is not, whether the transaction was in itself generally that which is said to be unbecoming the character of an officer and a gentleman; but, whether it was scandalous, infamous, cruel, oppressive, or fraudulent; and by being which, but not otherwise, it would be unbecoming the character of a gentleman; cruelty, oppression, and fraud, is here quite out of the question: and your memorialist most confidently submits to your Lordships’ superior wisdom, to your candour and justice, that the quality of the transaction did not deserve the character of scandalous and infamous, in the sense intended by the article of war; and he submits fully to your Lordships, that there is not in all the annals of martial law, in the navy, an instance or precedent, of scandal or infamy being attached by the sentence of any court martial to such a transaction as the present.
“But while your memorialist pleads not guilty to the charge in a legal sense – his own feelings as an officer and a gentleman, condemn him for the intemperance of passion, which hurried him into so improper an excess. He fully admits the indecorous and bad example of his conduct. He deplores with the utmost contrition, that unhappy violence of temper, which, acted upon by sudden and irresistible provocation, has led him, when threatened with actual personal outrage, to forget that he was an officer, and to remember only that he was a man, and by no means a coward, or one that would shrink from the personal violence of any man under heaven. To your Lordships, as men of high personal courage, he appeals for indulgence to this instance of human frailty. To such of your Lordships as are officers, and have been in his situation, he puts his case, and implores you to consider candidly the insolent abuse frequently offered by the low-bred masters of merchantmen, whose violence there is no law to punish, and whose vulgar excesses there are no feelings, except the fear of personal chastisement, to restrain. He asks your Lordships, whether allowance may not be made for a captain of one of his Majesty’s ships having his passions worked up almost to frenzy on such an occasion as that; where his ship, and the lives of his men, are wilfully put in imminent danger, as well as his character as a seaman; and when he is told, in presence of all his crew, that but for their protection the aggressor would have thrashed him! – The candour of your Lordships will not fail to make allowance for him: and your memorialist trusts, that when he shews that, with the above exception, he is entirely guiltless of every other charge, your lordships will deem, that he has, by the disgrace he has suffered in dismissal, been already most cruelly punished for the venial offence which he committed, and that the sentence of the court martial is severe beyond all precedent, and ought to be mitigated.” * * * * * * * *
In consequence of this memorial, the minutes of the court-martial were laid before Sir William Garrow and Sir Samuel Shepherd, the law officers of the Crown, who unhesitatingly declared that the proceedings of the court were informal and
