368 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



chest. Lieutenant Hodson had also received clothing com- 

 pensation from the Government for the years 1852-53 

 and 1853-54, which would amount to Company's Es. 4000, 

 and yet from the appearance of things there was small 

 hope of the assets of the chest being sufficient to meet 

 these demands ; the actual cash balance was very small, 

 the outstanding assets were unknown, and Lieutenant Hod- 

 son, when naturally called upon to explain the state of 

 things, conscious of the fact I have before stated, of his 

 having no clearly defined knowledge of the nature of the 

 balance he had received, could only reiterate the convic- 

 tion, which he had always had, that all was correct and 

 capable of eventual demonstration to be so ; but with re- 

 gard to the account prior to his command, that he could 

 not say positively what sums there were available in the 

 chest on this or that head until all had been sifted and 

 examined from first to last. I confess I do not wonder at 

 the fact of a tribunal of officers used to regular regimental 

 accounts not being as sanguine as Lieutenant Hodson was 

 about the ultimate solvency of the regimental chest ; but 

 the excuse I should be inclined to put forward for Lieuten- 

 ant Hodson is, that under the circumstances of the case 

 the account could not be viewed as a mere regimental one. 

 Large sums had been advanced from the chest for a public 

 work, and other difficulties had occurred so completely out 

 of common course that common rules could scarcely be 

 applied to them. 



43. I have before noticed the open statement of recoverable 

 assets and liabilities made over by Lieutenant Turner to 

 Lieutenant Hodson on the 10th of March 1853 : this did not 

 profess to be an infallible sketch of the state of things, but 

 an approximation ; the result, however, has been that items 

 to the amount of 1001 rupees, unnoticed in Lieutenant 

 Turner's memorandum, were collected, while sums, amount- 

 ing in all to Company's Es. 2071, were disbursed in excess of 

 what Lieutenant Turner had believed to be due. Thus at 

 the time of the sitting of the court any claims on Lieutenant 

 Hodson, based on the supposed balance made over to him 



