was utterly incapable of making any sufficient defence to the charges, not only from severe indisposition of body and mind, but from his being in perfect ignorance of the existence of such an accusation till 48 hours before he was a prisoner in court. The charges were not transmitted through him, nor intimated to him, as is customary. He had no time to summon many witnesses whom he might have called for his justification, or to consult any friends or advisers as to his defence; but through au excess of reliance on his own innocence, disdained to delay the investigation a single hour; and thus he suffered heavy charges to pass under trial, without taking the means of repelling them, which common prudence rendered necessary[1].
“Your Lordships will be unable to discover the cause of the virulent malice, which so obviously pervades the whole of the charges, without a short explanation of the motives and character of the prosecutor. Lieutenant Charles Letch had sailed several years with your memorialist, and had enjoyed his confidence in a very great degree; Lieutenant John Kent had also been two years in the Hermes. Both had lived in the utmost harmony with your memorialist until a few weeks before the arrival of the Hermes, when these officers, especially the first, presuming on the friendship and protection with which your memorialiist had long distinguished them, fell into such relaxation of discipline, and into such habits of oppression towards the inferior officers, as made it absolutely necessary at last (however painful) for your memorialist to interfere; which they resented by the many instances of faction, animosity, quarrelling, and disrespect, which are fully detailed in the recent court-martial on Lieutenant Letch, and in many other papers before your Lordships, to which your memoralist refers; and if further evidence be necessary, that the charges originated in private pique and malice, and by no means for the good of the service, it would be found in this consideration, that the facts alluded to in the first and second charges, had occurred twelve and six months respectively before the Lieutenants ever thought of making them the subject of prosecution, although it is proved in the minutes that there were several opportunities at Rio de Janeiro of bringing your memorialist to trial, where witnesses and parties were on the spot, of whose evidence your memorialist was unfortunately deprived[2].
- ↑ See Nav. Chron. v. 34, p. 302.
- ↑ “Adverting to what had appeared at the military trials of Captains Cameron and Roy, in Mar. 1798, on several charges, his late Majesty expressed his extreme disapprobation of keeping charges (having an opportunity to prefer them) until they should have accumulated.and then bringing them before a court martial collectively, whereas every charge should be preferred at the time the facts on which it turns are recent, or, if knowingly passed over, ought neither in candour nor justice to be in future brought in question.” See Id. p. 303.
