of the tribunal might be adapted to the character of the case. The constitution of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council affords a precedent. The members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the fifteen judges, and the recorders of a certain number of the most important towns in the country should be members of this body. Out of them the Secretary of State for the Home Department should have power to choose a certain number, qualified in a certain manner, according to the importance of the case; say, for instance, five, of whom at least two should be judges in a capital case, and three in cases not capital. They should be convoked as a matter of right, if the judge who heard the cause certified that he was dissatisfied with the verdict of the jury, or that new evidence had been brought before him which could not, in his opinion, have been produced at the trial. They should be capable of being convoked, as a matter of discretion, if the Secretary of State thought that for either of the other causes specified, justice required it. And when they were convoked, they should sit as a court, with power to administer oaths, hear witnesses and counsel, examine the prisoner, and take any other means whatever of discovering the truth, which to them might seem expedient, without reference to any rules of evidence or procedure whatever. As the result of all this, they should have the power finally to confirm or quash the verdict; or if new evidence were produced, and the reason why it was not produced before were satisfactorily explained, to order a new trial before a different jury. This expedient would relieve the Home Secretary from the intolerable pressure now put upon him. It would give ample security for the full investigation of all cases which required it; and it could hardly be abused, inasmuch as the court could not be convoked unless the judge was dissatisfied with the verdict, or unless the Home Secretary thought that the justice of the case required it. It would also have the great advantage of acting not by means of a legal fiction, but in the discharge of regular legal functions under explicit legal provisions. By the help of some such arrangement as this, coupled with a better definition of murder, all the real objections to the infliction of capital punishment might be removed. It may, indeed, be a question whether the punishment has not been unadvisedly restricted in its operation by a natural reaction against the barbarity of former times. It is greatly to be regretted that attempts to murder, which fail only by accident, should not be capital; and there are one or two other crimes of which the same might be said. For instance, certain forms of arson, and rapes committed by several men in company. Piracy in its worst form is still capital, and ought to be so, and the same may be said of high treason. The Cato-street conspiracy, for instance, was almost as wicked and dangerous an act as was ever committed, and deserved capital punishment at least as much as an ordinary murder, if not more. J. F. S. 'MR. WHITWORTH AND SIR EMERSON TENNENT.' FRASER'S MAGAZINE for last month contained an article under the above title. It professes to be a critical examination of a recent work of mine, The Story of the Guns; and it chiefly consists of a selection of passages, from the scrutiny of which the writer conceives that he has discovered grounds for accusing me of partisanship which 'under a profession of neutrality oversteps the limits of fair and lawful advocacy.' He charges me with 'suppressions, distortions, and misquotations of evidence, happily exceptional in literary controversy; all these 'grave and damning' imputations, as he designates them, being rashly encountered by me 'as the champion of Mr. Whitworth,' and all tending to the disparagement of the work of a great inventor (Sir William Armstrong), whose inventions constitute the safety of the country.' Along with these charges against me, the same article contains opinions as to the comparative merits of the guns of Sir William Armstrong and of Mr. Whitworth, together with some assertions which, had they been correct, would reflect on the personal integrity of the latter gentleman. With these I have nothing to do. Mr. Whitworth has already shown his ability to be the effectual defender of his own honour-and as to the superiority or inferiority of his rifled artillery to that of Sir William Armstrong, that is a question which can only be decided by the experiments now in progress at Shoeburyness. For myself I must repeat what I have stated in the introduction to my book, that it is a subject on which I am incompetent to form a judgment; and that in the great controversy which for the last few years has attracted attention to the guns of rival inventors, I have no pretension to interfere, either as a military commentator or an amateur theorist.' My object from the first has been not to speculate on the future, but to chronicle the past with truth and faithfulness; and by so doing to point out the necessity of instituting (what up to the time at which I wrote had not taken place) a satisfactory trial of the guns by duly qualified judges. As to the statements affecting myself, I had previously seen some of them in other publications; and they have since been reproduced, in part, in the Saturday Review of May 7th. Throughout there is a community of matter, an identity of tone, and a similarity of expression that might possibly sustain the conjecture that they may all have one common origin and possibly a single author. But be that as it may, they have acquired an importance by their appearance in this Magazine, which induces me to notice and dispute them. So much of the article in the Saturday Review as related to myself, was avowedly taken from Fraser's Magazine; and thinking it advisable to refute it at the earliest possible moment, I forwarded a letter to the Editor, which, as I subsequently learned, the rules of the Saturday Review did not permit him to insert. It is as follows: SIR,-The Saturday Review of the 7th May contains an article on the laws and limits of 'Literary Advocacy: the principles of which admit of no question; but I have reason to complain that certain passages in my Story of the Guns have been adduced by the writer as instances of their violation. The terms in which my treatment of that subject is spoken of are unusually strong; and I cannot