery. The unquestioned rulers of a mighty empire on one day became proscribed fugitives on the next. Here, indeed, was an instance in which men might prove what they were made of Here if anywhere was a test which would show what were the materials of which so splendid a fabric as the Indian Empire had been constructed. It is as evidence of the character of an ordinary Englishman, endowed with no other gifts than hundreds of his fellow-countrymen possess, trained by no other education than that through which English gentlemen usually pass, favoured by no unusual combination of circumstances, the object of no other patronage than that which he won by a zeal, intelligence, and energy, which, though highly creditable, are of common occurrence, that we invite attention to the Memoirs of the late Major Hodson. We have selected him from many other brave men for this purpose, not because he was, but because he was not, one of the principal defenders of the British Empire in India. Whatever eminence he might have attained, had his life been spared, it would be absurd to place him in the same class with Lord Clyde, with General Havelock, or with Sir John or Sir Henry Lawrence. There is nothing to show that his name would not have risen (had he lived) to a height far greater than that which he did in fact attain; those who knew and loved him may have good reasons for believing that it would ; but the course of events was not so ordered. To the world at large, Major Hodson may stand as a fair specimen of the great staple produce of the country, the ‘good yeomen whose limbs are made in England.’ An outline of his career will show what that position implies.

Major Hodson was the third son of the late Archdeacon of Stafford, and was born near Gloucester, in March, 1821. He was educated at Rugby from his fifteenth to his twentieth year, establishing there a great reputation for bodily activity, and for that combination of moral and physical force on which Dr. Arnold placed so much value, and which his system undoubtedly tended to develope in some cases. In 1840 he was removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where his pursuits were rather athletic than intellectual. After taking his degree he determined to enter the army; and, after a short term of service with the Guernsey Militia, obtained a cadetship in the Company's service, and landed in Calcutta in September, 1845, whence he went up the country to Agra, to join the troops proceeding to the Sutlej campaign. He did duty with the 2nd Grenadiers, and was present, within two or three months after the commencement of his military life, at three of the most desperate battles ever fought in India, battles which will sustain a comparison, in point both of fierceness and of slaughter, with the bloodiest engagements of European warfare. Nearly the first gun he heard fired, killed a man at his side; and immediately afterwards a ball, from the musket of a Sepoy behind him, grazed his cheek, whilst his face was blackened by the explosion of the powder.

This rough entrance into the duties of his profession was succeeded by a period of quiet, as far at least as ordinary military service was concerned, though it was filled by a constant succession of those multifarious occupations, engineering, political, and military, which are commonly incidental to a successful Indian career. Of these avocations Lieutenant Hodson's correspondence with his family gives a very full account. He had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of Mr. Thomason and Sir Henry (then Colonel) Lawrence; and as he was both older and far better educated than most officers of his standing, either civil or military, he obtained, through their means, abundant opportunities of distinguishing himself by activity, zeal, and intelligence. The list of his services gives a singular notion of the career of an active Indian officer. He was sent in the first instance to superintend the establishment of an orphan asylum, founded by Sir H. Lawrence at his own expense, at Subathoo, on the slope of the Himalayas, an institution intended to provide for the education of the motherless children of European soldiers in the Company's service. The mode in which the works had to be carried on was very characteristic. Not only were plans to be drawn, a house to be built, 450 workmen to be superintended, paid, and kept to their several duties, but every department of the work performed had to be invented from its first principles.

‘I have to get earth dug for bricks,’ says Lieutenant Hodson in a spirited letter to his father: “see the moulds made, and watch the progress of them till the kiln is filled, get wood for the kiln, and direct the lighting of the same, and finally provide a goat to sacrifice to the demon who is supposed to turn the bricks red. . . . . . Then the whole of the woodwork must be set out and made under one's own eye, and a lump of iron brought from the mine to be wrought (also under one's direction) into nails and screws, before a single door can be set up. . . . . . You will naturally ask how I learned all these trades. I can only say that you can't be more astonished than I am myself.'

Having completed the works at Subathoo, Lieutenant Hodson was deputed to make a road from Lahore to the Sutlej, a distance of forty miles, and to undertake a variety of police and surveying duties in the district. He was also second in command of the Corps of Guides, lately established, and found himself, with “a half sensation of modesty,’ administering justice in cases of very considerable importance.

In the course of these avocations the second Sikh war broke out. Our readers will remember the part which was played on this occasion by the irregular forces raised on the frontier by Lieutenant (now Colonel) Herbert Edwardes. Lieutenant Hodson had several somewhat similar opportunities of distinguishing himself. Though at that period he had no independent command, he played a principal part in several actions, and displayed, in a very unusual degree, the highest and least common, of all forms of courage—that which consists in accepting most serious responsibility. Thinking, on one occasion, that his commander, Brigadier Wheeler, did not advance as rapidly as was desirable, he himself marched on, at the head of 100 men, to attack 4000, ‘sending back a messenger to the Brigadier to say that I was close to the place, and that if he did not come on sharp they would run away or overwhelm me.' The Brigadier came on accordingly. The Sikhs had at first advanced on the small party which they saw in front of them, but they stopped on perceiving how it was supported. Brigadier Wheeler gave Lieutenant Hodson orders to charge with two regiments of irregular cavalry. The enemy fled in confusion, leaving 200 or 300 men dead on the ground. A little later in the campaign Lieutenant Hodson charged a body of 150 men with 15 troopers. Amongst the enemy were included a number of fanatics called Akhalees, who resisted with desperate ferocity. One, in particular, beat off four of the troopers, and was then attacked by Lieutenant Hodson, who thus describes the scene in a letter.

‘He rushed to meet me like a tiger, closed with me, yelling, ‘Wah Gooroo, ji!” and accompanying each shout with a terrific blow of his tulwar. I guarded the three or four first, but he pressed so closely to my horse's rein that I could not get a fair cut in return. At length I pressed in my turn upon him so sharply that he missed his blow, and I caught his tulwar with my bridle-hand, wrenched it from him, and cut him down with my right, having received no further injury than a severe cut across the fingers. I never beheld such desperation and fury in my life. It was not human scarcely.’

For this gallant action, as well as for the mode in which his other duties were discharged, Lieutenant Hodson received the thanks of the Governor-general.

After the peace, which followed on the battle of Chillianwallah, Lieutenant Hodson was employed for a considerable time in various civil capacities, and, amongst other things, he accompanied Sir Henry Lawrence in a journey to Cashmere and Thibet. The change of occupation was not, however, very agreeable to his tastes, and he was accordingly greatly rejoiced at being appointed to the command of the Corps of Guides on the Peshawur frontier, on the return of their former commandant to England. Indeed the appointment was one of the most desirable and important in India. It conferred precisely one of those positions which distinguish the Indian service from any other. The Corps of Guides consisted of 5 English officers, 300 horse, and 600 foot, the latter being all riflemen. They were divided into three troops and six companies. Each of the troops and companies was of a different race, and in each the officers were of a different race from the men. During the period of his command Lieutenant Hodson was at the head of every department of business, judicial, financial, and military in one part of his district. It was a very wild, exciting way of life.

‘A daybreak parade or inspection, a gallop across the plain to some outpost, a plunge in the river, and then an early breakfast, occupy your time till 9 A.M. Then come a couple of corpses whose owners (late) had their heads broken over night, and consequent investigations and examinations. Next a patch of villagers to say their crops are destroyed by a storm and no rents forthcoming. Then a scream of woe from a plundered farm on the frontier; and next a grain dealer to say his camels have been carried off to the hills. . . . Then each of my 900 men considers me bound to listen to any amount of stories he may please to invent or remember of his own private griefs and troubles.’

The amount of the business discharged may be estimated . from the fact that in the course of a single month ‘he disposed  of twenty-one serious criminal charges, such as murder and wounding with intent, and nearly 200 charges of felony,  larceny, &c.’ The ordinary business of the station was varied by a campaign of seven weeks on the frontier against a wild Afghan tribe, who were attacked in order to secure the Kohat pass. For his services on this occasion he was mentioned in the despatches of Brigadier Boileau, and thanked by the commander-in-chief, Sir W. Gomm.

Up to this period, Lieutenant Hodson had enjoyed uninterrupted prosperity, but in the year 1853, he was accused of negligent management in respect of the public money which had passed through his hands. His brother's statement of the case is that his appointment had excited great jealousy, that on his arrival at the scene of his duties he found the affairs of the station in great confusion, and that he had in the course of twenty-four hours to take the field without any audit between his predecessor and himself, and that he tried to reduce this confusion to order, but was unable to do so effectually. Under these circumstances, a special military court sat in Peshawur in the end of 1854 to investigate the charges. They reported to the Governor-general, but their report was delayed till July 1855. The Governor-general referred to Major Reynell Taylor, who made his report in February 1856; but this report, according to Mr. George Hodson, was kept back by some private influence, and was never laid before Lord Dalhousie at all before his departure from India. Of its tenor, Sir Robert Napier and Mr. Montgomery, then one of the Commissioners in the Punjab, and now Chief Commissioner of Oude, both gave their written opinion. The former says,

‘The result of Major Taylor's laborious and patient investigation of Lieutenant Hodson's regimental accounts, has not at all added to the confidence that I have throughout maintained in the honour and uprightness of his conduct. It has, however, shown how much labour Lieutenant Hodson bestowed in putting the affairs of his regiment in order.’

Mr. Montgomery said,

“To me the whole report seemed more satisfactory than any one I had ever read; and considering Major Taylor's high character, patience, and discernment, and the lengthened period he took to investigate every item, most triumphant.”

 This evidence certainly exculpated Lieutenant Hodson from the imputation which such a charge carries with it, but the private letters which he wrote to his family at the time will to many minds convey a still stronger impression of his innocence, especially when their manly simple tone is connected with the equally manly and simple conduct which their writer constantly maintained.

For about two years from the beginning of 1855, till the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857, he underwent a series of the severest trials. He lost a child to whom he was very tenderly attached. He lost his father, and he was dismissed from his command, and obliged to return to his regimental duties as a simple lieutenant. He turned to them with as keen an interest, as strong a sense of duty, and as prompt efficiency as if he had never commanded on one of the most stirring positions in India. The regimental affairs had fallen into great disorder, and the Colonel requested Lieutenant Hodson to accept the post of quarter-master, . Instead of brooding over his grievances, he applied himself with such energy to this complicated and uninteresting task as to accomplish most successfully the objects which his superiors had in view, and to earn from them the warmest acknowledgments for his services.. Mr. George Hodson may well say, that nothing in his brother's career was more admirable, or showed more real heroism.

