When an officer has been tried by an honourable military tribunal, composed of fifteen British officers, and the sentence of the court-martial has been sanctioned and approved by a most merciful and gracious sovereign, it were as fruitless, as it would be highly improper and presumptuous, for the sentenced individual to urge anything further in his defence. I, therefore, as a sincere admirer of my country's laws, bow most humbly to my fate; I love my country as truly as ever I did, and would as willingly as ever risk my life to support its laws and freedom. During the trial, which lasted thirteen days, I was exceedingly harassed, and my feelings were worked up to a state bordering on frenzy. There was a host against me, and I had not a soul to advise me how to proceed. I stood alone and unaided, with a limited education, to rebut the whole mass of evidence adduced against me. The time necessarily occupied in sending the proceedings of the court-martial to my native country, and the long period which elapsed before its return, were spent in the bosom of domestic bliss, where I found refuge from the storm. The contemplation of my recent fall would at times sink me in gloomy despair, and it was my wife only who could divert my mind from useless forebodings, and whisper in my ear sweet hopes of better days to come. I removed some miles from the regiment, as I could not bear the commiserating remarks of At this very crisis of my life the court-martial was communicated to me as having been confirmed in England, and I was directed to proceed to the Presidency of Fort William, preparatory to being sent home, to be placed on the half-pay. This final sentence was communicated to me through the regiment, some few days after my wife's death, who was, there From the age of nine to forty-one, I had now been in the army—a period of thirty-two years. My services during that time are already before the reader. In the course of those services, I had received six matchlock-ball wounds:— One through the forehead, just above my eyes, which has so impaired my sight, that I have been obliged to use glasses for some years past. Two on the top of my head, from which have, at different times, been extracted sixteen pieces of bone. These two wounds, at every change of the weather, cause a most excruciating headache. One in the fleshy part of the right arm. One through the forefinger of my left hand. Of this finger I have entirely lost the use, and I am still obliged to nurse it with great care, several pieces of bone having been extracted from it, and some splinters, as I fear, being still remaining. One in the fleshy part of the right leg. I had also received a flesh wound in my left shoulder, with several other slighter wounds not worth particularizing. The above wounds, except one, having been received prior to the munificent grant of his present Majesty to wounded officers, I never received a farthing remuneration, except ninety-six pounds for the last—a year's pay as ensign. I confess, then, I had entertained a sanguine hope, that the extent and nature of my services, and the number of wounds I had received, would have more than outweighed the offence of which I had been convicted, and I felt the disappointment GHAUT ON THE GANGES. From a Drawing by W. Daniell, R.A. In one month after the confirmed sentence of the court-martial had been made known to me, I was compelled to obey the orders which I had received to repair to Calcutta, previous to embarkation for England. To enable me to comply with these directions, I was obliged to sacrifice all my property for a mere nothing, and I set out for the Presidency with my little boy, now my only comfort, having made the little infant over to my brother-in-law, J.P. Mellaird, Esq., indigo-planter Tirhoot, where his grandmother, somewhat recovered, found refuge also. The voyage down the lonely river Ganges was not calculated to soothe my sorrows or to cheer my prospects. I reached Calcutta in safety, and remained there a considerable time waiting for a ship, where, strange to say, I received an order to proceed home with invalids, and to place myself immediately under the command of Captain Mathers, of his Majesty's 59th regiment. This order I was bound to obey; but it prevented me from bringing home my little boy, as every part of the ship was taken up for the troops, and the captain of the vessel would not accommodate me under a thousand rupees—a sum which I had not to give. A smaller foreign ship would have brought both myself and child home for what the Company allow for officers sent home—fifteen hundred rupees. By this I was deprived of the satisfaction of bringing home my child, who remains in India with my brother-in-law to this day. In the beginning of the month of April, 1825, I embarked on board the free-trader, Euphrates, Captain Mead commanding, with an insufficient crew, as they did not exceed twenty-three hands in all, and winter was before us for the whole voyage. This would not have been a very pleasant prospect to the The scene before me in the vessel soon diverted me from the contemplation of all other subjects. I could have brooded