Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/339

 IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. 229 Althougli there was no doubt that Wall deserved punish- ment^ there was at least one consideration that might have been urged in support of his plea for mercy. He was the victim of a vicious system which had established itself in the army and navy, under which it had become a common practice among commanders in both services to inflict punishment on their own authority, without the intervention Fiomingr of any Oourt-martial. Romilly mentions a case which was trial brought before the Privy Council while he was Solicitor- General in Fox's administration of 1806. A lieutenant in the navy was charged with the murder of three seamen at Bombay in the year 1801. They had been flogged without any Court-martial having been held on them ; and the punishment was inflicted with such horrible severity that they all three died in less than twenty-four hours after it was over. In the course of the examination before the Council, it appeared that it was not uncommon for officers of the navy to inflict very severe punishment on their own authority, without any Court-martial ; their idea being that it was lawful to do so.* Two other instances are mentioned by Romilly which seem to have originated in the same spirit of reckless indifference to results. One was that of a soldier at Gibraltar '^ whose only offence was that he had come dirty upon the parade,'^ and Trivial who was thereupon flogged with such severity that he died a few days afterwards. In the other case, a man who had been thirty years in the Guards, and who had been removed into the veteran battalion in the Tower as a reward for his good conduct throughout that time, was sentenced at the age of sixty to receive three hundred lashes, '^because he had been absent a day'' from duty.f Romilly does not state that these punishments were inflicted without trial, but a charge of ^^ appearing dirty on parade" would seem to be rather beneath the dignity of a military Court. The Courts- The Oowia. martial of the flogging days, however, did not stand much Digitized by Google
 * Memoirs, vol. ii, p. 133. + lb., voL ii, p. 362.