In July, 1857, Lieutenant Hodson's services were required on a very different scene. On the outbreak of the mutiny he received orders to raise the regiment of irregular cavalry which was known by his name. The services which they rendered at the siege of Delhi and during Lord Clyde's advance on Lucknow are too well known to require minute description. Nor do we feel prepared to enter upon the question of the justice of Major Hodson's view as to the possibility of taking Delhi at a much earlier period than that at which it actually was taken. The materials for the discussion of such a question are not, and perhaps never will be, collected. The proceedings of Major Hodson (for he gained brevet rank on obtaining his company in the course of the siege of Delhi) are so characteristically and so happily described in several passages of his brother's memoir, that we lay them before our readers in full, that they may judge for themselves as to the character of his exploits. The following is Lieutenant Macdowell's account of the capture of the princes. It supersedes all necessity for comment:

‘On the 20th the King gave himself up, and was lodged securely in Delhi under a guard. On this day all had evacuated the place, of which we were complete masters. On the 21st a note from Hodson, “Come sharp, bring one hundred men.” Off I went, time 6 o'clock A.M. To explain why he wrote to me, I must tell you that although he commanded the regiment, he was also the head of the Intelligence Department, and lived in the General's quarters, while I lived with the regiment, commanding it in his absence, as being Second in command. Well, down I went. He told me he had heard that the three Princes (the heads of the rebellion and sons of the King) were in a tomb six miles off, and he intended going to bring them, and offered me the chance of accompanying him. Wasn't it handsome on his part! Of course I went: we started at about eight o'clock, and proceeded slowly towards the tomb. It is called Humayoon's Tomb, and is an immense building. In it were the princes and about 3000 Mussulman followers. In the suburb close by about 3000 more, all armed, so it was rather a ticklish bit of work. We halted half a mile from the place, and sent in to say the princes must give themselves up unconditionally, or take the consequences. A long half hour elapsed, when a messenger came out to say the princes wished to know if their lives would be promised them, if they came out. “Unconditional surrender,” was the answer. Again we waited. It was a most anxious time. We dared not take them by force, or all would have been lost, and we doubted their coming. We heard the shouts of the fanatics (as we found out afterwards) begging the princes to lead them on against us. And we had only one hundred men, and were six miles from Delhi. At length, I suppose, imagining that sooner or later they must be taken, they resolved to give themselves up unconditionally, fancying, I suppose, as we had spared the King, we would spare them. So the messenger was sent to say they were coming. We sent ten men to meet them, and by Hodson's order I drew the troop up across the road, ready to receive them, and shoot them at once if there was any attempt at a rescue. Soon they appeared in a small “Ruth” or Hindoostanee cart drawn by bullocks, five troopers on each side. Behind them thronged about 2000 or 3000 (I am not exaggerating) Mussulmans. We met them, and at once Hodson and I rode up, leaving the men a little in the rear. They bowed as we came up, and Hodson, bowing, ordered the driver to move on. This was the minute. The crowd behind made a movement. Hodson waved them back; I beckoned to the troop, which came up, and in an instant formed them up between the crowd and the cart. By Hodson's order I advanced at a walk on the people, who fell back sullenly and slowly at our approach. It was touch and go. Meanwhile Hodson galloped back, and told the sowars (10) to hurry the princes on along the road, while we showed a front and kept back the mob. They retired on Humayoon's tomb, and step by step we followed them. Inside they went up the steps, and formed up in the immense garden inside. The entrance to this was through an arch, up steps. Leaving the men outside, Hodson and myself (I stuck to him throughout), with four men, rode up the steps into the arch, when he called out to them to lay down their arms. There was a murmur. He reiterated the command, and (God knows why, I never can understand it) they commenced doing so. Now you see we didn't want their arms, and under ordinary circumstances would not have risked our lives in so rash a way, but what we wanted was to gain time to get the princes away, for we could have done nothing had they attacked us, but cut our way back, and very little chance of doing even this successfully. Well, there we stayed for two hours, collecting their arms, and I assure you I thought every moment they could rush upon us. I said nothing, but smoked all the time, to show I was unconcerned; but at last, when it was all done, and all the arms collected, put in a cart, and started, Hodson turned to me and said, “We'll go now.” Very slowly we mounted, formed up the troop, and cautiously departed, followed by the crowd. We rode along quietly. You will say, why did we not charge them I merely say, we were one hundred men, and they were fully 6000. I am not exaggerating; the official reports will show you it is all true. As we got about a mile off, Hodson turned to me and said, “Well, Mac, we've got them at last;” and we both gave a sigh of relief. Never in my life, under the heaviest fire, have I been in such imminent danger. Everybody says it is the most dashing and daring thing that has been done for years (not on my part, for I merely obeyed orders, but on Hodson's, who planned and carried it out). Well, I must finish my story. We came up to the princes, now about five miles from where we had taken them, and close to Delhi. The increasing crowd pressed close on the horses of the sowars, and assumed every moment a more hostile appearance. “What shall we do with them?’” said Hodson to me. “I think we had better shoot them here; we shall never get them in.” 

‘We had identified them by means of a nephew of the king's whom we had with us, and who turned king's evidence. Besides, they acknowledged themselves to be the men. Their names were Mirza Mogul, the king's nephew and head of the whole business; Mirza Kishere Sultamet, who was also one of the principal rebels, and had made himself notorious by murdering women and children; and Abu Bukt, the commander-in-chief nominally, and heir-apparent to the throne. This was the young fiend who had stripped our women in the open street, and cutting off little children's arms and legs, poured the blood into their mothers’ mouths: this is literally the case. There was no time to be lost; we halted the troop, put five troopers across the road behind and in front. Hodson ordered the princes to strip and get again into the cart, he then shot them with his own hand. So ended the career of the chiefs of the revolt, and of the greatest villains that ever shamed humanity. Before they were shot, Hodson addressed our men, explaining who they were, and why they were to suffer death; the effect was marvellous, the Mussulmans seemed struck with a wholesome idea of retribution, and the Sikhs shouted with delight, while the mass moved off slowly and silently.'

No more righteous act was ever done. No history in the world records an instance of more heroic courage. [In the ‘Times’ of March 15. 1859, General Thompson is reported to have said in the House of Commons: ‘He stood up in that ‘house to speak of the murder of the princes of Delhi. There was a “slight probability that the man who committed these murders was ‘suffering under the affliction of insanity. We make no other comment upon this than that no other nation was ever so splendidly served as our own, and that in none have all the arts of detraction, ridicule, and contempt been exercised on public servants with such inveterate and ignorant malignity.]  The following passage, from the same pen, is an instance of courage of another kind. It reads like one of the most exciting scenes in Fenimore Cooper's novels. After describing how Major Hodson and himself rode over from Bewar to Lord Clyde's camp (fiftyseven miles) between 6 A.M. and 4 P.M., Lieutenant Macdowell thus describes their return. The road was beset by the enemy, but Hodson resolved, if possible, to push through:—

‘We had a very pleasant dinner, and at 8 P.M. started on our long ride (fifty-four miles) back. We arrived at Goorsahaigunge all safe, and pushed on at once for the next stage, Chibberamow. When we had got half way, we were stopped by a native, who had been waiting in expectation of our return. God bless him " I say, and I am sure you will say so too when you have read all. He told us that a party of the enemy had attacked our twenty-five sowars at Chibberamow, cut up some, and beaten back the rest, and that there was a great probability some of them (the enemy) were lurking about the road to our front. This was pleasant news, was it not? — twenty miles from the commander-in-chief’s camp, thirty from our own; time, midnight, scene, an open road; dramatis personae, two officers armed with swords and revolvers, and a howling enemy supposed to be close at hand. We deliberated what we should do, and Hodson decided we should ride on at all risks. “At the worst,” he said, “we can gallop back; but we'll try and push through.” The native came with us, and we started. I have seen a few adventures in my time, but must confess this was the most trying one I had ever engaged in. It was a piercingly cold night, with a bright moon and a wintry sky, and a cold wind every now and then sweeping by and chilling us to the very marrow. Taking our horses off the hard road on to the side where it was soft, so that the noise of their footfalls could be less distinctly heard, we silently went on our way, anxiously listening for every sound that fell upon our ears, and straining our sight to see if, behind the dark trees dotted along the road, we could discern the forms of the enemy waiting in ambush to seize us. It was indeed an anxious time. We proceeded till close to Chibberamow. “They are there,” said our guide in a whisper, pointing to a garden in a clump of trees to our right front. Distinctly we heard a faint hum in the distance—whether it was the enemy, or whether our imagination conjured up the sound, I know not. We slowly and silently passed through the village, in the main street of which we saw the dead body of one of our men lying stark and stiff and ghastly in the moonlight; and on emerging from the other side, dismissed our faithful guide, with directions to come to our camp—and then, putting spurs to our horses, we galloped for the dear life to Bewar, breathing more freely as every stride bore us away from the danger now happily past. All Hodson said when we were at Bewar, and safe, was “By George! Mac, I'd give a good deal for a cup of tea,” and immediately went to sleep. He is the coolest hand I have ever yet met. We rode ninety-four miles. Hodson rode seventy-two on one horse, the little dun, and I rode Alma seventy-two miles also.”

Major Hodson, with his regiment, was present at the operations before Lucknow. Lieutenant Macdowell, his gallant companion, and the author of the striking letters from which we have quoted the above extracts, was killed on the 27th of January, 1858. On the 12th of March Major Hodson himself met the same fate. He was shot through the body by a sepoy who with some others had taken refuge in a room in the begum's palace at Lucknow, which he entered to look for fugitives. He died the next morning with the same patient courage which he had so often displayed in life.

A few of the anecdotes of his behaviour during the siege of Delhi may serve to complete his portrait:–

‘The way Hodson used to work was quite miraculous. He was a slighter man and lighter weight than I am. Then he had that most valuable gift, of being able to get refreshing sleep on horseback. I have been out with him all night following and watching the enemy, when he has gone off dead asleep, waking up after an hour as fresh as a lark; whereas, if I went to sleep in the saddle, the odds were I fell off on my nose. 

In a fight he was glorious. If there was only a good hard skrimmage he was as happy as a king. A beautiful swordsman, he never failed to kill his man; and the way he used to play with the most brave and furious of these rebels was perfect. I fancy I see him now, smiling, laughing, parrying most fearful blows, as calmly as if he were brushing off flies, calling out all the time, “Why, try again, “now,” “What's that?” “Do you call yourself a swordsman?” &c. 

He has wonderful tact in getting information out of the natives, and divining the movements of the enemy. He is scarcely out of the saddle day or night, for not only has he to lead his regiment and keep the country clear, but being Intelligence Officer, he is always on the move to gain news of the progress of affairs, and acts and intentions of the enemy. He used to know what the rebels had for dinner in Delhi. 