over the fate of my dear little ones the whole night; but the din and tumult of more than two hundred soldiers, with their friends from shore, all rioting in the cup of inebriety, tumbling over each other, blaspheming, fighting, singing, fifing, and fiddling, and all huddled together in a confined space, with their beds, bedding, parrots, minors, and other birds, roused me to a lively sense of the scene before me. On the following morning we bade farewell to Fort William, under whose proud battlements we had been lying. The wind was serene and fair, and the wave had scarcely a ripple on its silvery surface. Would that my bosom had been equally composed and tranquil; but my heart sickened within me when I felt the beautiful ship smoothly gliding down the rapid stream, and bearing me from that country and that service in which I had spent the prime of my life, and, I may say, the happiest of my days. The rapid Ganges soon bore me from the sight of the English flag, and I dropped a tear to the recollection of the many happy days I had spent at Fort William. I soon found that I had a queer set to deal with, without the means of checking any indiscretion that drunkenness An Eastern voyage, either home or out, is dull and monotonous enough, even with an agreeable party. Passengers we had none, save one lady and her little girl, her sick husband, the captain of the detachment, then lingering on the brink of the grave, and a young officer of the Company's Bengal Artillery, who survived but a few days the tossing of the ship, and was committed to a watery grave, ere the bloom of boyhood had left his cheek. We had one doctor on board, and a young officer of the Company's service, in charge of the Company's troops. Of the misery of the passage the reader may have some idea, when he is informed that we had upwards of two hundred men on board, some without legs, others without arms, and twenty of whom had been removed from hospital only a week or ten days before we sailed. Every man had a box or trunk, bed and bedding, with parrots, minors, and cockatoos, and all these poor creatures, with four women and four children, were huddled on one small deck, every one that could move endeavouring to seize the more secure spot, and tumbling over and treading on those who were unable, either from sickness or drunkenness, to move or assist themselves. The smell and heat below were beyond description. Added to all this, the men were, during the whole voyage, in a state of continual drunkenness, having means of procuring liquor privately, by some device which I never could discover. All my exertions were insufficient to check them in this practice, or indeed to keep them in any kind of order, from want of the usual means of enforcing obedience, there being neither a place of confinement, nor handcuffs, nor any other Some of the more refractory among the soldiers soon discovered that my means to enforce obedience were limited; in consequence of which three-fourths of them set my orders at defiance, refusing in the most peremptory manner to obey me, even to clearing away their own filth and dirt; and I was ultimately obliged, rather than provoke that spirit of rebellion which I could evidently see only wanted some pretext to show itself, to pay a set of men daily, as a working party, to clear the deck, and keep off disease, so often occasioned on shipboard from a want of cleanliness. This I did by allowing those men two extra drams per day for their labour. After a voyage of six months, spent in constant riot and anxiety, and the misery of the whole increased by scurvy, which prevailed on board, and the number of deaths which occurred during the passage, we at length reached our native land in safety, having, in the course of the voyage, thrown overboard the captain of the detachment, a lieutenant, who was a passenger, thirty-eight soldiers, and one child, all of whom had died in that short space of time. Most of the men fell victims to their intemperance in drink. We reached England in the month of October, landed at Gravesend, and, on the following day, marched to the depÔt at Chatham, where the detachment was drawn up on parade, and I left them in charge of the staff-officer of Fort Pitt Barrack. The parade on which I then stood finished my military career of upwards of thirty years—five-and-twenty of which I had spent on the burning soil of India. I had but little cause to feel regret in resigning my command over the turbulent The public are now in possession of a faithful account of the vicissitudes which have marked the career of one who, in misfortune, can pride himself on having performed his duty to his country, loyally, faithfully, and, he trusts, bravely. From my military readers I feel it impossible to part without a few valedictory words. Brothers in arms, farewell! May the bright star from heaven shine on your efforts, and may you be crowned with glory! May the banner of Albion be hoisted in victory wherever it goes! As long as my mortal sight will guide me along the annals of war, I will exult and triumph in your successes, and drop a tear of pity for those that fall. Comrades, farewell! |