'conceive; nor can any good reason be assigned, why the inflic'tion of stripes, or lashes, should be exploded from the army or navy, whilst it continues to be practised, under the authority of 'the civil tribunals in almost every state in the union. I am not ' even accused of having practised it myself, or tolerated in others, 'the infliction of corporeal punishment, to an extent, unusual to 'the service; and there was not, I assert without fear of contradic'tion, an officer on my court, who has not indulged, in the inflic❝tion of corporeal punishment, and to an extent, far beyond what has been laid to my charge. This fact is established, by the refu'sal of the court to permit me to ask the President and other mem'bers, what had been the custom at the posts, at which they had served, since 1815, in relation to the infliction of stripes and lashes 'lest they should criminate themselves.'

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Under the other, and more important section of the charge, I' am held accountable for the fate of Neil Cameron; although it 'was fully established by evidence, that the order to pursue and shoot him was given by Major Denkins, (when I was at this post, 'seventy-five miles distant)-and for which, the Major has ever 'considered himself, and not me, responsible. But waiving the question for the present, and fully admitting, that I did, in seve'ral instances, give orders to put deserters to death on the spot, (if ' overtaken in the province of West Florida) it is but due to myself 'to make known the circumstances under which I acted.'

At the close of the Seminole and Florida campaigns, I had 'been left, with a handful of men, to defend a province just wrest'ed, by force of arms, from a foreign power. I was to all intents ' and purposes in an enemy's country,-for the territory of Spain had been violated-her flag trampled upon-her strong holds 'wrested from her at the point of the bayonet, and their garrisons 'sent as prisoners of war to the Havana. I was besides within striking distance of a powerful dependency of the Spanish crown, aud bound, upon every military principle, to hold myself in the same attitude, as if a formal declaration of war had taken place. The Captain General of the Island of Cuba, (with ample means 'to recover from the force under my command, the Province I was left to defend) lay within three days' sail of me; and had he been a soldier, he would have washed out, in the blood of my garrison, 'the reflection which his master had cast upon his character for 'the loss of Fernandino. In this state of things, and when the 'whole effective force within the province of West Florida, fell 'short of two hundred and fifty men, desertion prevailed to an extent, rarely before witnessed in the American army. Colonel 'Brooke, commanding at the Barrancas, reported on the 22d July, that the desertion from Peters' company alone, is alarm"ing; no less than eight men have gone off in twenty days, and

"we have ten in confinement, who have been apprehended, and "whom I wish courtmartialed, as a severe example is necessary to "deter others." On the 27th of the same month, the same officer ' reports," I have despatched Lieutenant Minton on command, "to ensure the deserters being taken; because 1 believe that to be "the best possible means of putting a stop to it; and when the "soldiers become certain, that every effort will be made to over"take all deserters, the inducement to leave the service will be de"stroyed, under the idea of the impossibility of escape. I think it "highly problematical, whether a command under a non-commis"sioned officer would return to the post. I am convinced Peters' "men will desert every good opportunity." Captain Wilson, then 'the adjutant of the regiment, stated before the court, that "the men "deserted in parties of two, three, and four, with their arms in their "hands; and, that at one period, eight desertions took place from "Pensacola alone, in the space of three days." The number of men necessarily kept out in pursuit of deserters was so great, as sensibly to impair our strength and affect the ordinary duties of 'the garrison.'

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'Under those circumstances, and at a moment when it had been 'communicated to Colonel Brooke, the officer next in command, 'by several respectable inhabitants of Florida, that a plot was ac'tually in existence, formed by the Spanish military and others, 'for the purpose of rising upon my garrison, and attempting to 'recover the town of Pensacola and the fort of St. Carlos De 'Barancas for Spain, so soon as the American force should be 'sufficiently reduced by desertion to warrant the effort; and when 'it was confidently believed, that certain persons were encouraging 'the men to desert, by every means in their power, it became, I 'conceived, my imperious duty, to put a stop to the practice of 'desertion, by the application of such means as were within my 'reach. I therefore gave orders, to the parties sent in pursuit, to shoot down the deserters on the spot, if overtaken within the province 'of West Florida, trusting that a few examples would have the 'desired effect. This order I considered justifiable from the neces'sity of the case, and I went upon the broad principle, that the sol'dier who deserts the standard of his country, when on foreign 'service, having forfeited his life to the law, it little matters in the 'eyes of Justice, whether that life be rendered up at the foot of the gallows, or on the bayonets of his pursuers.'

The extraordinary excitement that my order to put deserters 'to death has created, would almost lead to an opinion, that this 'was the first instance, in any age or nation, where a military of 'fence had been capitally punished, on the responsibility of the 'commanding officer. But without going beyond the history of ' our own country, to show the stretch of power, to which a milita

'ry man may, with propriety resort, (when in his opinion the interests committed to his charge shall require it,) cases of the very highest authority may be cited to justify my order. In the year 1779, whilst the American army was operating on the North 'river, desertion prevailed to such an extent, as to claim the at❝tention of the commander in chief, (General Washington,) who ac'cordingly gave orders precisely similar to those given by me, at Pensacola, viz: To put all deserters to death, who should be over'taken in the fact :-and General Reed, a representative in Congress from Maryland, stated on the floor of the house of repre'sentatives, in the debate on the Seminole campaign, that he had ' himself, when a lieutenant commanding an advanced post, caused ' a deserter, taken in the fact, to be executed on the spot,-whose head he sent to the head quarters of the army, where it was publicly exposed; and thus, an effectual stop put to desertion. In 6 1781, a mutiny breaking out in the New-Jersey line, the com'mander in chief ordered General Howe to march to suppress it, and to put to death on the spot all the ringleaders.'