but wish that instead of adopting, without verification, the assertions contained as you say in 'an elaborate article in the new number of Fraser's Magazine,' you had taken the trouble to examine the book for yourself, and to compare its contents with their authorities. The gravamen of the accusation against me is that I am sufficiently weak to misrepresent, misquote, and falsify public documents, and that in a book founded mainly on a Bluebook, and professing to be taken from Parliamentary evidence, I think it right to stop in the middle of passages, so as to give exactly what suits me, and omit what I dislike; altering the wording of answers, so as to give them a new sense. It is hardly necessary to say that, assuming the difficulty to be overcome of discovering an educated gentleman capable of such vicious folly as this amounts to, its only possible consequence must be instant detection and exposure. Or even conceiving the possibility of its having a momentary success, no man in his senses can imagine that the ultimate result of a grave inquiry, such as that in which we are now engaged, as to the best arms and artillery with which to equip the national forces, could be influenced in the minutest degree by such silly devices as disparaging the genius of Sir William Armstrong, or calumniating the acts of Mr. Whitworth. Supposing the desire to exist of rendering a special service to one or other of these two eminent men, it had long been apparent that there was one and only one means of conferring a substantial benefit on either, and that was to obtain for the guns of both an exhaustive, comparative, and competitive trial before the most competent and unbiassed tribunal. Till this had been attained, Sir William Armstrong could have no repose under his laurels, whilst Mr. Whitworth was clamouring for admission to contest them with him; and Mr. Whitworth could not be expected to rest satisfied so long as he felt himself excluded from the opportunity of doing so. A searching and final comparison of the guns was, therefore, the sole means of serving either of the two great rivals, and of satisfying public anxiety; and in the absence of such a definitive test as to the power, precision, and endurance of the competing guns, personal misrepresentation or the garbling of evidence could no more affect the inevitable and final decision, than baying the moon, or, what sailors call, 'whistling for a wind.' The sole aim and object of my book was, therefore, by every legitimate means to urge the earliest possible resort to these conclusive trials; to relate the incidents which had theretofore delayed them; and, once determined on, to direct attention to the main points at issue; and the steps to be taken, in order to obtain, by patient experiment, a recorded judgment upon each of them. These trials have at length begun; and their result, up to the present time, as intimated in the Times of May 9th, is the virtual defeat by the Whitworth of the Armstrong breech-loading gun; the adoption of which by the Government, in 1858, in preference to the Whitworth, gave rise to all these subsequent discussions. The service gun has not only been distanced by the Whitworth, but it has been beaten by the new shunt-gun of Sir William Armstrong; a gun which is not in the service. It is not too much to say [says the Times of 9th May] that the breech-loader is looked upon by all as virtually out of the contest. It now turns only on the comparative merits of the shunt' and the Whitworth. Thús, then, whatever may be the result of the trials as regards the supremacy of the Armstrong shunt-gun or the Whitworth, the competition has not been made in vain. Already the country has gained an immense advantage by the incontestable proof thus afforded that the gun with which our batteries in the field are now armed is not the best that can be got. Such an all-important truth is well worth a little cost and trouble to elicit, and we know now, beyond all doubt, that, whatever may be the result of Mr. Whitworth's claims, Sir William Armstrong himself has in the shunt-gun invented a very much fitter piece of ordnance than that on which our troops are now depending in the use of the breech-loader. The Times runs on in the same vein; but even whilst defending myself against the charge of stopping short in my quotations, I must spare your space by referring you to the original. Amidst the earnest anxiety with which the public watch the progress of these trials, it is idle to suppose that they are likely to take the slightest interest in controverted trivialities regarding Sir William Armstrong or Mr. Whitworth; but in justice to myself, feeling that the imputations cast upon me are essentially personal, I now ask you to give publicity to my refutation of them seriatim. 1. Of the specfic charges brought against me in Fraser's Magazine, the Saturday Review has taken up four. The first is an allegation that, in quoting the evidence of Captain Hewlett of the Excellent, I have made that gentleman appear to say that the feeling of the navy is against the Armstrong gun; whereas what Captain Hewlett is supposed to have said was, that the feeling of the navy 'used to be' against it, but that it is changing. 66 Now let there be no mistake here. The charge against me as set out in Fraser is, that I have manipulated Captain Hewlett's evidence, partly by suppressing part of a sentence, and partly by changing a tense, so as to represent that a feeling that had prevailed but was fast passing away, was still prevalent in the navy. What I did say was as follows:-'Captain Hewlett of the Excellent, than whom no one has expressed a higher approval of the Armstrong gun, says, Although his own men and officers have the most perfect confidence in them, the general opinion of the navy is rather adverse; they are frightened from one or two accidents, and the feeling of the fleet is now rather against them.” (Story of the Guns, p. 339). Although, by a typographical error, this passage is marked with inverted commas as a quotation, it is obvious that it is meant to give the import of what Captain Hewlett said, but not his precise words. The latter I now subjoin, and it will be seen how entirely they substantiate the correctness of my statement. Sir John Hay, a member of the House of Commons Committee, says to Captain Hewlett 3419. I suppose that you have the opinions of the officers of the navy generally on the Armstrong gun? Capt. Hewlett.