§ SIR EDMUND LACONsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Why the promotion as successor to Brevet Major M'Pherson, Captain 17th Foot was granted to a Lieutenant of the 39th Foot, who, promoted to the rank of Captain, is transferred in the same Gazette to the 17th, over the heads of seven Lieutenants of the 17th, all of whom were his seniors?
§ MR. CARDWELLSir, the Treasury authorized certain unattached promotions on condition that in each case the promotion was attended by the absorption of a supernumerary of the same rank. Captain M'Pherson was promoted to an unattached majority; but there was no supernumerary captain in his regiment. Lieutenant White was about to become by purchase the junior supernumerary captain in the Army, and he was therefore transferred from the regiment in which he would have been a supernumerary to fill the vacancy occasioned by the promotion of Captain M'Pherson.