DUELLING ON ITS LAST LEGS. N- EXT to the diminution
of drunkenness, the abolition of duelling would probably be regarded by moralists as the most marked improvement in the habits of modern society. And doubtless in Great Britain; and among civilians, the prospect of receiving a challenge has ceased to collie within the range of ordinary probability. Even an Irish challenge is hardly regarded from a serious point of view. When Sheridan portrayed Sir Lucius O'Trigger, his art consisted in involving the Irish duellist ih everlasting ridicule, without in the least Undervaluing his Courage, and even a gentleman with the romantie name of The O'Donog- hue of the Glens could not escape from the common disaster. But in the army the old traditions still seem to govern men's minds if not their actions. Nobody, indeed, wants to fight a duel, not so much because he might be killed, as because, if he is not, he will lose his commission. But in spite of the articles of war the opinion still seems to obtain among officers that one of their body who has failed in extorting an apology from an antagonist; with whom he may have been involved in an altercation, is bound to bring his quarrel to a bloody arbitrament, or, in default, retire spontaneously from the society of honourable men. This feeling has plainly appeared in the course of a mon- ster court-martial which has as completely absorbed public attentIbn during the last month in Dublin as the Windham case did not long ago in London: Captain Arthur Robert- son; of the 4th Dragoon Guards, has been arraigned on two charges ; first, that having been publicly insulted by Colonel Dickson, and having failed to obtain an apology, he did not lay the matter before the commanding-officer of his regi- ment for his advice, in compliance with the 17th article of war; and, secondly, that he stated in a letter to the Military Secretary, that he had been induced to apply for permission to sell out "entirely through intimidation," well knowing the Said statement to be Wee. The facts of the matter appear to be as follows : In October, 1860, Captain Robert- son saw Colonel Dickson at the Army and Navy Club, and requested an interview with him on the subject of a certain lawsuit which was then pending between them, which he declined. Captain Robertson subsequently accosted the Colonel again, who then, in the presence of a Captain Durant, threatened to come down to Birmingham and horsewhip him in the presence Obit regiment. The result of this conduct was a series of interviews between Captain Durant and Captain Henry, a friend of Robertson, in the course of which an apology was tendered by Colonel Dickson, and refused as unsatisfactory ; and there the quarrel was, for the 'present, allowed to drop. This supineness, however, appears to have excited considerable dissatisfaction in the breasts of the other officers of the 4th Dragoon Guards, and especially in that of Colonel Bentinck, its commanding officer, whose remonstrances induced Captain Robertson to place himself in the hands of Mr. Owen, of the Cheshire Militia, with a view to obtaining further redress. Mr. Owen, who ap- pears to be entirely master of the proprieties on these occasions, applied first to Captain Henry, who assured him, by letter of the 23rd March, 1861, that he distinctly understood that Colonel Dickson would have nothing what- ever to do with Captain Robertson in any way whatever until lie should have settled some legal transactions then pending between them, and, in consequence, he (Captain Henry) considered it useless to send a challenge. " Had such not been my firm conviction," he proceeded, " I am bound to say Captain Robertson would at once have pro- ceeded to take immediate steps to demand satisfaction for the insult . . . and I regret that any misapprehension on my part should have prevented him." Captain Henry also Informed Mr. Owen that the reason why he could not any longer act as Captain Robertson's friend was, that his pre- sence was required in Ireland on pressing business, in fact, "that there were rather serious charges made against himself and his witnesses in the Case of a yacht which was being tried before the Court in Ireland—that they were preferring a charge of perjury against him." This statement is perhaps hot altogether without *eight when we find Captain Henry; some months later, for the first time, alleging that the rea- son why he did not send the challenge to Colonel Dickson was that Captain Robertson had required Colonel Dickson to deposit the value of his commission before he would Meet him—an assertion never made till his own conduct, as Captain Robertson's friend, had become the subject of ani- madversion, and unsupported by other evidence. Mi. Owen appears to have made many well-meant endeavours to bring Colonel Dickson on the field, but the latter con- sidered that the interval which had elapsed relieved him from the necessity of taking any further notice of the matter, and received even a threat of being posted with- Out a whisper of reply. Mr. Owen returned to Birming- ham, and Captain Robertson's bleeding honour remained, itt the opinion of Colonel Bentinck, still unstanched. The Colonel then proposed that Captain Robertson should send a circular to every member of the Army and Navy Club applying to his insulter language so strong, that even Colonel Bentinck himself was unable to give it due utterance, but indicated his meaning by an expressive silence. To this Captain Robertson objected that he should be liable to an action for libel. "I must say at that time," says the Colonel, ".1 was extremely indignant with him ; and I told him I never in all my life had met a man so utterly devoid of all moral feeling, and that I would have nothing more to say to him." Probably the result of this court-martial will be to Inspire the Colonel with more Sympathy for his Captain's prudent dread of legal proceedings. But, however this may be from that moment Colonel Bentinck set himself to drive Captain