Even when he might take rest he will not, but will go and help work at the batteries, and expose himself constantly, in order to relieve some fainting gunner or wounded man.’ 

We may seem to be doing injustice to the memory of such a man as Major Hodson in saying that we have chosen his life for special notice, because he is a representative of the ordinary and not of the extraordinary virtues of his countrymen. Nothing is further from our wish than to say a single word about him which could convey any impression of coldness or indifference to his merits. What his career appears to us to prove is, that there must be amongst us many hundreds, perhaps many thousands, of persons who, in the common course of life, attract no attention, but who, if they were placed in extraordinary circumstances, would show that they possessed qualities which every one would call extraordinary. The proof of this is that in Major Hodson's career there is no violent break or transition, and that great part of his career was in no way remarkable. Such as he was at Rugby he continued to be at Cambridge. The different occupations in which he was engaged in India were all of the same character. They do not seem to have required other faculties than that sort of Robinson Crusoe independence and self-reliance which we see in a thousand cases on less picturesque stages without being at all surprised at it. . An active clergyman in a neglected parish; a clever attorney who puts a case together from incoherent materials; a country gentleman who brings an ill-managed estate into good order, and raises its value by agricultural improvements; any man who works his way in life by the exercise of enterprise and intelligence, is doing, on a commonplace stage, just the same sort of things that Major Hodson did on an exciting one. We meet with such men in abundance in all directions. Any one of our readers could, no doubt, name scores of them with a little thought. We usually tacitly assume that such men must be commonplace, because they are placed in commonplace positions; and Mr. John Mill, in the latest and one of the ablest of his publications, has very emphatically indorsed this opinion, by expressing his belies, that a great decay has taken place, and is continuing to proceed, in the power and originality of individual character: Major Hodson's career appears to us to show that such an opinion is most unjust. That he was a man of great power and vivacity of character, no one who reads his memoir can possibly doubt. If he had worn a coat of mail and lived in a feudal castle, his career might have been quoted as a proof of the racy vigour which feudalism developed; but it is strictly true that he was only a specimen of a class. There is nothing in his life or letters to show that he possessed any supernatural powers either of mind or body. Each, no doubt, was trained to the highest pitch. His mind was in a state of constant and wholesome employment. His body was hardened by continual exercise, but the capacity, as distinguished from the training, displayed by his performances, does not appear to us to have been at all uncommon, though it was certainly considerable. His letters are exactly the sort of letters which might be expected from a shrewd lively man, with a keen eye and plenty of sound good sense, but they contain no traces of any qualities of a higher kind. Thousands of such letters arrive by every mail, and during the Crimean campaign, scarcely a day passed in which a considerable number were not published in the papers. Curiously enough, an exact measure of Major Hodson's physical powers is given in one of these letters. Speaking of prodigious marches which he had accomplished on horseback, he says that he certainly shall never again be able to repeat his college feat of walking from a ferry between the mainland and the Isle of Skye to Inverness (about sixty miles) in thirty hours. It is a feat which would present no insuperable difficulty to any man of active out-door habits in the vigour of life. We will venture to say that scores of Major Hodson's contemporaries at Rugby and Trinity were thoroughly equal to him both in mental and physical capacity. Where are they now? They are the leaders of every day English life, – what we may call the non-commissioned officers of English society, — the clergy, the lawyers, the doctors, the country squires, the junior partners in banks and merchants' offices, men who are in every sense of the word gentlemen though no one would class them with the aristocracy. Take a man of this order at random, throw him into strange circumstances, repose confidence in him, subject him to responsibility, and Major Hodson is the result.

 If it were necessary in these days to give any formal proof of the soundness of that popular instinct which attaches the highest importance to military prowess, we should find it in the belief that it is the rough but certain test of those broad, deep, common virtues, which are not too great and good for the aspirations of common men, but which are so great and good that without them a nation would be no more than a mob of cheats, slaves, cowards, and liars, more or less cunning. We have all heard a great deal more than enough of the horrible, the ludicrous, and contemptible side of war, and of the foibles and follies of soldiers. Let us turn for once to the other side of the picture. What a world of silent, untold worth must have preceded so much rude heroism, -- what lessons of obedience, patience, and honesty are implied in that iron stubbornness which won the battle of Inkermann! What numbers of parents must have taught their children to fear God and honour the Queen, before six hundred carters and ploughboys could be capable of being drilled into the cavalry who charged at Balaklava! What self-reliance, what resource, what a frank, hearty, common understanding, must have been learnt in the schools which trained the civil and military servants of the East India Company! what a vast mass of unemployed energy and latent courage must be diffused through the classes of society from which they were chosen The Army and the Company's Service were true samples of the material of which the English nation is composed. It is as a faithful picture of a noble specimen of this class, that Major Hodson's life well deserves wide and lasting attention. We will add that the execution of the book is thoroughly worthy of its subject. The skill, the modesty, and the self-respect with which Mr. George Hodson relates his brother's life almost entirely by means of his letters, are very remarkable. That form of narrative is now very common, and is often extremely tiresome; but there is not a page of Mr. Hodson's book which has not its own interest, or which fails to carry the story forward.

Edinburgh Review, April 1859.

Woods v. Russell

Review of:
History of the late Campaign (by N.A. Woods, 1855).
History of the War (by William H. Russell, 1855).

The popular view of the campaign in the Crimea is summed up in the apophthegm attributed to—perhaps invented for— the Russians, about the arm of lions commanded by asses. Two great historians—Messrs. Woods and Russell—have favoured the world with a republication of the correspondence which originally produced this impression. The work of the gentleman first named has been made the subject of a vehement panegyric by the I, and his assertions have been triumphantly appealed to as confirming and bearing out the statements of the gentleman whose raise is in all the shop windows, and whom the Parthenon Club delights to honour. As we happen to feel some regard for the reputation of our country—as we cannot quite acquiesce in the doctrine that the inferiority of England to France, the miserable imbecility of our Government and our soldiers, the stupid pride of our aristocracy, the slavish toadyism of our middle classes, and the brutal stupidity and inveterate sottishness of the poor, are proper subjects for noisy rejoicing, public festivities, and after-dinner exultation—we have gone through the task (not a very light one) of examining some of the authorities upon which the opinions in question rest; and we cannot say that the result has been to impress us with any great reverence for the abilities or truthfulness of our self-chosen censors.

Of Mr. Russell we have spoken on former occasions. Our last new Thucydides is Mr. N.A. Woods, late Special Correspondent of the Morning Herald. This candid gentleman disclaims in his Preface all “pretentious to military criticism." In fact, he seems to think it unnecessary, because “public opinion on military matters, though sometimes hasty, is seldom very wrong"— which opinion, from a gentleman who, by his own account, knows nothing about strategy, is of course entitled to great weight. Nevertheless Mr. Woods “points to well known mistakes," and states “less generally known deficiencies," and his readers, at any rate, “cannot fail to see that" his “narrative is true, and therefore impartial." It is very characteristic of Mr. “Woods to appeal to his readers for the truth of his narrative; and it is a blessing that the public are endowed with this unerring power of distinguishing truth from falsehood. If it were not so, they might be rather at a loss for an opinion upon the subject, for the question is entirely one of detail, and of very dry detail too. The questions to be decided are such as these.  How many carts had the Commissariat at Varna? What was the evidence about the healthiness of the Camp there? How many surgeons were there at the Alma? What stores and other resources were at their disposal? What clothing was there at Balaklava? What was the morning state of the army on such a day? and so on. In fact, the questions upon which the whole inquiry hinges are as dry and as special as if they related to invoices, bills of exchange, dock warrants, and accounts current. It may, therefore, well be that Mr. Woods has drawn most lively pictures of the theatrical parts of the war, and at that he is utterly untrustworthy when he comes to facts. Indeed, no artist's “blood" is redder, no one’s "thunder" louder, no one's "wounds" more frightful, no one deals so well with “gangrene," "maggots," “the unutterable," and “festering masses of corruption;" but it does not follow that he is equally reliable when he says that such a regiment, on such a day, mustered only so many men, or that such a drug ran short in such an hospital. As upon these details everything depends, and as we have the advantage of being in a position to command the testimony of two such men as Messrs. Woods and Russell, we have compared some of their statements, acting upon the suggestion of the Times itself, which, whilst declining, with an engaging modesty, to execute the task on its own account, remarks that its readers will naturally make the comparison.

A striking instance of Mr. Woods's “union" with Mr. Russell is, according to their common patron, to be found in their accounts of the mismanagement of the Government, and especially of the commissariat, at Varna. Mr. Woods says—

‘If ever the English were to have had good commissariat arrangements, they should have been at Verna; yet the very reverse was the case. Almost daily service letters went in to the heads of the commissariat departments from assistant commissaries in charge of divisions, stating that they were unable to provide the requisite amount of bread and meat or the support of the troops.’ (i. 86.)

Mr. Russell says (June 9)—

‘Altogether the station seems excellent, and as the commissariat is not deficient in supplies of all the essentials of bread and beef, there is no cause for complaint.’ (83, 84.)

And again, June 26—

‘The commissariat are doing their duty manfully. The quality of the meat is really very good.’

On July 21, we are told—

‘The meat furnished by the commissariat is excellent. Some of the surgeons think the ration is not large enough, as the meat is lean and deficient in nutritive quality, when compared with English beef and mutton; but it should be state that, in order to compensate for that deficiency, the weight of the ration has been increased from three-quarters of a pound to one pound per day.’ (p. 103.)

Mr. Woods and Mr. Russell agree in thinking that it was on account of deficiency in the means of land transport that Silistria was not relieved. Upon whom did the blame rest? Mr. Woods, writing of the middle of June, says—

‘It was plain to every one at Vania that the French were not numerous enough to advance alone to its (Silistria's) help, and that, under any circumstances, the English were not able to advance at all.’ (i. 83.)

There was one person at Verna to whom this was not so obvious. A month later (July 21) Mr. Russell writes thus—

‘They (the French) are not in a better condition to march into the interior than we are. . . . They are obliged . . . to send on the general staff of the administration some sixteen days or a fortnight before they move. . . . We, on the contrary, carry our stores with us, and are at this moment, as I have said, better able to march en masse than they are.’ (p. 124.)

Nor do Messrs. Woods and Russell agree upon the question of military luxuries. In a passage which the Times quotes with curious exultation, Mr. Woods says:—

‘Only 800lbs. of tea had been sent out by the Government, and this absurdly small stock was expended a few days after our landing. The men seldom got their full rations, that is to say, either the sugar, coffee, or meat were deficient, and on very many occasions they had only bread and water for breakfast. Even such a simple article as rice was not to be had on any terms.’ (i. 86, 87.)

