Regimental Coventry; as it is at present acted upon in the British Army, etc

Front matter

AS IT IS AT PRESENT ACTED UPON IN THE BRITISH ARMY. B-l JAMES CONNELL, ASSISTANT SURGEON OF THE 3RD, OR " KING'S OWN," REGIMENT OF LIGHT DRAGOONS. quo fata trahunt retrahuntque, SEQUAMUR. Quicquid erit, superanda omnis fortuna ferendo est." Æneidos Lib. V. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. DUBLIN: PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR; SOLD BY W. F. WAKEMAN, No. 9, D'OLIER-STREET AND BY ALL BOOKSELLERS. M.DCCC.XXXVII. Graisberry and Co., Printers, Gt. Brunswick-street. TO THE OFFICERS OF THE BRITISH ARMY. THIS WORK is MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THEIR EVER DEVOTED AND VERY HUMBLE SERVANT, THE AUTHOR.

Preface

. Qui statuit aliquid parte inaudita altera, Æquum licet statuerit, haud æquus est. Seneca. In. determining to adopt this medium, wherewith to enter into an explanation of the circumstances which caused the line of "regimental Coventry," pursued for the last two years by the officers of the 3rd Light Dragoons towards me, to originate, I am induced, in a short exordium, to name the precise considerations that lead me to print a subject, which, under other and ordinary circumstances, might be fully explained, either verbally or in a MS. document addressed to the regimental mess, to the satisfaction of, no doubt, every party connected with the transactions to be here unveiled. The benefit of a great many opinions, as fre quently occurs in cases similar to mine, was kindly granted me by various friends, and if advice were the only requisite needed to rightly establish me in the point at issue, I might long since have reposed at the acme of ease in respect to the settlement of the matters now to be gone into : but I was unhappily B TREFACE. situated, my position was one of peculiar delicacy and difficulty, a variety of considerations, arduous and conflicting, rendered it imperative that I paused well before any step should be adopted. 1 was " bound up" in a state of impenetrable " regimental coven try;" I had, truly, more to contend with than a casual observer should be likely, at a superficial view, to anticipate — in short, I was fastened into a position in life, from which it appeared nearly an impossibility I could ever effectually extricate myself: that position caused the difficulty — the sequel will attest it.

The simple fact that I was placed in a situation of considerable difficulty, sufficed to instruct me that there should be no great display of sense evinced by my remaining so; and as I was positive I ought never to have been treated so unceremoniously, and that I need not to be long in the difficulty, if inci dents, misunderstood, were fully explained, I felt no way disposed, by a forbearance that seemed to me to constitute a culpable inactivity on my part, to rest under the censure and the obloquy cast upon me by capricious or by malignant individuals. In the effort to be made the obstacles to be overcome were as nothing had I not been placed in Coventry beyond the limits of my own regiment — that, which forms an almost insurmountable obstacle, is the basis and the cause of this work. In considering upon this subject, and in consulting about it, although the advice I received from my friends tended und voce to the same result, considerable difference in opinion existed in respect to the mean to be employed in arriving at the result so

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. 3 universally desired. Some (my military friends) whose judgment in army matters I was wont to appreciate as of a high order, recommended that I should request a meeting of the mess, and there enter into an explana tion of the transaction that occurred between Lieutenant Kemp and myself, and it was reasonably conceived that a full and unequivocal explanation of the subject should entirely alter the opinions existing then against me, those opinions being founded upon misrepresen tation, and upon reports unsupported by facts or rea son, and very many of which were too gross to call for anything, more than a plain detail of circum stances, to explode them for ever. On the contrary, others (my learned friends) more accustomed to settle untoward events under the authority of a judge and the aid of a respectable jury, than by mere verbal or written assertions, advised, that no direct explanation be afforded, but recommended actions at law to be instituted, in the trials consequent upon which, such matter should be elicited in evidence, as must infallibly explain every circumstance connected with the origin of my misfortunes in the regiment, upon which (sworn) ex planation, such portion of the military world, as my regiment and myself might happen to be known to, should be enabled to exercise towards me a just judgment — the principal, although not the only object likely to be derived from the actions I was ad vised to institute. Again, there were others (we may call them my non-descript or miscellaneous, although not less esb2

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. teemed friends) who urged, that I should respect fully, and firmly, request to be brought to a court martial, in whose proceedings a decisive, full, fair, and honourable explanation must be (said they) most completely laid before the whole British army. But all agreed, that whatever mode of procedure I might de termine upon adopting, it was due to the gallant officers of the 3rd Light Dragoons as a body, as much as to myself as an individual of that body, that the circumstances of the transaction should be evenly and fully understood by all ; and this was precisely my own opinion on the subject. In the numerous opinions and conversations I have had touching the foregoing subject, nobody thought of, or at least named to me, the propriety of my offering the so strongly recommended ex planation in the form of a printed book.

