I have therefore to desire that his Majesty's orders and regulations, in respect to barracks, may be strictly carried into execution in your command; and that the barrack-master may be allowed to take possession and charge of his barracks and stores, and allot them according to regulation, and without the interference of anybody.

There is one part of this subject, however, to which I am desirous of drawing your attention more particularly; and that is, the order which several officers holding a foreign command have given, that they should be furnished with the reports which the barrack-master made to his immediate superiors, the respective officers of the Ordnance.

The intention in framing the regulations under which the duties of the barrack department are conducted was, that its officers should be guided by those rules and regulations alone; and that they should be responsible for an obedience thereto, and for the care and expenditure of stores and money, to the Master-General and Board of Ordnance alone; being the department of the State which is responsible to his Majesty and the Parliament for the due administration of the affairs of the barrack department, and the expenditure of the money granted by Parliament for its service.

The barrack-master, as well as the respective officers of the Ordnance, and every other authority in the station, are under the general superintendence and orders of the officer commanding in chief on each station, whose duty it is to see that they obey the orders and regulations for the conduct of the service entrusted to them; and the barrack regulations direct that the barrack-master should produce to the officer commanding the troops, when required, all instructions or orders relating to the allowances or accommodation of the military. Other subjects not belonging to the troops need not be produced.

But the regulations do not contain a word respecting the reports to the Master-General and Board, or respective officers, from the barrack-master; and I am convinced that you will see that such reports ought not to be called for.

If they are unfounded, if they are calumnious, it is not to be supposed that officers in such high stations as the MasterGeneral and Board of Ordnance would not reject them; or even communicate them to the officer commanding the troops, in order that he might take the steps he might think fit to punish

VOL. IV.

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the falsehood or the calumny. But it is quite obvious that the barrack-master cannot perform his duty in the independent manner in which the regulations require he should perform it, and that the responsibility of the Master-General and Board is not secure, if there is not security that the reports of the barrackmaster reach them. It cannot be expected that these reports will contain his real view of the transactions to which they relate, if they are liable to be called for by any other authority whatever.

WELLINGTON.

[ 771.]

MEMORANDUM ON MAJOR

[Letter from the Judge-Advocate-General returning the Proceedings of the COURT OF INQUIRY, held to inquire into and report upon certain circumstances and practices connected with the discipline and state of the depôt of the.—th Regiment, and particularly as to the manner in which MAJOR had performed his duties as commanding officer.]

I have perused these papers and proceedings, and I will converse with the Adjutant-General respecting them.

Here is an officer in command of a body of men in a state of the most mutinous indiscipline; his life threatened, and even attempted. He is responsible for the discipline of these men; and his credit and his commission, as well as his life, are at stake if he does not bring them into order.

I don't approve of Major — -'s conduct in the abstract more than others do. But do we intend to keep our troops in order? or are they to be allowed to shoot their officers with buttons and pebbles till they can get ball cartridge to effect their purposes?

Surely the proceedings of these courts-martial, the severity of the sentences and the punishments, ought to be considered in reference to the state of mutiny of the corps and to the act of firing upon the commanding officer; and before we blame Major we ought to consider what we would ourselves

have done in a similar situation.

Major is much to blame for not having reported the state of this depôt to his superiors, and consulted their opinions on the remedies to be adopted. But I cannot be the person to

censure him for conduct which, however irregular in abstract, was, I firmly believe, called for by the state of indiscipline in which he found the depôt.

WELLINGTON.

MEMORANDUM.-COMPARISON BETWEEN MR. CANNING'S

GOVERNMENT AND THAT OF LORD GODERICH.

1827.

These were the grounds of separation from Mr. Canning. Those of some, the Roman Catholic question; those of others, mistrust of Mr. Canning in the situation of First Minister, particularly when separated from others of his late colleagues; those of others, the false pretences on which his government was formed that in the presence of the King it was Protestant, in the presence of his Whig and other supporters it was Roman Catholic, and that upon the whole it was not calculated to conciliate the confidence and support of the gentlemen of the country.

There were other objections to Mr. Canning, principally of a personal nature: such as his temper; his spirit of intrigue; the facility with which he espoused the most extravagant doctrines of the Reformers and Radicals, although himself the great champion of Anti-Reform; and his avowed hostility to the great landed aristocracy of the country. Indeed it was this disposition in his mind which rallied to his support all the Radicals in the country, and the discontented throughout Europe and the Press; and occasioned, fostered, and augmented the mistrust and dislike of the great aristocracy of the country.

It will be curious to examine how far Lord Goderich stands in the same predicament. He does so in respect to the Roman Catholic question. Indeed I believe that Lord Goderich has been more in earnest upon this question than ever Mr. Canning

was.