Writing on the 14th of June, Mr. Russell says:—

‘Sorry am I to say that the men are dissatisfied, because the store of sugar is run out, and follows who never were accustomed, before they enlisted, to anything better than a drink of buttermilk and a potato, declare they cannot take their tea or coffee without sugar. (p. 91.)

On the 20th of June, he writes:—

‘I regret very much to have to state that for several days last week there was neither rice, nor sugar, nor preserved potatoes, nor tea. The men then to make their breakfast simply on ration brown bread and water. . . . . Within these last three or four days, a little rice has again been served out, and small quantities of tea. (p. 96.)

And writing on the 21st July, he tells us that the quantity of food issued by the commissariat seems almost fabulous. In addition to 110,000 lbs. of corn, &c., issued for the horses, 27,000 lbs. of meat, 27,000 rations of bread, and “the same quantity of rice, tea, coffee, sugar, &c.," were issued daily. (p. 123.)

So that whilst Mr. Woods implies that the whole time spent at Varna was a time of hardship, Mr. Russell's only grievance is that between the i4th and 16th or 17th of June, t e troops had no tea for breakfast; nor are the differences between the two correspondents at an end when they leave Varna. As our object at present is only to com are our two authorities, we will pass over various points which might require notice in narrating, and confine ourselves to a single point in which they are curiously at issue. Speaking of alleged irregularities in the disembarkation, Mr. Russell says:—

‘The greatest offender against the prescribed order or disembarkation was the Admiral himself, who, instead of filling the place assigned to him in the centre of his fleet, anchored four miles from the shore.’ (p. 160)

And again:—

‘In our fleet, the whole labour and responsibility of the disembarkation rested with Sir E. Lyons.  The Admiral remained, as I have said, aloof, and took no share in the proceedings of the day.’ (p. 161)

Mr. Woods says:—

‘Admiral Dondas was in his place in the center of the line-of-battle ships, which were moored about three miles off the shore, outside the transports, to protect them in case of the Russian fleet making any desperate attempt in the night.’

Speaking of a village near the English position, Mr. Woods says—

‘The outskirts were crowded with stacks of hay and barley, and large flock! of sheep and cattle. These, though we wanted fresh meat and forage, their owners declined to sell at any price. They had evidently been cautioned by the Russians against affording us any assistance. As strict orders had been issued that the property of the natives was to be respected, and as in nearly every instance, they refused to sell, the English did without their supplies as they best could. Such was not the case with our allies. They fixed a fair price on the articles they wanted, gave the money, and took the goods, and the people seemed very well content to have a market thus thrust upon them.’

Mr. Russell, speaking apparently of the same place (though we cannot be quite sure of this), says that it “was sacked by some French marauders, with every excess of brutal cruelty and ferocity. I need not repeat the details, indeed they are too shocking to humanity." Not one word of this—wherever it happened—docs Mr. Woods mention. Mr. Russell proceeds, “They (the French razzias) frighten them from our markets, and will soon deprive us of the vast supplies to be obtained from the natives. (p. 170.) Some more minute discrepancies are very instructive, because they show how little these gentlemen are to be depended upon in matters of detail. Mr. Woods says “it will be scarcely credited that nearly 1200 sick” were placed on board the Kangaroo on a particular occasion. (i. 30.) Mr. Russell says, of the same occasion, that there were “about 1500." Where accuracy in number is the one thing needful, these gentlemen seem to make mere guesses. So, in speaking of the skirmish at Bouljanak, Mr. Woods says that "we had only six-pounders," that our artillery could not effect much, that the Russians continued steady under fire, and then wheeled off and slowly retired. (i. 324.) Mr. Russell states that our cannon “ploughed up the columns of the cavalry, who speedily dispersed into broken lines, wheeling round and round with great adroitness, to escape the six and nine pound balls.” (p. 175).

Perhaps as curious a contradiction m any is one which relates to the battle of Balaklava. In a page of which the running title is “Bravo, Highlanders! well done!" Mr. Russell tells a most picturesque story of how the Russian horse charged the 93rd, the ground flying under their feet, and the assailants gathering speed at every stride—how the Highlanders fired two volleys at them, one at 600 yards, which had no effect, and one at 150 yards, which “carried death and terror into the Russians"—and how Sir Colin Campbell said, “I did not think it worth while to form them even four deep.” According to Mr. Woods, this is a mere theatrical romance. His statement is that, at from 700 to 800 yards, a volley was fired at the Russians without effect—that then the Turks ran away—that the Russians advanced at a trot to within 400 or 500 yards—that the Highlanders then fired a second volley also wit out effect—and that the Russians slowly retired. (Mr. Russell says, “they wheel about, open files right and left, and fly back faster than they came.")—(Woods, ii. 70-1, Russell, 227.) As to Sir Colin Campbell’s alleged speech, Mr. Woods declares that he never made any such “absurd remark," adding that, if the Highlanders had been charged, Sir Colin would have ordered them to form square. Though both these gentlemen were eye-witnesses, both at Bouljanak and at Balaklava, they are in direct contradiction; and if Mr. Russell really made up this romantic story to flatter the public, what reliance can be placed on any statement he makes?

These are some of the discrepancies between these gentlemen's accounts which we have met with in a not very elaborate examination of their books. They bear a larger proportion to the total number of facts stated than our readers would suppose; for the mass of verbiage which is introduced into each book is not only surprising, but wearisome. We do not by any means wish it to be inferred from the above comparison that Mr. Russell is always in the wrong. He seems to us to be at times more reasonable than Mr. Woods, and indeed it must be allowed that Mr. Woods is about the lowest authority in matters of fact—perhaps we may except Mr. Russell—that we ever happened to meet with. We will not tire our readers with a criticism of the miserably inconclusive evidence on which he impugns the conduct of the war. “I hear," “It is said," “I am told," is all he knows about it. He is, by his own confession, avowed nearly as often as he has occasion to make a statement, a mere retailer of gossip the correctness of which it is generally impossible to check. We will therefore confine ourselves to two or three flagrant instances of carelessness, which, upon such an occasion, is neither more nor less than dishonesty. Curiously enough, two of the statements to which we refer are clamorously and joyously adopted, and reiterated by the reviewer in the Times on the 9th inst. When the army arrived at Sebastopol, “the English," says Mr. Woods, “had no theodolites with them.” A negative assertion like this is rather a wide one to receive, on the authority of a single person. It is curious that Mr. Woods should have said—carried away by love of picturesqueness and alliteration—that amongst the shops established at arms were some in which you might buy anything “from a theodolite to a toothpick." (i. 151.) Of course Mr. Woods was only looking out for something large which began with a t, but if we are to believe that theodolites were in such demand at Varna that private speculators brought them to the camp for sale, it is quite incredible that there should have been none at Sebastopol. This is a small matter, though characteristic, but what follows is of very different importance. We request our readers' attention to the following comparison:

WOODS, vol. ii. p. 253.  -- On the 8th of January, of the 63rd Regiment, only seven remained fit for duty. On the same day the 46th, which had landed on the 8th Nov., just two months before, mustered only sixty serviceable men.  The 90th, a strong and healthy regiment, buried fifty men in eleven days; and one full company, during the same time, had only seventeen men out of hospital.  The three batallions of Guards were mere names.  Out of 1562 men sent out to the Scots Fusiliers, from first to last, only 210 remained.

RUSSELL, p. 303. Jan. 8. -- The 63rd Regiment had only seven men fit for duty yesterday.   The 46th had only thirty men fit for duty at the same date.  A strong company of the 90th have been reduced, by the last week’s severity, to fourteen file, in a few days; and that regiment, though considered very healthy, lost fifty men by death in a fortnight.  The Scots Fusilier Guards, who have had out from beginning to end, 1562 men, now muster, including servants and corporals, 210 men on parade.

Our readers see how exactly, almost verbally, these accounts tally. The sentences are sometimes clause for clause the same, and the regiments are referred to in the same order. Mr. Russell’s statement purports to be a republication of his letter of the 8th January, and we suppose it is so; but Mr. Woods’s statement does not purport to be taken from Mr. Russell, but from his own observation. In referring, however, to Mr. Woods's letters, in the Morning Herald, dated on the 8th, the 15th, the 20th, and the 27th of January, and on the 10th of February, and published on the 29th of Juan ,and on the 3rd, 14th, and 27th of February—in which the sufferings of the army are dwelt upon at great length—we find that there is no reference whatever to the 90th Regiment or to the Scots Fusiliers, except in so far as the latter are comprehended under the general description of the losses of the Guards. The 46th Regiment are described as having, on the 8th of January, mustered seventy, not sixty, men; and the 63rd as having been reduced, not to seven on the 7th of January, but to ten on the 11th. The differences are unimportant in themselves; but the alteration in the case of the 63rd shows that Mr. Woods prefers Mr. Russell's authority to his own, and that which applies to the 46th shows that he will go as far to meet him as he can. The alteration must have been purposely made, for, on the 8th of January, Mr. Woods mentions tie fact that the 46th had landed just two months, which Mr. Russell omits, but which is mentioned in Mr. Woods's letter to the Morning Herald of that date. The statements about the Fusiliers and the 90th Regiment appear to be copied straight out of Mr. Russell’s work, with slight alterations—we fear, to disguise the adoption. Yet this statement was paraded by the Times last Wednesday week as a confirmation of its own assertions, and Mr. Woods is complimented for his “unalterable fidelity." After this, it is, perhaps, superfluous to notice that, in his letter of the 8th of January Mr. Woods put the original force of the 40th at 850, whilst in his letter of the 20th he rates it at 1100. The Times, which mutilates its “Own Correspondent‘s" despatches to suit its leading articles, must feel that Mr. Woods, who adapts his statements to Mr. Russell’s, is a congenial spirit.

The most unblushing piece of impudence in Mr. Woods’s book is to be found in a note in vol. ii. 206-7. In this passage Mr. Woods, after bitter complaints of the inefficiency of everything and everybody, gives for once an authority for his statements. “All the facts I have mentioned in this chapter," he says, “with others still more important which afterwards occurred, are detailed at 1ength"—where does the reader suppose?—in an unpublished report in the possession of Government. Unless Mr. Woods has seen the report in question, his assertion is a simple guess, which, in such a case, is very like a simple untruth. What he says may be true or not, but he has no possible means of knowing whether it is so. He has the naiveté to add that the House of Commons' Report “elicited nothing to criminate an one very deeply." Surely the fact that such evidence as has been published exculpates the accused is a curious reason for saying that evidence given in a private inquiry criminates him.

