§ Mr. Bickham Escottmoved for copies of all letters and other documents which had passed to and from the Court of Directors of the East India Company, and Lieutenant W. Hollis, and to and from the said Court and the Board of Control, relative to the dismissal of that officer from the East India Company's service. Lieutenant Hollis was dismissed from the East India Company's service in 1841, in consequence of having made use of insulting language to his superior officer. He (Mr. Escott) admitted that the expressions employed were unjustifiable; but he urged that strong provocation had been given by the unwarrantable conduct of the officer insulted, and he hoped that the case would be taken into the merciful consideration of the Court of Directors. He maintained, also, that the court-martial which condemned Lieutenant Hollis was illegally constituted, and read extracts to prove the extenuating circumstances of the case and the irregular constitution of the Court.
§ Viscount Jocelynhad no objection to the production of the correspondence, believing 1454 that it would prove that the Court of Directors had acted with justice, and at the same time with leniency. In 1841, during his voyage in a troop ship to Bombay, Lieutenant Hollis was put under arrest; he broke that arrest, and made use of language to his superior officer utterly subversive of all discipline, and such, indeed, as no one gentleman would use towards another. He was therefore tried, and sentenced to be cashiered; but in consideration of the conduct of his superior officer, he had been recommended to mercy, and the East Company had, in consequence of that recommendation, granted to him a pension of 70l. a year, being only 10l. below that to which he would have been entitled had he retired upon half-pay, without a stain upon his character.
§ Motion agreed to.