Robertson out of the regiment by every species of annoyance and petty tyranny which an officer in command can inflict. Ile did, indeed, contend that there were special reasons for each Separate indignity which he inflicted on Cap- tain Robertson ; but the evidence of his major, of his riding- Master, and other soldiers, contradicted him, and his own answers and denteanont were so ill-restrained as to mill down on him, at all events on one occasion, the well-merited rebuke of the President; that "it was well to observe the forma of courtesy usual in the army." This, indeed, seems the worst part of Colonel's Bentinck'a conduct. He applied to Sir George Wetherell for a Court of Inquiry in June, 1861, which was refused; but Sir George, on being asked, "After you refuted to grant the Court of Inquiry, would it have been the usual course for Colonel Bentinck then to ask for a court- martial ?" replied, "I attained that he would have done so. I do consider it *ould have been the proper course." Colonel Bentinck, however, preferred to use his authority in order to drive one of his officers out of the regiment, and then did not scruple to justify orders which were obviously given merely for purposes of annoyance by the flimsiest pre- texts. By October, 1861, the matter was thought ripe for Settlement. Captain Robertson was summoned to Dublin. He found himself in the presence of Colonel Brownrigg, who represented the Commander of the Forces in Ireland, and has been acting as prosecutor on this court-martial, and of Colonel Bentinck. He was offered his choice between a trial and retirement from the service. No time was allowed him for reflection or to consult his friends. He retired for it few minutes with Colonel Derain* and then applied for permission to tell out. But the night brought repentance along with it, and the next day he wrote the letter which is the subject of the second charge against him. The finding of the Court will as usual remain unpublished until it has been confirmed by the Commander-in-Chief; but the acquittal of the prisoner is hardly doubtful. A man may fairly consider himself intimidated who is offered nothing but a choice between resignation and a court-martial, and allowed no advice but that of the Colonel, who has been per- secuting him for the last six months to bring him to the very alternative to which he now advises him. Colonel Brownrigg, in reply to the Court, said that he did not con- sider this to be pressure, but Captain Robertson did, and does to this moment ; and whether he be right or wrong it certainly cannot be said that in calling it by that name he made a statement which he knows to be false, or did any- thing which in any way affects his honour as a gentleman. The other charge is still more untenable. In the first place, the 17th article of war merely recommends an officer to apply to his colonel for advice, if unable to obtain re- dress for an insult ; it does not make it obligatory on him to do so. And it may well be doubted whether the neglect to comply with the recommendation is any offence at all against military law. But if Captain Robertson did not voluntarily ask for Colonel Ben- tinck's advice, he received it and at first acted on it. And what was the advice ? To send Mr. Owen to Colonel Dick- son with a challenge, a course expressly forbidden by the articles of war, by which, if the challenge could have been delivered, he forfeited his commission, and the adoption of which this very seventeenth article was framed to prevent. It would seem to civil minds that if you give a man advice, it hardly lies in your mouth to complain that he did not spontaneously ask for it, because he does not adopt it to the end and publish a libel, thereby incurring legal proceedings which lie dreads more than death ; and that the natural sequel to this court-martial, would be another in which Colonel Bentinck is charged with advising one of the officers under his command to send a challenge in defiance of the articles of war. But it is obvious from first to last that the real charge against Captain Robertson is, that he did not compel Colonel Dickson to fight, that this is why he was advised by his Colonel to sell out, that this is why an at- tempt was made to drive him from the regiment by a series of insults, that this is why Colonel Bentinck was backed by Adjutant Harran and the other officers, and that this is the real reason why Captain Robertson now finds himself a prisoner awaiting the decision of a court-martial. What that decision will substantially be can hardly be doubted. We had intended to have remarked on the system by which a prisoner is not allowed to cross-examine the wit- nesses against him, but is compelled to call them as his own witnesses in order to establish any facts necessary to his defence. As, however, the difference between cross-exami- nation and examination-in-chief seems to be totally unknown to courts-martial, and leading questions may be put to your own witnesses as much as ever you please, this little pecu- liarity is productive of no injustice to any but those unhappy persons who may be doomed to follow the proceedings. One man's evidence is not given all consecutively, but he is asked a little to-day, and a little more to-morrow, and a few more questions after the interval of ten or twelve days, and the result tends greatly to increase that sense of puzzle- headedness, which is the natural consequence of the vagueness of the charges, the wild irrelevance of half the evidence, and the universal carelessness of military witnesses. From this trial, however, one thing, at least, clearly appears : that the belief in duelling, as a means of settling quarrels, is still prevalent even in the higher ranks of the army, and that if that barbarous appeal to arms is to be finally put down, we must look less to the military authorities and snore to some vigorous and uncompromising manifestation of public opinion.
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