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Footnote 49:
Inspection of more than one of the logs can leave no doubt, from the
neatness of the handwriting, that those relating to the date of the
action had been recopied, and could not have been written from day to
day; which from the difference in the pen and other little
circumstances must have shown itself as in other logs. In one instance
portions of the signal book have been transcribed into the ship’s log.
G.B. EARP.
-----
It was nevertheless a fact that it _had_ been tampered with, as was
unwittingly elicited by Mr. Bicknell from the same witness.
QUESTION.—“You say, on your oath, that you believe everything in this
log to be correct.”
MASTER.—“Yes.”
QUESTION.—“How does it happen that the signals of the _Impérieuse_ are
inserted in the margin of the log amongst the columns, and _not in the
body of the log_?”
MASTER.—“I wrote that _at the same time the log was written_!”
“Why did you not put it in the body of the log in the narrative?”
MASTER.—“_I made a mistake!_ in copying it from the log-board!”
(_Minutes_, pp. 29, 30.)
It will thus be seen that my most material testimony was attempted to be
stopped by the Court as “irrelevant;”—that the Judge-Advocate gave as a
reason for receiving testimony _really irrelevant_, that it _ought_ to
be received because “_it would affect the evidence of Lord
Cochrane_;”—that garbled logs were resorted to—that the whole
proceedings were directed against me, and carefully in favour of Lord
Gambier, by leading questions which abound in almost every page, that I
was not allowed to be present whilst the witnesses were under
examination, so that I had no opportunity of cross-examining them in my
own vindication—a right granted to every man by the constitution of his
country; and that I was _refused admission_ to the Court during the
delivery of Lord Gambier’s defence, _by the Judge-Advocate himself_! a
most unusual course, that defence being full of the most injurious
insinuations against my honour, though these were not borne out by
evidence. In short, I was refused admission to the Court, though I
quoted a precedent _not two months old_, in support of my right to be
present—a right the more important to me if only from the fact of Lord
Gambier having written a second despatch relative to the action in Aix
Roads, in which despatch my services were altogether omitted,
notwithstanding his lordship’s praises of my conduct in his first
despatch written on the spot, where everything had transpired under his
own observation.
I must now briefly advert to his lordship’s defence, but only so far as
personally concerns myself.
Lord Gambier stated at the outset of his defence, that he had been
compelled to demand a court-martial in consequence of “the insinuations
thrown out against him by Lord Cochrane, which not only compromised his
own honour, but that of brave officers and men serving under his
command.” (_Minutes_, p. 105.)
I never threw out against his lordship a single insinuation, nor does
one exist, either on the records of the Court or elsewhere. I merely
told Lord Mulgrave, as narrated in the first volume, that I did not
consider Lord Gambier’s services worthy of a vote of thanks from
Parliament, and that on this ground, as bound by public duty to my
constituents, I should resist it. As will presently be seen, this was
also the opinion of many eminent men in Parliament, and on the same
ground too—that of public duty. If I committed any offence in this, it
was that of refusing to have my name coupled with that of Lord Gambier
in the vote of thanks, and resisting an offer of an independent squadron
and a regiment[50], not to persist in my determination of opposing it.
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Footnote 50:
See vol. i. p. 404.
-----
That my objection to the vote of thanks to Lord Gambier included any of
the officers serving under him was a gratuitous assumption to secure
sympathy for himself. As I have shown, the opinions of those officers
present in the action, whose opinions were to be relied on, were
_anything but in Lord Gambier’s favour_. Not a single word did I utter
against any officer; though, on the ninth and last day of the
court-martial, it was with the greatest difficulty, and _after a
positive refusal_, that I succeeded in getting a denial of Lord
Gambier’s unfounded assertion attached to the Minutes. It will be better
to give the whole transaction.
The Right Honourable Lord Cochrane called in.
PRESIDENT.—“Lord Cochrane, I have received the note which you
addressed to me, and have taken the sense of the Court upon it. The
decision of the Court is, that as the matter to which your lordship
refers _does not at all bear upon the trial of Lord Gambier they
cannot enter into it_.”
LORD COCHRANE.—“I would request, sir, that that letter may appear as
an official letter to you, and that it may be entered upon the
Minutes.”
PRESIDENT.—“The Court will take that into their consideration.”
The Court was cleared.
The Court was re-opened at one o’clock.
PRESIDENT.—“Lord Cochrane, the Court have taken into their
consideration the note you addressed to them, and have agreed that it
shall be attached to the Minutes.”