Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

protection under the pretence of that order, if he have done something which it evidently did not require of him. If Colonel Munro had been ordered to report upon the conduct of an individual officer, and it could be proved that, in gratification of private malice, he had taken that opportunity of stating the most infamous and malicious falsehoods,could it be urged that his conduct might not be fairly scrutinised in a court of justice, or a courtmartial? If this were otherwise, any duty delegated by Government to an individual would become the most intolerable source of oppression: he might gratify every enmity and antipathy-indulge in every act of malice -vilify and traduce every one whom he hated—and then shelter himself under the plea of the public service. Every body has a right to do what the supreme power orders him to do; but he does not thereby acquire a right to do what he has not been ordered to do. Colonel Munro was directed to make a report upon the state of the army: the officers whom he has traduced, accuse him of reporting something utterly different from the state of the army-something which he and every body else knew to be different-and this for the malicious purpose of calumniating their reputation. If this were true, Colonel Munro could not plead the authority of Government; for the authority of Government was afforded to him for a very different purpose. purpose. In this view of the case, we cannot see how the dignity of Government was attacked by the proposal of the courtmartial, or to what other remedy those who had suffered from his abuse of his power could have had recourse. Colonel Munro had been promised, by General Macdowall, that the court-martial should consist of king's officers: there could not, therefore, have been any rational suspicion that his trial would have been unfair, or his judges unduly influenced.

Soon after Sir George Barlow had shown this reluctance to give the complaining officers an opportunity of re-establishing their injured character, General Macdowall sailed for England, and left behind him, for publication, an order, in which Colonel Munro was re

primanded for a violent breach of military discipline, in appealing to the Governor otherwise than through the customary and prescribed channel of the Commander-inchief. As this paper is very short, and at the same time very necessary to the right comprehension of this case, we shall lay it before our readers.

[ocr errors]

'G. O. by the Commander-in-chief.

The immediate departure of Lieutenant-General Macdowall from Madras will prevent his pursuing the design of bringing Lieutenant-Colonel Munro, Quarter-Master-General, to trial, for disrespect to the Commander-in-chief, for disobedience of orders, and for contempt of military authority, in having resorted to the power of the Civil Government, in defiance of the judgment of the officer at the head of the army, who had placed him under arrest, on charges preferred against him by a number of officers commanding native corps, in consequence of which appeal direct to the Honourable the President in Council, Lieutenant-General Macdowall has received positive orders from the Chief Secretary to liberate Lieutenant-Colonel Munro from

arrest.

Such conduct, on the part of Lieutenant-Colonel Munro, being destructive of subordination, subversive of military discipline, a violation of the sacred rights of the Commander-inchief, and holding out a most dangerous example to the service, Lieutenant-General Macdowall, in support of the dignity of the profession, and his own station and character, feels it incumbent on him to express his strong disapprobation of LieutenantColonel Munro's unexampled proceedings, and considers it a solemn duty imposed upon him to reprimand Lieutenant-Colonel Munro in general orders; and he is hereby reprimanded accordingly. (Signed) T. BOLES, D. A. G.'-Accurate & Authentic Narrative, pp. 68, 69.

Sir George Barlow, in consequence of this paper, immediately deprived General Macdowall of his situation of Commander-in-chief, which he had not yet resigned, though he had quitted the settlement; and as the official signature of the deputy adjutant-general appeared at the paper, that officer also was suspended from his situation. Colonel Capper, the adjutant-general, in the most honourable manner informed Sir George Barlow, that he was the culpable and responsible person; and that the

name of his deputy only appeared to the paper in consequence of his positive order, and because he himself happened to be absent on shipboard with General Macdowall. This generous conduct on the part of Colonel Capper involved himself in punishment, without extricating the innocent person whom he intended to protect. The Madras Government, always swift to condemn, doomed him to the same punishment as Major Boles; and he was suspended from his office.