Mr. Woods is, if his treatment of his own nest is any evidence, one of the least cleanly of all bipeds. Wherever he compares the English and French, it is to our disadvantage. A few phrases occur, no doubt, in which he says that it is painful and humiliating to do so, but Mr. Woods is a perfect ascetic in his passion for such humiliation. We will only notice two out of very many instances of this. In his account of the naval attack on Sebastopol, “The French fleet," he says, “was in long before the English. They came on in magnificent style, in two long lines." The English, he says, came in an hour after, and Admiral Dundas anchored with several ships about 2000 yards from the forts, “from which safe range" they kept up an incessant fire. He does not speak of the French as firing from “a safe range." Yet according to his own account, they were as far from the batteries as Admiral Dundas. Another most striking instance is the manner in which he hurries over the French expedition into the Dobrudscha. It is passed over in two or three pages, concluding with a notice of the “most searching investigation" to which the general in command was subjected, and which terminated in his acquittal. If an English general had lost one-third of his men by sickness in twelve days, no language would have been strong enough to describe his wickedness, and any investigation which stopped short of shooting or breaking all concerned would have been denounced as a delusion.

Of Mr. Woods’s style we need not speak. It is familiar enough to all readers, showy, noisy, clever, and picturesque, but essentially vulgar and impudent. A dead dog is “a decayed specimen of canine mortality." He sees at sea “a phenomena." “Bosquet" and “Canrobert," “Lucan" and “Cardigan," lose their several titles. Statements of the most vehement kind are made upon any or no authority. For example, Mr. Woods was on his way from Constantinople during the great storm of the 14th November; he arrived after it was over. Yet, in his letter to the Morning Herald, “two or three days after the gale,"--i.e., immediately on his arrival, he says, “I most decidedly charge the whole of the deplorable results of the late gale on the gross and culpable mismanagement of the naval authorities out here."—(ii. 189). And he reprints this astonishing piece of impertinence, although he states (p. 171) that Admiral Lyons approved of the conduct of those who kept the transports out of Balaklava Harbour, either because he thought the anchorage a safe one, or because he was aware of reasons which justified the measure. We should never have done if we pointed out all the follies and impudence which disgrace this book. After all, who are Messrs. Woods and Russell? They have assumed a censorship over our affairs, which, if it were a public trust, would not be granted to any one who had not some of the very highest mental qualifications which men can possess. The sternest impartiality, judicial habits of mind, the highest personal character, are some of the qualifications which, if united with profound knowledge, might give a man a right to pronounce ex cathedra upon the conduct of such an undertaking. Messrs. Woods and Russell may be the most sober, the most moral, the most upright of men, inaccessible to flattery, or to those delicate attentions which are a sort of indirect bribery; but the mere fact that they represent certain London papers in the Crimea proves nothing as to their respectability or their authority. There is a class of gentlemen of their profession whose business it is to describe processions, reviews, lord mayors' feasts, and executions; to tell how at an early hour the culprit partook of tea, and asked for broiled ham, which was supplied him; how the worthy sheriff and excellent chaplain arrived at seven; how, soon afterwards, Calcraft was in attendance; and how the procession was formed, and as the bells of a neighbouring church tolled eight, the culprit was launched into eternity. We do not deny to these gentlemen plenty of fluency, picturesque eyes, and language to match; but when we come to look at their treatment of facts, and at the effect which their statements produce, we had rather have them confine themselves to the humbler vocation of the hangman's historians, than hold up our name and nation to the contempt of all Europe.

Saturday Review, January 19, 1856.

Colonel Dickson's case

Of all the strange and wearisome trials that ever filled the columns of a newspaper for more than a week, the case between Colonel Dickson and Lord Combemere, Lord Wilton, and General Peel, is entitled to be viewed as the most wearisome. An old proverb asserts that there is luck in odd numbers, and Colonel Dickson appears to have thought so; for after twice succeeding in two actions arising out of the same set of transactions, he entered into litigation for the third time, apparently under the impression that his concluding performance could not fail to be crowned with success. The proceedings stretched out to a monstrous length, but when the essential points are extracted from the enormous mass of matter given in evidence, they lie in a moderate compass. The facts of the case are shortly as follows:—

The 2nd Tower Hamlets Militia was embodied in March 1855; Lord Wilton being Colonel, Colonel North Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel Dickson being Major. In August, Colonel Dickson succeeded Colonel North, who retired, and in June 1856 the regiment was disembodied. Disputes arose as to the regimental accounts, and Colonel Dickson, being dissatisfied with Captain Dixon, the mess president, applied to Lord Wilton, by whom three officers were appointed, in May 1857, as a Regimental Board, to investigate the accounts. The Board reported in July, and their report was unfavourable to Colonel Dickson, who drew up and forwarded to Lord Wilton a. detailed reply upon the subject. On Colonel Dickson's behalf it was said that the charges of the Regimental Board were false, and that Lord Wilton knew that they were false, and that the appointment of the Board was a device by which junior officers who were interested in Colonel Dickson’s dismissal were appointed to sit in judgment upon him. To this it was replied, that the Boar was appointed, not to sit in judgment on Colonel Dickson, but to investigate the accounts; that it was a pointed at his own re nest; that he himself named the officers of whom it would, according to the ordinary course of business, be composed; and that, though the result of its inquiries was to put forward charges against Colonel Dickson, there was no round for asserting that that result was contemplated when the Board was appointed. These arguments, which seem to have been borne out by the evidence, appear conclusive upon the subject.

After the Board had reported, Lord Wilton transmitted the charges arising out of the report to Lord Combermere, the Lord Lieutenant o the Tower Hamlets. In March 1858, Lord Combermere applied to Colonel Dickson for an explanation, and in April certain tradesmen sued Lord Wilton for expenses which it was said ought, if the accounts of the regiment had been in roper order, to have been defrayed from the mess fund. It was alleged that the irritation caused by this was the reason which inspired Lord Wilton with the intention to get rid of Colonel Dickson at all events, and by means of false and malicious charges. The charges said to be false and malicious were those which were made in the report of the Regimental Board, and no doubt they were di roved to this extent—that, in 1859, Colonel Dickson recovered damages against Lord Wilton, as for a libel, for a letter which embodied them. He, however, recovered only £5 damages —a decision not very easy to understand, for the charges were made by the Board, and the reasons given already appear to show that there is no ground whatever for imputing impropriety to Lord Wilton at the time of its appointment.

In 1858, Lord Combermere and Lord Wilton went to General Peel, at the War Office, to inquire about the course which ought to be taken for having a Court-martial or Court of Inquiry on Colonel Dickson, on the subject of these charges. General Peel saw them on the subject; and as there were various technical difficulties in the matter, arising from the fact that the retirement was not then embodied, he sent for the head of the Militia Department of the office, Mr. Marshall, who gave them the information which they required. To ordinary minds, this would appear to have been as simple and straightforward a proceeding as can possibly be imagined. Indeed, it is hard to say what the use of a public office can be, if persons in subordinate official positions are not to resort to it for advice on such occasions as the one in question. It was, however, described by Colonel Dickson as a conspiracy, in which General Peel, who knew nothing at all about him, combined with Lord Combermere and Lord Wilton to crush him by false charges. The word “conspiracy ” has been put to strange uses, but this is about the strangest use to which it as ever been put. If the jury had taken the view which Colonel Dickson wished them to take, they would have made it dangerous for any two Government officials to have any conversation together the effect of which might be disadvantageous to the prospects or position of any third person.

In the latter end of April I858, Colonel Dickson sent Lord Combermere a statement of account, of which Lord Combermere said he “could make neither head nor tail;” but, on the 9th June 1858, Lord Combermere wrote to General Peel, then Secretary of State for War, a letter stating the charges of the Regimental Board, and concluding by saying—“I beg to forward the various documents corroborative of the above charges, which I have carefully perused; and, in conclusion, I be to say they fully prove the total unfitness of Lieutenant-Colonel Dickson for the command of the 2nd Tower Hamlets Militia.” Certainly there appears, at first sight, a considerable discrepancy between this and the statement that Lord Combermere could “make neither head nor tail” of Colonel Dickson's defence; and this was increased by the account which Colonel Dickson gave of an interview between Lord Combermere and himself some little time before the date of the letter. On that occasion Lord Combermere pressed him to resign, saying that he ought to do so, as Lord Wilton had been sued for the regimental debts, and that “Lord Wilton wished it.” The explanation of this, given on the part of Lord Combermere, was simply that he thought that the regimental affairs had been allowed to fall into a highly discreditable state, into which they would not have been allowed to fall if the Colonel had done his duty; and that this was apparent u on the patent facts of the case, without going into all the items of the accounts. We think that any one who will take the trouble to wade through the interminable reports of the trial will be much disposed to come to the same conclusion.

After considering Lord Combermere's letter, General Peel called upon Colonel Dickson to resign. As he refused to do so, a Board of Inquiry, appointed by the Horse Guards, sat at the War Office. They opened their proceedings on the 11th of August 1858, and reported on the 13th of September. Great complaints were made of the way in which their proceedings were conducted; and certainly, if the Board was assumed to be a court of law tied down to the common rules of judicial procedure, something might be said against them. It appeared, however, from the evidence of several military authorities, that their functions were rather those of a grand jury than of a court of law, and that their duty was to report and not to try. However this may have been, the attempt to show that General Peel was in any way responsible for their proceedings, or that he even knew about them in any special way, utterly failed, and the case against him was accordingly given up at a comparatively early period of the trial. After the Board had reported, and after Colonel Dickson had given in his own version of the case, the minutes and his explanations were submitted successively to a variety of military authorities, including Lord Hardinge, the political Under Secretary, and Sir Percy Douglas, the Inspector-General of Militia. They were of opinion that Colonel Dickson ought to be called upon to resign, and upon his repeatedly refusing to do so, he was summarily removed under authority conferred upon the Secretary of War by an Act of Parliament. Upon this he brought actions, first against Lord Wilton, for libel, in adopting the charges preferred by the regimental Board of Inquiry, in which he obtained a verdict for £5 in the early part of 1859; and next against Colonel Walker, his successor in command of the regiment, in 1860. This action ended in a withdrawal of imputations, and a verdict for the plaintiff. Besides this, he sued Lord Wilton for verbal slander, and has another action pending against him for breach of a compromise relating to a fourth action.