With those premises, it next appears desirable that I state my reasons for selecting the latter mode in preference to the others proposed to me, and this I shall the more particularly do, because it is some what a novel one : — one deviating from the course usually pursued in like cases, and thence a course which might be condemned as an anomalism by some, and declared an unnecessary proceeding by others ; but upon these points, the reader, perhaps, will not deem me unreasonable if I request a suspension of his judgment, until a better acquaintance on his part with the exact position in which I was, and am still placed in the 3rd Light Dragoons, and with the al most boundless power, and unmanly intrigue pro-

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. jected to cause that long-sought for end, he shall be fairly qualified to form his opinion upon the whole subject before him; and, with some degree of con fidence, I anticipate it will then appear that the step I have taken, however novel, was not only per fectly excusable and called for, but was imperatively forced upon me, it being the only course left open to me to pursue, if the re-establishment, to my proper place, in the estimation of the officers of the army, and of my friends in civil life, were a consideration of weight, or of the least importance whatever to me. If, in short, I had any sort of regard for my character in this slippery world, a matter in which, I cannot avoid persuming, those who are pleased to be opposed to me, absurdly imagine I take no concern. To state then my reasons for publishing this work, I shall observe, that of the four modes of proceeding just specified, the first appeared to me objectionable, because there was -a large body of matter to be discussed, in order that the officers might be enabled to judge fairly in a case they had already taken up wrongly, and being myself naturally a bad speaker, and subject, when trusting to but an indifferent memory, to the frequent commission of anachronism, as respects dates of letters and events, I could not depend upon my own advocacy in my own cause, and that a cause upon the correct and proper advocacy of which my character in life should stand or fall.

So impressed, I considered myself very unlikely to be able to go through the whole of a subject which was so vitally interesting to me, with the calmness and discretion it should be gone

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. through at a mess-meeting ; and owing to the pains that have been so successfully taken to raise prejudi ces against me, as well as in consequence of those pre judices now strongly existing in the minds of many officers of the corps, I could not, with any degree of probability, anticipate finding one man present at the mess-meeting to be convened, that would openly sup port or assist myself or my explanations, however honest, forcible, and honourable might be my appeal to the officers of my regiment : whilst, on the other hand, I was well aware many men of strong and wily argumentative powers, (assisted here or there by some anguis in herba, in whose breast the amor ver it at is justiciœque might chance to enjoy an existence too delicate to enable it to cope with the innate propensities of a mind intuitively malevolent,) should dash forward to put down, with unrelenting determination, any favourable feeling an appeal from me might tend to produce in the minds of those who were more mag nanimous and just.

I was, in point of simple fact, at the expiration of above three years' uniform persecu tion, artfully and successfully crushed — my character being destroyed in the estimation of the officers of the corps, and in that of many gentlemen out of it ; and because honesta quœdam scelera successus facit, my enemy must be driven to make good his vantage, it being clear that should he, at the mess-meeting, fail to do so, he might expect to change positions with me in the opinions of those he had deluded, mastered, and otherwise wantonly tampered with, and tyrannically led.

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. 7 Vitally interesting as the subject was to me, with a host of enemies, and some wicked counsellors, op posed to me, was I, indignant and smarting under recent ill-usage and falsehood, single-handed and sus pected, likely to advocate my own cause with temper and memory ? I fear it is more likely, that worried and indignant (for accused innocence cannot stoically suppress bursting indignation) I should have retorted somewhere or another, my enemy should then have exulted, and led me forth in a trap. Besides these objections, I knew par essai that mess-meetings were not the best possible places for the transaction of serious and important business, for although I felt assured the majority of the officers of the 3d Light Dragoons would be found disposed to give attention to a subject in which was involved the character, and possibly the future prospects and happiness, of any individual belonging to the regiment ; still, as the subject was extremely long, and interest ing to but a few, I feared many should tire, and (even without very vehement opposition being offered) it was a matter of chance, whether in the end the expla nation had been fully gone into or not ; and, it was thence possible, the meeting might break up, (as mess meetings have broken up before now,) much more remarkable for the number of its orators than of its hearers, and for a display of elocutional skill and metre, (pertinent to any subject but the one before the mess,) than for the sober completion of the business for which the gallant members were convened ; and which

