SIR FRANCIS BARINGsaid he wished to ask the right hon. Secretary at War a question with respect to the case of a sentinel who was convicted by the magistrates of Portsmouth for having, while in the discharge of his duty, committed an assault; and, affecting as it did the character of magistrates, the House would perhaps allow him to give some explanation. The right hon. Gentleman had, in answer to a question which was put to him upon this subject a few days since by an hon. and gallant Member, stated that upon consideration he had thought it right to direct that a fine which had been imposed upon the soldier should be paid out of the public funds. That decision of the right hon. Gentleman, of course, by no means implied a reflection upon the decision of the magistrates; but in the report of his speech the right hon. Gentleman was stated to have declared that he considered the decision of the magistrates to have been erroneous. Under these circumstances, it was a serious reflection upon them that in the performance of their duties, they had given an erroneous decision; and, besides, in a place like Portsmouth, where they had to stand between the military and the civil powers, it would materially diminish their usefulness if such an opinion from so influential a quarter should go forth without some explanation. He wished, therefore, to ask 59 the right hon. Gentleman, whether he was, on consideration, prepared to say that the decision of the magistrates was erroneous?
§ MR. SIDNEY HERBERTsaid, that perhaps the House would recollect that when the hon. and gallant Member (Col. Dunne) asked his question with reference to this affair, he commenced it by stating that there had been an affray between a sentinel and a carter, who was endeavouring to take his cart across a place where instructions had been given that no heavy weights should traverse; and that the carter had struck the sentinel in the first instance. He (Mr. Herbert) took the liberty of correcting that statement, because it appeared to him, on the balance of evidence-—there being a dispute upon the subject—that the sentinel was the person who struck the first blow. He could not, however, have cast any imputation on the magistrates, because it was no part of his duty to act as a court of appeal on their decisions, and he was too well aware of the difficulty of judging from reading depositions of evidence that had been given vivâ voce to attempt to pass such a criticism. If, therefore, the magistrates of Portsmouth who, no doubt, intended to perform, and did perform, their duty with strict impartiality—conceived that he had thrown any imputation upon them, he begged to disavow having done so, inasmuch as he had no doubt that their sentence was in strict conformity with the law. He had no wish, in the observations he made on a previous evening, to convey any impression that the magistrates of Portsmouth had acted improperly.