There is a variety of the human race which is pretty well known to lawyers, and is by no means unprofitable to them— persecuted men, beset with grievances which are constantly ripening into all sorts of legal proceedings. Such men probably do not get ideal justice done to them more than other members of the human race, and they are viewed by the peaceable part of the world with a mixture of terror and pity. There is something awful in the notion of passing five years in a constant succession of litigations, military and civil; and it is not altogether easy to be quite impartial in criticizing a man who has had the bad luck to go through such an experience. In this particular instance, however, we can hardly be wrong in expressing an opinion that Colonel Dickson has, to say the least, taken rather strong measures. All the skill and zeal of his counsel could not present his case to the jury even in a moderately plausible shape. He charged the defendants first, jointly, with a conspiracy; and secondly, severally, with knowingly getting up false charges to deprive him of his command. The simple statement of facts, given above, seems to prove that each of these charges was without foundation. There was, no doubt, some colour for the assertion that Lord Wilton was hostile to Colonel Dickson, though it was not proved that he did a single thing which he would not have done if he had known as little of him as General Peel or Lord Combermere; but there was not the faintest reason to suppose that the Secretary for War or the Lord Lieutenant of the Tower Hamlets had so much as any sort of personal knowledge of the man whom they were said to have conspired to persecute.

A verdict in Colonel Dickson's favour would have been a public calamity. It has often been said, and with great truth, that the right to bring actions against public servants for official misconduct is the most characteristic, and certainly the most important, of all the constitutional liberties of an English subject. There is no other country in Europe in which Colonel Dickson could have appealed to a court of law against the decision of public officers; and it is, highly important that the power to do so should be studiously preserved and acknowledged whenever the occasion calls for it. It is, however, a power of which the abuse would be absolutely fatal to all authority. Public men could never take the steps which the efficiency of the public service requires, if they were held to be libellers and conspirators whenever they dismissed a public servant upon grounds less clear than those which would procure a conviction for a crime at the Old Bailey. It is quite as important that Colonels who allow their regiments to fall into a bad state should have the fear of dismissal before their eyes, as that Ministers of the Crown should not be shielded by their rank from the consequences of illegal acts. On the present occasion, it is at least equally satisfactory that Colonel Dickson should have been able to bring his action, and that he should have utterly and absolutely failed in establishing his charge.

Saturday Review, July 4, 1863.

Courts martial

Every now and then the non-military world finds the newspapers filled for weeks together with the grievances of some officer, who is supposed to have said or done something unworthy of the character of an officer and gentleman; and the matter is generally so managed that the public is presented with a history delivered upon oath of every quarrel which ever happened in the regiment for months or perhaps years together. Nor is this all. The officers and gentlemen who give evidence before courts which are considered as the very models and patterns of courts of honour, generally manage to throw mud at each other's characters, to an extent seldom practised by civilians. Imputations of malice, conspiracy, and perjury are exchanged on all sides; and the result generally is, that whatever becomes of the original charge, half-a-dozen officers come out of court in a most unenviable condition; and accusations enough are exchanged in court and in the newspapers to make the regiment a hell for months or years to come. Most of our readers will remember the notorious Windsor court-martial, in which all the dirty linen of the 46th Regiment was washed before the public for several weeks together, for the sake of ascertaining how far Lieutenant Perry was entitled to the character of an officer and a gentleman. The 4th Dragoon Guards have just treated themselves to a similar scandal; and a large proportion of the officers in that distinguished corps, from the colonel down to the cornets, have had the pleasure of contradicting each other upon oath, for the satisfaction of the public, for upwards of a month. Any one who knows what small and isolated societies are like will be able to form a vivid notion of the degree in which such an indulgence will contribute to the comfort and efficiency of the gallant regiment in question. A polygonal quarrel between twenty or thirty men who are compelled to live together, and to depend upon each other for almost everything, whether they like it or not, is a public misfortune, when the efficiency of a regiment depends on their harmony and good-feeling.

These remarks are not intended to serve as a foundation for any of those denunciations of the army which were once in fashion. It would be equally false and ungracious to impute to such a body as the officers of the English army a pretence to a puritanical regard for honour coupled with the practice of perjury and conspiracy against any member of their body who might happen, justly or otherwise, to become unpopular. The truth is, that the scandals which sometimes arise at courts-martial prove, not that the level of morality in the army is low, but that military men do not understand the art of determining the differences which arise amongst them in an expeditious manner, and with a minimum of scandal. This is no fault of theirs. The management of trials is an art, like other things, and there are few arts in which the dictates of instructed and uninstructed common sense are more at variance.

It frequently happens that laymen who have never had occasion to turn their attention systematically to the subject of litigation, feel themselves shocked by some real or apparent instance of hardship produced by technical rules. They assert that such rules are mere fancies, invented by persons interested in confusing and puzzling a plain subject, and that if such matters were left to the discretion of men of plain, straightforward good sense, they would be readily settled, and would be found to involve no substantial difficulty at all. This sounds extremely plausible, but it is altogether a mistake, and a very important one. Captain Robertson's court-martial is interesting and instructive to the world at large, principally because it shows that though no one can doubt the experience, the desire to do justice, or the technical knowledge of the members of the court-martial, they formed a very bad tribunal, though according to the common theory just mentioned they ought to have formed a very good one. They permitted themselves to be hampered by no technical rules at all, and inquired into every matter which could be considered as connected, even in the most remote and casual manner, with the principal question under discussion. In a word, they acted exclusively on the dictates of plain common sense, and therefore the result which they brought out is a perfect illustration of the degree in which that excellent quality is competent to regulate complicated technical matters without technical guidance.

A short outline of the evidence given in Captain Robertson's case may make this intelligible. We purposely abstain from expressing any opinion as to the merits of the case, and the degree of credit to be attached to the witnesses, as our object is to observe upon the working of the system of courts-martial, apart from the details of the particular case which has brought the matter under the notice of the public.

On the 17th October, 1860, Captain Robertson was at the Army and Navy Club, and hearing that Colonel Dickson, the trustee of his marriage settlement, was dining there, sent a message, asking to see him. Colonel Dickson refused, and Captain Robertson waited in the Club till Colonel Dickson came out, when he asked him when certain business was to be settled. Colonel Dickson seems to have considered Captain Robertson's manner offensive, and he describes his proceedings in consequence as follows:—"I said, this is no place to speak about business, and I told you before I would have nothing to say to it except through the lawyers. He then insisted on continuing the conversation, and I said, when I'm done with you legally, I'll settle with you personally, and for your cowardly and blackguard conduct to ——, certain persons whom I named. Captain Durant

then passed by where I was; I called to him and said,—' Bear witness to what I say: this is Captain Robertson, 4th Dragoon Guards, and I tell him again, that I'll horsewhip him; when I settle with him legally, I'll horsewhip him.' When I said this, Captain Robertson said, 'Two can play at that,' or words to that effect. I said, 'Very well,' and left the Club."

On the day after this transaction Captain Robertson consulted his friend, Captain Henry, then an officer in his own regiment, as to the course which he should take. There was the widest difference between the accounts which Captain Robertson and Captain Henry gave of the negotiation which followed. It was agreed on both sides that Captain Henry applied for, and that Colonel Dickson refused, an apology; but as to what followed there is a direct contradiction. Captain Robertson says, "I then told him" (Captain Henry) "that the only thing left was to send a challenge to Colonel Dickson; to which he replied, that there was no use in doing so, as Captain Durant had told him that Colonel Dickson would not go out, or have anything to do with me, till he had legally settled with me. I then observed, 'Your decision is that a challenge is not to be sent to Dickson; you perfectly understand that I am ready to do whatever you wish me.' To which Captain Henry replied, 'Yes, it is not the least use until such time as this legal business is settled between you.'" Captain Henry's account is as follows:—"Q. Did you suggest any course of proceeding to the prisoner in the event of Colonel Dickson refusing to apologize? A. I had written to Captain Durant, and on not obtaining an apology by that means, I told him that Colonel Dickson should be called out. Q. What did Captain Robertson then say? A. He spoke in a disparaging manner of Colonel Dickson, and said he would not meet him except he would 'stake,' or 'lodge,' the price of his commission, or some word to that effect." Whatever may have been the reason, whether that which is assigned by Captain Robertson, or that assigned by Captain Henry, it appears that after Colonel Dickson's refusal to apologize no further steps were taken in the matter till the following spring. In the month of March Captain Robertson heard that rumours injurious to his character, in relation to this affair, were in circulation. He accordingly asked a friend, Mr. Owen, to apply to Colonel Dickson on the subject. Mr. Owen said, that he would have no objection if Captain Henry "would give a written statement, proving that Captain Robertson was not in the wrong." Hereupon Captain Henry wrote a letter, dated March 23rd, in which he said, "I beg to state that I most distinctly understood Captain Durant to say . . . that Colonel Dickson would have nothing whatever to do with Captain Robertson in any way whatever until he should have settled some legal transactions then pending between them. In consequence, I considered it quite useless to send a challenge until such time as they could meet without legal impediment. Had that not been my firm conviction, I am bound to say Captain Robertson would at once have proceeded to take immediate steps to demand satisfaction." Having obtained this letter, Mr. Owen applied to Colonel Dickson for an interview on Captain Robertson's business. Colonel Dickson refused to see him, on the treble ground that the whole affair was stale, that Mr. Owen was too young to be employed in such a matter, and that he had some private objections to Mr. Owen, which he declined to specify, and of the existence of which Mr. Owen declared himself to be altogether ignorant. After Colonel Dickson's refusal to see Mr. Owen, Captain Henry wrote another letter to Mr. Owen, in which he used these expressions:—" Seeing Dickson sheltering himself under his legal shield, I did not think it prudent to advise Robertson to proceed to extremities. Were the case mine, now, I should go to Market Harboro' races to-morrow, tell Dickson he is a liar and a coward, and hit him twice, as hard as I could, and in the most public position." Neither in this letter, nor in the letter of March 23rd, is there any sort of allusion to Captain Robertson's having required the price of his commission to be staked before meeting Colonel Dickson, a proposal which Captain Robertson declared he never made at all. This letter was shown by Mr. Owen to Captain Robertson, with the remark that he thought that the course suggested "would be a very foolish proceeding."

