With respect to the seven charges, which Mr Morrison, in his letter of the 4th July, asserts that I made against him in my defence, the reader will be surprized to find that they are all contained in a single sentence, which is merely introductory to my, remarks upon his evidence; and that of the remarks themselves, though they contain charges against him of a much more serious nature than those contained in this introductory sentence, he has not thought it prudent to make the slightest complaint, a circumstance wich very clearly accounts for Mr Morrison's conduct in declining every mode of explanation which had been offered to him. With respect to his division of the sentence complained of into seven parts, whether that has been done in humble imitation of a speech of Dogberry in the play of "Much ado about Nothing," or whether Mr Morrison has had recourse to that most ingenious device for the purpose of enabling him with the greater facility to suppress the most material parts of the sentence, I shall not pretend to determine; certain it is, however, that the words "after a certain period," and the words " which measures were only prevented by the zeal and good conduct of his serjeant," have in this way been got rid of by Mr Morrison. The latter words are material, because they shew clearly (when connected with the evidence) to which of Mr Morrison's acts I: referred, and the former are still more material, because they shew that the observations I was then making were confined to his conduct "after a certain period," whereas, both Mr. Morrison in his letters, and the Prosecutor in his reply, argued as if my proposition had been a general oue, and consequently that I had contended in my defence that Mr Morrison was neither coming nor sending to me at the very times when he was meeting me. Without wasting further time in the endless task of pointing out Mr Morrison's misrepresentations, I shall proceed to shew from the evidence what his conduct really was. Though there fimply to state that the amount of his drafts during that period was upwards of 3591. as will appear by his bills themselves." Now Cockburn's evidence (fee Q. 27, page 70) was that, during that period, I advanced 2311. to him; this evidence was perfectly correct, but the Profecutor took especial care to avoid noticing the advances made by me, or by Mr Elder on my account, to other perfons during the fame period. I fhall only observe that when the Profecutor made this obfervation he could not be ignorant that other advances, had been made by me, because he had the whole of the accounts and vouchers before him, as well as the evidence given upon the trial The court could not fail inftantly to detect this mifreprefentation, but as they did not copy my general accounts in their minutes it would have been difficult for the reader to have difcovered it. The whole of the Profecutor's obfervations refpecting the marching allowances are of a fimilar defcription; the inftruc tions were to charge at a certain rate per mile, according to the fortefi route, and the Profecutor must have known very well that the war office has frequent occafion to make deductions from the officers accounts in confequence of mistakes with refpect to the number of miles. The evidence fully explains this, and renders any further obfervations upon the subject unneceffary. are only two or three points respecting which I have any thing to add to what the reader will find in my defence, I am compelled, in order to render this statement intelligible, to give a short detail of some of the most material circumstances relative to the charges in question; this will necessarily occasion some few repetitions, but the reader will soon perceive that I could not possibly avoid them. The observations which I have to make upon Mr Morrison's conduct relate exclusively to the second and third charges, which in substance were "for withholding from Mr Morrison's party, then under my command at Hexham, pay due to that party in August and September, 1809, until the latter end of September, or thereabouts, notwithstanding I had drawn for and received the same, and knew such party was without pay during that period; AND for withholding from Mr Morrison himself, during the same period, the bounties paid to the men enlisted by him, though I had then the money for that purpose in my hands." hands." To explain these charges, it is necessary to state, that during a considerable part of the year 1809, I had five parties of the Northumberland Regiment under my command on the recruiting service in Northumberland; one of these parties was under the command of Mr Morrison, and was stationed at Hexham, and the others in different parts of the county; my head quarters were at Alnwick. When I arrived in Northumberland, my recruiting instructions had not been issued from the war-office; money, however, was wanted for the service, and I, therefore, took upon myself the responsibility of raising, by the means stated in my defence, a very considerable sum of money which I divided among the officers under my command, on sending them off to their respective stations; of this money Mr Morrison himself got £40. and the other officers also got their proportions. I made these advances to the officers with a view of saving them the trouble of sending frequently to head quarters for money, and under an expectation that my instructions would either authorize me to draw bills on account of the service generally, or enable me in some other way to continue to make similar advances to the officers under my command. When the instructions arrived, I found that I was ordered to raise the necessary supplies of money by bills upon the agents of the regiment, but each bill was to be preceded by an estimate, containing the various particulars for which the money was required. No power therefore being given to draw money on account generally, I was allowed by the instructions, whenever I drew upon the agents, to add to the bill the sum of £40, over and above the actual expenditure of the party, as stated in the corresponding estimate; the smallness of this sum, compared with the number of parties under my command, rendered a continuation of the system of allowing the different officers on detachmen ́s to have considerable sums of money in hand altogether out of the question. I was, however, in no want of money for the necessary supply of the different parties; I had a letter of credit up on Mr Elder, a most respectable banker's agent in Alnwick, and with him I opened an account: I paid into his hand every bill which I drew upon the agents, and he in return advanced money, whenever it was wanted for the service; therefore, as I could gain nothing by Mr Eider's account, I must, (had the charges against me been well founded) have been mad enough to keep the money which was wanted for the service, locked up in this gentleman's hands, not only without necessity, but without a motive. Arrangements having been thus made for supplying the wants of the different parties