But there can be no mistrust of Lord Goderich's intentions: there may be of his talents and fitness for his situation.

His government is founded upon false pretences equally with that of Mr. Canning. There is in the Cabinet avowedly a majority of members of the Roman Catholic opinion; and they tell the King that the Roman Catholic question shall not be

[ 772.]

carried. How must they avoid it? by an agreement among themselves that it shall not be proposed. Will they proclaim this agreement to Parliament and the public? If they keep it concealed, as they must, they will be acting under a false pretence.

Such a government cannot conciliate the support of the public or of the gentlemen of the country. It must be weak. No man can avow his connection with those who are practising a deceit upon the public or acting upon a false pretence.

There will not be against Lord Goderich the same personal objections as against Mr. Canning. It is true that he will be supported, for a time at least, by the Radicals here, and applauded by the discontented all over the world; but this will be as the friendly successor, and because he lends himself to keep out of office those who resigned rather than serve with Mr. Canning, and whose position and strength in Parliament kept him in check.

WELLINGTON.

Earl Bathurst to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY DEAR DUKE,

Fishburn, 6th January, 1828.

We accomplished our journey here much better than I had expected, and as we had the satisfaction of hearing that Lady Bathurst's sister had recovered her understanding and the use of speech surprisingly, it has given us great hopes that there will be a better restoration to health than could have been expected by the first account, and it has made Lady Bathurst much more comfortable.

If it had not been for the December letter, the case would have been complete; and even that letter would have made no difference if it had not been for the enclosure, which, as I understand it, is the remonstrance of Mr. Stratford Canning to the Porte in July, 1826.

The Cabinet letter of December repeats distinctly that the refusal to accept our mediation is not a cause of war; and though it points out the expediency of taking measures to enforce the acceptance, in the event of the Porte refusing to listen to any propositions, yet it expressly confines those measures for the present to two-the simultaneous withdrawing the ministers, and the acknowledgment of the independence of the Greeks; but that last is coupled with a qualification that the Greeks have established a government such as the late declaration of the admirals denies to exist.

There is nothing, therefore, in this which would in any way be considered as altering the case, except that to a given extent it admits the eventual expediency of using some compulsory measures to enforce the acceptance of our mediation; whereas there was nothing in your Protocol which countenanced such a proceeding. But by enclosing a copy of Mr.

Stratford Canning's remonstrance we sanctioned it; and that remonstrance contained menaces of an unqualified nature, founded on an assumed right to demand reparation from the Turks for the piracies committed by the Greeks. I am afraid that much advantage will be taken of this letter if produced; although it was certainly not written and never received any sauction from the Cabinet. It is, indeed, founded (that part which relates to the Greek piracies) on principles in direct opposition to what we have maintained in vindication of our having acknowledged the belligerent rights of the Greeks. The Austrian government complained in 1825 of an Ionian proclamation in which we acknowledged the belligerent rights of the Provisional Greek Government. Mr. Canning wrote a very able answer, in which he explained that we had but two alternatives-either to acknowledge those rights, or to make the Turks responsible for the piracies committed by the Greeks, and we had preferred the former. This defence is to a degree adverted to in the instructions to Mr. Stratford Canning, and I am inclined to think that one of the two enclosures referred to in that part of the instructions is a copy of the letter to which I refer. I shall be very much obliged to you if you can get a copy of those enclosures, for, according to my view of the question, the principle so clearly laid down in Mr. Canning's letter forms a material part of the case, particularly after the violent remonstrance of Mr. Stratford Canning.

It would, I think, be material to be able to prove that Austria acceded to the Protocol, and refused to accede to the Treaty, as being essentially different from the Protocol.

By a letter I received lately from Lord Aberdeen, who was a great Greek, and made a speech in the House of Lords about two years ago calling upon government to interfere, I find that he is decidedly adverse to the Treaty, and to the measures pursued in consequence. But as I collect from his letter that one of his objections to the Treaty is that the proposition for the Turks to evacuate part of Greece would be, in his opinion, impracticable, I think it would be desirable for him to be put in possession of the case, that he may not state his objections stronger than would be consistent with what those with whom I know he is most anxious to act would be able to go.

Your account of what is going on in the Cabinet is most interesting. Mr. Huskisson's object is to get rid of Herries, with whom I know he always essentially differs, and will be for Lord Holland's introduction for that, if not for other reasons.

The King will plead his gout as a cause of delay, and if the eager party will not allow of that excuse, he will try to move the Chancellor and Lord Anglesey not to quit him under such distress, and I think will persuade Lord Anglesey at least, if not Lord Lyndhurst, to remain.

Yours ever, most sincerely,

BATHURST.

What a capital hit to bespeak 'Killing no Murder' as the play for Don Miguel!