So matters remained till May 15, when Colonel Dickson met Colonel Bentinck, who commanded the 4th Dragoons, and told him of the scene at the Club. Colonel Bentinck thereupon called on Captain Robertson for a statement on the subject, in order to ascertain whether he had taken the steps for his own justification, which the honour of the regiment required. Captain Robertson accordingly gave a written account of the affair; Colonel Dickson gave another; and Colonel Bentinck placed them before the General commanding the district, Sir George Wetherall, requesting that a court of inquiry might take place. The answer was, that the court of inquiry could not be granted, as the witnesses were civilians, and could not be forced to attend; indeed, Colonel Dickson refused to do so. In the same letter occurred this expression: "If, however, you" (Colonel Bentinck) "should deem it expedient to prefer charges against Captain Robertson, I will forward them to the Commander-in-Chief." Sir George Wetherall, in his evidence, referred to this passage, and then said, "I assumed he would do so. Q. Colonel Bentinck reported that he would not prefer charges against him? A. Quite so; and then the whole matter ceased." Whatever Colonel Bentinck's reasons may have been for not applying for a court-martial, at this time he did not do so, nor did the matter cease. On the 14th June, Captain Robertson wrote letters to the secretaries of his own and Colonel Dickson's Clubs, which he requested them to post up in the public rooms, giving his version of the scene with Colonel Dickson, and stating, that he did not consider his conduct that "of a gentleman in any sense of the word." He showed a copy of these letters to Colonel Bentinck, and asked him if he thought that enough for the vindication of his character. Colonel Bentinck said he thought the letters useless (in which he was corroborated by the secretaries, who, naturally enough, refused to libel Colonel Dickson for the convenience of Captain Robertson), and suggested that Captain Robertson should have a circular printed and forwarded to every member of each of the Clubs, insulting Colonel Dickson in the broadest manner. This Captain Robertson refused to do. For more than three months after this, no steps were taken towards a court-martial; but according to Captain Robertson, all sorts of indirect n, Jes were employed for the purpose of driving him out of the regiment. He alleged that Colonel Bentinck gave orders that he should have no leave of absence whilst in the regiment; that he caused him to be deprived of the services of the subaltern of his troop on the march from Birmingham to Ireland; that he refused to transmit to the military authorities complaints made by Captain Robertson on these subjects; that he ordered him out of the mess-room; that he gave other orders as to matters of discipline, intended and calculated to degrade and mortify him; and that he was privy to, and sanctioned, the preparation of a document by the other officers of the regiment, reflecting on Captain Robertson's character, and asking for his removal. Several of the incidents charged by Captain Robertson as acts of pressure, were admitted to have taken place, though a different interpretation was put upon them. As to many, however, there was a conflict of evidence so prolonged, obstinate, and complicated, that it is no easy matter to understand all its intricacies. Passing over this for the present, the result at last was, that on the 30th September Colonel Bentinck laid the matter before the Deputy Adjutant General for Ireland (Colonel Brownrigg), who gave Captain Robertson his choice between selling out and being tried by a court-martial. Captain Robertson asked for time to consider, and obtained only a quarter of an hour for that purpose. Colonel Bentinck was present, and went into another room with Captain Robertson during the interval allowed him to make up his mind. Captain Robertson then asked the colonel what he advised him to do? The colonel replied, "I can only give yon the advice which I gave you three months ago, which is, to send in your resignation. If you do so, the matter will be kept quite a secret." Captain Robertson, feeling, according to his account, quite exhausted by what he had undergone in the preceding three months, agreed to resign, asserted, on being asked by Colonel Brownrigg, that this was his unbiassed decision without pressure, and wrote a letter formally asking leave to sell out. In a day or two he changed his mind, and wrote a letter to the military secretary, asking leave to withdraw this application, and saying that he had made it "entirely through intimidation."

The consequence of this letter was, that Captain Robertson was put on his trial on three charges:—
1. For not having submitted the matter of Colonel Dickson's insult to be dealt with by superior military authority, in compliance with the 17th Article of War.
2. For having failed to take the proper lawful steps to vindicate his character.
3. For having stated, in his final letter, that he had submitted his application to retire from the army "entirely through intimidation," knowing that statement to be false.

The trial lasted for the enormous period of twenty-nine days, and resulted in an acquittal as to the first and third, and a conviction as to the second charge, the sentence upon which was, that the prisoner should be cashiered. This finding was not confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief, and the result is, that Captain Robertson now stands acquitted of all the charges brought against him.

As we have already observed, we are concerned rather with the system which this strange trial illustrates, than with the particular merits or demerits of the persons whom it directly affects. The first point connected with it which claims attention is the strangeness of the procedure, and the monstrous length and sluggishness of the trial. This is the age of causes célèbres. We have had enough of them within the last ten years to fill more than one volume of the State Trials; but if we except the Windham case, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to match this court martial for length. It took about as long to get to the bottom of a regimental squabble, as to try for their respective lives, Palmer, Smethurst, Madeleine Smith, and Rush. Tour trials for murder of unexampled length, intricacy, and importance, were satisfactorily disposed of in the time required for a single court-martial. When we look at the way in which the case was conducted, the reason of this is apparent—indeed, the wonder is why the trial should ever have come to an end at all. The following is an analysis of the manner in which the different days were employed;—

Case for the prosecution . . . . .	7	days
Defence, and evidence for the prisoner . . . . .	7½	"
Inquiry whether or not Colonel Bentinck tampered with a witness . . . . .	1½	"
Witnesses to contradict the defence . . . . .	5	"
Witnesses to contradict the witnesses who contradicted the defence . . . . .	2	"
Witnesses to contradict the witnesses to contradict the witnesses who contradicted the defence . . . . .	2	"
Witnesses to contradict the last-mentioned witness . . . . .	1	"
Concluding speech of Captain Robertson, who had spoken twice before . . . . .	1	"
Concluding speech of the prosecutor . . . . .	1	"
Fragments of days . . . . .	1	"

The contradictions of the witnesses are like the house that Jack built, and the court never seems, from first to last, to have had any rule at all on which they were prepared to act as to what evidence was to be excluded and what admitted; indeed, they excluded at one part of the trial a whole class of evidence which they afterwards admitted, and, it is hardly too much to say, that if one of the fifteen judges had presided over the inquiry, two-thirds of the evidence given would have been rejected as altogether irrelevant to the question at issue; and a similar or larger proportion of the scandal and heart-burning which the case must have produced would have been avoided.

Every one who has had the opportunity of doing so must have observed, that nothing is more difficult than to persuade litigants that it can ever be desirable to exclude any evidence which they in their own minds even associate with the case to be tried, nor is there any part of the ordinary administration of justice which, generally speaking, offends more prejudices than the rigidity with which the line is drawn between what is evidence and what is not. Captain Robertson's court-martial affords a signal proof of the general good sense of the rules which the courts have adopted. Obeying what was, no doubt, a perfectly honest wish to get to the bottom of the subject, and to enable the parties concerned to bring forward the whole of their respective cases, the court allowed the matter to go staggering about, changing its character every moment, so that what was in the first instance a proceeding against Captain Robertson became at last a prosecution of Colonel Bentinck, and the point at issue appeared at length to be, not whether Captain Robertson had resented an insult in the manner required by military law, but whether or not his colonel had tried to bully him out of the regiment for not having fought a duel.

A civil court would have avoided the whole difficulty, by the simple process of attending to one thing at a time. Whether Captain Robertson libelled his regiment or not, in asserting that there was a conspiracy to force him to sell out, was a question which might be decided either way consistently with his conduct in the matter of the insult being either right or wrong. The notion that justice would be better done by lumping the two questions together, and bringing into issue at one and the same time everything which had any sort of reference to the original quarrel, or any of its consequences, is another illustration of the truth of the proverb that the shortest cut is the longest way round.

The rules of evidence and pleading which prevail in the courts of common law have their defects, and involve consequences which are often hard in appearance, and sometimes in reality; but they have at any rate the advantage of producing distinct questions to be tried, and keeping the litigants inflexibly to the very points which are to be so decided. Courts martial, like French criminal trials, are conducted with hardly any reference to such rules, and in both cases the result is the production of enormous scandals, which are perhaps little less injurious to society than the offences which the administration of justice is intended to repress. No doubt the reason why courts-martial pay so little attention to technicalities, is a very natural one. They are, and pique themselves on being, courts of honour. It is their duty to pay attention, not merely to broad questions of fact, but to questions of sentiment. They have to say, not whether A. B. has incurred this or that specific legal liability, but whether under given circumstances he acted like an officer and a gentleman; and in order to arrive at a conclusion on that point, it is necessary, it would be said, to take many things into consideration, which in ordinary lawsuits would be regarded as irrelevant. In order to make out whether a man acted in a particular case like a gentleman, it will generally be necessary to go largely into his motives, and into the question whether he had reasonable grounds to believe particular statements to be true or false. When mere legal liability is in question, the prudence and propriety of a man's conduct are seldom directly in issue. The question is almost always capable of being made to depend on some broad matter of fact, the truth or falsehood and the legal effects of which are altogether independent of its moral bearings.

There is a considerable degree of truth in this argument, but it is by no means the whole truth. One observation upon it is, that though the honourable character and the moral aspects of particular conduct are not frequently the very points in issue at a trial at law, they are constantly involved in the result of such trials. It is not often that a court of law entertains directly the question, Did A. B. act like a gentleman under such and such circumstances? but there are many actions which incidentally decide the question. Actions for libel and slander continually take this form, and there can scarcely be a better illustration of the comparative merits of civil courts and courts-martial than the difference between the ways in which a case of libel and a case of breach of military duty are tried, and the difference between the degrees of confidence with which the public regard the result finally attained. Whatever its faults may be, a trial before a court of law almost always settles the question in the public mind. It is only under the rarest and most special circumstances that the verdict of a jury, obtained by the means which the law prescribes, fails to carry conviction to people in general, and the result is generally obtained with a minimum of scandal, and always in a moderate time.

This general result is obtained only by an inflexible adherence to rules of evidence sanctioned by constant usage and experience; but if any one unaccustomed to the subject were to observe the manner in which these rules work, he could hardly fail to be struck with the number of apparent hard cases which they produced—cases in which evidence is rejected which any uninstructed person would immediately admit. Closer attention would generally show that the hardship was only apparent.

The principal rule by which such exhibitions as took place at Dublin are avoided in courts of common law is, that a witness may in cross-examination be asked questions with the object of shaking his credit, but that the person asking is bound by the answer, and cannot call witnesses to contradict it unless it refers to some part of the matter in issue. For example: a man may be asked whether he was not convicted of felony, but if he denies it, the person who asks the question cannot prove that he has. If he wants to carry the matter farther, he must do so by an indictment for perjury. An illustration will set the salutary effect of thi8 rule in a clearer light.

A man was tried for perjury in having falsely sworn, on the hearing of a case of affiliation, to circumstances which, if true, would have disproved the evidence of the girl as to the paternity of her child. The girl herself was the principal witness against him. On cross-examination, she made a number of statements, some referring to the particular circumstances on which perjury was assigned, and some referring to other transactions. The prisoner was prepared with witnesses to contradict all, or nearly all, her assertions, and offered to call them for that purpose; and the prosecutrix had another set of witnesses ready to contradict them, but as the prisoner was permitted to call those only who contradicted her in reference to the specific occurrences which formed the subject of the indictment, the case was satisfactorily disposed of in two or three hours. If the whole matter had been gone into it would have lasted as many days, for the indictment was only one incident in a complicated quarrel, which divided a country village into two parties, each of which accused the other of perjury and conspiracy in half-a-dozen different instances. If the actors in this matter had been officers in the army, and if the scene of trial had been a court-martial instead of a court of assize, every separate accusation would have been brought out into open day, and bad blood enough would have been engendered to make enemies for life of some ten or twelve families, who had after all little substantial ground for enmity.

