in an investigation of a hundred years back.
It may be fairly termed a court-martial run mad.
In the year seventeen hundred and forty-six
there was a court sitting on Admiral Lestocq,
presided over by Admiral Mayne. This officer
had, it appeared, behaved in a very arbitrary and
tyrannical manner out in some remote colony
towards some one under his authority; trying
him in the summary fashion common with the
colonial despots of that era, and casting him
into prison for a period of fifteen months.
Coming home, this injured man took refuge in an
action in the Common Pleas; the curious issue
of which was, that the court which was about
trying Admiral Lestocq found itself in the
serious embarrassment of being suddenly deprived
of Admiral Mayne, its president, by the
process of the Court of Common Pleas. He was
soon released from civil custody, but the
indignation of the military court blazed out fiercely
in a complaint to his majesty. The kings of
England in those times were anything but rois
fainéants, and an answer speedily came back
through his Grace of Newcastle, begging of the
court to proceed with its duties: assuring them
that full satisfaction should be given them for
"the late indignity," and that they might rely
on "his majesty's protection." A few years
later there was a party of what were called the
king's friends: of whom these gentlemen seem
to have been precursors.

Somewhat mollified, the tribunal agreed to
resume its duties: yet not without drawing up
a violent protest against the conduct of Sir John
Willes, Knt., Lord Chief Justice of the Court of
Common Pleas—conceived in very savage and
personal terms. In this they allude to the
rebellion of the preceding year, '45, and skilfully
insinuate that Sir John Willes, Knt., was playing
into the hands of disaffected persons, "and
had no regard to the honour and safety of his
majesty," with other gross hints and
aspersions, very indecorous, and below the dignity of
one court in its relation with another.
However, later on, when his majesty's friends had
finished with Admiral Lestocq, we are startled
to light upon a full apology directed to the
outraged Chief Justice, and conceived in terms
almost as abject as the insult was offensive. It
began by setting out that nothing was more
becoming in a gentleman than to acknowledge
himself wrong when he was conscious of having
behaved so. That they were conscious that the
reflections cast upon his lordship were unjust,
unwarrantable, and without any foundation
whatever: "and," this very handsome apology goes
on, "we ask pardon of his lordship, and of the
Court of Common Pleas for the indignity offered
to his lordship and to the court."

The most notable court-martial within the last
hundred years or so was the famous one on General
Whitelocke, for cowardice, at Buenos Ayres.
It fills a swollen volume of intricate evidence in
solving nice points as to the conduct of an
assault, and innumerable witnesses. Yet it
lasted only thirty-one days, about the same time
that a recent investigation took to find out
whether a backboard was used on a particular
day, or whether a visit was paid to a flower-
show, or a challenge had been declined or
accepted, with other valuable particulars.

There was another general's trial which had
some notoriety: Lord George Sackeville, who
commanded the English at the battle of Minden.
Here, too, the insinuation was cowardice, and
his majesty King George the Second was pleased
to take so direct an interest in the inquiry, that
he had it conveyed to Lord George before the
investigation was concluded, that whatever the
sentence might be, it should be put in force
against him with the utmost rigour. He seems
to have been hardly dealt with, this noble lord;
for Sir Nathaniel Wraxall has proved from
other sources that he was a man of real
personal courage, and that the affair at Minden
arose from pure misconception. To revenge
himself on the king, and on all concerned with
royalty, Lord George wrote—according to more
than one ardent commentator on the most vexed
of vexed questions— the Letters of Junius.

The trial of Admiral Byng, who, besides the
memory of his unfortunate end, had the
notoriety of being shot to death—not hanged, as
Voltaire put it—"to encourage the others"—
was more in the nature of political sacrifice.
A disappointed public required a victim to be
thrown to them, and this unlucky admiral was
selected for the purpose.

But these investigations as to personal
conduct in the field, or at sea, bear a very small
proportion to the inquiries for violation of
the laws of the interior economy of regiments
which really make up the bulk of most courts-
martial. The persons who titularly profess
themselves "officers and gentlemen" are the
parties above all others who are always on trial
for outraging the ordinary decencies which those
honoured designations comprise. And the military
indictment generally casts itself, in the
"common form," of some such little meanness,
as this:

"York, 1764. At a court-martial held this
day, Captain Dodd was found not guilty of
unsoldier-like conduct in endeavouring to impede
his prosecutor in his succession to the majority."

It is a curious feature, too, in these
investigations, the numbers that break down for want
of evidence—a significant hint of their being set
on foot by malice and ill will, or professional
jealousy. More curious still is the large number
that have to be rectified by the interference
of higher authority.

Lawyers laugh at the clumsy machinery for
cross-examination, the minute and exact note-
taking, during which all the force and pressure
of severe questioning evaporates. So far back
as a century ago we find the House of
Commons, who had deputed two barristers to watch
a military prosecution, protesting against this
sort of procedure, and addressing a gentle
remonstrance to the court. It entreated the
adoption of the vivâ voce system, in force in the
common law courts of the country. But the
"Horse Guards," with the stolid impenetrability