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. business (dry work !) was often transacted at a corner of the table by two or three, who created "the resolu tions," selon la regie, some members hot knowing, and others not caring how " Great actions are not always true sons Of great and mighty resolutions." Butler. It did not at all suit me to trust my charac ter to the small chance it might have of obtaining justice at the hands of those whom I have at times ob served to occupy the busy corner upon such occasions. Such nemine contradicente managers are not pre cisely the persons from whom an injured and maligned man should hope for impartial judicature, especially if (as in my case) he were not ignorant that reasonable hopes of impartiality from the same corner could not be entertained by any who were acquainted with its two or three inauspicious occupants.

The adoption of this mode to justify my character at the mess was likewise objectionable, because from all mess-meetings there are, unavoidably, absentees ; of their votes, therefore, I should lose the advantage ; and, worse than this, I should have to run the hazard of sentences uttered by me at the meeting (misunder stood, perhaps, by some, or misconstrued by some one) being afterwardsretailed so to the absent officers, one by one as they returned, when I might not be pre sent, or, in all probability, if the mind of the ab sentee were thereby still further biassed against me, ever afterwards have an opportunity fairly to set right.

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. Added to so many objections there was still ano ther — an objection perfectly insurmountable — it was too late : the injury done could not be rectified by a mess-meeting explanation, as will be satisfactorily ex plained in the context ; and this latter circumstance alone constituted an insuperable barrier to the adop tion of the advice I received on that particular head. Rendering a full explanation, by convening a meeting of the mess of the 3d Light Dragoons, I con sequently rejected, in the hope of finding a more cer tain, a more efficient, and thence a more sensible mode of procedure. The second proposition was objectionable, chiefly on account of the enormous expenses to be incurred. The law agents planned three distinct actions ; and upon the issue of those they professed to entertain no manner of doubt : they are still open should circum stances call upon me to institute them, a measure I ardently hope may not become necessary.

The third was useless. It was quite evident to me that a court-martial should not be granted me ; and circumstanced as I then was, I should act injudiciously were I, even for a moment, to entertain an idea to apply for one. The fourth proposition, which remains to be con sidered, seemed the only one left for me to choose. It, too, has many objections, and amongst the many (for we shall overlook all minor obstacles) are two or three, that amount (taking them individually) each, to nearly a complete impediment. One of those is, a conscious inability on my part to write a subject

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. of a lengthened nature with due regard to the perfection in phraseology, or the purity of style that might render the work acceptable to a reader whose taste could be rated at even the standard of bare mediocrite ; to say nothing of the difficulty an unpractised writer, who is as, deficient in method, as in literary attainments, must expect to encounter in an endeavour to put a subject methodically together, that was most un-methodically (as well as unmercifully) put upon him. Exactitude to an undeviating nicety, from the variety of subjects the correspondence to be inserted applies to, seems indeed to be quite impossible for even a writer to accomplish in this work, and certainly is not likely to be effected by the author. Another of those objections is embraced in the fact, that by adoptingthe fourth proposition, I am forced from my quiet individual privacy, into the glare of a world, where many idle people are censorious, thereby leaving my conduct open to such construction as any may please to put upon it.

It exposes me to the veriest mercy of any enemy with whom chance may have provided me, by whom to be harrowed up, distorted, and magnified, every trifling seeming indiscretion that an enemy may, in his malignity, feel gratified to trumpet forth. It lets go to the rudest wind my character and name, to be driven by every rising gust that design or malevolence may fan into contact with them ; and it forms a hiatus, too delicious to be neglected, through which the all-blighting grasp of the misanthrope may be forced, with ferocious fervour, and most mischievous exultation.

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.. The foregoing objections I am aware are fully of the magnitude I conceive them to be, but in Deo mea spes, and were they of tenfold difficulty, my position in the regiment, and the injustice that is done me by its officers, should compel me to meet them, free from a trace of dismay. Opposed to the two obstacles just named, and to a variety of others omitted, stand the advantages next under. Explanation by publication leaves it in the se parate power of every officer in the 3rd Light Dra goons, at his entire leisure and convenience, to go into the matter coolly and dispassionately ; it gives him time to think upon it, and to refer again and again as he may require, to each separate part of the subject, in order ultimately to satisfy himself as to the whole of the merits of the entire case ; by it he is enabled without hurry or confusion, to become, individually, a judge ; it prevents the possibility of any misrepresentation of words, or meaning ; it gives me an opportunity to lay before the mess a long detail of facts, free from the hazards attendant upon failure of memory on my part, or ennui on that of other members.