without difficulty, let us now enquire in what manner these wants were, in fact, supplied. As soon as the different sums of money which I had originally advanced to the officers were expended, every one of those officers, with the exception of Mr Morrison, sent regularly to head quarters whenever he wanted money, and was as regularly supplied with it*. No trouble, delay, or difficulty, in obtaining money was experienced, or pretended to be experienced, by any one of these officers; in short, they not only knew, but practised their duty; they knew that the necessary funds for supplying their wants would be transmitted to them by me, but they also knew that to obtain these funds it was necessary to make regular applications to head quarters, and to send with each application a regular account of their expenditure, and they acted accordingly. Indeed there was no other way by which I could have avoided the trouble and confusion of keeping perpetual accounts current with all these officers; I, or my serjeant, must, in any other case, have been compelled to furnish them with money by guess; for, though the strength of the different parties, and consequently the amount of the pay was known at head quarters, it would have required something like the gift of second sight to have enabled the persons there to calculate the amount of the bounties. Can it then for one moment be supposed that, if Mr Morrison had also sent to head quarters for his money, it would not have been transmitted to him? Unfortunately, however, for me, as well as for himself, he had a private account of his own, with a banker's agent in Hexham, and having thereby the means of advancing money to his party, without being under the necessity of making regular applications to head quarters, he did become in advance for pay and bounties after the £40. which I had originally furnished him with, had been expended. C * See Quarter Mafter Cockburn's Evidence, Q. 8, 17, 20, and 24. pages 68, and 69. I do not, however, attribute this conduct on the part of Mr Morrison, to any motive of hostility towards myself, in the first instance. He and I were at that time on the most friendly terms, and I have no idea that in making his first advance, he acted from any other motive than that of saving himself a little trouble; whatever his motives were, these advances were purely voluntary, as well as wholly unnecessary; he did not pretend that I ever requested him to advance money, and it is quite certain that he never sent any person to head quarters for money until after the final settlement of my account with him*. Indeed Mr Morrison admitted that, when I gave him the £40. I requested him to send me an account of his expenditure on the 24th of each month; that the first account he sent me, (which was up to the 24th July) was grossly erroneous, and that he had at that time a considerable part of the £40. remaining in hand. + This erroneous account occasioned me to write Mr Morrison a sharp letter, dated 25th July, in which I stated my intentions to lay Mr Morrison under certain restrictions after the £40. should be expended, and particularly that only a week's pay at a time should be sent to him from head quarters, and that he should only advance each recruit £1. in part of his bounty. These restrictions, however, were not attended to by either party; Mr Morrison did not adhere to them so far as they respected the bounties, and the very first time that he sent to head quarters for money, he got a month's pay. The next account I received from Mr Morrison, was up to the 24th August, and by that account I ascertained that the £40. had been expended, and that he was in advance for pay and bounties £5 17s. 91d. Mr Morrison admitted that he sent me no further account until our final settlement. It was clearly proved by my letters (which were produced by the Prosecutor for a very different purpose) that as soon as I ascertained that Mr Morrison was in advance, I was anxious to have the account closed. My letter of the 31st August proved that I had been disappointed in my expectation of seeing Mr Morrison at Alnwick, and that I particularly requested him to meet me at Newcastle, on the Wednesday or Thursday following, that I might settle his accounts. 1 did, accordingly, meet him on the 6th September, and he stated in his evidence, that he had made out his account up to that time, and that he had it in his pocket; he admitted, however, that he did not shew it to me, and (according to his account) for a very • See Quarter Master Cockburn's Evidence, Q. 14, 15, and 16. page 68. See Mr Morrifon's Evidence, Q. 67. page 31. plain reason, namely, that I had promised to settle with him before I left Newcastle.* It is perfectly immaterial, whether on the 6th September I made this promise or not, because I certainly did on the 7th September make a positive appointment with Mr Morrison, to meet me in Newcastle, on the 8th, (the last day I had to remain there) for the express purpose of settling this account; I attended at Newcastle at the time appointed, and waited three hours for Mr Morrison, but he neglected to attend, a pretty decisive proof that he was in no great haste to have the account settled. On the following day, (the 9th September) Mr Morrison was in Newcastle, and he then thought proper to write me a letter, stating that his balance was becoming heavy, and requesting a remittance; this letter he left with Captain Thain, who was stationed at Newcastle, to be forwarded to me by an orderly, Captain Thain having previously informed Mr Morrison that he would have occasion to send an orderly to Alnwick in a few days. No attempt was made by the Prosecutor, to shew that I did not answer this letter as soon as I received it, and if I had not immediately attended to it, he might, and no doubt would, have proved the fact, by the evidence of the orderly. No account accompanied this letter, and had I not still considered myself as upon the most friendly terms with Mr Morrison, I would have replied to his letter by requesting him to send an orderly to head quarters with a regular account. To shew what my actual conduct was, I shall here copy from the trial my answer to his letter: "Dear Morrison, "Alnwick, 19th Sept. 1809." "As you fay you are in want of cash, I think the safest and cafieft method of furnishing you with a supply will be for you to draw on Mr Elder for 30l., and get the draft cashed at Mr Batfon's bank. I will in the mean time request Mr Elder to honor the draft. Please to add to the 30l. the 40l. already received, and strike a balance between them and the money you have actually expended. "Draw on Mr James Elder." "Yours fincerely, E. DALE." The £30, which I thus directed Mr Morrison to draw for, was upwards of six pounds more than the sum which he was then in advance.§ c 2 * See Mr Morrifon's Evidence, Q40, 41. page 26. † See Enfign Dale's Evidence, pages 66, 67. See Mr Morrison's Evidence, Q. 44, 45. page 27, and Captain Thain's Evidence, Q. 1. page 65. $ See Mr Morrifon's Evidence, Q. 86, p. 33. |