It may at first sight appear that this result, however desirable, was obtained at the expense of justice, inasmuch as some of the materials which would have enabled the jury to form an opinion of the credibility of the principal witness were withdrawn from their notice. The answer to this goes deep into the whole subject of the administration of justice, and has a direct special bearing upon the general question of the manner in which courts-martial discharge their duties. One of the first and commonest of the illusions upon the subject which experience dispels is the notion that laws and courts, however constituted, can ever administer what may be called ideal justice. A legal balance, whether held by a lawyer or a soldier, is, and always must be, a rough machine, capable of weighing ordinary considerations in a not unsatisfactory manner, but altogether unsuitable for scientific experiments; and if this is forgotten, the most unsatisfactory results are certain to be produced. No doubt the question, Whether, under particular circumstances, a particular person who deposes to a particular state of facts, is worthy of credit, has a certain degree of relation to every part of the life and character of that person. A man who has not only known another from childhood, but has bestowed upon his character careful and intelligent study for a length of years, would no doubt be able to form an opinion much more likely to be right upon the question whether he told the truth on a particular occasion, than any judge, jury, or court-martial; and if the tribunal could be placed in the same position with reference to every witness called before them, they would be in the best conceivable position for ascertaining the truth of the case; but this is in practice not merely unattainable, but so completely out of question, that no reasonable person acquainted with the principles of the subject would ever think of trying to attain it.

Where there is any conflict of evidence, the judgment given by a tribunal, be it what it may, seldom amounts to anything more than the statement of a more or less reasonable impression produced on the judge's mind. It is never the result of an exhaustive study of one subject, and the attempt to go to the bottom of it ends in every case in complete bewilderment and confusion, the ultimate result being that the court makes a leap in the dark, on grounds far less satisfactory than those which would have been afforded by a more restricted and manageable field of evidence. If any one will read through the evidence given before the Dublin court-martial, and then suppose that he had passed twenty-nine days in listening to it as it was slowly detailed and written down, he must be clear-headed, indeed, if he does not admit that if he had been one of the judges he would have entirely forgotten the greater part of the evidence, and have had most confused notions as to the real bearing and application of the part which he remembered. The simple truth is, that rules of evidence are and ought to be considered as practical expedients suggested by experience for the purpose of bringing questions to be tried within a reasonable compass; that they are rendered necessary by the limited capacity of the powers of attention and understanding; and that tribunals which overrate their own powers of doing justice are sure not only to do injustice to the persons immediately concerned, but to produce all sorts of collateral quarrels and scandals.

It should never be forgotten that trials are like battles or surgical operations. They are almost unqualified misfortunes to all the parties concerned, and ought to be confined within the narrowest possible limits. Men will find themselves much mistaken if they ask more from their fellow-creatures, either in their capacity of judges or in any other capacity, than a rough approximation to what litigants would in general understand by the word justice; and courts of law which attempt to give more than they have got will be sure to find that they take away infinitely more than they ever could have given.

The practical inference from all this as regards courts-martial seems to be, that their proceedings ought to be thrown into a more legal shape. For petty offences against the interior economy of a regiment they may be well suited, and for the purpose of enforcing discipline on a campaign it is of course indispensable that justice should be as prompt and vigorous as-possible, and probably it is essential to discipline that for these purposes the officers of a regiment or an army should have judicial as well as executive authority. General courts-martial, held in time of peace, stand altogether on a different footing. It is impossible to give any reason why they should not be conducted in the same manner as other trials which affect character and property. There can be no better reason why, under such circumstances, military men should be called upon to discharge legal duties of which they know nothing, than why they should be called upon to discharge medical duties. It is quite true that a man does not send for a doctor as often as his children cut their fingers, or want a pill or a powder; and it is also true that if no surgeon is to be had an ignorant person may have to set a dislocated joint, or bandage up a serious wound as well as he can. In the same way it would be absurd to doubt that a petty ofience is quite as likely to be properly disposed of by the officers of a regiment as by a more elaborate tribunal, or to deny that in martial law promptitude and impressiveness are far more important than justice; but it does not follow that a party of officers at Dublin are the proper persons to try what was in effect an exceedingly intricate action for libel, without any effective legal assistance.

It is easy to suggest some of the means by which this defect might be remedied. Granting the importance of preserving a special kind of tribunal for military offences, and of deciding upon them according to the maxims of military experience, there would be little or no real difficulty in drawing the line between the respective shares of arms and the gown in this particular department of affairs. In all criminal trials there are, and from the nature of the case there must be, three distinct functions, which can be discharged by different persons. There is, first, the regulation of the procedure; secondly, the determination as to the guilt of the person accused; and, thirdly, the determination as to the amount of punishment to be inflicted. Of these, the regulation of the procedure is a purely technical matter, and it is as unlikely that people who are not accustomed to it should excel in it, as that they should excel in surgical operations. Familiarity with general rules, and the power of applying them promptly to particular cases, is a gift which never, or hardly ever, comes by nature. No one attains to it without adding constant practice and long study to considerable natural aptitude. In the same way nothing but practice added to skill can give the power of listening to a great mass of evidence, taking in its various bearings, both for and against the proposition which it is directed to prove, and reproducing it fairly for the instruction of those who have to decide upon it. If any one doubts this, let him go to Westminster Hall or to the assizes, and after listening to the summing up of the judges, try to think what he would have said if he had been in their place; or let him read a report of a trial, and try to construct a summing up of his own from it; or, lastly, let him compare the summing up of the ablest chairmen of quarter-sessions, with those of almost any trained lawyer, and he will soon perceive that a good summary of evidence is a work of art, as much as a watch or a steam-engine, and that whilst it is invaluable in the administration of justice, it is to be had only from a small and select number of persons.

As these duties are of the greatest importance, and are capable of being separated easily and completely from the other duties which a court-martial has to discharge, it would surely be a useful and obvious division of labour to have a legal assessor who should act as judge, deciding on his own responsibility all questions as to the admissibility of evidence, and summing up at the conclusion of the case. The military members might find the verdict, and might apportion the punishment as at present, subject to the confirmation of their superiors. Their substantial power would thus remain just as it is at present, and they would be relieved from a duty for which they are obviously altogether unfit. One obvious advantage of this arrangement would be that the proceedings would be incalculably shortened. At present every question and answer has to be reduced to writing, and this, in some measure, accounts for the monstrous length of the proceedings. If they were conducted in the manner suggested, the judge's note would serve every purpose, and the proceedings would be as expeditious as those of an ordinary trial.

It would of course be undesirable to make any arrangement by which the dignity of the military members of the court would suffer. The judge ought to occupy, with respect to them, not so much the position which a judge occupies in relation to a jury, as that which a chairman of quarter sessions occupies in relation to his brother magistrates, or the judge of the Court of Admiralty in relation to the Trinity House officials, who in certain cases sit as assessors. In court he would inevitably play the most conspicuous part, but his summing up, if it were thought desirable, might take the form of a report delivered in private after the court was cleared for the purpose of deliberating.

Another most important amendment would be effected by allowing both the prosecutor and the prisoner to be represented in the ordinary way by counsel and attornies. The present system is that the Judge Advocate, who is not, generally speaking, a lawyer, looks in a loose, irregular manner after the public interest, and also gives legal advice to the court, whilst the prisoner is advised by legal "friends," who are not permitted to take any open part whatever in the proceedings, though they may advise the prisoner as to the questions which he is to ask, and the objections which he is to make, and may write the defence which he, or some military friend for him, reads to the court.

This mode of proceeding amounts to an admission that legal assistance is an advantage in the trial, though it is contrary to the principles of courts-martial to use it in its full extent, and in the most convenient manner. No doubt the reason for this is, that military men of all ranks are excessively jealous of anything like technicality, or subtlety, and that they have an impression that the business of lawyers is to weave plausible webs of sophistry, which they might perhaps not be able to unravel. If this is true, the consequence would surely be that all legal interference whatever with courts-martial should be prevented. The prisoner ought to have no "friends," the court no Judge Advocate. Moreover, if courts-martial are able to administer justice without assistance better than with it, why should not the civil courts imitate their example? Why embarrass the ordinary administration of criminal justice with a machinery which the experience of courts-martial shows to be useless, or even perilous?

The truth is—and the history of courts-martial supplies the strongest evidence of it—that the advantages in respect of promptitude, clearness, and substantial justice are all on the side of professional assistance. A case which would occupy a court-martial for a week, would be disposed of at the Old Bailey in a day. One great reason of this is, that haggling and quibbling, and the introduction of technicalities, is the fault, not of experience, but of ignorance. Let any one go into a county court, and compare the rate at which a case which interests the parties is tried there, with the rate at which it would be tried in Westminster Hall. He will find that an ignorant, ill-educated attorney—in proportion to his ignorance and want of education—will raise more technical points, and get into a greater number of irrelevant altercations with the witnesses and with his antagonist, in a single trial, than any six of the leading counsel at Westminster in a whole term.

It is one of the silliest and most ignorant of all prejudices to suppose that the business of advocates is nothing else but organized lying. [See an Article on the "Morality of Advocacy," Cornhill Magazine, April, 1861.] Legal technicalities, the extent and importance of which, in the present day, are greatly exaggerated, arise from causes which could never apply to the proceedings of courts martial. They will almost invariably be found to owe their existence to some state of things which existed when the law was laid down, but has long since past away, so that the rule, as laid down, is no longer applicable. There are no antiquities in martial law. The questions to be tried are almost always questions of bare fact, and the only legal points which can arise are points of evidence which the courts are already bound to discuss, and which they do discuss and decide, owing to their want of legal knowledge, in a most imperfect and unsatisfactory manner.

It is almost superfluous in the present day to discuss the propriety of allowing counsel to be employed in courts-martial, inasmuch as the question is almost precisely the same in principle as that which was discussed and decided six-and-twenty years ago, when the old practice of forbidding the prisoner's counsel to address the jury in cases of felony in civil courts was abolished. In the second Report of the Criminal Law Commissioners, every argument upon this subject which ingenuity could devise is exhausted, and the Commissioners arrived at the conclusion that the practice then established, ancient as it was, ought to be abolished. Notwithstanding the strong opposition which the proposal, like most other reforms, had to encounter, there is probably no one at the present day who, after the experience of upwards of a quarter of a century, would suggest a return to the former state of things. It may be worth while to mention that in France the prisoner's advocate addresses a conseil de guerre as freely as he would address any other court.

Cornhill Magazine, June 1862.