But there is another reason, and, to me, it is one of unmeasurable importance ; my regimental enemies have been most industrious in bruiting about the large garrison of Cork versions of this story, many parts of which, although narrated by men of honour, are about equi-distant from the standard of truth, and the welfare of myself; and from various sources have

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. I heard of very hurtful observations being made by officers of other regiments, and individuals connected with them, which observations were the offspring of the history of my situation in the 3rd Light Dragoons, as the strangers had heard it, that is to say, as my enemies had related it : added to this, the same laudable assuidity has been observed in repeating similar tales amongst the civilians of the place, and with a similar certain effect ; so completely so, that except amongst a few of my personal friends, who do know me, I am met as one almost out of the pale of society, free alike from the companionship of military officers, and the benefits that emanate in an acquaint ance with individuals in private life. Stories being unfairly spread to my prejudice through other regiments, a mere explanation at a mess-meeting of the 3rd Light Dragoons should have been an insufficient remedy and no atonement for the mischief so widely done, for I was deeply injured elsewhere, and the simple acceptance of my explanation by the officers of the 3rd Light Dragoons, was not now the much desired object it formerly might have been ; nothing short of publication could explain away any unfounded assertions that in my abscence were made to officers of other regiments by those of my own ; because many of those regiments and depots of regiments embarked at Cork for various stations ; and by no other means than publication could the impressions which have been unhandsomely and unfairly made, be removed. In short, I must either have rested satisfied under censure of which I

PREFACE.

. was not deserving, or I must take a public step to rebut and remove it. In taking minute notice of the two foregoing objections that exist to my publishing those transactions, individual remark on a considerable number of lesser ones has been stated as omitted ; the omis sion is unavoidable, because there exists so many reasons against publishing, that much space and, time should be occupied, were the whole of the objections to be here discussed : there is, however, one objection whereon great stress has been laid by officers in the army who have honoured me with their confidence, and strengthened^ me with their advice upon many recent occasions; and that objection it might perhaps be right to notice here. It has been by those officers said, " although your situation is otherwise irremediable ; — although in the army you are ruined beyond salvation ; — although in justice, ingratitude, illiberality and meanness have all been plentifully exercised in their strongest degree of combined intensity regimentally against you ; — and finally and shortly, although your character cannot be retrieved unless you publish an open and entire narrative of all and every part of " the transaction of a pecuniary nature that took place between Lieutenant Kemp of the 16th Lancers, and your self ; still, is there not some fear that Lord Hill may possibly disapprove of the step you shall have taken, and may there not be some reason to apprehend that his Lordship might deprive you of your commission in consequence ?'' This has been argued

PREFACE.

. in the 3rd Dragoons, and it has been argued out of it. This argument has been frequently put to me by several regimental officers, and it has been well considered by me. At the first superficial view I took of it, it certainly did appear to me that I might encounter some risk upon that head ; but a deeper reflection removed from my mind all apprehension of any such danger, for the more fully I considered the unseemly lineaments that compose the various features in the case made out against me, the more perfectly did I feel convinced that Lord Hill would do no such thing as deprive me of my commission for publishing the transactions that will appear in this work. For my character has been misrepresented to (per haps ruined with) his Lordship himself, the Adju tant General of the Forces, and the officers of several regiments in the service.

No court martial nor other investigation has ever taken place in my case, for had any investigation been instituted, whereat evidence upon oath could have been adduced at the different periods when my conduct was impugned, such should, upon each occasion, have torn to pieces all reports made against me, because the reports had no manly basis on the which to rest. If no steps were taken to fully fix upon me a character that was fixed on me, viz. "that of being guilty of conduct disreputable to me as an officer and a gentleman ;" but if, notwithstanding, it was strongly represented from my regiment that I was that description of person, and if I was, in consequence, treated as such, surely Lord Hill, who governs the army with such acknowledged impartiality, justice, and kindness, would never draw

PREFACE.