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'I am sensible of the vast and immeasurable distance between 'these cases and mine, and to such as make this difference a ground of objection, I offer another precedent, extracted from the jour'nal of congress of the 27th of March, 1786, by which it appears, 'that in the month of January, of that year, Major John P. Willys, of the army of the United States, commanding at Fort M'Intosh, in order to put a stop to the frequent desertions from his 'garrison, caused three deserters (taken in the fact) to be put to death, without any form of trial, and entirely on his own responsibility. The circumstance having been communicated to congress, that body, on the 27th of March, 1786, ordered Major Willys to be arrested, and a court of inquiry to be instituted, 'with directions to report to the secretary of war a statement of 'facts only-in order to be presented to congress. On the 4th day of August following, that body resolved, that the secretary of war 'direct Major Willys to be released from arrest.'

'Here then, we see the congress of the United States sanctioning the conduct of a major, who, in a state of profound peace, and in the very bosom of the union, caused three deserters to be executed, on the parade of his garrison, without even the form of a 'trial; whilst I, one of the senior colonels of the army, when on 'foreign service, and charged with the defence of a conquered country, liable to be assailed by the enemy without, and threatened 'with an insurrection of the inhabitants within-have been sus'pended from office, for the period of five years, for having merely given an order to shoot deserters, though, under this order, no deserter ever was put to death. Not satisfied with even this, and, in defiance and contempt of the constitution, a committee of the

* house of representatives take up my case anew, and as a supple'mentary punishment for this very act, report to the House a resolution, calling upon the President to dismiss me from the service of "the United States!!"

Though certainly not very desirous of dwelling on this subject, still there is one branch of it-we mean the penal part of our military code-which may be supposed to render necessary a few additional remarks. In 1812, some amiable and ingenious men, under a belief, that hard labour, short allowance, black holes, solitary confinement and chains and balls-were less revolting to the feelings of soldiers, and more analogous to the spirit of free governments, than cobbing and lashes,-set themselves to work, to newmodel the existing rules and articles of war. Nor did they labour in vain all who believed, in the dignity and perfectability of man; in the steadiness and rapidity of his march from vice to virtue; from ignorance to knowledge; from folly to wisdom; joined in the new creed; and left, in the minority, only a few practical men who were not deceived themselves, and who would not deceive others; but who, after all, were far from being disinclined to see the new doctrine subjected to the test of new experiments. The consequence was, that the flogging system, derived to us from our ancestors (and which had served their purposes well, and had carried us successfully through the war of the revolution) was discarded, to make room for an enfant trouvé which, by its folly and feebleness and inapplication, has-as we are now told-made every officer in the army a violator of the law. It is to this degrading and dangerous state of things, we invite the attention of our rulers, and solicit from them a new and careful investigation of the subject.

For ourselves, we have no hesitation in believing, (with Solomon) that the rod has many and great virtues; and that, on children, on servants, on sailors and on soldiers, it ought not to be spared. In all these cases the reason is the same; it is applied, without difficulty or delay, and unless carried to an excess (which may be easily prevented) returns the culprit to his duty immediately, and in a condition as able to perform it, as though no punish ment had been inflicted.

Of the many substitutes which have been imagined, none even approaches this character of singleness and efficiency; but on the other hand, all are slow of execution,-abstract the soldier from his duty,-lead to new and adverse habits, and some of them (as short allowance, hard labour and close confinement) tend, though perhaps not in an equal degree, to impair his physical powers. Such are the objections which exist against the present system. Those made to the old one, may be brought under two headsVOL. II.

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the moral degradation, supposed to be inflicted by lashes; and the desolating effect that such a mode of punishment, if extended to the militia, would produce upon that body. Both appear to us to be emanations from the same cause-a Utopianism, unknown, or unacknowledged, by the men who achieved our independence, and utterly unworthy of ourselves. We employ this strong language, because we do most conscientiously believe, that the doctrines we combat, have not the slightest foundation in truth or experience. When, and where, and by whom, was the discovery made, which they proclaim? Has this mortal degradation-this fatal poison, been seen operating on our own navy, or on that of Great Britain?-Was it felt in the victory of Leipsic,-in the storm of St. Sebastian, or at the battle of Waterloo? Far from it-in these, as in all other combats of the war, of which they make a part,whether fought by Prussian, Russian, Austrian, or British armies, no trace of this pretended degradation is to be found:-yet is the cord or the cane, the talisman by which all these mighty machines are kept in a state of order, activity and efficiency!

If to this be objected, the example of the French army-it will avail nothing, unless it could also be shown, that the materials of that army (like our own) are gathered from the brothels and dram shops and jails of their cities and villages. But to our present purpose, even this argument is unnecessary; for, if any inquirer will take the trouble of examining Gromoard, (on the duties of the Staff,) he will find,-that although it is not the fashion to strip French soldiers and whip them at the head of their regiment, yet it every day happens, that they are sent to the Prevòt, where an officer of Police-without other guide than his own discretionpunishes a whole class of offences, with the bâton.

We do not mean, by these last remarks, to be understood as saying-that there may not be one state of national manners, less favourable to flogging as a military punishment, than another; or that this mode, even at present, agrees as well with French constitutions, as with Irish, English, and German ;-but what we do mean most distinctly to assert, is-that in no country, with which we are acquainted, has this supposed sublimated state of society been yet attained-and that until We have attained it, true wisdom bids us strictly to follow the old and approved recipe for making heroes" Clothe well-feed well-pay well and flog well."