MAJOR WYNDHAM AND THE CAT. 255 



Now take this circumstance, as the court-martial and the subsequent 

 court of inquiry would that the country should take it viz. merely as 

 a crime, and its punishment : is there, we ask, on record, a more fla- 

 grant instance of barbarous and ferocious tyranny? Can there be a case 

 of besotted and brutal cruelty, which more loudly calls for the powerful, 

 the irresistible interference of a humane and enlightened nation, like 

 England ? There can be but one answer. The nation must and will 

 interfere, to prevent the recurrence of a barbarity, fit only to grace the 

 annals of the fiend-like abominations of the tribes of New Zealand, or 

 the still more accursed government of that smooth-tongued hypocrite 

 that modern monster in short, that " miscreant" the Emperor of all 

 the Russias. 



So much for what the court-martial and the court of inquiry would 

 have us believe, in which, by their own shewing, they are guilty of an 

 absolute enormity. But come we to the real truth, when we shall find 

 the stain of the transaction assume a far deeper dye. Somerville, although 

 a common soldier, is a man of no common mind. He has had, as most 

 Scotsmen have, a decent education j and is one of those individuals, 

 now, thank God, so numerous in Great Britain, who cannot live in a 

 civilized country, and in an age remarkable for the tremendous import 

 of its events, without observing, with the eye and ear of intelligence, 

 the extraordinary tendency and probable consequences of their course. 

 He not only reads and thinks, but he writes ; and, exercising the privi- 

 lege common to us all, of committing his sentiments to the press, he 

 inserts in the Dispatch a letter on the vital subject of Parliamentary 

 Reform, as connected with political unions. Is there any " offence in 

 this ?" None whatever. On the contrary, the man is to be honoured for 

 having so done. The journal containing his letter is distributed, in the 

 course of its circulation, at Birmingham, where his regiment is quar- 

 tered. It is read at the mess-table of the officers. Great is the wrath of 

 the commissioned in command at the audacity of the insubordinate ; and 

 it is at once agreed, that one who could express himself so freely and 

 boldly, and perhaps so much better than they could, is a dangerous man 

 to have in the army. He is accordingly singled out to be put into the 

 situation of either executing a very difficult, if not dangerous duty, or 

 undergoing the most severe torture in case of his probable refusal. We 

 say probable refusal ; because we have seen enough of regiments to know 

 that whenever a man is ordered to do any duty, be it important or trivial, 

 his character or temper is generally sufficiently known to those who give 

 the order, to enable them to judge in what manner, or with what spirit, 

 that order will be obeyed. In this case, the adjutant, or riding-master, 

 or both, were not mistaken as to the sturdy northern nature of Somer- 

 ville. He commenced by obeying, perhaps reluctantly ; but finding 

 that the performance of a task, at first not over agreeable, became im- 

 possible, he relinquished the attempt. Eagerly is this act of " mutiny" 

 laid hold of, and the man who might perhaps have made, had he been 

 properly treated, one of the best soldiers in the army, is accused, ar- 

 raigned, tried and convicted, in the space of a few short hours, and is 

 ultimately tied up to the halberds, and receives a punishment more 

 violent and savage than any man has now the legal right to inflict upon 

 the most unruly of the brute creation. 



The question, as Mr. Tennyson said (on the motion upon Somerville's 

 case), resolves itself into this : whether the man was punished, more 