This paper we have read over with great attention; and we really cannot see wherein its criminality consists, or on what account it could have drawn down upon General Macdowall so severe a punishment as the privation of the high and dignified office which he held. The censure upon Colonel Munro was for a violation of the regular etiquette of the army, in appealing to the Governor otherwise than through the channel of the Commander-in-chief. This was an entirely new offence on the part of Colonel Munro. Sir George Barlow had given no opinion upon it; it had not been discussed between him and the Commander-in-chief; and the Commander-in-chief was clearly at liberty to act in this point as he pleased. He does not reprimand Colonel Munro for obeying Sir George Barlow's orders; for Sir George had given no orders upon the subject; but he blames him for transgressing a well-known and important rule of the service. We have great doubts if he was not quite right in giving this reprimand. But at all events, if he were wrong if Colonel Munro were not guilty of the offence imputed, still the erroneous punishment which the General had inflicted, merited no such severe retribution as that resorted to by Sir George Barlow. There are no reflections in the paper on the conduct of the Governor or the Government. The reprimand is grounded entirely upon the breach of that military discipline which it was undoubtedly the business of General Macdowall to maintain in the most perfect purity and vigour. Nor has the paper any one expression in it foreign to this purpose. We were, indeed, not a little astonished at reading it. We had

VOL. I.

D D

imagined that a paper, which drew after it such a long train of dismissals and suspensions, must have contained a declaration of war against the Madras Government, an exhortation to the troops to throw off their allegiance, - or an advice to the natives to drive their intrusive masters away, and become as free as their forefathers had left them. Instead of this, we find nothing more than a common reprimand from a Commander-inchief to a subordinate officer, for transgressing the bounds of his duty. If Sir George Barlow had governed kingdoms six months longer, we cannot help thinking he would have been a little more moderate.

But whatever difference of opinion there may be respecting the punishment of General Macdowall, we can scarcely think there can be any with regard to the conduct observed towards the adjutant-general and his deputy. They were the subordinates of the Commander in-chief, and were peremptorily bound to publish any general orders which he might command them to publish. They would have been liable to very severe punishment if they had not; and it appears to us the most flagrant outrage against all justice, to convert their obedience into a fault. It is true, no subordinate officer is bound to obey any order which is plainly, and to any common apprehension, illegal; but then the illegality must be quite manifest: the order must imply such a contradiction to common sense, and such a violation of duties superior to the duty of military obedience, that there can be scarcely two opinions on the subject. Wherever any fair doubt can be raised, the obedience of the inferior officer is to be considered as proper and meritorious. Upon any Upon any other principle, his situation is the most cruel imaginable: he is liable to the severest punishment, even to instant death, if he refuses to obey; and if he does obey, he is exposed to the animadversion of the civil power, which teaches him that he ought to have canvassed the order, to have remonstrated against it, and, in case this opposition proved ineffectual, to have disobeyed it. We have no hesitation in pronouncing the imprisonment of Colonel

Capper and Major Boles to have been an act of great severity and great indiscretion, and such as might very fairly give great offence to an army, who saw themselves exposed to the same punishments, for the same adherence to their duties.

The measure of removing Lieutenant-Colonel Capper and Major Boles,' says Mr. Petrie, 'was universally condemned by the most respectable officers in the army, and not more so by the officers in the Company's service, than by those of his Majesty's regiments. It was felt by a as the introduction of a most dangerous principle, and setting a pernicious example of disobedience and insubordination to all the gradations of military rank and authority; teaching inferior officers to question the legality of the orders of their superiors, and bringing into discussion questions which may endanger the very existence of Government. Our proceedings at this time operated like an electric shock, and gave rise to combinations, associations, and discussions, pregnant with danger to every constituted authority in India. It was observed that the removal of General Macdowall (admitting the expediency of that measure) sufficiently vindicated the authority of Government, and exhibited to the army a memorable proof that the supreme power is vested in the civil authority.

The offence came from the General, and he was punished for it; but to suspend from the service the mere instruments of office, for the ordinary transmission of an order to the army, was universally condemned as an act of inapplicable severity, which might do infinite mischief, but could not accomplish any good or beneficial purpose. It was to court unpopularity, and adding fuel to the flame, which was ready to burst forth in every division of the army; that to vindicate the measure on the assumed illegality of the order, is to resort to a principle of a most dangerous tendency, capable of being extended in its application to purposes subversive of the foundations of all authority, civil as well as military. If subordinate officers are encouraged to judge of the legality of the orders of their superiors, we introduce a precedent of incalculable mischief, neither justified by the spirit or practice of the laws. Is it not better to have the responsibility on the head of the authority which issues the order, except in cases so plain, that the most common capacity can judge of their being direct violations of the established and acknowledged laws? Is the intemperance of the expressions, the indiscretion of the opinions, the inflammatory tendency of the order, so eminently dangerous, so evidently

« AnteriorContinuar »