29. Duelling or abetting the 30. Making or abetting false

Of these offences there were of course many phases, upon the circumstances of which the degree of crime would depend.

There is one crime in this catalogue with regard to which there has always existed a difference in the treatment of soldiers and civilians,1663 although the crime of duelling is not of necessity more open to the one class than to the other. Duelling has always been regarded more leniently in the soldier than in the civilian; indeed it used to be debated within the memory of men not yet old in the Service, whether duelling was not only not a crime in an Officer, but whether he should not be tried by Court-martial for neglecting to offer a challenge or for refusing to accept one upon any point affecting the honour, or the spotless moral integrity, of the parties concerned. Upon all this much more will have to be written in due course. It will suffice for the present to state that the same peculiar doubt whether in the case of soldiers, duelling constituted

1663 It is to be wished that there existed in English some equivalent to the French word militaire and the Spanish militar, to expresss all military men (whether Officers or soldiers) as distinguished from civilians.

murder as much as in the case of civilians-is apparent throughout the seventeenth century.

In the Articles of War 1664 from 1673 to 1700 everything was done to discourage duelling short of declaring it to be murder. Those who gave first provocation, those who offered and those who accepted a challenge, those who carried it or acted as seconds, those who being on duty did not do their best to prevent duels taking place, even those who upbraided another for refusing a challenge, were all declared punishable: but then the punishment assigned was ridiculously disproportionate to the offence, if that offence was to be classed as murder; for casheering for Officers and the wooden horse for privates were the utmost penalties specified. The military feeling on the subject is implied in an addition made to the Articles of 1686 absolving those who refused challenges from "all disgrace or opinion of disadvantage." It is not surprising that the idea of disgrace should at this early period have attached to the refusal of a challenge, for there were men yet living in whose youth such personal combats "concerning "military causes, or honour, or arms," had not merely been winked at as customary, but had been hedged about with a ceremony and constitutional court of their own; 1665 and such combats had been lawful, provided only that they were fought under the auspices of the only military court then acknowledged, and presided over by the Constable and. Earl Marshal of England. The powers and privileges of this court: 1665 seem to have been in full play so lately as 1641; and it was only when the disadvantages of such a mode of settlement of disputes became manifest in a disciplined Standing Army, that the Earl Marshal's court of honour was superseded by the modern military tribunal of a court-martial, and that an attempt was made to quell the practice of duelling by prohibitory regulations. Notwithstanding the plainness of these regulations, 1666

1664 Articles of War, 1673; Art. 36; App. LIII. Ditto, 1686; Art. 34; App. LIII.

Ditto, 1692; Art. 38; App. LIII.

Venn also says that the laws against duelling were strict, but were not observed among soldiers.

1665 Tate, 1600; Antiquity use and ceremony of lawful combats in England. Ancient customs of England, 1641; Harl. Misc. :-"Then is the Lord Marshal "of the Land, a great and renowned officer in whom consist the solutions of all "differences in honour, and dispensation of all things appertaining to the greater or "lesser nobility."

1666 Courts-Martial, Tangier, 1663 to 1670; many instances, and stated in the proceedings to be contrary to the 23rd and others of the Articles of War.

duels between Officers from Generals downwards were not unfrequent in 1691 the Secretary-at-War in England wrote to the Secretary-at-War in Ireland giving him an account of a duel between the Colonels of the Third Dragoons and Twentysecond Foot, and so far from hinting at any punishment, he mentions, as if it were an exculpatory fact, that the duel was "according to form" and it is certain that neither of the combatants suffered professionally for this duel. The regulations were, however, more rigidly enforced half-a-dozen years later. From the letter just mentioned we learn also that it was deemed worthy of remark in 1691 that the seconds did not fight as well as their principals.'

:

1667

It was decided by a Court-Martial in 1666, that a Serjeant who killed a man who assaulted him when on duty was not guilty of any crime.