-Yes. 3420. What is the general opinion in the navy? I think they are rather adverse to the guns; they are rather frightened of them from two or three little accidents; but our men and officers (on board the Excellent) have the most perfect confidence in them; it is only to know the gun, to be perfectly satisfied of its safety; but I think that the feeling in the fleet was rather against the gun; it is being got over now; they fancy it is complicated, but really it is not so. 3430. Captain Jervis.-You said there was a general feeling against the breechloader Armstrong gun in the navy, and you spoke about the vent-pieces being blown out, but I believe we have no evidence of any man having been seriously injured by that? No; one man lost an eye, but I think that is the most serious accident. 3431. In the course of your service you have heard very frequently of men being injured by muzzle-loaders; arms being blown off, and men being blown to pieces altogether? Yes; the breech-loaders are safer to load than the muzzle-loaders. 3432. As that fact must be so apparent to naval men, is there any reason for this dissatisfaction against the Armstrong gun? thing; they do not understand it perfectly, No, nothing but fancy; it is a new and a few accidents have occurred which have startled them. 3433. Do you think there has been a desire to induce them to be dissatisfied with the gun? Not at all; but to be satisfied with it. I have marked the words in italics to show that the tenses have not been altered by me, and that Captain Hewlett alludes, not, as you have been led to suppose, to what used to be' the feeling of the navy, but to what was the feeling at the time when he spoke. I fear that that feeling has not since been allayed by the reports of the Armstrong guns which have lately been received from the naval commanders in Japan. But in order to learn what is the opinion of naval men at the present moment, nothing can be easier or more conclusive than to inquire of the naval officers at any one of the United Service Clubs. Captain Hewlett, it will be observed, attributes the 'fright' in the navy to 'two or three little accidents with the Armstrong gun.' When asked what the results of these 'little accidents' were, he said, 'Nothing more than the destruction of the cabins and scorching some of the men, but nothing serious!' (3300). 2. The article proceeds to say that Sir Emerson Tennent leads his readers to believe that Mr. Whitworth was not allowed to be present at the trial of his own guns, whereas, in the Bluebook, one of the chief officers appointed to preside at the trial says he can show from the letter-book that we have written to Mr. Whitworth, naming the hour during which the tide would answer for practice during several days, and requesting him to name the time which would be most convenient for him to attend.' Even 'literary advocates,' continues the Saturday Review, 'are hardly entitled to look steadily at a black thing and describe it as white.' First permit me to cite the passage from the Story of the Guns which has called forth this remark. I there said that Mr. Whitworth, in a letter to the Times, complained that the Committee of 1858' without performing their promise to visit his works, and see what was being done there; and without affording him an opportunity to be present at the comparative trials of his gun; and without even giving him information as to the results obtained in his absence, should have come to a decision against it; a result which came to his knowledge by accident afterwards,' (p. 130). In opposition to this, Sir William Wiseman made the statement alluded to above, as to the existence of a letterbook, which would prove the facilities afforded to Mr. Whitworth. But what is the testimony of Mr. Whitworth himself? It is this: that although he was invited to be present on occasions when his own gun was being tried by itself, previously to the trial between the Armstrong gun and it' (3036, 3051), and although he availed himself of these opportunities, and was present when his own guns were fired by themselves (3042), to the best of his recollection on not more than three or four occasions' (3047, 3050)—occasions quite insufficient to 'show its accuracy, range, and every particular (3046, 3058), or to enable the Committee to come to any conclusion respecting it' (3059, 3063); yet he never received ' any request to attend any comparative trials between his gun and Sir William Armstrong's' (3035, 3038, 3040, 3041, 3053); and he never was present at any trials when the two guns were tried together' (3043, 3038, 3039, 3049, 3054, 3055, 3059, 3060). The number of trials with the Armstrong gun were forty-five or fifty (3082), those with the Whitworth seven or eight, or perhaps nine (3091, 3081). Mr. Whitworth says he was present at four or five of these; and Captain Noble, the Secretary of the Committee, says, that he must therefore have been present, and that, in fact, he 'recollects distinctly his presence upon nearly all occasions' (3091). But then Captain Noble very fairly adds, that these were all occasions when the gun was fired by itself. It is therefore accurately true, as stated by me, in the Story of the Guns, on the evidence of Mr. Whitworth himself, that the decision against him in 1858 was come to 'without affording him an opportunity to be present at comparative trials of his gun, when he could have shown what it could do.' But it would further appear that there never had been any such 'comparative trials' as those from which Mr. Whitworth complained of his 'exclusion.' Captain Noble says that although the performances of the guns were carefully compared, they were never placed side by side and fired one against the other (3102), and that Sir William Armstrong was never present at the trial of Mr. Whitworth's gun, nor Mr. Whitworth at the trial of Sir William Armstrong's (3098). This being the case, it is not surprising that a decision as to the comparative merits of two guns made without any comparative trials failed to be accepted with confidence and acquiescence; or that, being carried on in the absence of the competitors themselves, discontent should have been engendered by such a course of procedure in the mind of one at least of the competitors. Such are not the conditions under which the renewed trials of the Whitworth and Armstrong guns are now being conducted by the Committee at Shoeburyness. |