. 15 ruin upon me, because, being guiltlesss and goaded, I possess myself of the only means left within my reach, by which to assert my claim to the honour and character of which others, in cold blood, and cruel partizanship, inhumanly would have robbed me. But even were I to be deprived of my commission for thus defending my self, better it should be so, than that I, grovelling and trembling, should creep through a dishonourable exis tence for the few years I may yet have to live — but no ! — I will not believe that Lord Hill will ever do me an injustice ; yet come what may, I have suffered awhile — but — I will never lie down under dishonour. Publication, therefore, became the mean by which I determined to lay a fair straight-forward statement (no matter how awkwardly or untastefully I should word or write it, so long as it moved upon facts) before the officers of my regiment on the one part, and those of other regiments acquainted with my position in my own, and the medical profession at large, on the other; and as before said, I am induced to antici pate, when all circumstances to be embodied herein be measured and weighed, that the mode of procedure I have selected in the matter will be considered not only the best open to me, but the one which alone was applicable to the unenviable position in which my gallant and accomplished brother-officers have graciously and generously placed me.

Having now submitted to the reader (tediously I fear, but with all the brevity to be expected from a clumsy writer) my reasons for publishing instead of speaking my explanation, it seems next necessary to

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. remark, that for the information of those who have not the good fortune to belong to the 3rd Light Dragoons, a commencement of the narrative will be made by a detail of circumstances which occurred some time back, in order to reduce into a connected form the matter afterwards to be introduced, and which after matter becomes the body of the subject intended for my own regiment, whose officers, it is presumed, are already perfectly acquainted with the entire of the subject with which the work will com mence, and which, consequently, is intended for the information or amusement of strangers only. Before closing this already too lengthened proem, it may be observed, that in going into the particulars to follow, I hope I may be able, not only to re-esta blish my own character in the service, and in society out of the army ; but likewise effectually to demonstrate the impropriety, as well as the inutility, of the mischievous system of Coventry being instituted, in any description of case, towards one another by British officers.

In pursuance of such desirable end, the intro duction of my own personal case will be useful, in asmuch as, when treating on the subject, I am there by enabled to furnish a real example of what Coventry is, and what Coventry will lead officers to do, and in the faithful and minute delineation of an example of the present day, it will be seen that the system of Coventry tends to the destruction of all good order and discipline in a regiment where it is permitted to flourish, and besides giving birth to divers unsoldier

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. like practices, it will likewise be evident that it tends to derogate from the characters of many officers in a corps, by leading them to sacrifice honor, delicacy, and gentlemanly demeanour, in the enthusiastic pur suit of a system which (whilst the system exists in the service) they may occasionally consider themselves called upon to adopt : and if, in offering to the con sideration of the reader my ideas respecting the mat ter, and in endeavouring to prove their correctness by bringing forward an example of the day, I shall suc ceed so far as even to raise a question on the subject, that will afterwards cause it to be taken up by others more competent than I am, and it be, in consequence, subsequently discussed by persons of ability and judg ment, that, which is by far the most important object of my publication, shall then have acted beneficially ; and whatever may be the fate of myself, the work shall have succeeded to my complete satisfaction, having done some good to the service, although the lat ter, it must be confessed, has certainly done no great good to me.

The extinction of the Coventry system, however, shall be my main object throughout the work, and if I see that end once fully accomplished, I will be content to meet any necessary personal difficulty, even if the sacrifice of myself be the price of success. Should matter, unpleasing to any regimental officer, in parts of the text, occasionally be introduced as explanatory data, or proof, or anecdote ; to such individual I must plead in excuse, the simple truth, that I am now writing the work, not from choice, nor for c

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. amusement, but because I am, by the officers of the 3rd Light Dragoons, (very probably by the dis pleased individual himself,) compelled so to do ; the difficulties into which those officers have been pleased; to impel me, and the occurrences connected with those difficulties, demand explanatory memoranda, wanting which the subject must have been frequently obscure, if not altogether unintelligible, not alone to the most humble, but even to the most enlightened, who may take the trouble to look into it. Such com pulsive reasons, and such only, could induce me to publish any fact, anecdote, or circumstance, relative to the corps in which I hold my commission, that might chance to become unpleasing to any individual in it — i such, and such alone, are the reasons, that, by any possibility, I could have been compelled to come before the British army as an author, publishing a single line likely to convey in it a censure upon, or an expose of, the conduct of any human being in existence.

The offended, if any such there be, must therefore blame his own conduct heretofore, and that of those with whom he acted, for such part of mine now as may be un palatable ; he should have recollected, that every man who makes an unjust, wanton, or outrageous attack upon either the character or the person of another, must prepare himself to receive a retributory return in some shape or other for it, and if he have the good fortune afterwards to find himself unhurt in the business, he should consider such as a matter of great good luck, and not only to be a real escape, but an escape that he never deserved, nor should have had the pre^