The necessity for some method of transferring a SOLDIER'S CHARACTER with himself, such as is now served by the system of defaulter-sheets, was not altogether unrecognised, although that recognition does not seem to have gone beyond "Certificates "of behaviour."1667a

Transfer from a well-paid Corps to one worse paid was sometimes awarded as a punishment.1668

It will be seen from this summary of military crimes and the descriptions of their punishments that the martial code of

There is one instance among these Courts-Martial of a duel between an Ensign and a Serjeant, arising from a quarrel over their drink in the Serjeant's quarters; and this intimate association between the Officer and the Serjeant does not appear to have been deemed worthy of rebuke or comment. Court-Martial, 4 Aug., 1663.

In W.O. records, 1670 to 1694 are many instances of Courts-Martial on mortal duels, but almost invariably with the finding of “Self-defence.”

Letter, Whitehall, 22 Janry., 1690/1; Blathwayt to Clarke; "Colonel Leveson "(3rd Dragoons) has had satisfaction of Sir H. Bellasyse (Brigr.-Genl. and Col. 22nd "Foot). The latter has received a large wound in the thigh, but not mortal. The "duel was according to form and attended by seconds who did not fight"; Clarke MSS. Order, Dublin, 26 Apr., 1698; casheering Ensign Hall, 18th Foot, for killing another Officer in a duel; Dublin State Papers. The same series of papers, 1697 to 1700, contain several instances of punishment for duellings; Dub. state papers. 1667 Court-Martial, Tangier, 16 Mar., 1666.

1667a St. Helena official records, 22 Apr., 1680; Serjt. Taylor being about to return home it is ordered "that he have his accounts stated and signed, with a "certificate of his orderly behaviour and demeanour." Similar certificates were also at different times ordered for others, and among them a Lieutenant.

Certificate, 22 June, 1660; Montgomery's Regt. ; App. LXVII. Sloane MSS.

3,299.

1668 Court-Martial, Tangier, 25 June, 1664; a Mattross sentenced to be "removed out of the Train, and to be a private soldier in what company soever the Governor "shall appoint."

to-day is closely founded on that of two centuries ago. And, altogether, the changes that have taken place have, until lately, not been for the better. In the seventeenth century military law was sharp and barbarous; but we read of no such daily brutalities 1669 as were, until but the other day, perpetrated under colour of discipline, and which fill the annals of the cat-o'-ninetails.

1669 If anyone shall be inclined to censure the use of such strong words let him suspend his judgment until he has read either in a future volume of this work or elsewhere, the detailed records of the lash in our Service; and he will then, I think, support the opinion that while we may have possibly gone too far in altogether removing the power of corporal punishment (in the Field), no language can yet be too strong to express abhorrence of practices that prevailed up to within the writer's own life-time.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MILITARY HONOURS AND REWARDS, DURING THE PERIOD FROM 1660 TO 1700.

1660-1700.

Regimental Promotion as a reward.—Gratuities.-Ransoms.-Prize-money.-Bloodmoney. Dispensation of Apprentice-ship. --Rewards to disabled and wounded soldiers.-County relief.-Crown Pensions.-The Hereford Institution.—The Royal Hospital of Kilmainham.-The Royal Hospital at Chelsea.-Out-pensions. Pensions and gratuities to Widows and Orphans.-The institution of the Poor or Military Knights of Windsor.-Honorary rewards.-Funeral honours.

[For Illustrations, see Note on p. xiii.]

ALMOST all soldiers may be placed in one of two classes,— those who should be ruled by restraint, and those who should be ruled by encouragement: but unhappily far more energy has ever been expended in enacting fresh measures of restraint, than in perfecting the government by encouragement. Thus it happens that, while we have been able to enumerate many varieties of punishments, and those very unmistakable in their direct action on the soldier, we shall find a difficulty in reckoning up even a few kinds of rewards, and some even of those were very unsubstantial in their nature or very uncertain in their action.

Sir James Turner 1670 limits the list of rewards in his time (1660/80) to promotion, titles, and money.

That the British soldier fights "beneath the cold shade of an " aristocracy" was far more true of the seventeenth than of the nineteenth century.

Putting aside the "private-gentlemen" of the Guards and " gentlemen-volunteers" serving temporarily as privates, promotion from the ranks was almost unheard of. The prejudices of feudalism still pervaded the national mind. The days in which it was scarce possible to win a knight-hood without proof of gentle birth were not so far distant but that the tradition of them still warped the national institutions to some similarity of practice. Again, the difference of education between the

1670 Turner.